(urth) The Sorcerer's House Questions (*Major Spoilers*)

[Jonathan Goodwin]

You see, the issue here is that the "Compiler's Note" is a paratext,
to use Genette's term, in the same way that the little blurbs about
finding Latro and Severian's manuscripts are. They are an agreed-upon
fiction, because we understand that some justification is expected for
how this particular narrative structure came to be. Such devices are
very common in older novels, and I agree with you that it is not
appropriate to identify the author of them with Gene Wolfe exactly,
particularly when there is a direct statement that this arranger has
made certain influential choices in the presentation of the material.
Assuming, however, that the arranger and Bax are one makes the entire
structure either incoherent or pointless. The fiction of the
"compiler's note" is that comes from a putative arranger/editor of
these letters prior, not to their discovery, but their publication.
This is a different level or frame in the narrative structure and
having Bax jump it does not fit. Having made that point, I agree that
Bax is the exact type who would want to defraud/murder his brother and
then brag about it in an obscure form. I just don't think we need the
compiler identification to make this work.

Also, re Wolfe' attitude toward the psychic, he is fond of pointing
out that witches and such can be found in the yellowpages and seems to
like the rather timeworn concept of having them both be frauds and
gifted/cursed with the real thing.


On Sat, Mar 27, 2010 at 9:51 AM, Thomas Bitterman <tom at bitterman.net> wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 26, 2010 at 9:44 PM, Jonathan Goodwin <joncgoodwin at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> Identifying the compiler and Bax makes everything too easy. If you can
>> reconcile this with an implied author compiler and the psychic, then
>> it might work better. (I had somewhat similar thoughts.)
>
> The psychic is a confederate.  She is paid for her help in getting Millie to
> buy in to the whole Faerie thing.  Having a psychic as a fraud would fit
> Wolfe.
>
> A little terminology before handling the Compiler.  Let's use "author" to
> indicate the writer of the story, in the world of the story.  For example,
> Severian or Watson.  We can then use "Author" to identify the real-life
> writer, for example Wolfe or Doyle.
>
> Wolfe has used the author/Author distinction before, in Urth.  In Urth,
> Wolfe explicitly identifies when the Author is speaking.  If we take it as a
> rule that Wolfe always identifies when the Author is speaking, then the
> lack of identification of the Compiler as the Author would make the Compiler
> the author.  That is, the Compiler is a fictional character who wrote the
> story,
> in the world of the story.
>
>
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