{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1101",
    "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": 1101,
    "subject": "Chinese pillow",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1998-09-11T14:54:16+00:00",
    "last": "1998-09-11T14:54:16+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0018-0125@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Peter Stephenson",
        "address": "pws at ifh.de"
      },
      "date": "1998-09-11T14:54:16+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Chinese pillow",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "(I've been away, which is why I'm referring to something discussed\nseveral megabytes ago.)\n\nThe Chinese pillow episode in Peace has a possible literary precursor\nin `Das Glasperlenspiel (The Glass Bead Game)', by Herman Hesse. It's\nslightly annoying that you never find out much about the game itself.\nI found the book very readable, though, and it had to me the sense of\nsaying something deeper than appears in the narration.  The story is\nactually in an appendix: one of the `Lebenslauefe' (which can mean\nanything from `life history' to `resume') supposedly written by the\nmain character of the novel, Joseph Knecht --- the book is essentially\nhis biography.  I've forgotten what it's called, but I think it's the\nthird, and is set in India rather than China.  Maybe it's well-known\nin Eastern mythology?  It's rather different from the the main story,\nwhich has no obvious fantasy element except for being set in an\ninvented future.  Actually, my favourite of the three is the one\ncalled `Der Beichtvater (The Confessor)'.  (BTW, I think the book\nsometimes translated as `Magister Ludi', but I may have made that up.)"
        },
        {
          "kind": "sig",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Peter Stephenson <pws at ifh.de>       Tel: +39 50 844536\nWWW:  http://www.ifh.de/~pws/\nGruppo Teorico, Dipartimento di Fisica\nPiazza Torricelli 2, 56100 Pisa, Italy"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}