(urth) Interview Tidbit
James Wynn
crushtv at gmail.com
Fri Nov 28 22:51:03 PST 2008
>Separating the wheat from the chaff is the problem...
>But I do take issue with all the crap lately about ignoring
>the details and just looking at the Big Picture.
>Each piece of the mozaic is important, particularly
>when the Big Picture has been broken and the pieces
>are scattered all over the landscape.
I think Roy has put his finger on the biggest problem when reading Wolfe.
Any "big picture" must conform to the details. But it is impossible to
separate the wheat details from the chaff details in a Wolfe novel *without*
applying a big picture to it. You can't ask the details to vote for their
own leader. And one must also remember that Wolfe typically grants himself
an unreliable narrator: either crazy (There Are Doors), forgetful and crazy
(Latro and, yes, Severian too), suffering from Lost Time (Able), wasn't
there for most of the events (Long Sun), or doubts the authenticity of his
memories (Weer and Severian). He has even offered the following explanation
to readers questioning certain disjointedness between reported events and
statements by his narrators and characters: "Did it never occur to you that
this person might have lied?"
And one person's "big picture" is another person's "over-fecund
imagination". I've seen listers reject--with venom--"big picture"
explanations that conform to the details in every way merely because they
personally found them aesthetically unappealing. Then I've seen those same
listers happily wave alternate explanations that strike me as manufactured
all but entirely of whole cloth. So, some self-awareness should be taken
just prior to examining the "big pictures" presented by others...also a
*willingness* to be convinced if possible.
J.
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