May 2014 Wolfe interview in _Technology Review_

Gerry Quinn · 09 Aug 2014, 14:52 · from 2014-August.txt.gz
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From: gerry at bindweed.com (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Sat, 09 Aug 2014 15:52:12 +0100
Subject: (urth) FW: May 2014 Wolfe interview in _Technology Review_
In-Reply-To: <BLU175-W11942014F1112B78CCABC5CFEE0 at phx.gbl>
References: <BLU175-W11942014F1112B78CCABC5CFEE0 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <53E6359C.9020106 at bindweed.com>


On 08/08/2014 14:47, Lee wrote:
>> Gerry Quinn: I would say, rather, that I read the writing with care, and do not
>> tend to construct elaborate scenarios based on words found here and there.
>
> This is another way of saying you cannot conceive of the existence, purpose or value
> of a piece of literature in which 95% of what we are presented are lies and only an
> indirect 5% can be construed as truth.

Not at all.  In truth, I have rarely encountered such literature (John 
Barth's _The Voyage of Somebody The Sailor_ is the only title that 
springs immediately to mind) but I am not opposed to it per se.  In a 
sense, *all* literature is 100% untruth, after all.

The only significance of what I said in the context of such literature 
is that I do not attempt to shoe-horn literature into that category (or 
any other) without regard to the contents of the text.  I would not have 
considered this position controversial.

>
>
> Fair enough. Perhaps you have never encountered a person who manages to delude
>
> themselves about themselves and the world so thoroughly that much of what they
>
> say has no real ring of truth to it.
>
>
> I have and I suspect Gene Wolfe has also. I suspect he finds such people both
>
> revolting and fascinating, as I do. Very much a worthy subject to pattern much of
>
> his writing on.
>
>

I have encountered many people, of many types - if the types were 
defined with sufficient precision, it is possible that there would be as 
many types as there are people.  The type you mention is more commonly 
found in books than in reality, as many authors, such as Wolfe, enjoy 
playing with unreliable narrators.  But there is a difference between an 
unreliable narrator and what might be called an "unreliable author".  I 
am not the first to argue that Wolfe is more a modernist than a 
post-modernist, and his books tend to have an intended meaning (I do not 
intend to say, of course, that his books never retain purposeful 
ambiguities).

Wolfe's narrators, more often than not, are delusional regarding some 
aspects of reality.  Part of the enjoyment of reading Wolfe - and other 
authors who play this game - is teasing out the reality of the 
narrator's existence from clues which are often quasi-accidentally 
reported by the narrator who does not realise their significance, but 
may be conveyed by the author in other fashions.

Whatever fashion the author chooses to convey his clues, he generally - 
at least if he writes in the modernist vein - attempts to convey them, 
in such a way that the discerning reader should able to figure out the 
intended meaning, or spectrum of meanings.  I believe Wolfe has at times 
intimated that, at the start, he made those puzzles too hard, and has 
eased up, though I am not convinced that his work has truly become 
easier to interpret over time - perhaps other forces push in the 
opposite direction.

Anyway, I digress - the point here is that the focus of the work is not 
in general the unreliability of the narrator per se.  The unreliable 
narrator is merely a literary device by which the actual focus is 
conveyed.  This is fortunate, as delusional, driven characters are not 
intrinsically the most interesting of people - the interest lies in the 
world they inhabit and their interactions with it (which may include 
their delusions).

Thus, without referring specifcally to any particular work of 
literature, I surmise that an interpretation of any Wolfe work must take 
into account the likely unreliabiity of the narrator.  But the 
interpretation is *not* going to be "narrators are unreliable, ner".  
There's an actual story, and Wolfe is not going to waste 95% of his 
hard-typed words on pointing out the unreliability of Wolfe narrators.

In 5HOC, there's a science fictional story told in the second novelette, 
a story with science fictional specifics and details. Physically 
unrealistic details, or it would be science rather than science fiction, 
but with the kind of quasi-realism that distinguishes science fiction, 
at least to some degree, from fantasy.  One can certainly argue that 
neo-Marsch, while better placed than most to tell us the secret history 
of the Sainte Anne aborigines, might still only be guessing at this 
history, so it could be wrong.  (In that regard, _5HOC_ is potentially 
trickier than most of even Wolfe's works.)  It is certainly the case 
that Wolfe might consider writing such a story.  But if he did, I 
believe that there would be relativly explicit clues connecting the 
character of neo-Marsch to the specific story told.  I do not see such 
clues referenced in the various "hyper-unreliability-based" 
interpretations that have been put forward.

You referred to a "scenario 1" and a "scenario 2" and pretended that 
there was equal textual evidence for both.  I have pointed out there was 
not.  Only one of the scenarios appears in the text, and it is presented 
in detail.  If we are to assume that the text is basically irrelevant 
because narrators always lie, and any interpretation we can dream up has 
equal value irrespective of how it connects to the text of the work in 
question, this does not, of course, constitute an insuperable problem.  
It is not for me to decide the critical principles of others.  But such 
a principle, while it truly does have some advantages in the case of a 
reader in conversation solely with the written text, is more limited 
when it comes to discussion of the work.  In the latter case, there will 
be disputes which can only be resolved by means of pointing to 
sentences, paragraphs and pages that are specific enough that different 
people will agree on the intentions of the author.  And since - as we 
see in something so fundamental as the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle 
- specificity implies energy, and thus mass, the comparisons which you 
decry as excessively quantitative will inevitably acquire some weight.  
A paragraph, a page, a chapter - these really *are* bigger than a word 
or phrase to which can be ascribed an ambiguous meaning.  Link the word 
or phrase to others in a coherent way - now you're talking. But if you 
can only link to others than can be considered to support heterodox 
interpretations, but not the *same* heterodox interpretations - this is 
no more than an observation that language, which must encompass the 
universe, is subject to ambiguity.  I mentioned Heisenberg's Uncertainty 
Principle - let me add Chaitin's Theorem, or the better known Godel 
Theorem, which - though discovered/invented first - is a mere derivative 
of it..  It is not surprising, I suppose, that foundational principles 
applicable to the construction of the universe should not have analogues 
in the construction of literary works, which constitute their own 
universes (Marc's analysis of Wolfe's '70s output contains several 
literal examples).

>> Most of all - what's the point of all this supposed to be?  Why would
>> Wolfe write such a loose-end dripping farrago?
>
> The reliability of Severian as a narrator was being explored in another thread. What
>
> IS the basis of so much reliance on unreliable narrators in Wolfe's work? Why does
>
> he find exploring the minds of liars, self-deceivers and addled brains so interesting?
>
>
> I understand it. I not sure I can explain it to someone who doesn't find any appeal
>
> in finding one's way through a web of lies and deceit. But I get it. I suspect many
>
> other Wolfe fans do also.
>
>
> There is something intrinsically "human" about exploring this realm of dishonesty.
>
> Ironically, SF provides a platform in which "super-liars" such as the Inhumi and
>
> Abos can be invented to more thoroughly explore this side of life and human
>
> interaction.

Well, you have not answered the points regarding the story, but you 
provide an answer, in effect, to an argument I made above.  I disagree, 
for the reasons I posted, and I also don't think your answer is 
consistent.  Because if the answer to _New Sun_ or _5HOC_ is simply 
"Severian is so unreliable" or "Marsch is so so unreliable, I mean 
duh!", why are we reading them?  Severian and Marsch are not truly 
interesting people. They are far less interesting, except as specimens, 
than (say) Dorcas or Tante Jeannine.  What interests us is the universes 
they inhabit.  And I would like those universes honoured by means of 
careful, consistent interpretations.  About Severian and Marsch, I could 
care less.

- Gerry Quinn
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