<em>Wuthering Heights</em> is what I think of as a good example of unreliable narrators. The story as a whole is told by an outsider, who doesn't understand the place or its people, and most of the tale is told to him by a character who may have her own agenda that is antithetical to the main characters. The love story emerges from speakers who don't understand it at all.<br>
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<div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 9:29 PM, Jerry Friedman <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jerry_friedman@yahoo.com">jerry_friedman@yahoo.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote style="BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; PADDING-LEFT: 1ex" class="gmail_quote">
<div class="im">> On 4/17/2011 6:31 PM, Gerry Quinn wrote:<br><br></div>
<div class="im">> > For me, the term 'unreliable narator' implies that the author is telling us<br>>another, different story disguised > >behind the overt story the narrator is<br>>telling is; either the narrator is lying or he doesn't understand what's ><br>
>>going on. I really don't think that either is the case with Severian.<br>> ><br>> > A narrator who simply makes mistakes or who doesn't know everything isn't<br>>unreliable in this strong<br>
> >sense. Maybe we could define 'weakly unreliable' and 'strongly unreliable' -<br>>but I personally feel that the<br>> > expression 'unreliable narrator' should be reserved for the strong sense.<br>
>Probably all Wolfe's characters<br>> > are unreliable in the weak sense - consider the Nebraskan in 'The Nebraskan<br>>and the Nereid' discussed<br>> > earlier, for example. We are told what he sees, but he does not realise<br>
>that he is meeting the same girl in<br>> > the inn and the sea-cave, so we are not told. But does that make him<br>>unreliable? It certainly does not<br>> > make him a liar, anyway.<br>><br></div>
<div class="im">Antonio Marques wrote:<br>>I think you're doing overanalysis. 'Unreliable narrator' simply means that the<br>>narrative isn't the absolute >complete truth of what happened. Which, actually,<br>
>applies to any narrative. What Gene Wolfe does - as >other did and do - is to<br>>craft that part of his work, instead of leaving it to be a subproduct.<br><br></div>The original meaning of "unreliable narrator", as used by Wayne C. Booth in /The<br>
Rhetoric of Fiction/, is that the narrator's /norms/ differ from the implied<br>author's. He gives examples such as Barry Lyndon, morally as far from the<br>author as possible (Booth says--I haven't read it), and Huck Finn, who calls<br>
himself bad when we can tell the author thinks he's good. Or the narrator "is<br>mistaken, or believes himself to have qualities which the author denies him"--I<br>suppose Kinbote would be a good example of that last, or Pooter in /The Diary of<br>
a Nobody/. Booth says irony on the narrator's part is not an example, but lying<br>is, though an uncommon one.<br><br><a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=VfUgMbRYSW4C&pg=PA159" target="_blank">http://books.google.com/books?id=VfUgMbRYSW4C&pg=PA159</a><br>
<br>No doubt the meaning has changed. I'm with Gerry Quinn. There's no point in<br>making a big deal out unreliability unless it's "strong" unreliability--the<br>story is or could be substantially different from what you get by believing the<br>
narrator.<br>
<div class="im"><br>> From: David Stockhoff <<a href="mailto:dstockhoff@verizon.net">dstockhoff@verizon.net</a>><br></div>> ... But I think the "more unreliable than is usual in science fiction"<br>
<div class="im">>standard applies, in which case<br>> all the characters you mention are indeed unreliable.<br></div>...<br><br>Okay, but why have some people stressed it so much?<br>
<div class="im"><br>> But the Nebraskan is a great example of unreliability, because he doesn't lie.<br>>Yet, we cannot trust his<br>> narration---that's all that "unreliable" means.<br><br></div>
I wouldn't call a person unreliable who didn't notice something in the dark, and<br>I wouldn't say I couldn't trust what he told me.<br><br>(I suppose it's just as well if nobody has put forward an interpretation of that<br>
story where the actual narrator is unreliable, or Thoe is.)<br>
<div class="im"><br>> Similarly, when Blood appears at the manteion unnamed, the<br>> narrator is, by conventional standards, being almost dishonest. The fact that<br>>he makes the reader guess is > important, not the clues he offers.<br>
<br></div>Yes, that fact is important, but it doesn't make him unreliable. He's just<br>choosing an unusual way of communicating, one that his author likes. Similarly,<br>Severian has his own way of telling us that Dorcas is his grandmother, and his<br>
choosing that way may tell us something about him, such as that he likes<br>indirection (or is that Wolfe?) or that he's uncomfortable with having had sex<br>with his grandmother. If that's one of what you called "lies by omission", I<br>
can't agree.<br><font color="#888888"><br>Jerry Friedman<br></font>
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</div></div></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Best wishes,<br>Jack<br>