<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"><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">From:</span></b> Gerry Quinn <gerryq@indigo.ie><br><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;"><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><b><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></b></font><br>
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<div><font face="Arial" size="2">>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.</font></div>
<div>> <br></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2">>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.</font></div>
<div>> <br></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2">>We also have Word of God on the issue:</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2">>"<font face="Times New Roman" size="3">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."</font></font></div>
<div><span>>< <a target="_blank" href="http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/interviews/wolfe46interview.htm">http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/interviews/wolfe46interview.htm</a> ></span></div>
<div>> <br></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2">>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.</font></div>
<br>Thanks--I don't think I'd read that interview. So "'A Story'" isn't <span style="font-style: italic;">maximally</span> unreliable--V. R. T. didn't make it up out of whole cloth.<br><br>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.<br><br>But we do agree on the difficulty that results from seeing it as unreliable.<br><br>Jerry Friedman<br><br>P. S. I thought your timeline was a great way to describe your analysis, but you put an extra "c" in "Poictesme".<br><br><br></div></div>
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