{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1185", "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": 1185, "subject": "Forlesen Follow-up", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "1998-10-15T15:22:53+00:00", "last": "1998-10-16T08:08:55+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Straight", "address": "straight at email.unc.edu" }, "date": "1998-10-15T15:22:53+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Forlesen Follow-up", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I was out of town during the discussion of this story in late September\nand just now have a chance to reply.\n\nI thought Mr. Borski's lists of hell and computer imagery interesting, but\nthey didn't go anywhere. They seemed like evidence in search of an\nargument. Is Forlesen in hell? Is he a computer program? If so, what's\nthe point? How does that make more sense of the story or give it greater\nmeaning? Can you go any farther down any of these trails? \n\nMy own thought (and maybe this is all you were saying and I missed it) is\nthat these details are merely allusive. Wolfe is trying to make us think\nof a hellish, mechanized, inhuman society (and to make us consider to what\nextent our own society is influenced by these forces). I don't think\nwe're supposed to decode that Forlesen is \"actually\" damned or imprisoned\nin a computer (except to the extent that we are meant to ask ourselves,\nAre we damned? Are we trapped in a computer? Is there a meaning to all\nthis?) \n\nMantis, on the other hand, made the hair stand up on the back of my neck\nwith the list of how the yes/no answers match up with original nine\nexplainers. No argument is necessary; it fits so well that it's obviously\nright and in one swoop transformed the ending from confusing to strangely\nsatisfying. (I can think of only two other online discussions that have\nso allowed a story to retroactively explode in my brain. Many thanks.) \nThe novelist (Wolfe) is, of course, the one who says \"maybe\"! And\nwe should therefore expect no more or less from \"Forlesen\" itself. \n\nIt's also interesting that the Actor says 'yes'--do you think that is\nmeant to be the authentic 'yes' of the priest/theologian or does it refer\nto the Hollywood ending, the possibly crowd-pleasing 'yes' of the the\nNational Hero? It's easy to interpret it cynically, but I wonder if Wolfe\nmight be suggesting that performers have some insight (or some need to\nbelieve) that is more like a priest than a novelist?\n\nPrion, your observation that the story seems to occupy more than one day\nis interesting and makes me want to go back and check and see what I\nthink. To be honest, my first reaction is to wonder if that isn't a typo! \nIt seems so central to the story that it be a single day, that Forlesen be\nborn, spend a day confusedly /in medias res/ and then die.\n\nI think it would weaken the story considerably to imagine there are\nmornings Forlesen wakes up knowing where he is (at least to the extent\nthat he'd been able to discover the day(s) before), remembering where he\ngoes to work, etc. Unless, that is, there is some counterbalancing\nsignificance to there being several days. Do you see any? \n\nI think the spelling \"ours\" for time units is just an elegant way of\nmaking a word that is easily recognized as a time period, but is different\nfrom an hour. Changing time to work on some kind of decimal system is a\ncommon SF trope for a society organized around machines rather than\npeople. 240 ours/day not only sounds more decimal, but also creates the\nfeeling of a long, overworked day (I put in 240 hours today!) -- a\nconnotation that would be lost if you divided the day into 240 centons. \n\nPrion noted regarding \"Emanuel Forlesen\":" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "First of all, it resembles the word \"manual\" so this might have added\nsignificance with the German word vorlesen (to read out), a manual\nreadout, or something, of a computer. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\"Manual readout\" sounds like a computer term, but judging from AltaVista,\nit is more likely used in engineering when you have to go to a site to\nread an instrument instead of having the data sent/recorded automatically.\nSo perhaps Emanuel Forlesen must discover/experience any meaning life may\nhave for himself, rather than having it reported to him. (I think that\nmay be stretching too hard. \"God with us\" is probably more significant.) \n\n-Rostrum" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Tony Ellis", "address": "tony.ellis at futurenet.co.uk" }, "date": "1998-10-16T08:08:55+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: Forlesen Follow-up", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Rostrum wrote:\nMy own thought (and maybe this is all you were saying and I missed it) is\nthat these details are merely allusive. Wolfe is trying to make us think\nof a hellish, mechanized, inhuman society (and to make us consider to what\nextent our own society is influenced by these forces). I don't think\nwe're supposed to decode that Forlesen is \"actually\" damned or imprisoned\nin a computer " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Absolutely. The story is allegorical, and to collapse it down to a\nsingle, mundane \"this is what is -really- going on\" explanation is\ngreatly to diminish it. I don't see -any- evidence that this is the\ninterpretation Wolfe wants us to make." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Prion, your observation that the story seems to occupy more than one day\nis interesting and makes me want to go back and check and see what I\nthink. To be honest, my first reaction is to wonder if that isn't a typo!\nIt seems so central to the story that it be a single day, that Forlesen be\nborn, spend a day confusedly /in medias res/ and then die." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Agreed, again. Which sounds the more satisfactory: \"Forlesen: the story\nof a man lives his life in a day\" or \"Forlesen: the story of a man lives\nhalf his life in a day, goes home, has his tea, sleeps, then lives the\nrest of it the next day\"?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think the spelling \"ours\" for time units is just an elegant way of\nmaking a word that is easily recognized as a time period, but is different\nfrom an hour. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Here I disagree. I have always assumed that this is another of the\nstory's many puns. The tone of the how-to-live-your-life manuals\nForlesen reads is very dictatorial, reflecting the dehumanized,\ncorporate world he's living in: Don't speed. Don't be late to work.\nDon't turn left out of your driveway. \"ours\" is a way of saying your\ntime doesn't belong to you, either. It's \"ours.\"" } ] } ] }