Dragaera

where Kiera was

Wed Sep 25 10:31:08 PDT 2002

Erik Dahl wrote:
> As I see it, /Orca/ ultimately demonstrates just how
> delightfully unreliable a narrator Kiera is, and that
> theme can sort of permeates everything if you let it.

And in fact the structure of the book emphasizes it.  In the Kiera/Cawti
bits, she apologizes for things she has to leave out and yet we then appear
to be reading an "unexpurgated" version of the story from her point of view
including the bits that we expect Kiera not to let on to Cawti.  At the next
level in we also read something that on the one hand sounds like a first
person narrative from Vlad's point of view, but is in important ways a
potentially edited version of Vlad's accounts to Kiera of his parts of the
story.  One of the crucial elements that makes this clear is the near total
absence of Loiosh from his usual role in the Vlad books as color
commentator.  Instead there are bits that are told from _Rocza's_ pov!  The
mixture of povs in this book is brilliant.  On Steve's site, he says, "This
is the book I wanted Yendi to be: I'm very happy with this one."
Considering Steve's penchant for telling us only part of the story in any
given book, I'd say there's grounds to suspect the ambiguity was
intentional.

On the other hand searching for the intention of the author is a dangerous
journey.  Since we're getting into the realm of Lit. Crit., I'll throw this
out.

Anyone else here a fan of Umberto Eco?  (On the fiction side he wrote _The
Name of the Rose_ among others.  I'm particularly asking about his
nonfiction.)

Casey