(urth) 5HC

[Lee]

>Gerry Quinn: I've said it before, Wolfe is not trying to

>trick or trap readers. He's not writing a load of nonsense 

>and hiding the clues to the real story in isolated words or 

>phrases or names.  If he wants to tell us something, he will 

>tell it.


"Trip" and "trap" are rather loaded words regarding the intentions

of the author. Instead of saying it that way,  I find it clear that 

Wolfe sometimes expects more from his readers than they are able to 

produce and/or sometimes inserts mysteries in his stories that are

not intended to be solved by many (or perhaps by any) of his readers.


One example is from UotNS which features a flood of Urth. Wolfe never

originally planned to write this book. So is the flood an add-on to

the story he hadn't originally intended?


A re-perusal of the first four books of the story finds a number of

hints that Severian's salvation and re-creation of Urth into Ushas

involved a flood. It's just that nobody was able to figure it out

from those clues originally provided.


Another example is the Dionysian aspect to the deity of the Briatic

universe. In Short Sun we are rather explicitly given the "son of 

Semele" clue which is a pretty easy clue to figure out. But if

we go back to BotNS, we can find other veiled hints to Dionysus 

which nobody (that I know of) was able to get.


There is the example of Dr. Marsch being replaced by Victor Trenchard

to consider. As previously discussed, many highly intelligent and

insightful members of this board were unconvinced this replacement had

taken place until Gene Wolfe openly revealed it in an interview.


>From these examples I find a pattern which clearly suggests Gene Wolfe

includes mysteries within his stories that many readers don't get, some

mysteries that most readers don't get and some mysteries that nobody has

gotten, even to this day.


One of the reasons this board continues on.