Idea Ripper // ArchiveCards: 1555 [Live] | Updated: 2026-10-14
Card #c420IR // #c420Synthesis

**WHAT HAPPENED:** "It is possible I already had some presentiment of my future." **WHAT I THINK HAPPENED:** He's opening his confession. **WHAT'S WEIRD:** The man who will later swear he never forgets anything opens his life's account with "it is possible." He isn't sure about his own foreshadowing.

— In our words · Source: The Book of the New Sun (Gene Wolfe)

[Use when]

Use when a narrator's confidence and his evidence don't match.

[Why it matters]

Wolfe tells you in sentence one that certainty is off the table, then spends four books daring you to forget he said so. Every confident claim after this sentence has to survive it.

More from The Book of the New Sun

#c419Your goal isn't to "understand the story." Your goal is to figure out what Severian is accidentally telling you. And you don't get to…Use when reading any narrator who insists on his own honesty. #c421**WHAT HAPPENED:** "How I reached my bed I have no notion... I (who never forget anything, who, if I may for once confess the truth, though…Use when someone's boast and their admission arrive in the same breath. #c422**WHAT HAPPENED:** "Perhaps she was a servant from some remote part of the Citadel. Perhaps she was a resident of the city, who for gain or…Use when counting someone's hedges tells you more than their claims.