Introduction and Breath

David Stockhoff · 17 Apr 2011, 20:50 · from 2011-April.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 16:50:51 -0400
Subject: (urth) Introduction and Breath
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I think the test here is "more unreliable than is usual in science 
fiction." It's a pretty low bar Severian clears with ease, just by his 
lies of omission.

Gerry's comment that, to Severian, "just a moment ago" is long enough to 
compose ~50 written pages by hand is another example, however limited in 
effect.

On 4/16/2011 4:58 AM, Daniel Petersen wrote:
> 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 
> <mailto: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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