Gummed-Up Works or Got Lives?

Gerry Quinn · 18 Dec 2011, 02:15 · from 2011-December.txt.gz

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From: gerry at bindweed.com (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2011 02:15:28 -0000
Subject: (urth) Gummed-Up Works or Got Lives?
In-Reply-To: <4EED46F9.8080601 at verizon.net>
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	<4EED46F9.8080601 at verizon.net>
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From: David Stockhoff 

On 12/17/2011 8:04 PM, Gerry Quinn wrote:

> > Sure, but you seem to be saying that it IS what happened too. If 
> > you?re not, what?s the point in your fix? What exactly is the status 
> > of this ?other narrative? you mention, and what are Severian?s powers 
> > like in it?

> Yes, it IS what happened "too." The first read/surface story is that 
> Dorcas was never dead and Severian has no powers (but may have the role 
> of a fairy-tale hero to whom lucky things like this happen). The second 
> read/understory is that Dorcas was dead and Severian raised her.

The first read is that a mystery woman appears at the lake.  The second read is that Severian raised her.  Neither read involves an enchantment.  There is no read that she was enchanted and never dead: there is a vague resonance with the story of Sleeping Beauty, and the idea that she was enchanted and never dead comes from taking that seriously.  That idea interferes destructively with character and narrative, and so it fails to exist in the story.  To put it another way, it didn?t happen, any more than Talos stabbed Baldanders in the back when he was about to kill Severian.  Just because I thought of that last thing doesn?t mean it?s really there.

> As has been said a million times, BNS draws from and subverts dozens of 
> genres and narrative modes. Identifying those is part of the analysis. 
> To some degree they cloak (as in "hide" but also "dress up") the 
> understory. But they also tell us what's being subverted and thus a clue 
> as to why. It's not a question of "if Dorcas is Sleeping Beauty, then 
> who's the witch"? There is no poisoned apple. But if there is a witch, 
> it's Severian.

The story of Sleeping Beauty involves witches and poisoned apples now?  It only remains for Lee to propose that Father Inire is all of the Seven Dwarfs.  But anyway, that error is not important, but it points to the real error: you neither know nor care whether you are talking about Sleeping Beauty or Snow White, because you are just riffing on stuff in your head which has completely lost contact with the text.

To say Dorcas reminds you of Sleeping Beauty is one thing.  But you have to recognise that the correspondences that would justify a real connection simply aren?t there.  And so ?they also tell us what's being subverted and thus a clue as to why? is meaningless.  Because only things with real connections tell us that.

> But he is still a "lucky Fool" to whom things happen---otherwise, how to 
> swallow the coincidence that his first Lazarus is his hot grandmother?

Actually, his first Lazarus was a bit of a dog.

- Gerry Quinn

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