{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2399", "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": 2399, "subject": "preliminary notes for PEACE", "messages": 4, "voices": 3, "first": "2000-10-17T13:54:15+00:00", "last": "2000-10-17T22:26:39+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at sirius.com" }, "date": "2000-10-17T13:54:15+00:00", "subject": "(urth) preliminary notes for PEACE", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Let's see, now where was I . . . ?\n\n(I first tried to send this on Sep. 28th; since then I've been chatting a\nbit with Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, mostly about the frametale [in AD 2277; so\nyes, Alex, we've been thinking along the lines you have], and Roy Lackey,\nmostly about the historical timeline from 1904 to 1975 or so. All of which\nshould soon be showing up around here.)\n\nA few important touchstones for my view of PEACE.\n\nObviously this is a book about books, and we could list all of the books\nmentioned, alluded to, read from, et cetera. But I would like to mention\nonly a few:\n\nTHE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS (aka THE ARABIAN NIGHTS): this is important not\nonly for the way that characters all tell stories, but how their stories\nare nested within one another, and how their stories often play off one\nanother. This is a hugh part of PEACE, and then there are the little\ndetails, like the Persian Room in the memory mansion, and the\nstory-fragment of \"ben Yahya and the marid,\" which is quite important.\n\nFairy Tales collected by Andrew Lang: the smorgasbord approach, with\nstories from all sorts of different cultures, yet all having that quirky\n\"fairy tale logic\" which darts here and there. (I've been reading fairy\ntales lately, and wow, are they wild and savage!)\n\nSLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut: the \"unstuck in time\" idea; the\nblurring of memory and active re-enactment, of fact and fantasy. The first\ntime I read PEACE I thought of it as S5 crossed with Faulkner--I didn't\never really grasp that Den might be dead; and in fact, while I recognize\nall the \"grave tree\" pointers, having just re-read the novel I find myself\nquestioning the whole \"Dead Den\" aspect anew: in this context, what is\n\"dead,\" anyway? (More on this, whenever I talk about the frametale and the\nhouse of the ax.)\n\n===\nEnough of that for now. On to another touchstone.\n\nJulius Smart is called by Den the central character of the book; the\nsection devoted to him is titled \"The Alchemist,\" and Smart tells part of\nthe tale of Mr. Tilly, who had the power to transform ordinary people into\ncircus freaks (the conclusion of this tale is supplied by the banker,\nStewart Blaine, in section four). Smart later develops the method of\ntransforming potatoes into a pseudo-citrus beverage that makes him\nunbelievably rich (gold). How large a part does \"alchemy\" play in the\nnovel? (Also note: the section is physically central to the novel, so\nthere is no doubt that Den is having his little pun.)\n\nThis is what I told to Dan'l Danehy-Oakes:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"Alchemy: . . . It was essentially a symbolic process involving the\nendeavour to make gold, regarded as the symbol of illumination and\nsalvation. The four stages of the process were signified by different\ncolours, as follows\" (Cirlot, THE DICTIONARY OF SYMBOLS, hereafter in\ntable form)\n\n1) Black (guilt, origin, latent forces)\n2) White (minor work, first transmutation, quicksilver)\n3) Red (sulphur, passion)\n4) Gold" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Just looking at this sequence brought to mind the five sections of the novel:\n\n1) \"Alden Dennis Weer\"--which is shaped by the injury of Bobby Black.\n2) \"Olivia\"--which is about the courtship of Olivia, shaped by the white egg.\n3) \"The Alchemist\"--which is about Julius Smart and involves murderous\npassions.\n4) \"Gold\"--which is about the Gold family, and the buried gold.\n5) \"The President\"--which is about Den as president.\n\nSo then I continued:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Well \"Black\" at the guilty beginning (Bobby), and \"Gold\" at the fourth\nstep (Lou), that looks like a pretty close fit at least at those two\npoints.\n\nIf it holds out, then maybe the fifth stage is the assaying of the gold;\nthat is, the looking back on the whole thing from the ghostly point of\nview. In his own way, Den the President is a result of a process, like\nthe Philosopher King who was to be produced by Plato's _Republic_, and\nlike Severian the Great by his education in the world: and we come to see\nthat he is a false one (the gold is fake).\n\nTo be fair, there are other systems of dividing the alchemical process\nthat use seven stages and non-color descriptions. But because of the\nBlack/Gold congruence I have been haunted by this four stage, four color\none for some time now, without carrying the investigation any further." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "=mantis=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alex David Groce", "address": "alex_groce at gs246.sp.cs.cmu.edu" }, "date": "2000-10-17T17:03:45+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) preliminary notes for PEACE", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\n\nVery nice, mantis.\n\nOn the \"dead Den\" thesis, I think it is proper to see this as a\npurgatorial fantasy. In my opinion, the final moments of the book do\nindicate that Weer has finished his business with all of the stories\n(tacking them down on the desk) and is heading to join his Aunt in\nparadise.\n\n***SPOILERS*** for Robert Irwin's THE ARABIAN NIGHTMARE follow.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nI became more convinced of this after reading Robert Irwin's THE\nARABIAN NIGHTMARE. I have no idea of Irwin has read any Wolfe (they\nhave some curiously similar choices of vocabulary, at any rate), but\nTHE ARABIAN NIGHTMARE seems to be the opposite situation. In PEACE\nthe recursive nesting of stories is finally broken--Weer, I think,\nhasn't finished telling any of the stories, but he's come to terms\nwith his place in them. The stories aren't finished because they\naren't _his_ stories, alone, but shared with others (hence Smart as\nthe real protagonist). The escape is one of breaking out of the\nnested levels of storytelling (as with the headrest, \"popping the\nstack\"). In Irwin's work (which I strongly recommend to all Lupines)\nthe opposite, I think, occurs. The nesting continues infinitely,\nspiralling downwards into inconclusion, confusion, and madness. The\n\"Ape of God,\" Satan is the opposite of God, the true author. Satan\ncannot finish a story, only avoid properly ending one. The main\ncharacter of TAN is trapped in an endless, exhausting \"untelling\"\nwhile Weer is freed by breaking out of all the stories once he has\ncome to terms with his role in them. Although it is difficult to\n\"prove\" this from the texts, Wolfe's story has a strong implication of\neventual release into another state (especially with the placing of\nthe sidhe story) and is thus a Purgatorial fantasy, while Irwin\nprovides one of the most chilling and disturbing visions of Hell in\nall of fantasy: endless suffering without redemption or even _memory_,\n\"beginnings\" without their necessary endings, and a vast and evil\n_boredom_." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "\"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.\" John 8:32\n--\nAlex David Groce (agroce+ at cs.cmu.edu)\nPh.D. Student, Carnegie Mellon University - Computer Science Department\n8112 Wean Hall (412)-268-3066\nhttp://www.cs.cmu.edu/~agroce" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Jordan", "address": "jbjordan at gnt.net" }, "date": "2000-10-17T22:26:39+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) preliminary notes for PEACE", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't have the time to do this at all right now, but do you think there\nmight be a link between Peace and \"The Island of Dr. Death\"? I'm thinking of\nDr. Black here.\n\nPatera Nutria" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Jordan", "address": "jbjordan at gnt.net" }, "date": "2000-10-17T22:26:39+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) preliminary notes for PEACE", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't have the time to do this at all right now, but do you think there\nmight be a link between Peace and \"The Island of Dr. Death\"? I'm thinking of\nDr. Black here.\n\nPatera Nutria" } ] } ] }