<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:times new roman,new york,times,serif;font-size:12pt"><div style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">From:</span></b> Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo@gmail.com><br><div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><b><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></b></font><br>
>On Wed, Jan 5, 2011 at 11:02 AM, Jerry Friedman<br>><<a ymailto="mailto:jerry_friedman@yahoo.com" href="mailto:jerry_friedman@yahoo.com">jerry_friedman@yahoo.com</a>> wrote:<br>>> I'm interested to see people taking "'A Story', by John V. Marsch" as a<br>>> source of factual-in-the-fiction information. I took the title to be a<br>>> strong indication that it's maximally unreliable and that to the extent we<br>>> get information from it, it's information about what Marsch believes or<br>>> wants to believe or especially wants his fictitious readers (who are they?)<br>>> to believe. Or just what he thinks would be cool.<br><br>>Well, the first question to ask when dealing with an unreliable<br>>narrator is, "what are his motives in telling this story?" -- and I<br>>have no idea of any motives for Marsch, or "Marsch"/VRT, to write "A<br>>Story."<br>><br>>Some starting
thoughts...<br>><br>>Q: Are we sure it was even written by Marsch or VRT?<br>>A: We must call a halt to the Hall of Mirrors at some point.<br>><br>>Q: But _when_ was it written? Before or after Marsch was replaced by VRT?<br>>A: "Before" makes very little sense. The real Marsch would have no<br>>knowledge of Abo/Shadow Children culture that would allow him to write<br>>it.<br><br><font size="3"><span style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;">A: Well, Tolkien had no knowledge of hobbit culture. But in any case, Wolfe has called the halt, and you're right. He said in his interview with Lawrence Person, ""'A Story,' by John V. Marsch," yes, which is not actually
written by John V. Marsch, but by the shadowchild who has </span><i style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;">replaced</i><span style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;">
John V. Marsch."</span></font><br><br><font style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;" size="3"><span><a target="_blank" href="http://home.roadrunner.com/%7Elperson1/wolfe.html">http://home.roadrunner.com/~lperson1/wolfe.html</a></span></font><br><font size="3"><br style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;">(Too many layers of quotation marks!)</span></font><br><br>>Q: Yeah, but, maybe he just made shit up. That's what Wolfe<br>>effectively did, after all.<br>>A: True, but again, I think we must call a halt to the Hall of<br>>Mirrors. _Wolfe_ has some reason for putting "A Story" in the middle<br>>of 5HoC, and so he wants us to find reason in it.<br><br><font size="3"><span style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;">True, but that reason may not to provide "factual" information.</span><br style="font-family: times new roman,new
york,times,serif;"><br style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;">I hate to keep bringing Nabokov into this (I'm lying), but in </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;">Pale Fire</span><span style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"> the main narrator, Kinbote, takes advantage of his commentary on a long poem to say a great deal about his homeland of Zembla, which probably doesn't exist in his world. He's not doing this as background to the novel. It's parodic fun in itself, and Nabokov says,</span></font><br><pre style="width: 989px;" id="nonprop">"I think it is a perfectly straightforward novel. The clearest revelation<br>of personality is to be found in the creative work in which a given<br>individual indulges. Here the poet is revealed by his poetry; the<br>commentator by his
commentary."<br><br><span><a target="_blank" href="http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0803&L=nabokv-l&P=9442">http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0803&L=nabokv-l&P=9442</a></span><br><br><font style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;" size="3">I think Nabokov was archly understating the complexity of his novel, but I can believe the most<br>important purpose of the material on Zembla is to reveal the character of the commentator. And I<br>could believe the main purposes of "'A Story'" are to be interesting in itself and to reveal the<br>character of the replacement Marsch.</font><font size="3"><br style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><br style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><font size="4"><span style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;">Jerry Friedman </span></font></font><br></pre></div></div>
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