the prime calcula/his citadel and other quotes

James Wynn · 18 Jan 2011, 22:04 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2011 16:04:12 -0600
Subject: (urth) the prime calcula/his citadel and other quotes
In-Reply-To: <000b01cbb751$06529320$3ed14a0c@rclackey>
References: <609292.90378.qm at web161801.mail.bf1.yahoo.com><00c201cbb68c$7229a680$b5cf4a0c@rclackey>	<4D34B7A5.3060607 at gmail.com><004901cbb6f6$cc7327a0$7bd04a0c@rclackey>	<4D358382.8020301 at gmail.com>
	<000b01cbb751$06529320$3ed14a0c@rclackey>
Message-ID: <4D360E5C.3040403 at gmail.com>

>> James Wynn wrote:
>> I realize it is easy to forget, but these books weren't written by Silk.
>> They were written by Horn.
> Roy-
> You think?

Yeah, I do. I hope you don't think was deliberately condescending. I was 
just building to my point.

>> While we can assume Horn is honestly writing
>> about what he was told and saw, we cannot make assumptions about things
>> being so based on NEGATIVE evidence.
> It was precisely the barks that the dog *didn't* make that led Holmes to
> draw a correct conclusion. The bulk of LS consists of dialogues and actions
> that Horn was not present to record. Do you really think Mint thought it
> worth mentioning to Horn how filthy her drawers were after she got out of
> the tunnels but not that Silk and Pas looked alike? That's not believable.

Roy, a good reason to have an unreliable first person narrator is that 
something important can be staring him in the face that the reader can 
get, but the narrator never will no matter how many times you read the 
story.

The thing about negative evidence when you have an unreliable narrator 
is that if you're right you zing a home run. If you're wrong (as one 
will be most of the time), you've just gone down a back alley and right 
out of any story the author intended to tell.

It's not the same thing to say, /"Well, I think the author is intending 
specifically such-and-such. So, the fact that some specific thing didn't 
occur tells me that the author intended so-and-so."/ But just saying /"I 
don't think that would happen"/, well, there is always the possibility 
that the author didn't write the characters the way you think he should. 
So if your only criteria is that it doesn't _seem_ right, that's a 
tenuous life-line.

u+16b9

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