(urth) interview questions

[Jerry Friedman]

From: Gerry Quinn <gerryq at indigo.ie>


 
>I have always thought it should have been  called   A Story, by "John V. 
>Marsch".  But perhaps that would  have >been giving the game away too easily.
> 

>The problem is as you say, it doesn't work if we  take it as maximally 
>unreliable, because it is our only source of >information  for so much; we have 
>no means of testing the reliability of the narrator with  regard to the 
>different >elements.  Not giving it credit would render the  full book basically 
>meaningless.
> 

>We also have Word of God on the issue:
>"I decided to  present the Sandwalker story as a legend or story that Marsch had 
>uncovered,  rather >than as straight reportage, because I wanted to keep all 
>three stories  set in roughly the same time >frame—the "present" of the opening 
>novella. Since  the period in which the Sandwalker scene >was—in terms of the 
>"present" found in  the rest of the book—taking place in the distant past of the 
>>planet, it made  more sense to say, "Here's a legend that has survived from 
>that period" rather  than >simply jumping into the past and presenting it  
>directly."
>< http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/interviews/wolfe46interview.htm >
> 

>If I am interpreting that correctly, there's  nothing unreliable there personal 
>to VRT/Marsch, and really no >indication of  anything unreliable except in terms 
>of characters presented within it, as  would be the case if it >were presented 
>directly, which is an option Wolfe  avoided only for stylistic reasons.
Thanks--I don't think I'd read that interview.  So "'A Story'" isn't maximally 
unreliable--V. R. T. didn't make it up out of whole cloth.

However, it seems to me that the word "legend" does suggest unreliability.  
Wolfe probably thinks legends are more reliable than most of us do, but he can't 
take every detail in them all literally.  And maybe V. R. T. has his own reasons 
for wanting to change the way his intended readers (we still don't know who they 
are) see his people.

But we do agree on the difficulty that results from seeing it as unreliable.

Jerry Friedman

P. S.  I thought your timeline was a great way to describe your analysis, but 
you put an extra "c" in "Poictesme".


      
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