From: "Steve Strickland" <SSTRICKLAND@satx.rr.com>
Subject: Re: (whorl) Narrative Mistakes in TBOTSS
Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2001 20:47:06 

Excellent!

----- Original Message -----
From: "Patrick O'Leary" <poleary@cecom.com>
To: <whorl@lists1.ba.best.com>
Sent: Monday, June 25, 2001 9:08 AM
Subject: (whorl) Narrative Mistakes in TBOTSS


> On Thu, 21 Jun 2001, Adam Stephanides wrote:
>
> >> 2) Narr says that "I cannot correct all or even most of them [his
mistakes]
> >> without tearing the whole account to shreds and starting again."
>
> I think this is crucial, central.
>
> For the BOTSS is a story/diary founded a critical mistake.
>
> It professes to be the Story of Horn in search of Silk.
>
> It appears to be the diary (hold off on the apendices for the moment) of
one man.
>
> It seems to be a tragedy:  the autobiography of a failure.
>
> But.
>
> It is actually the story of Silk in search of himself.
>
> It is the diary of two men (in one body).
>
> The autobiographer is telling the story of the wrong man!
>
> And Horn is not a failure but a hero who cannot credit himself as such
without admitting who he is.
>
> The narrator does not know the story he is telling.
>
> In fact, the narrator is much invested in his denial, that is: in not
knowing the story he tells.
>
> I think much of the narrator's remarks about the "mistakes/errors" in the
text
> can be explained by these central paradoxes and his painful quandry: to
tell his story
> truthfully he must admit his self-deception. But he is only safe by
clinging to his delusion
> so he continually tosses off wrenching "truthful" confessions (His rape of
Seawrack, his devil's
> bargain in the
> pit with Krait, his adultrous marriages as Raja). It's almost as if he
were protesting too much:
> "I am weak. I am a sinner. I am unworthy of this quest or the Hero I
seek." Ironically,
> compulsively
> confessing to another man's sins to avoid facing his own.
>
> And, most critically, these are the truths he dare not confess:
> "I am dead."
>
> Or, more accurately, "Horn died so that I might live.
> I tried to kill myself."
>
> And, perhaps, "Hyacinth is  gone forever."
>
> Fascinating that the truth finally arrives in Confession: Remora shrieves
Silk and forgives him for
> not
> admitting who he is.
>
> The Book of The Short Sun is a virtuoso performance of narrative
uncertainty and delusion.
>
> There are intriguing similarities to "Pale Fire" (The story of a madman
who thinks he's a King, the
> meglomaniac critic who fancies
> his analysis worth much more than the Text, and a total misreading of the
poem), similar, yes, but
> different.
> For whatever pomo, self-concious hijinks Wolfe is up to, his novel is
never just a tour de force.
> It is founded
> on a moral dimension that Nabokov himself would never approach, never
admit to. Thus the cool
> vaguely repellent distance
> with which we watch him twist his characters like butterflies on pins.
Something Wolfe never does.
>
> But I ramble.
>
> Patrick O'Leary
>
>
>
>
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>


*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.
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