(urth) Introduction and Breath

[Jack Smith]

*Wuthering Heights* is what I think of as a good example of unreliable
narrators.  The story as a whole is told by an outsider, who doesn't
understand the place or its people,  and most of the tale is told to him by
a character who may have her own agenda that is antithetical to the main
characters.  The love story emerges from speakers who don't understand it at
all.

On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 9:29 PM, Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com>wrote:

> > On 4/17/2011 6:31 PM,  Gerry Quinn wrote:
>
> > > For me, the term 'unreliable narator' implies that the author is
>  telling us
> >another, different story disguised > >behind the overt story the  narrator
> is
> >telling is; either the narrator is lying or he doesn't understand  what's
> >
> >>going on.  I really don't think that either is the case with  Severian.
> > >
> > > A narrator who simply makes mistakes or who doesn't  know everything
> isn't
> >unreliable in this strong
> > >sense.  Maybe we could  define 'weakly unreliable' and 'strongly
> unreliable' -
> >but I personally feel  that the
> > > expression 'unreliable narrator' should be reserved for the strong
>  sense.
> >Probably all Wolfe's characters
> > > are unreliable in the weak sense -  consider the Nebraskan in 'The
> Nebraskan
> >and the Nereid' discussed
> > > earlier, for  example.  We are told what he sees, but he does not
> realise
> >that he is  meeting the same girl in
> > > the inn and the sea-cave, so we are not told.  But  does that make him
> >unreliable?  It certainly does not
> > > make him a liar,  anyway.
> >
> Antonio Marques wrote:
> >I think you're doing overanalysis. 'Unreliable narrator'  simply means
> that the
> >narrative isn't the absolute >complete truth of  what happened. Which,
> actually,
> >applies to any narrative. What Gene Wolfe does - as >other did and do - is
> to
> >craft that part of his work, instead of leaving it to be a subproduct.
>
> The original meaning of "unreliable narrator", as used by Wayne C. Booth in
> /The
> Rhetoric of Fiction/, is that the narrator's /norms/ differ from the
> implied
> author's.  He gives examples such as Barry Lyndon, morally as far from the
> author as possible (Booth says--I haven't read it), and Huck Finn, who
> calls
> himself bad when we can tell the author thinks he's good.  Or the narrator
> "is
> mistaken, or believes himself to have qualities which the author denies
> him"--I
> suppose Kinbote would be a good example of that last, or Pooter in /The
> Diary of
> a Nobody/.  Booth says irony on the narrator's part is not an example, but
> lying
> is, though an uncommon one.
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=VfUgMbRYSW4C&pg=PA159
>
> No doubt the meaning has changed.  I'm with Gerry Quinn.  There's no point
> in
> making a big deal out unreliability unless it's "strong" unreliability--the
> story is or could be substantially different from what you get by believing
> the
> narrator.
>
> > From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
> > ... But I think the "more unreliable than is usual in science fiction"
> >standard applies, in which case
> > all the characters you mention are indeed  unreliable.
> ...
>
> Okay, but why have some people stressed it so much?
>
> > But the Nebraskan is a great example of unreliability, because he
>  doesn't lie.
> >Yet, we cannot trust his
> > narration---that's all that "unreliable"  means.
>
> I wouldn't call a person unreliable who didn't notice something in the
> dark, and
> I wouldn't say I couldn't trust what he told me.
>
> (I suppose it's just as well if nobody has put forward an interpretation of
> that
> story where the actual narrator is unreliable, or Thoe is.)
>
> > Similarly, when Blood appears at the manteion unnamed, the
> > narrator is,  by conventional standards, being almost dishonest. The fact
> that
> >he makes the  reader guess is > important, not the clues he offers.
>
> Yes, that fact is important, but it doesn't make him unreliable.  He's just
> choosing an unusual way of communicating, one that his author likes.
>  Similarly,
> Severian has his own way of telling us that Dorcas is his grandmother, and
> his
> choosing that way may tell us something about him, such as that he likes
> indirection (or is that Wolfe?) or that he's uncomfortable with having had
> sex
> with his grandmother.  If that's one of what you called "lies by omission",
> I
> can't agree.
>
> Jerry Friedman
>
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-- 
Best wishes,
Jack
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