{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2212", "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": 2212, "subject": "LB: Drugs, escapism, and cycles", "messages": 1, "voices": 1, "first": "2000-04-29T23:09:57+00:00", "last": "2000-04-29T23:09:57+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Adam Stephanides", "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2000-04-29T23:09:57+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: LB: Drugs, escapism, and cycles", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Nutria wrote:\n[alga wrote]:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "And Alice is not a drug user at all (oh, she may have inhaled once or\ntwice, but who hasn't?)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " There was some kind of reference toward the end of the novel that George\nMouse, Smokey, and the two sisters were getting high in Mouse's apartment.\nMaybe I mis-read that. I was taking it as a \"first step down a risky road\"\nmotif. As I said, I wrote my post because I was very unsure of my take on\nthe novel." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That was one of George's false \"recollections\" when lost in the forest;\nand even within this delusion, George is the only one who is high (and\nit's Franz, not Sophie, who is the fourth person present). So it\ndoesn't prove anything. On the other hand, IIRC George at one point\ngives Smoky and Alice a present of high-quality hash, and there's no\nindication that she finds the gift unwelcome. So it seems likely that\nAlice was a recreational drug user. I for one don't hold it against\nher, and I doubt that Crowley does." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " 2. More generally, it appeared to me that GWoT has a certain theme, and\nthat taken at face value, LB seems to run in the opposite direction. The\ncaution would be: If you reject the real world and look for a world of\nfantasy, escape, irresponsibility, etc., you may well find it." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Value judgments aside, I don't think this is accurate as regards either\nGWoT or LB. The secret society in GWoT weren't trying to escape the\nreal world, they were trying to improve it, misguided as their efforts\nmay have been. And it seems no more justifiable to accuse the\nDrinkwater clan of \"looking for a world of fantasy, escape,\nirresponsibility\" than to accuse the Christian whose eyes are fixed upon\nHeaven of the same thing. To the Drinkwaters, the world of the Tale is\nrealer than the \"real world.\" (And of course, within the book it's not\nfantasy at all.) Of course, you can argue that the Drinkwaters' heaven\nis a false one; but that's a different issue." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "And you may\nthink you like it. But in fact it will be a tiny world, a world without\nreal meaning or future, and you will be reduced to merely two-dimensional\ncharacters, like cards in a deck." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Personally, I feel the same way about the ending (even aside from the\nambiguities I mentioned in my earlier post). I much prefer Smoky's\nquiet heroism, Auberon and Sylvie's love, and even George's cheerful\nhedonism to all the future fairy-tale exploits of \"Titania\" and\n\"Oberon.\" Whether Crowley feels that way, I don't know, even after\nrereading the ending. Crowley's vision is broad enough to embrace\n_both_ sides." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "mantis wrote:\nBut have you [alga] abandoned the\n\"multiple worlds within\" theory for the much more mainstream \"fairy\noneworld\"? Because clearly the family has =replaced= the fifty-two odd\nfairies that inhabit that place at the beginning of a cycle: wars and\naccidents reduced the fairy population down throughout the age (we are\ntold, iirc) until it is near some unspecified \"magic number target\" (this\nis my hunch), at which point it is time for the musical chairs . . ." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No, fifty-two is the number of fairies now. (\"A Parliament,\" Book Six,\nChapter Two). There were originally many more. And if the number of\nDrinkwaters who go \"in\" is indeed fifty-two, which seems likely\n(fifty-two being an important number in LB) this casts doubt on the\n\"cyclical\" theory. So does the assertion, which I seem to recall being\nsomewhere in LB, that the number of doors between worlds is declining\nover time." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Where did all the \"old\" fairies go? They went \"in\" to the next level,\nwhere the population limit is much lower!" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This, it least, is definitely true (except for the part about the\npopulation limit). We see it happening at the end of \"Come or Stay\"\n(Book Six, Chap. Five). " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It seems that the intersection/interaction of this world and the next is\nrather like the conjunctions between Blue and Green: cyclical, recurring,\neternal." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "--Adam" } ] } ] }