Introduction and Breath

DAVID STOCKHOFF · 18 Apr 2011, 14:35 · from 2011-April.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (DAVID STOCKHOFF)
Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 07:35:19 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: (urth) Introduction and Breath
In-Reply-To: <BANLkTi=0aNGxAtKya3dASLpr0hYkUO6wWg at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <868823.40017.qm at web84107.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Apologies if my replies appear out of order.

> On 4/17/2011 6:31 PM,? Gerry Quinn wrote:


> > For me, the term 'unreliable narator' implies that the author is? telling us?
>another, different story disguised > >behind the overt story the? narrator is?
>telling is; either the narrator is lying or he doesn't understand? what's >?
>>going on.? I really don't think that either is the case with? Severian.
> >
> > A narrator who simply makes mistakes or who doesn't? know everything isn't?
>unreliable in this strong
> >sense.? Maybe we could? define 'weakly unreliable' and 'strongly unreliable' -?
>but I personally feel? that the
> > expression 'unreliable narrator' should be reserved for the strong? sense. ?
>Probably all Wolfe's characters
> > are unreliable in the weak sense -? consider the Nebraskan in 'The Nebraskan?
>and the Nereid' discussed
> > earlier, for? example.? We are told what he sees, but he does not realise?
>that he is? meeting the same girl in
> > the inn and the sea-cave, so we are not told.? But? does that make him?
>unreliable?? It certainly does not
> > make him a liar,? anyway.
>
Antonio Marques wrote:
>I think you're doing overanalysis. 'Unreliable narrator'? simply means that the?
>narrative isn't the absolute >complete truth of? what happened. Which, actually,?
>applies to any narrative. What Gene Wolfe does - as >other did and do - is to?
>craft that part of his work, instead of leaving it to be a subproduct.


The original meaning of "unreliable narrator", as used by Wayne C. Booth in /The?
Rhetoric of Fiction/, is that the narrator's /norms/ differ from the implied?
author's.? He gives examples such as Barry Lyndon, morally as far from the?
author as possible (Booth says--I haven't read it), and Huck Finn, who calls?
himself bad when we can tell the author thinks he's good.? Or the narrator "is?
mistaken, or believes himself to have qualities which the author denies him"--I?
suppose Kinbote would be a good example of that last, or Pooter in /The Diary of?
a Nobody/.? Booth says irony on the narrator's part is not an example, but lying?
is, though an uncommon one.


http://books.google.com/books?id=VfUgMbRYSW4C&pg=PA159


No doubt the meaning has changed.? I'm with Gerry Quinn.? There's no point in?
making a big deal out unreliability unless it's "strong" unreliability--the?
story is or could be substantially different from what you get by believing the?
narrator.


> From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
> ... But I think the "more unreliable than is usual in science fiction" ?
>standard applies, in which case
> all the characters you mention are indeed? unreliable.
...


Okay, but why have some people stressed it so much?


> But the Nebraskan is a great example of unreliability, because he? doesn't lie.?
>Yet, we cannot trust his
> narration---that's all that "unreliable"? means.


I wouldn't call a person unreliable who didn't notice something in the dark, and?I wouldn't say I couldn't trust what he told me.
---Of course not. You just can't RELY on it. It's all in contrast to the omniscient narrator.


(I suppose it's just as well if nobody has put forward an interpretation of that?
story where the actual narrator is unreliable, or Thoe is.)
?
> Similarly, when Blood appears at the manteion unnamed, the
> narrator is,? by conventional standards, being almost dishonest. The fact that?>he makes the? reader guess is > important, not the clues he offers.


Yes, that fact is important, but it doesn't make him unreliable.? He's just?choosing an unusual way of communicating, one that his author likes.??

---I should have said, by conventional SF standards. The whole point of that example is not that there are 2 definitions of "unreliability"---I think we should pick one and stick to it---but that the label of "unreliable" got applied to Wolfe because his narration does this kind of thing 5 times before breakfast (and if he still gets up at 5:00 AM to write the way he did before he retired from Plant, I mean that literally).
Similarly,?Severian has his own way of telling us that Dorcas is his grandmother, and his?choosing that way may tell us something about him, such as that he likes?indirection (or is that Wolfe?) or that he's uncomfortable with having had sex?with his grandmother.? If that's one of what you called "lies by omission", I?can't agree.

---Not that Severian is uncomfortable with that fact---I didn't say that. But that it happened at all and he damn well knows it.


Jerry Friedman


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