Thea and Thecla

David Stockhoff · 10 Jan 2011, 12:30 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2011 07:30:13 -0500
Subject: (urth) Thea and Thecla
In-Reply-To: <4D2AD89E.2050405 at io.com>
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On 1/10/2011 4:59 AM, Jeff Wilson wrote:
> On 1/9/2011 6:26 PM, Jordon Flato wrote:
>> I guesa what am trying to say is at a very basic level, at best Severian
>> can only aproximate that pre nosh youth, because botns isnt a journsl,
>> but memiors written after nosh and after hes been autarch for a time.
>
> But that is where the superlative memory comes in, isn't it?
True. However, Severian the autarch probably considers Severian the 
youth to be too naive to be allowed to take over, if that were even 
possible. He may have the memory but he lacks the most basic 
understanding. And yet the narrator gives us a good deal of background, 
because Severian the youth does fit well into the bildungsroman (someone 
called it a conversion narrative and I think that almost fits as well) 
he is constructing. At very least, there must be a contrast between the 
early fool and the late magician; in Severian's case it is a complex 
contrast.

Jordan, you made an excellent point about the narrator trying to keep 
his narrative straight from Severian's point of view. It's one thing to 
be king and tell the tale of when you were an apprentice or a scullery 
maid; it's another to have intimate exterior knowledge of the 
circumstances of your own youth and keep that knowledge out of the tale. 
This is commonly done in such narratives---the difference is a matter of 
degree as well as a qualitative one. (Usually handled with "Well, of 
course I didn't know that then, silly boy that I was, but the man to 
whom my father lent his cows was the Duke of Zzzz...") It helps that 
Severian the boy lived an isolated, almost monastic life.

This needed clarity of narrative may be another reason why Wolfe makes 
Severian's memory so strong---not only would he be overwhelmed by the 
voices as autarch if his own memory was weak, but Wolfe would not be 
able to justify a coherent narrative of Severian's youth at all. 
Severian has enough trouble himself at points, especially with Thecla 
(who exists partly to suggest what it's like to be autarch). Through his 
entire journey, pre- and post-nosh, he encounters situations, like the 
Antechamber, that he _will already know_. However, enough mystery must 
remain about some of them (Baldanders, the magicians, Typhon) that he 
can still recall and almost convincingly relate his original naive 
experience.

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