{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/159",
    "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": 159,
    "subject": "The Peri's Asphodel",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1997-08-16T18:23:44+00:00",
    "last": "1997-08-16T18:23:44+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0004-0243@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Jim Jordan",
        "address": "jbjordan at gnt.net"
      },
      "date": "1997-08-16T18:23:44+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) The Peri's Asphodel",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Some thoughts on \"Seven American Nights\":\n\n\t0. Since most of us don't have the NYRSF, I'd appreciate corrections or\nother insights from anyone who has the article Mantis mentioned. Until I\nget to read it, I can only observe that the two play titles seem\nreligiously significant, especially for a Catholic: \"Visit to a Small\nPlanet\" and \"Mary Rose.\"\n\n\t1. The missing night might be the Moslem sabbath (Friday night), but the\nstory does not seem have any break where this might occur. It is the second\nnight. Notice on p. 338 that Nadan begins to recount his first day in the\nevening, around 4 p.m. (midnight in Teheran). He describes that he slept\nlate, breakfasted, and then asked about visiting the city. He headed north.\nThen we have a break: Jasmin must not read this. It is later at night,\nbecause a candle is burning and something is beating against his window. He\nis full of fear, and mentions that he might have been drugged. Then there\nis a break, where he had edited something out, because section 4 begins\n\"That is out out at last!....\" The preceding stuff is not something that\nwould have been hard to write, so something has been edited, something\nrelated to his true mission, something related to Gassem (see below). He\nthen moves (\"Still...\") to a dream about bread that has mold on it, some\nkind of famous bread. Christian communion bread? At any rate, something has\nhappened during the day to make him rejoice that he is a Persian and not an\nAmerican. Then, the next section describes an actual visit to the Central\nCity of the north, which must be the next day, because it ends with his\nopening the shutters to watch the sun set. Then he goes out to eat and to a\nplay. If it was on the previous day, which it seems at first reading to\nhave been, then this is a couple of hours after \"evening\" and also after he\nhas lit a candle to write by, and that makes no sense. So, here is the\nmissing night: the second night.\n\n\t2. It certainly appears that the last egg eaten was hallucinogenic. But to\na slight degree, it may be that all the food in America is hallucingenic;\nnotice the attention given to virtually every meal.\n\n\t3. 12 days on ship + 7 days in America = 19, a significant Islamic number. \n\n\t4. Peris are beautiful fairy-angels cast out of heaven for their sins, who\nmust do penance on earth before being readmitted. So, the Americans are\nperis. In particular, Ardis is a peri.\n\n\t5. An asphodel is a kind of lily or daffodil that was thought to cure\nspells of witchcraft. In the play, the Peri's Asphodel reveals Ellen's\nsexual desires. Nathan thinks that the attack by the demonbeast might be an\nenchantment, he bites his cheek and draws blood. The blood on his shirt is\nhis Peri's Asphodel, which (perhaps) drew away the enchantment. \n\n\t6. It seems that Nadan is under a spell projected by Ardis, through scent,\nwhich according to the professor is the \"essence of communication.\" During\nsex, she evidently cannot project this, and can be seen for what she really\nis: one of the monsters from the interior brought back by her \"father.\" The\nsmells of sexual congress overwhelm the smells of enchantment.\n\n\t7. The asphodel has a yellow blossom; cp. the yellow dirt being washed out\ninto the oceans around America.\n\n\t8. Nadan's reason for coming to America may have something to do with\nrecovering miniatures, but it also involves Gassem and apparently Tallman\nalso. He avoids Gassem, who avoids him also. He makes an enemy of Tallman.\nSomething important happens on the second day, which is edited out by\nNathan. A possible scenario: These two tail him, and point him out to Ardis\nand the theatre troupe, who observe him through the theatre curtain. They\nalso set a demonbeast to tail and murder him. The troupe conspires to get\nhis sketchbook. Why? Perhaps Gassem thinks that Nadan had sketched him on\nboard ship. Ardis starts seducing Nadan on their first night, which he\naccept naively and which thrills him. Then she leaves, probably to report\nto Gassem and Tallman. She acts swiftly to remove Nadan from their presence\nat the restaurant. One of the actors has conveniently disappeared, so Nadan\nis pressed into service to play Ardis's lover and husband (pushing him\ntoward her, though that part of the plot was unnecessary because Nadan was\nalready infatuated with her), and then goes to Ardis's apartment, while his\nown room is searched. The conspirators read his journal, become aware of\nhis intense infatuation with Ardis, and change their plans for him. The\nnext day she attempts to seduce him into abandoning his mission and going\nwith her into the interior. \n\n\t9. Another possible scenario is this: The theatre troupe marks foreigners\nand scams them. In this case, the reason Ardis leaves the restaurant before\nbeing seen by Gessem and Tallman is precisely what she says: She and Bobby\nhave set up a scheme to get their money. She's probably used her seductive\nenchantments on them. But she and Bobby have also marked Nadan. In this\ncase, it was Bobby who searched Nadan's room, during the long part of the\nplay in which he had no part. In this scenario, Ardis's offer of a trip to\nthe interior is part of her and Bobby's plot. Note that Bobby knows where\nshe is at the end of the story; he is outside Nadan's room.\n\n\t10. So, is the troupe working for Gessem against Nadan, or are they\ninvolved in a flim-flam against all three Persians?\n\n\t11. There are some interesting structural aspects. The story itself is a\nstory within a story within a story. The outer story is the two women\nreading it all. Then there is the letter from the agent. The inner story is\nthe diary. Interestingly, the fourth section, the dream about the special\nbread, forms a chiasm with the fourth-from-the-end section of his\nnarrative, where he sees the Christian procession. And, in both the fifth\nand in the fifth-from-the-end sections, Nadan is offered a be shown a\nsecret, first by the deformed man and then by Ardis. And, in the third\nsection Nadan's shutter is closed against a beast, while in the antepen\nultimate section, he opens the shutter to evacuate the stench of his vomit.\n\tContinuing, in the sixth section Nadan sees a play, and in the matching\nsection he acts in one. In the seventh section Nadan poisons the marzipan,\nand in the matching section he is tempted to toss it away. In the eighth\nsection, Nadan thinks one of the whores is Jasmin, while in the matching\nsection, he dreams of valiantly protecting Ardis (a real young man's\ndream!) (Ardis gradually replaces Yasmin in the story, as Nathan is seduced\nby America.) BTW, this matching section is on p. 370 and unfortunately is\nnot marked with a box. In the earlier collection, there were no boxes to\nmark the section breaks.\n\tIn the ninth section Nadan is attacked by dogs and then potentially by a\ngroup of people; in the long matching section he is attacked by Bobby. In\nthe tenth section he eats the first egg, while in the matching section he\nsearches in vain for the monster he slew. Seems to be no obvious match here.\n\tIn the eleventh section he sees Mary Rose, and in the matching section he\nsearches for Ardis's house and is attacked by a monster. At the center (if\nI am correct) is an unmarked section at the top of page 355 that tells us\nagain that Ardis is a whore.\n\tIf anyone else wants to try her/her/its hand at this (and there may be\nnothing to it -- I only offer it as food for thought) you can number the\nsections of the diary 1-23 as follows:\n\n1. p. 337\n2. 338\n3. 339\n4. 340\n5. 340\n6. 343\n7. 349\n8. 350\n9. 351\n10. 353\n11. 353\n12. 355 (begins \"Same night.\" A new entry)\n13. 355\n14. 359\n15. 359\n16. 370 (begins \"Morning.\" A new entry)\n17. 370\n18. 373\n19. 377\n20. 381\n21. 381\n22. 382\n23. 382\n\nComments?\n\nNutria"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}