Peace and Weer's Imagination

David Duffy said: <<I think they are characters in a dream, based on those waiting in one or more actual visits to the doctor.>> So Weer conjures them up just like he does the doctor. This leads us to another conundrum: how could Weer know enough about medicine (specifically stroke treatment) to give the doctor something to say and to cause small talk between Sherry and Ted (though the latter may be due to a remembered event)? Or are the dead omniscient? A tiny, teeny question: when Weer mentions his face is stuck in one position, are we talking here about rigor mortis? In fact, is rigor mortis his "stroke," i.e. his lack of mobility? Cheers, Christopher R. Culver <crculver at aol.com> President Pro-Tempore of USEJ Prezidanto Dumtempa de USEJ -------------------------------------------------- http://ttt.esperanto.org/usej/

Christopher R. Culver <crculver at aol.com> said:

I wouldn't call Weer's mental state a dream. My interpretation is that he is casting his mind back through his memories, in no particular order, and that all of the events he recalls are based on "real" memories, even if they have been altered by time as Weer admits they have more than once. Even the visits to the doctors for advice are based on memories of real visits, in my opinion. Weer is extrapolating what they might have said if he asked them the questions he describes about having had a stroke in the future from what he remembers Dr. Black and Dr. Van Ness saying to him during visits he actually made to them during his lifetime. Assuming Weer is speaking for the doctors, he really doesn't need any medical knowledge to answer his question about what his best course of action is, following his stroke. He only wants to know if he should be as active as he can be or rest as much as possible and, as Weer himself says, there isn't much difference between the two in his current state. The whole doctor episode could be considered to be the mental equivalent of flipping a coin, in this case, although much more reassuring because of the illusion of getting outside advice. I say "assuming" at the start of the previous paragraph because I don't completely reject the idea that Weer is actually sending his mind back in time. In fact, I prefer this hypothsis, but I admit it raises many difficult questions. The haunted hotel that Weer's Aunt Bella describes in her article "Ghost-Chaser Number Three" actually seems to be a case of a temporal cross-over; perhaps Weer's haunting of his own past involves real time travel. I don't see any difficulty about the "small talk between Sherry and Ted" or any other conversation that Weer reports. They are memories, probably all reconstructed to some degree. I don't think that Weer's stroke is due to rigor mortis setting in. Weer has been dead a long time, far too long for there to be much in the way of mortal remains left, much less a corpse capable of undergoing rigor. Remember, the elm tree that was planted on his grave (after he died) has become quite large and has fallen over. William Ansley

William Ansley said: <<The haunted hotel that Weer's Aunt Bella describes in her article "Ghost-Chaser Number Three" actually seems to be a case of a temporal cross-over; perhaps Weer's haunting of his own past involves real time travel.>> This possibility recalls the possibility that Severian's rescuers in the inn during the Age of the Monarch were himself. <<Weer has been dead a long time, far too long for there to be much in the way of mortal remains left, much less a corpse capable of undergoing rigor.>> So Weer, as he is narrating Peace, is purely mind? And his "house" is simply his means of exploring his memories, I guess. <<Remember, the elm tree that was planted on his grave (after he died) has become quite large and has fallen over.>> I assumed it fell due to the storm that Weer reflects on in the beginning paragraph. Cheers, Christopher R. Culver <crculver at aol.com> President Pro-Tempore of USEJ Prezidanto Dumtempa de USEJ -------------------------------------------------- http://ttt.esperanto.org/usej/

That's as good a guess as any and better than most, I would say.

That's interesting. I also thought a storm was mentioned in the first paragraph of Peace, until I went back and re-read it before manking the posting you quoted (and I requoted) above. But no storm is mentioned, go back and take a look. The tree may have fallen because of a storm, but all Weer hears is the dripping of melting snow and icicles. He woke too late to hear the tree fall, but assumes that "from the number of shattered limbs and the size of the trunk there must have been a terrible crashing." William Ansley