More About Severian As Unreliable (?) Narrator

Daniel Fusch · 18 Oct 1999, 18:10 · from urth-v0028.mbox · original

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From: "Daniel Fusch" <dfusch at hotmail.com>
Subject: (urth) More About Severian As Unreliable (?) Narrator
Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1999 11:10:16 PDT
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Alex,

An insightful commentary. I don't think I would argue that Severian is a=20
liar; I don't think he is. I agree with you; Severian tries to tell the=20
truth. However, I think Severian gets things mixed up sometimes. Or maybe=20
his memory isn't as infallible as he thinks. Early in the first volume,=20
Severian comments that he considers himself at least a little insane=20
(chapter 3 or 4, I think). Maybe this shows in his narrative?

You wrote:
(snip)
>>I'm curious as to instances of Severian
actually lying (as opposed to being mistaken) that people have found?<<

There MAY be a few instances, which are rather intriguing. I'm not sure as=20
to the ramifications, if they ARE lies. If they are merely inconsistencies,=20
then this means that Severian is "unreliable" in the literary sense. That=20
is, he can't be trusted to give us everything straight perhaps because he=20
does not have everything straight in his own mind.

So, here's a curious example. In the very first paragraph of Vol. I, Chapte=
r=20
2, "I have never known my father and my mother." Yet it seems extremely=20
likely that he has met his father in Volume IV. In which case...is he merel=
y=20
saying, "As a child, I never knew my father and my mother" (note tense) --=20
or perhaps "I have never known my father as my father" -- i.e., I met him a=
s=20
a grown man, and we never had a father/son relationship...? He may also hav=
e=20
met his mother, conceivably, if you take the woman who plays Katherine at=20
the feast to be his mother, which I think has been suggested by someone,=20
somewhere (an explanation that tidies up a few points, at any rate).

So, taking all these assumptions into account, since Severian is writing al=
l=20
this after it happens, are we to believe Severian? Is it an error on Wolfe'=
s=20
part (conceivable, since he had not yet come up with the idea for Dorcas,=20
and hence had not worked out the identities of Severian's family members)?

I think there were one or two other minor things like this, for now I can't=20
remember them.

I don't want to assign too much relevance to minor inconsistencies like=20
this. They're just interesting. I think we should note, however, that with=20
"gaps" (for lack of a better word) in the plot (e.g., the man-ape's arm),=20
Severian is de facto an unreliable narrator. Meaning that you might be=20
surprised at something much later on, since Severian left out some of the=20
facts. Maybe it would be better to call him a "biased" narrator. Either way=
,=20
this isn't a condemnation of Severian; his leaving out of facts makes the=20
narration all the more interesting, I think (once you know what's going on).

So...maybe Severian as a "biased" narrator? (Aren't all narrators? But wait=
,=20
that question leads into a vast literary discussion....)

Well, that's my two cents,

Daniel

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