{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1530",
    "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'"
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  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 1530,
    "subject": "Ideas about Peace",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1999-04-13T14:38:30+00:00",
    "last": "1999-04-13T14:38:30+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0025-0072@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Ed van der Winden",
        "address": "ed_en_jose at gironet.nl"
      },
      "date": "1999-04-13T14:38:30+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Ideas about Peace",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Hello,\n\nI'm new to this list. I've been reading the archives now for a while and\nnow I'd like to contribute\nsomething. I've recently read \"Peace\" for the third time and I've had\nsome ideas that I have not seen\nelsewhere. There are quite a lot of spoilers in what follows (there\ncertainly are if I'm right).\n\nFirst I like to talk about the situation that the main character, Alden\nDennis Weer, is in. I think\nlots of people agree to the fact that he is dead, and has been dead for\nsome time. I won't repeat the\narguments that I've seen before. Some people suggested that the Chinese\npillow that is mentioned at the end might mean that the whole book is\nactually a dream of young Dennis, about how his life might look. I don't\nthink so: I think Weer is actually dead and that the Chinese pillow is\npointing to the fact that Weer is reliving his life over and over again.\nI think that this is the quiet damnation that he is \"living\" in: endless\nrepetition.\n\nThere are some other clues for this. The first is the only mention of\nthe word \"peace\" in the whole book. It is in a passage from one of the\nbooks that Gold made up, a piece of text with lots of lliteration, i.e.\nrepetition.\n\nThe second, very important clue, is his name: Alden Dennis Weer. I once\nread (I don't remember where) that someone had been wondering about the\nname and came up with: \"All then, then is\" for his first names. I never\nthought further about this, until when I last read \"Peace\" I came across\nthe fact that Weer is a descendant from a Dutch family. I am Dutch, and\nyou know what \"Weer\" means in dutch? It means \"again\". (It also means\n\"weather\" but that is not very important, I think ;^) So when I\ntranslate his name, we get: \"All then, then is again\". And again, and\nagain, and again...\n\nOne last thing to mention is the talk about the \"brand new\" axe in the\nbeginning of the book, although Weer admits to having used the axe many\ntimes before (I cannot quote because I do not own a copy of \"Peace\": it\nis in the library). I think this means that Weer is going to relive his\nlife again in the book that is before us, but has lived it many, many\ntimes before.\n\nIn the beginning of Peace, Weer tells us that he is not going to tell us\nsome of the details (\"the story of Napolean\") because they \"invariably\noffend\". So we know from the start he is going to leave out parts of the\nstory. What I think is that Weer relived his life many times, each time\nleaving out something else, until the offensive stuff is deleted almost\nentirely. Most of all, the offensive stuff that Weer himself is\nresponsible for.\n\nNow I want to move on to the next \"big idea\" I have. I cannot help but\nfeel that I am right in what follows, ever since this idea came to me. I\nwant to stress that I think it better not to read further if you have\nnot read \"Peace\" and plan to do so.\n\nThe first time I read \"Peace\" I did not understand very much (although I\nunderstood Weer to be dead), the second time I read it the thought\nstruck me that Weer was a mass murderer, and the last time I read it I\nthought all the time: \"No, he didn't do it. He did not kill this or that\ncharacter.\" My hypothesis is that Weer doesn't lie to us, the readers.\nHe only leaves things out, but he does not lie. There are a number of\ncharacters that have died in mysterious circumstances, and you cannot\nhelp but wonder if Weer killed them:\n* Bobby Black was obviously killed by Weer by accident, when he was only\nsmall;\n* His aunt was hit by a car, killed by Peacock (I read that Wolfe\nadmitted this in a personal talk - I had not spotted it myself);\n* A man was killed in an accident in the factory. I do not think Weer\ndid it himself. I have no real arguments, just then \"it does not ring\ntrue\", given the manner in which he talks about the accident.\n* Margaret Lorn may be killed, but I do not think so. He calls her on\nthe phone sometimes in later life (without saying anything) when she has\nkids allready. I could imagine Weer killing Margaret earlier in life but\nnot after such a long time;\n* The librarian (I forgot her name) that went gold digging with Weer,\nmay have been killed by him, but again I do not think so. There is a\nphrase in the book, after she went, (Sorry, I cannot quote) that implies\nthat she left the town alive. She pulled a gun on him, they had a fight,\nbut he did not kill her.\n* There are little clues everywhere in the book that other characters\nmay have been killed, but none of them convinced me.\n\nThen Gene Wolfe himself has said that Weer did not kill most of the\ncharacters in the book, so we know he cannot be a mass murderer (if we\nbelieve Gene). So, I'm left with Weer who did not kill. At the same\ntime, the obvious answer to the question: \"What did Weer do, that such\na terrible fate happened to him?\" is: \"He killed someone\", certainly in\na book where the above clues are everywhere.\n\nMy answer to all this is: I think Weer killed only one person on purpose\nin the whole book. I think this person is Julius Smart. The most\nimportant clue I think is the phrase that Julius Smart may well be the\n\"central (or main) character\" in the book. How can this be if so little\nis said about the man, and Smart was meant by Gene Wolfe to be (his own\nwords) \"an ordinary middle-class American\" (something like that). The\nanswer: Smart is the central character of the book because by killing\nhim, Weer ended up in the situation he is in now. Only by killing Smart,\ndid the story that Weer tells us in \"Peace\" come into existence.\n\nIn the archives I came across a conversation that someone had with Gene\nWolfe (the one in which the killing of Olivia by Peacock was mentioned)\nin which it was mentioned that Weer comes to own the juice factory\nbecause he inherits it from Julius Smart, because Weer was Olivia's heir\nand became Smart's heir when they married. I think this is \"motive\".\n\nI think Smart was killed by Weer with the boyscout knife that he talks\nso much about. He cannot find it, because it is in a room of his \"house\"\nthat he will not enter, one of the memories that he does not want to\nhave. I think this is \"means\".\n\nI now have means and motive, so I must try \"opportunity\". This is\nharder. Weer had the opportunity to kill Smart. Smart was a frail, old\nman, who worked in the same factory as Weer. As we know from the last\nchapter: accidents happen in a factory so Smart could easily have had\n\"an accident\"\n(but then again, would Weer have done this with the knife? Oops!) Well,\nso much for opportunity.\n\nWhen I read the only fairly large piece of text in \"Peace\" about Julius\nSmart with the above theory in mind, it almost sounds as if Weer is\ntelling us: \"The man was old, frail and sad. Everyone mocked\nhim. What I did was not terribly wrong. I helped him out of his misery.\"\n\nI want to end this large piece of text with the observation that\nalthough Weer is, in my opinion, a killer, at the same time he is, as a\nlot of readers feel, a rather sympathetic man. The story of Weer is the\nstory of a man that had a lot of misfortune in his life: he lost the\nlove of his life (Margaret Lorn) without knowing why, he ends up with a\nlousy job (before he owns the factory) although this was not expected,\nlater in life he loses another possible partner (the librarian) and a\nchance to get rich (there is no gold). Weer killed once, only later in\nlife. I feel Weer is a sad man, not an evil one.\n\nI hope this will stir up a lot of discussion because I still have\nquestions about \"Peace\". Maybe my ramblings here will generate ideas in\nothers.\n\nOne last clue to the fact that Weer killed Smart: I have not read \"The\nChangeling\" but is it not about one guy killing another and then taking\nhis place?\n\nEd"
        }
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