{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/sflovers/79",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "sflovers",
  "thread": {
    "id": 79,
    "subject": "There Are Doors, by Gene Wolfe",
    "messages": 3,
    "voices": 3,
    "first": "1989-09-27T02:25:31+00:00",
    "last": "1989-09-27T13:34:31+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<sflovers-v14-306-12@digest.sf-lovers>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Peter da Silva",
        "address": "peter at sugar.hackercorp.com"
      },
      "date": "1989-09-27T02:25:31+00:00",
      "subject": "There Are Doors, by Gene Wolfe",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Has anyone else read this one (probably, by now... it's out in paper)? Is\nthis a reprint of an early Wolfe, or what? It's very '50s in many of its\nattitudes, yet it's got what seems to be a commentary on AIDS. It's not a\nbad book, but it's got more the feel of an early Phillip Jose Farmer than a\ncurrent Wolfe.\n\nPeter da Silva"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<sflovers-v14-306-13@digest.sf-lovers>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Chuq Von Rospach",
        "address": "chuq at apple.com"
      },
      "date": "1989-09-27T05:00:17+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: There Are Doors, by Gene Wolfe",
      "in_reply_to": "<sflovers-v14-306-12@digest.sf-lovers>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Has anyone else read this one (probably, by now... it's out in paper)? Is\nthis a reprint of an early Wolfe, or what? It's very '50s in many of its\nattitudes, yet it's got what seems to be a commentary on AIDS. It's not a\nbad book, but it's got more the feel of an early Phillip Jose Farmer than\na current Wolfe."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "No, it's a new book, first publishing in hardcover last year. It seems to\nbe another one of Gene's experiments, similar to Free, Live Free. I\ncouldn't get into it at all, even though I like his writing. Others I know\nloved it.  A few hated it.\n\nChuq Von Rospach"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<sflovers-v14-309-14@digest.sf-lovers>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Jeremy Crampton",
        "address": "ele at psuvm.bitnet"
      },
      "date": "1989-09-27T13:34:31+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: There Are Doors, by Gene Wolfe",
      "in_reply_to": "<sflovers-v14-306-13@digest.sf-lovers>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "chuq at Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) says:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "[Peter Da Silva says]:\nHas anyone else read this one (probably, by now... it's out in paper)? Is\nthis a reprint of an early Wolfe, or what? It's very '50s in many of its\nattitudes, yet it's got what seems to be a commentary on AIDS. It's not a\nbad book, but it's got more the feel of an early Philip Jose Farmer than\na current Wolfe."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "No, it's a new book, first publishing in hardcover last year. It seems to\nbe another one of Gene's experiments, similar to Free, Live Free. I\ncouldn't get into it at all, even though I like his writing. Others I know\nloved it.  A few hated it."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Indeed.  It was published as a paperback either this month or last month by\nTor (it was their lead item) and originally published in 1988 in hardback\nas Chuq says.  In the next _Foundation_ (46) Gwyneth Jones is going to\nwrite a long review on it.\n\nIn 1985, three years before it was published, Wolfe said about it:\n\n***SPOILERS***\n\n\"I have difficulty doing people who are well below my intellectual level.\nI've set myself this... if I can go and talk about current work, I'm trying\nto write a novel called _There_are_Doors_.  The hero or central character\nof this novel is a mentally ill department store clerk.  He doesn't read.\nHe isn't intellectual.  He watches television.  He's not very well\nsocialised, and he's not entirely different from me.  But he's different\nfrom me in certain ways.  And I try to handle him because it's a good\nexercise for me to try and handle him...He's hard to do.  And I'm trying to\ndo it, and it may well flop.  But if you're not willing to take chances of\nfailing then you can't push back the borders.\n\n\"In my story this man is not sub-normal.  He's normal, and that's what's\nwrong with him.\"\n\nJeremy"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}