{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2297",
    "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": 2297,
    "subject": "Smoky Barnstable",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2000-06-28T13:48:34+00:00",
    "last": "2000-06-28T13:48:34+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0029-0089@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "akt",
        "address": "akt at attglobal.net"
      },
      "date": "2000-06-28T13:48:34+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Smoky Barnstable",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Hastily after a looong weekend:\n\nSaid Adam:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "I haven't reread the whole book in a long time, but the only evidence\nbearing on these questions I can find offhand is in the section\ndealing\nwith Smoky's childhood: Smoky \"lived a lot in three different suburbs\nwith the same name in three different cities, and in each his\nrelatives\ncalled him by a different name--his own, his father's, and\nSmoky--which\nlast so suited his evanescence that he kept it.\" (\"Anonymity,\" I, 1,\np.\n6 in Bantam TPB.)  Which seems to mean that Smoky's father was not\ncalled Evan (since his name was \"different\"), and suggests that Smoky\nwas first addressed as  Smoky by his relatives and not by his father,\nthough Smoky may still be his middle name."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I doubt it. It's a nickname for a boy who seems to be \"streak of\npresence surrounded by a dim glow of absence,\" and whom only cheerful\nGeorge Mouse clothes in enough presense so that at least the Invisible\nMan has bandages so that people won't sit on him. It is the Drinkwaters,\nmainly Alice, who cure him of anonymity. At least, en famille."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "(When I think of his family I just remember his five uncles"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Actually, they were Smoky's half-brothers and sisters."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Right."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "There is more information on Smoky's family and childhood, but very\nlittle; which is kind of peculiar, come to think of it, given the\namount\nwe're told about the Drinkwaters.  This would seem to argue against\nthe\nview that sees Smoky as the positive pole of the book and the\nDrinkwaters as the negative pole.  The Drinkwaters are important in\nthemselves; Smoky is only important in relation to the Drinkwaters,\npoignant though his story is.  (It's late at night, though, so I may\nbe\nall wrong about this.)"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "They are not poles; they are complementary. Smoky is terribly important;\nhe is chosen (though he is far to modest to envision himself this way).\nWithout him, the Tale could not be told. Look, this is a trope of\nCrowley's: The ordinary decent man finds himself in extraordinary\ncircumstances, and, without believing at all in the situation which\nothers seem to think merits action, agrees to do what is asked of him,\nto do his duty. It is the existential situation in a fairytale setting.\nNot only Smoky, but Rush who Speaks (from ES) and Pierce Moffit (from\nthe Aegypt series) are heroes of this sort, and I think that Loren\nCasaubon from Beasts started out this way, though he sort of dribbled\noff (like the book). But to reiterate, JCs guys do their damn duty. That\nis their task, their quest, and because they take up that burden,\nwillingly or not (Smoky is willing), the world whirrs.\n\nThe Drinkwaters are NOT negative, btw. To my mind that is a complete\nmisreading. Theirs is not a world of good and evil and judgment calls.\nIt just is.\n\n-alga"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}