# Alden Weir's Dimensionality *The Urth list — 2 messages, 2 voices, 05 Nov 1998* > 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. --- ### David Duffy *06 Nov 1998, 00:13* (Maybe it should be Alder rather than Alden -- elm, though then you can't throw in Den) I have the impression (coming back to the pillow story) that Weir's life represents a wrong choice at every key point in his life, while Smart makes the correct choices. Weir's final financial security/success is quite accidental. Furthermore, his behaviour at the forking points -- on the stairs, outside the freezer room, in the creek-bed -- is quite understandable/forgiveable (coming back to the idea of Purgatorio rather than Inferno). Also I might raise the two allusions to Cabell (and isn't there one Cabell novel set in Florida?) -- Cabell saw Jurgen as the thinker and Manuel as the doer (Weir/Smart?). Felix Kennaston in the _Cream of the Jest_ is perhaps even closer, though Wolfe and Cabell's world-views are slightly different. (do I need a smiley?). | David Duffy. ,-_|\ | email: davidD at qimr.edu.au ph: INT+61+7+3362 0217 fax: +0101 / * | Epidemiology Unit, Queensland Institute of Medical Research \_,-._/ | 300 Herston Rd, Brisbane, Queensland 4029, Australia v --- ### Alex David Groce *05 Nov 1998, 21:45 · follows David Duffy* > David Duffy wrote: > I have the impression (coming back to the pillow story) that Weir's life > represents a wrong choice at every key point in his life, while Smart > makes the correct choices. Weir's final financial security/success is > quite accidental. Furthermore, his behaviour at the forking points -- on > the stairs, outside the freezer room, in the creek-bed -- is quite > understandable/forgiveable (coming back to the idea of Purgatorio rather > than Inferno). > > Also I might raise the two allusions to Cabell (and isn't there one > Cabell novel set in Florida?) -- Cabell saw Jurgen as the thinker and > Manuel as the doer (Weir/Smart?). Felix Kennaston in the _Cream of > the Jest_ is perhaps even closer, though Wolfe and Cabell's world-views > are slightly different. (do I need a smiley?). Slightly, yes. I always thought that my high school English teacher disliked fantasy (with a grudging like for Bradbury) until I discovered he'd done his master's thesis on Cabell. I tried to get him to read Wolfe (he's even Catholic...) for years to no avail... By the way, looking up something about Nabokov stumbled across this page on lycos: http://rpg.net/quail/libyrinth/borges/borges.infl.wolfe.html Right now it's just a bit from the McCaffrey interview, but it might turn into something someday... ``` "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free." - John 8:32 -- Alex David Groce (adgroce at eos.ncsu.edu) Senior (Computer Science/Multidisciplinary Studies in Technology & Fiction) '98-99 NCSU AITP Student Chapter President 608 Charleston Road, Apt. 1E (919)-233-7366 http://www4.ncsu.edu/~adgroce ``` ---