What is a "satisfactory" narrator?

Daniel Fusch · 24 Oct 1999, 21:23 · from urth-v0028.mbox · original

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From: "Daniel Fusch" <dfusch at hotmail.com>
Subject: (urth) What is a "satisfactory" narrator?
Date: Sun, 24 Oct 1999 14:23:32 PDT
Message-ID: <urth-v0028-0219 at digest.urth.net>
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William Ansley:

snip:
"Whether Severian is a reliable narrator or not, he is certainly an
unsatisfactory one by any of the usual standards of story telling."

But what ARE the "usual standards" of storytelling? What does it take for a=20
narrator to be "satisfactory"? Literature is full of unreliable and=20
inconsistent narrators who leave most of the work to the reader.

Is Ishmael, the completely enigmatic and often inconsistent narrator of=20
"Moby Dick" -- satisfactory?

What about the poet who narrates "Paradise Lost" -- wherein the reader is=20
expected to weed through the arguments and speeches in order to fill in=20
what's missing, what's wrong, and what is intentionally deceiving?

What about the narrator(s) of "The Sound and the Fury" -- in which the=20
reader supplies nearly ALL the details of the plot based on subtle clues?

How do we define a satisfactory narrator? For that matter, does the plot=20
need to be linear and explained in order to qualify as good storytelling?=20
(Of course, some people don't like the epics, and some people don't like=20
modernism....)

Here's my point--or rather my question--isn't Gene Wolfe, through Severian,=20
asking us to examine the way we perceive storytelling? Consider that=20
storytelling is thousands of years old, and has passed through many=20
forms--at one time it was an oral form in which the audience was invited to=20
participate.

Consider the modern Japanese--I don't know about their stories, but in thei=
r=20
nonfiction, they consider it an insult to the reader if they outright state=20
the conclusion for the reader. The reader is expected to put the pieces=20
together and draw the conclusion.

Severian's fictional audience may not expect the same manner of storytellin=
g=20
that we expect. "The Book of the New Sun" should really be treated--for all=20
intents and purposes--as a work translated from another culture. That, afte=
r=20
all, is the effect that Wolfe is trying to achieve.

My 2 cents,
Daniel

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