On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 5:19 PM, Gwern Branwen <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:gwern0@gmail.com">gwern0@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<div class="im">On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 5:01 PM, Thomas Bitterman <<a href="mailto:tom@bitterman.net">tom@bitterman.net</a>> wrote:<br>
<br>
> Nothing else fits the notes.<br>
> - if Wolfe is the Compiler, why would he have to pay one of his own<br>
> characters for some letters? why/how would he search out the sword<br>
> and perform other in-world actions?<br>
> - if it is some other, unknown, in-world character, how did they hear about<br>
> this obscure, small-town missing-persons case? how did they know the<br>
> letters were out of order? how did they get letters sent to Doris, whom<br>
> they never spoke to? or the letters from George to Bax, both dead?<br>
<br>
</div>None of these are insurmountable, and all are far more likely than the<br>
framestory in TBOTNS. (Oh, in the incredible vastness of space, the<br>
translator found a tiny object floating around from a previous<br>
universe? Whatever.)<br></blockquote><div><br>Given the universe of the New Sun the framestory is not the most far-fetched<br>thing that happened. Explanations should fit within the universe of the work,<br>or at least within the same realism-ballpark.<br>
</div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
There's somebody interested in anything. The long tail. Maybe the<br>
compiler is a historian from that town. Maybe they are a relative.<br>
Maybe they are a researcher who heard about the Hound of Horror and<br>
investigated. (Remember the backfiles bristling comment; that's the<br>
comment of someone who has went into the stacks.) There are millions<br>
of books published each year; they can't *all* be about major<br>
interesting topics. And the letters are intrinsically interesting.<br>
(Look at us!)<br></blockquote><div><br>Most books are written to turn a profit, or are at least published to do so.<br>Small-town missing-persons stories generally don't. So that leaves a<br>local historian or a relative. One might expect a historian to be a little<br>
more curious about things like dates, title transfers, police records and<br>the like. None of the major characters are exactly crawling with relatives.<br>Bax is at least as likely.<br> <br>It just occurred to me that his next-door neighbor is named Mrs. Naber.<br>
The whole book is littered with clumsy lies and inconsistencies.<br><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
How did they know the letters were out of order? Do you have some<br>
reason to distrust the given explanation?<br></blockquote><div><br>The explanation is "half the dates he provided were clearly incorrect". So<br>yeah. How would the Compiler know that?<br> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
How do you know the compiler never spoke to Doris? He doesn't mention<br>
her. Not all thanks are exhaustive.<br></blockquote><div><br>No, but they do tend to include the most important sources. Doris wrote<br>or is the subject of more letters than Mrs. Pogach, who is thanked. I may<br>be wrong; it may be that Doris is just mentioned a lot but not written to<br>
much. Still an omission from such a small list bears examination.<br> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
Why couldn't Millie (whom the compiler thanks first and foremost for<br>
access to letters, including letters belonging to George) have<br>
George's letters? If 'George' inherited the mansion, then he also<br>
inherits those letters, which would have been left in the mansion. Why<br>
would 'George' have kept them? Trophies, or just scholarly ratpacking.<br></blockquote><div><br>In other words, no good reason if 'George' is not Bax. Who keeps letters<br>where their wife hits on their brother? This is a good reason to believe<br>
that Bax killed George. If 'George' is Bax, then Millie would have all the<br>letters sent to Bax (and, we can assume, she kept the ones sent to<br>the original George). I can buy that. It is a little weird that she would keep<br>
the mash notes from his girlfriends, but ok.<br><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
None of these answers are particularly odd, none throw any particular<br>
light on anything (and so Wolfe can't be expected to have supplied<br>
them), and importantly, don't force us to doubt each and everything we<br>
are told. Total skepticism is not a good exegetical starting point<br>
with fiction.<br></blockquote><div><br>There is no need for total skepticism. Just follow the rule: Anything having to<br>do with Faerie is made up. Bax is using Faerie-stories to either mess with<br>Millie, or provide and explanation for something he'd really rather not explain,<br>
or both. The real-world events: Bax being in Medicine Man, killing George,<br>paying Mrs. Pogach, and so on, really happened. Or more or less did - the<br>Compiler says he changed names in some instances, so maybe those things<br>
happened to people whose names we don't know.<br> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
--<br>
<font color="#888888">gwern</font><br></blockquote><div> </div></div>