/lit/ - Literature

He has a perfect memory, how can he be an unreliable narrator?

>>10569226
>executioner
>his name is SEVERian

>>10569249
because there are several things he lies (or misremember) about through the story

most of them are so small insignificant that they are more likely to be mistakes by the author or in printing but some stuff is definitely changed by Sevarian as hes telling the story

>>10569287
>this is the severing line

>>10569226
>never tortured anyone in his career
>was a journeyman for little more than a few hours or days
>never held a sword in his life
>not even allowed to feed the clients

>somehow a master swordsman who always does his executions with total perfection
>wins the respect of entire sailor crews by his total badass handling of a huge sword
>at one point breaks both femurs of a women during an execution by hitting her with the flat of the blade (massive swords top out at around 9lbs only and there is no way youre going to break BOTH femurs with the big wide floppy side of a blade)

>>10569289
>mistakes by the author

No way. Wolfe is perfect.

>>10569226
>lies about details of thecla
>lies or doesn't mention all the tortures and killings he does (except when they're justified)
>tries to remain as blank and unbiased as possible so we can't draw any conclusions about what he might've done in some scenarios
been a while since I read it so maybe I'm wrong lel

>>10569454
>talks about how he beheads a women who he shortly admits was innocent and played with her head tropic thunder style for the enjoyment of the crowd and himself

>>10569486
>doesn't mention any tortures afterwards

>>10569226
thecla = karlie kloss
dorcas = kenzie reeves
jolenta = anastasia kvitko

>>10569226
>give me some meaningful examples
>>10569289
>gives no examples

>>10571109
> In Sword, ch. 25, very near the beginning, Severian discloses that Dorcas had had strong feelings for Jolenta and had been very depressed at her death, that he believes that Dorcas and Jolenta had engaged in "sexual play" at some time, and that he had been jealous of Dorcas's feeling for Jolenta, though not, he claims, sexually. I don't think that any of this had been mentioned at the time it happened: certainly not Dorcas's depression at Jolenta's death, and to my recollection no hint of any relationship between Dorcas and Jolenta beyond Dorcas's natural goodness and compassion on the one side and Jolenta's contempt on the other.

>My other example I'm less sure of. In Citadel, ch. 2, Severian loses himself in his memories, and "Dorcas's voice whispered in my ears: 'Sitting in a window ... trays and a rood. What will you do, summon up some Erinys to destroy me?" The first of these sentences is close to what are almost the first words Dorcas speaks in the text (though not identical; another can of worms). The second I was unable to find. Severian's thoughts immediately following suggest that this sentence was spoken to Severian, and its juxtaposition with the first sentence suggests that it may have come near the end of their last conversation, in which case their parting was stormier than Severian let on at the time. Or it may have had something to do with Severian's jealousy, discussed above.

>>10571145
1. How does telling us that at that point in the narrative make him "unreliable" in a way that effects the story?

2. There's nothing to indicate that those quotations are unreliable. The same character said two similar things. The rest is conjecture.

If these are the best examples of Severian being "unreliable", then he must have been a pretty reliable guy.

>>10571304
he is pretty reliable but hes also technically unreliable in that hes not a mouth of god narrator and there are mistakes/changes he makes in the telling of the story

later in the story he ponders about why morwenna (a women he executed) poisoned her husband and son even though he knows and talked about earlier in the story how she was really innocent and framed by another women who proudly admitted to doing it

>>10571304
what does the term 'story' mean to you?
what would have to happen for spunky to have an impact on the 'story'?
what is the 'story' of botns?

>>10571352
>what is the 'story' of botns?

>>10569226
He totally bangs his grandma but never mentions it cuz shits traumatizing

>>10569287
>tfw you realize Severian is named after Boethius

>>10571691
pretty sure something like everyone from nessus is named after a saint

>>10571391
heh

>>10569345
i think the last bit is a tad questionable. terminus est probably wasn't all that floppy, considering it had a channel with liquid metal in it running down the blade.

>>10572152
there is no way its going to break TWO femurs at the same time

also wasnt gene an engineer? so he should be aware of stuff like this

but it DOES sound like the crap someone who doesnt know how to handle a sword would say to make themselves sound badass (see all the katana talk floating around the internet). so to me i almost want to see its him making shit up to pay himself on the back

asking how his lying (or misremembering) affects the story is pretty stupid. the story is a first person narrative and we as readers need to make the assumption that we're being told the story as it happened. and if we're not being told the story as it happened, why is that? what does severian gain by distorting or misremembering things? regardless of their actual effect on the minute details of the story, they affect the entire purpose of the narrative. in much the same way that wolfe's use of real, albeit archaic words to 'approximate' the flora and fauna of urth affects the whole of the story. looking for exact details that severian's deceptions alter seems like you're seeing the trees but not the forest, op.

>>10572162
well i wasn't arguing that he actually did it. i just think the whole science behind the sword is questionable far beyond severian's own accounts of it. the feasibility of a sword with a channel full of mercury is already greatly questionable, but then again so is the notion that we as humans would survive a dimming of the sun (especially because the sun will increase in luminosity far sooner than it will ever decrease) or even the idea of angelic aliens taking the energy from a lower entropy universe and pouring into our own.

he was an engineer but that doesn't necessarily mean he knew about this. i wouldn't down that he did because from all accounts he's a fairly intelligent guy but at the same time i work at an aerospace plant and i know the engineers there couldn't tell me how to make or even design a sword.

>>10572165
I think the OPs point is that it is a shallow narrative element which people give too much credit for. I myself think BotNS's "depth" is overblown but I enjoyed it as a fantasy book which never made me feel like I was slumming it.

>>10572235
i think shallow has too negative a connotation to it. at times it's a relatively superficial narrative conceit, especially compared to some of wolfe's other books like peace or the fifth head of cerberus, but it does serve a purpose.

>>10572235
>>10572269
might be too edgy of me but I rather enjoy that it's somewhat superficial, too often I feel like authors employing an unreliable narrator feel a pressure to make said unreliability a crucial element of the storytelling and/or use it as a crutch

with Wolfe it just feels like a more true representation of how stories are told -- with benign inaccuracies

>>10572235
>>10572269
furthermore, i think it's more than a bit unfortunate that /lit/ has latched onto the book of the new sun as their flagship for praising gene wolfe. it's by far his most far-ranging work as far as depth goes and doesn't lend itself or its point to an easy one sentence description, unlike his much more focused works like the two i mentioned before or the sequels in the solar cycle. new sun certainly has a definite agenda behind it but it's muddied by its scope and i think that often results in people misconstruing it or praising it to the nines for relatively simple facets, like the unreliability of severian.

as for the actual supposed shallowness of his unreliability, i think it ties in nicely with wolfe's insistence that can only know things by approximate association. the truth is never entirely knowable to fallible human minds, though it does exist in a physical sense, much like the unaltered speed of light in a vacuum. which itself ties back into the rather amusing scene in the ridotto.

>>10572297
i think wolfe does view it as a crucial element for the storytelling of the book, even though it does manifest has relatively minor inaccuracies. every part of the machine has its function. all of his early books are like that, composed of meticulous, interacting details to create consilience. even his late books, though he's streamlined his prose and i find peeling back the layers of his newer stuff to be much more difficult.

>>10571145

>>10569226

Is this book really as good as they say? Just curious about it

>>10572771
It's pretty damn good. I was also skeptical but by the end of the 1st book I was hooked.

>>10572771
Yes. I've never felt my mind more expanded by a novel than the Book of the New Sun

>>10572771
What is good? it is interesting for few reason 1. it starts out medieval but then technology creeps in which characters dont understand but you do 2. it has edgy stuff like cannibalism 3. its a closed time loop that works

>>10569345
Did not he gain knowledge of others?

>>10571400
he mentions it enough, do you need to be spoon fed?

>>10573447
at the time only of some dumb airhead whore so i doubt she brought much to the table

>>10569226
why the fuck does he keep refusing to kill agia? is he still turned on from watching her give her brother a blowjob?

why is someone with hethors power resorting to beating down used up street urchins? why are robots such horndogs in general? did the past humans control their robot army with the power of prime pussy?

>>10572771
It's excellent, one of my favorite sci-fi / fantasy sagas

However it requires you to bring your damn A-game as a reader otherwise you won't take much out of it