{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1097", "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": "urth", "thread": { "id": 1097, "subject": "In Looking Glass Castle", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "1998-09-05T19:21:55+00:00", "last": "1998-10-11T13:23:02+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Robert Borski", "address": "rborski at coredcs.com" }, "date": "1998-09-05T19:21:55+00:00", "subject": "(urth) In Looking Glass Castle", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "ObWolfe: Someone mentioned \"In Looking Glass Castle\" as a story featuring\na backwards-living character, but I don't see that at all. That's the\none\nfeaturing the world where there are no men and the scientist with a man\nhiding in her house, isn't it? What am I missing? " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This is my assertion and it's one of two speculative claims I make about\n\"In Looking Glass Castle\"--the other being that the man Daisy McKane sees\nfirst in her house, then later on the Frances Alda, may be a figment of her\noverwrought imagination.\n\nHere follows my reasoning for claim #1. The usual disclaimers obtain. \n\nWhen we first hear of the previous owner of Daisy McKane's house, it's via\nthe unnamed real estate agent who's driving Daisy to her new home. Says she\nabout the woman, after initially revealing the deceased has never had\nherself cloned: \"...she drowned and had to give this [the house] all up.\" \n\nDaisy too refuses to have herself cloned. This is perhaps symbolized by her\nlater finding some empty seed packets in the house, but also links her back\nto the previous occupant. (Perhaps they're even daisy seeds.)\n\nNot much later we learn from Daisy that the drowned woman was an eccentric\nand that her name was \"Jane Something.\" The \"something\" aspect of her name\nobviously implies Daisy doesn't remember her name, but may also be\nconsidered a variation on the convention used to label an unidentified dead\nfemale, i.e., Jane Doe. Daisy too might be considered somewhat of an\neccentric for her time, refusing to have herself cloned and continuing to\nlive alone.\n\nNext follows a most curious exchange between Daisy and \"the fat woman\" who\nis her next door neighbor (the operatic connection here, I maintain, is\ngermane, as I'll later attempt to detail). Pearl, the neighbor, makes two\nconfusing remarks about drowned females, one being Jane, the other being\nPearl IV, her third cloned daughter. But which remark pertains to which\nvictim? Is it Pearl IV whose boat has flipped over and whose body has never\nbeen found? Or is it Jane--whose body, when it does wash ashore perhaps\nsomewhere else, is identified as Jane Doe? In regards to the latter Daisy\nhas already imagined \"Jane rolling dead, naked in the surf\"--and this may\nbe a clue. Also, who is more likely to fall headfirst down a cistern--an\nadult woman or a child, i.e., Pearl IV? I maintain a child. But from this\npoint on Daisy seems to believe that it's Jane Something who drowned in the\ncistern, and not Pearl IV. \n\nStill later, after Daisy encounters the \"PIG\" in her house, she asks him,\n\"You killed the other woman--the one before me.\" To which the man replies,\n\"Indirectly and unintentionally, yes.\" But how does this relate to Jane\nSomething's death in either version--the cistern or collapsed boat\nscenario? Did he indirectly and unintentionally leave the cover off the\ncistern? Or did he somehow frighten Jane on the boat, leading to her\ninadvertent death somehow?\n\nThen there's the White Queen angle. \"In Looking Glass Castle\" obviously\ndraws a good deal upon the works of Lewis Carroll. Consider the title, and\nthis quote from Carroll's preface to THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS: \"The\n'castling' of the three Queens is merely a way of saying that they entered\nthe palace.\" I.e., in Wolfe's nightmarish treatment of feminism-gone-wrong,\nwomen/queens have taken over the castle/America. It's also worth noting\nthat TTLG features a chess match, and that Gene Wolfe borrows on this in\nnaming at least one of his characters (Char Cavallo = \"black knight\"). Also\nsignificantly, in chess, the queens are the most powerful pieces. Which\nbrings us back to the White Queen. In Carroll's TTLG, she lives backwards,\na way of life \"which always makes one a little giddy at first, but there's\none great advantage in it, that one's memory works both ways.\" Asked by\nAlice what things she remembers best, the White Queen replies, \"Oh, things\nthat happened the week after next.\" In other words, though it's obviously\nconfusing, she remembers the future better than the past.\n\nIn an exchange of dialogue with the male trespasser in her house (John\nDoe?), Daisy insists she is not the White Queen, but only in the aspect of\nnot believing in impossible things. Also, in Wolfe's fiction, anytime a\ncharacter stridently asserts something to be not true, the opposite often\nturns out to be the case.\n\nIn any event, when Daisy is offered a berth aboard the Frances Alda by Dr.\nEdith Berg (this, after a raid by the police on her house produces no\nintruder), she takes it. Given that Frances Alda (1885-1952) was a famous\nAmerican diva [Frances was also the name of Lewis Carroll's mother], and\nthat both Alda and Edith mean \"rich,\" might there not be some sort of clue\npertaining to opera here--say, some work by a composer with a name similar\n(remember, we're in looking glass territory) to \"Alda\" Berg? I'm arguing\nyes--that it's Alban Berg's Wozzeck, an opera where the title character\nsuffers from hallucinations and winds up drowned. This is exactly what I\nbelieve to be Daisy McKane's fate. That when she sees (or more correctly\n*believes* she sees) the male intruder from her house below deck, something\nshe does in a panicky mode leads to her demise and it is this watery\nforfeiture of life that she recalls when she earlier has the imagery of\nJane Something rolling dead, naked in the surf. (I'm not going to argue in\ndepth at this point about the hallucinatory nature of the male intruder;\nsuffice it to say I think he originates out of Daisy's sexual frustration\nand thus parallels the situation of the governess in Henry James' TURN OF\nTHE SCREW--a big chunk of which resonates throughout \"In Looking Glass\nCastle\").\n\nAs for the Pearl/Jane/cistern connection, notice how, just before the\nFrances Alda sails, Daisy is reading a book by Joan Somebody called Cradle\nof the Sea. Like the dead person in the cistern, Daisy is in an enclosure\nsurrounded by water; subsequently she drifts off to sleep--which parallels\nan earlier dream where \"She dreamed that she was Jane, head-down in the\ncistern\". But where else are pearls formed, if not the cradle of the sea?\nAnd it is this confused memory of the future, conjoined with the present\n(the discussion of Pearl IV's death), which leads to the earlier\nsupplanting of the Jane/surf notion with the Jane/cistern scenario. \n\nGene Wolfe received an unasked-for-grant from the Illinois Arts Council for\n\"In Looking Glass Castle.\" It remains among my favorites of his shorter\nwork.\n\nRobert Borski \n\n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\n\n " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "William H. Ansley", "address": "wansley at warwick.net" }, "date": "1998-09-06T00:51:40+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) In Looking Glass Castle", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "This is my assertion and it's one of two speculative claims I make about\n\"In Looking Glass Castle\"--the other being that the man Daisy McKane sees\nfirst in her house, then later on the Frances Alda, may be a figment of her\noverwrought imagination." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I find your second \"speculative claim\" about ILGC much easier to swallow\nthan your first, in fact it even occurred to *me* that she might be\nimagining the man without too much speculation on my part. At times, it\neven seems likely, especially when she sees him on the ship.\n\nI agree that there seem to be links between the mysterious former owner of\nthe house (Jane something) and Daisy McKane. And I don't find it completely\nfar fetched that Daisy might have reacted to seeing \"the stowaways's\nbearded face\" below decks by rushing back above decks (I apologize if I am\nusing what I fondly imagine to be nautical terms incorrectly here--I am no\nsailor) and somehow falling overboard and drowning. But what you call\n\"living backwards\" seem like no more than old-fashioned foreshadowing to me.\n\nI won't try to refute your all arguments point by point right now for lack\nof time (and desire) but let's look at your penultimate paragraph." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "As for the Pearl/Jane/cistern connection, notice how, just before the\nFrances Alda sails, Daisy is reading a book by Joan Somebody called Cradle\nof the Sea. Like the dead person in the cistern, Daisy is in an enclosure\nsurrounded by water; subsequently she drifts off to sleep--which parallels\nan earlier dream where \"She dreamed that she was Jane, head-down in the\ncistern\". But where else are pearls formed, if not the cradle of the sea?\nAnd it is this confused memory of the future, conjoined with the present\n(the discussion of Pearl IV's death), which leads to the earlier\nsupplanting of the Jane/surf notion with the Jane/cistern scenario." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't really see much of a parallel. A cistern is a tank full of water\nand a boat is (in effect) a tank full of air, built to keep water out.\n\nPearls can be said to be formed in \"the cradle of the sea\" but a much more\nspecific answer and one much more likely to elicite an association of\n\"pearl\" is \"in an oyster.\"\n\nEarlier, you claim that \"Pearl, the neighbor [the fat woman], makes two\nconfusing remarks about drowned females, one being Jane, the other being\nPearl IV, her third cloned daughter.\" I really don't see how you can read\nher remarks as confusing, unless you believe Pearl is either being\ndeliberately misleading or is demented. Pearl talks about death by cistern\nimmediately and as an apparent response to being asked about the death of\n\"the woman who owned my house\" by Daisy. Except for one bit of evidence,\nwhich you don't mention at all. (I am in awe of your restraint here.)\n\nWhat Daisy first thinks she hears as an answer to her question is the\nphrase \"her sisters got her.\" When Pearl is asked to elucidate she replies,\n\"I said the cistern got her. Fell down it head first.\" Of the two people\nPearl and Daisy had just been speaking of (Jane Something and Pearl IV) we\nknow Pearl IV had sisters. It seems very unlikely that Jane did, since no\nrelatives had come to claim her belongings. Perhaps Pearl (the original)\nknows or thinks she knows that Pearl II and Pearl III ganged up on Pearl IV\nand pushed her in the cistern, drowning her. This might be enough to make\nPearl unable to think clearly when talking about death by drowning and to\nreverse her replies to Daisy's questions.\n\nI like this idea because it explains the \"her sisters got her\" remark.\nSince this is Wolfe we are talking about it seems impossible to think that\nthis apparently misheard phrase can have no meaning. But, even if I accept\nthis fully, I still don't see that it supports Daisy \"remembering\" her\ndrowning in the future." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "mary whalen", "address": "marewhalen at yahoo.com" }, "date": "1998-10-11T13:23:02+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: In Looking Glass Castle", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This is Sean Whalen (prion).\n\nI recently read \"In Looking Glass Castle\" and wondered if the man\nliving in the house might seem less like a hallucinatory problem if he\nactually dressed like a woman and had a life outside of the house. It\nwould make it easier for him to survive. If he is mentioned in the\nbook but is in disguise, it might be that he could have gotten on the\nboat at the end of the book. Does anyone have any ideas about who he\ncould be?\n\nprion" } ] } ] }