{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1243", "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": 1243, "subject": "Alden Weer's Dimensionality", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "1998-11-04T09:50:45+00:00", "last": "1998-11-05T03:32:20+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "David_Lebling", "address": "david_lebling at avid.com" }, "date": "1998-11-04T09:50:45+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Alden Weer's Dimensionality", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Wombat said:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Alden Weir is a brilliant 3-dimensional figure..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Really? I've read _Peace_ several times and still don't know what to make\nof Weir. Judging from past posts on this list I don't think I'm alone.\nFor example, there seems little agreement on whether Weir is a murderer\n(much less a multiple murderer). What sort of man is he? He's something\nof a manipulator of women, as evidenced by his various relationships. I\ncan't say we know much more about him than that. For the narrator and\nostensible protagonist of a novel, he is remarkably invisible. He really\ntells us very little about himself, and consequently people who comment on\nthe novel tend to go all mantic or even borskian on us.\n\nI'm happy to hear from the assembled wisdom that I'm all confused here, but\nI each time I read _Peace_ I think I know more about Olivia, or Julius\nSmart, or even the Golds, father and daughter, than about Weir.\n\n Dave Lebling\n (aka vizcacha)\n (david_lebling at avid.com)" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alex David Groce", "address": "adgroce at eos.ncsu.edu" }, "date": "1998-11-04T15:51:00+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Alden Weer's Dimensionality", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "David Lebling said:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Wombat said:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Alden Weir is a brilliant 3-dimensional figure..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Really? I've read _Peace_ several times and still don't know what to make\nof Weir. Judging from past posts on this list I don't think I'm alone.\nFor example, there seems little agreement on whether Weir is a murderer\n(much less a multiple murderer). What sort of man is he? He's something\nof a manipulator of women, as evidenced by his various relationships. I\ncan't say we know much more about him than that. For the narrator and\nostensible protagonist of a novel, he is remarkably invisible. He really\ntells us very little about himself, and consequently people who comment on\nthe novel tend to go all mantic or even borskian on us.\n\nI'm happy to hear from the assembled wisdom that I'm all confused here, but\nI each time I read _Peace_ I think I know more about Olivia, or Julius\nSmart, or even the Golds, father and daughter, than about Weir." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tI think that's true, in a sense, but only because Weer is a man who has\ndefined himself by OTHER PEOPLE'S stories. I think Wolfe is suggesting that\nthis is both a peculiarity of Weer's personality AND something common to all of\nus. For my money, I never entertained Weer as mass-murderer (and I don't think\nBobby's death is really murder in the sense I'd use the word).\n\tHis character is visible in the way Weer reacts to others--that it is,\nin the stories he is told, rather than his own story, that occupy his\nreminescence (from beyond the grave or a less likely possibility in response to\na Thematic Apperception Test) is a major defining trait of his character. Weer\nis a highly introspective, isolated man, often implying hesitations and\nfailures he does not explicitly describe (for instance, how he lost Margaret).\n\tHe's not at all \"flat\" in the sense Severian is--instead of innately\nsensing what he must do, Weer seems to avoid making any real decisions. Only a\nfew times (confronting Gold, for example) does he actually ACT in his own\nstory. However, Weer asserts a self in the way he tells the stories he has\nheard, and in the stories he chooses to tell... It seems to me that the way\nWeer does tell us about himself (usually by evasion) tells us as much as what\nhe tells.\n\tMaybe you could consider Weer as an inverse of Kinbote in Nabokov's\nPALE FIRE who (sort of) turns someone else's story into his own, extending the\nego to encompass what is not his, while Weer tries to shrink his ego, turning\nhis own life into everyone else's story--even claiming Julian Smart is the\nprotagonist of the book. Either way, you have a literarily brilliant way of\nevoking a three (or even four) dimensional character." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "\"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.\" - John 8:32\n--\nAlex David Groce (adgroce at eos.ncsu.edu)\nSenior (Computer Science/Multidisciplinary Studies in Technology & Fiction)\n'98-99 NCSU AITP Student Chapter President\n608 Charleston Road, Apt. 1E (919)-233-7366\nhttp://www4.ncsu.edu/~adgroce" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "CRCulver", "address": "crculver at aol.com" }, "date": "1998-11-05T03:32:20+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Alden Weer's Dimensionality", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Vizcacha said:\n\n\nI'm not so sure. After all, he was enough of a gentleman not to take advantage\nof the drunken Lois.\n\n\n\nhttp://members.aol.com/crculver/index.html" } ] } ] }