Introduction and Breath

Brian Short · 19 Apr 2011, 20:05 · from 2011-April.txt.gz

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From: brian.short at gmail.com (Brian Short)
Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 16:05:28 -0400
Subject: (urth) Introduction and Breath
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Well, yes. One way to think about it is that Verbal is a liar, is
aware that he's lying, and is doing it deliberately.

I agree with you that most unreliable narrators don't fit into that
mold. When I think of typical unreliable narrators, I think of
characters that have a different way of looking at the world from me
(the reader) and the rest of society, but who don't necessarily think
they're different. They're damaged in some way.

Severian (at least Severian Two) probably fits into this, but his aims
in writing The Book of the New Sun aren't entirely clear.

Thanks,
-Brian

On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 4:00 PM, James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com> wrote:
> Ah okay. Then I do not believe the *strong* version to be a true definition
> of an Unreliable Narrator. Verbal is merely making up most of the story. He
> is "unreliable" only in the sense that he has incorporated real people into
> his fabrication and possibly real events.
>
> An unreliable narrator generally attempts to speak the truth, but you can't
> RELY on him to do so. He's wrong, misinformed, covers up inadequacies, or
> has a screwed up moral code/worldview through which he interprets events.
>
> Wolfean unreliable narrators:
>
> Weer, because he excludes his culpability
> VRT, because he is motivated by nature to completely disappear into Marsch
> Severian, because anyone who says "I am mad" is as untrustworthy as a guy
> who says "I always lie".
> Latro, because of his brain damage he cannot even say himself whether
> anything in his diary is true even to the question of whether HE wrote it.
> Nor can he know if he was rational at the times when he converses with gods.
> Bax, because he is a con-artist whom we know forged some of his letters and
> he has reason to lie to his sister-in-law and probably his brother.
>
>
> On 4/19/2011 2:24 PM, Brian Short wrote:
>>
>> Verbal from The Usual Suspects would be a strongly unreliable narrator
>> by this definition.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> -Brian
>>
>> On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 3:18 PM, James Wynn<crushtv at gmail.com> ?wrote:
>>
>> What then would be an example in literature of a 'strongly unreliable'
>> narrator?
>>
>> J
>>
>>> On 4/17/2011 5:31 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'
>>>
>
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