Untrustworthy Narrators?

Jim Henley · 23 Oct 1999, 11:27 · from urth-v0028.mbox · original

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From: "Jim Henley" <jlhenley at erols.com>
Subject: RE: (urth) Re:Untrustworthy Narrators?
Date: Sat, 23 Oct 1999 11:27:09
Message-ID: <urth-v0028-0218 at digest.urth.net>
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: urth-errors at lists.best.com [mailto:urth-errors at lists.best.com]On
> Behalf Of Roy C. Lackey
>
>
> Why write a memoir at all that purports to be a true and
> accurate account of
> one's adventures, bring up wondrous and even momentous events, then leave
> so many of them unexplained? In the context of the fictional memoirs it
> makes no sense unless their author is hiding something, whether from the
> reader or from himself, which is hard to do when you have a
> perfect memory. In this sense, Severian is an unreliable narrator.

It's important to remember that we are dealing with an author of a genre
work here. The author is Severian and the genre is, as Tony suggests, the
memoir by which a ruler justifies his power and authority. The BOTNS
particularly is, in one sense, Sev doing the same thing he later does
before Tzadkiel's dais - explaining why he deserves to be where he is. I
_think_ that historical examples of the genre can also be reticent in quite
arbitrary ways about their author/subjects' personal lives.

IOW, it makes sense even if the author is not "hiding something," except
insofar as one considers any omission to be a "hiding."

Best,

Jim
 *****************************************
"It ain't the knife thru your heart that tears you apart
  it's just the thought of someone sticking it in"
              -- Graham Parker, "Protection"

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