Introduction and Breath

Daniel Petersen · 16 Apr 2011, 08:58 · from 2011-April.txt.gz

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From: danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com (Daniel Petersen)
Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2011 09:58:46 +0100
Subject: (urth) Introduction and Breath
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Message-ID: <BANLkTi=RCPVs0JO=DW3LJ2+vqZQX8NYHhg at mail.gmail.com>

So glad people are asking about Severian as unreliable narrator!  I suspect
it's one of those ideas that someone said in a review and then it got
blurbed on a jacket cover and then it just became the 'official'
interpretation and is now in an endless repeat loop.  I don't think I have
ever yet mentioned it in comments or reviews about New Sun as I simply don't
understand it.  I'm totally open to being shown how it is the case, but the
reasons given in this thread are, frankly, unconvincing.  They show how
Wolfe's narrative art overall is strange and tricksy and indirect and
elusive - things I *do* talk about in commenting on all of Wolfe's fiction -
but not how Severian himself overall is helpfully and accurately described
as an 'unreliable narrator' or how this is a central and significant trope
that characterises tBotNS.  It's all hints and suspicions and possibilities
- which are great, but should be left at that I think.

We still await the carefully documented and argued case for Severian as
unreliable narrator.

-DOJP

2011/4/15 Ant?nio Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com>

> Antonin Scriabin wrote (15-04-2011 17:48):
>
>  Severian's perfect memory seems selective.  There are moments
>> where seems to say "I have a perfect memory, except for when I don't".
>>
>
> Am I misremembering, or one of the first pages of NS goes like this: 'So
> Drotte was doing something... did I mention I have a perfect memory? I have
> a perfect memory! Anyway, Roche was doing something...'?
>
> Almost cartoonish. Roger Rabbitish.
>
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