(urth) Introduction and Breath

[Matthew Knapton]

Hi.

I haven't read any ..Sun books outside of the Book of the New Sun, and don't
have them to hand to look up references. However!

I buy into the unreliable-Severian. While it's certainly possible that his
repeatedly-claimed perfect memory isn't actually perfect (and either he
lies, or has convinced himself that his subconscious inventions are real
memories), we can be generous to Severian and assume that his memory is
indeed perfect. But that doesn't help his case, because perfect recall isn't
the only thing required to be an omniscient narrator - he lacks perfect
understanding as well. He might be able to remember every scene of his life,
but if he misunderstands what he sees, or attributes purposes and
implications to the actions and appearance of people around him incorrectly,
he's just as unreliable a narrator as someone who doesn't well remember the
scene in question. Maybe even more unreliable, so to speak, or at least less
helpful, since the person-without-perfect-memory would admit to gaps in the
story.

And of course, having a perfect memory doesn't mean it's all transcribed
into his writing. At some point I think Severian actually writes that he has
"left out details which are unimportant", noting a few sentences later
(without irony) that he has "no sense of perspective".

Personally I also think his memory is faulty (though I tend to think he's
deceiving himself that what he remembers is perfect, rather than 'actively'
lying); the bits which got me early on were his recollections of Thecla.
Like I say I don't have my copies of the books to hand, but fairly early on
doesn't he give one account of Thecla's death, and then later (in an offhand
comment) give an entirely different one? His description of their
relationship as sexual or platonic seems to change as the books goes on,
too.

I feel like cataloguing examples sort of misses the point though; if there's
one thing a reader of Gene Wolfe knows it's that he isn't going to spell
anything out in crayon :) and "unreliable narration", for one reason or
another, does seem to be a recurring theme throughout a lot of his books.


On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 9:58 AM, Daniel Petersen <
danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com> wrote:

> So glad people are asking about Severian as unreliable narrator!  I suspect
> it's one of those ideas that someone said in a review and then it got
> blurbed on a jacket cover and then it just became the 'official'
> interpretation and is now in an endless repeat loop.  I don't think I have
> ever yet mentioned it in comments or reviews about New Sun as I simply don't
> understand it.  I'm totally open to being shown how it is the case, but the
> reasons given in this thread are, frankly, unconvincing.  They show how
> Wolfe's narrative art overall is strange and tricksy and indirect and
> elusive - things I *do* talk about in commenting on all of Wolfe's fiction
> - but not how Severian himself overall is helpfully and accurately described
> as an 'unreliable narrator' or how this is a central and significant trope
> that characterises tBotNS.  It's all hints and suspicions and possibilities
> - which are great, but should be left at that I think.
>
> We still await the carefully documented and argued case for Severian as
> unreliable narrator.
>
> -DOJP
>
>
> 2011/4/15 António Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com>
>
>> Antonin Scriabin wrote (15-04-2011 17:48):
>>
>>  Severian's perfect memory seems selective.  There are moments
>>> where seems to say "I have a perfect memory, except for when I don't".
>>>
>>
>> Am I misremembering, or one of the first pages of NS goes like this: 'So
>> Drotte was doing something... did I mention I have a perfect memory? I have
>> a perfect memory! Anyway, Roche was doing something...'?
>>
>> Almost cartoonish. Roger Rabbitish.
>>
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