Drotte-Roche mixup

Jeff Wilson · 17 Apr 2011, 22:21 · from 2011-April.txt.gz

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From: jwilson at io.com (Jeff Wilson)
Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 17:21:44 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: (urth) Drotte-Roche mixup
In-Reply-To: <BANLkTi=GxiaEL7ie42YrMrp1K5m__eWLsQ at mail.gmail.com>
References: <BANLkTi=GxiaEL7ie42YrMrp1K5m__eWLsQ at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <68c165df524cf5fecc499dd02ffc577f.squirrel at webmail.prismnet.com>

> Jeff Wilson wrote:
>> We do know that various office functions are still being expected of Sev
>> as he writes. Time passes, Dr Talos comes and goes. Sev could as easily
>> gone a final weekend trip, moved his bowels, and approved a dozen
>> executions between writing "Roche" and "Drotte".
>
> He takes a break on page *two* of his memoirs? In the middle of
> writing an exciting bit? I don't find that very persuasive.

Dude, he's the pope-king of the world and there's war on. Anything could
come up at any time. Not that we know for sure this is his first draft, it
could easily be one page among thousands writ and thousands yet to come.

> Moreover,
> the reason we know about these little interruptions is because
> Severian tells us when they happen. If Wolfe wanted us to think that
> Severian had made a memory slip across such an interruption, he could
> have written it that way.

Towards the end, he mentions that he has spent days before his departure
writing his autobiography. He does not mention making water during this
time. Are we to assume that class of unrecorded interruption also does not
happen?

> I proofread for a living, and you wouldn't believe the things I see,
> or the things that both I and the editor miss.

I'm a fact-checker, peer-reviewer, and a computer programmer, so I might
give you a bit more credulity than that. It remains that that less one
says explicitly, the more one may mean implicitly.

Regards,
Jeff

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