{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2406",
    "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": 2406,
    "subject": "What's so funny about PEACE, love, and understanding?",
    "messages": 5,
    "voices": 3,
    "first": "2000-10-19T12:01:40+00:00",
    "last": "2000-10-28T00:53:58+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0030-0031@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes",
        "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com"
      },
      "date": "2000-10-19T12:01:40+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) What's so funny about PEACE, love, and understanding?",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
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          "kind": "text",
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          "text": "The Subject: line refers to the fact that I love PEACE, think it is in\nplaces a \nvery funny book, and would very much like to understand it. 8*) \n\nMantis, Doug Eigsti and I have been involved in an off-line trialogue over\nPEACE \nwhich seems to have achieved a sort of critical (no pun intended) mass.\n\nThe rest of this contains -- obligatory warning -- Spoilers For PEACE. In \nparticular, it involves a struggle toward understanding the frame-tale of\nPEACE.\n\nI take as a given (though I guess Doug doesn't) that, yes, dammit, Weer is\ndead, and was \"awakened\" by the blowing-over of the elm tree planted by \nEleanor Bold on his grave. In at least on interview available on line (the\none with James Jordan, at http://world.std.com/~pduggan/wolfejbj.html),\nWolfe\nmakes it clear that this is his intent. Further, he's going over his life,\nin some way, in some form, attempting to make sense of it -- seeking peace.\nHe apparently did not think of \"Purgatory\" as the model for this (but \naccepts it as a reasonable interpretation).\n\nOkay, then. How to view this frame story?\n\nSimply:  It isn't just the frame; it's the real story. PEACE is _not_ the \nstory of Weer's life. It is the story of Weer telling (or retelling or \nrehashing) the story of Weer's life. \n\nWhen? Well, one reference I found, www.elmcare.com informs us that \"Fully \nmature elm trees can live as long as 300 years.\" So we can take the late\ntwenty-first century as a very conservative date. Weer isn't exaggerating\nwhen he says \"everyone\" is dead -- this may or may not refer to some \"fall\nof America,\" but it's certainly true at the surface level. Everyone Weer\nknew, everyone he perceives in the imaginary(?) Doctor Van Ness's office, \nis dead.\n\n\nAlso, \"The American Elm grows to over 115 feet tall and can have a \ndiameter in excess of ten feet.\" This gives some feeling for the \nopening sequence, I think.\n\nSo.\n\nTo understand PEACE we have to understand _why_ Weer is telling his \nstory; to understand that, we need to understand when, and to whom, \nhe believes he is writing.\n\nWeer is clearly a classic Lupine unreliable narrator. I'm not sure I'm \nready to go so far as to say he lies; but his elisions, evasions, \ncircumlocutions, and omissions may amount to lies. We, of course, can \nbase our understandings only on his words; thus we don't have the \nadvantage classic irony offers of \"what we readers know that the \nnarrator doesn't.\"\n\nI'll make a further assertion: I posit that Wolfe had a definite order \nof events, and a definite time of narration, in mind when he sat down \nto write PEACE. \n\nThis does not mean that we can definitely know them -- he _may_ have \ndeliberately effaced evidence, planted false clues, etc., to create \na narrative which allows multiple, contradictory readings. But I don't \nthink so; my sense is that Wolfe plays fair. Not everything has an \nanswer, but everything set as a challenge does: and the nature of \nPEACE is clearly a challenge.\n\nOkay, about that elm tree. If it's Weer's grave tree, then why doesn't \nhe say so? Does he not know? Is he not _permitted_ to know? or is he \nin deep denial about being dead? \n\nThe book is oddly full of evasions about death. Weer almost never \nmentions the deaths of anyone in the book -- the only deaths I recall \nbeing stated openly are Bobby Black's and Sherry Gold's: and both of \nthese are characters for whose deaths he feels or may feel responsible/\nguilty; and both of them are characters for whose death he rather \nelaborately evades taking any responsibility. (Weer doesn't say he \npushed Bobby down the stairs, but that Bobby \"fell;\" and he goes out \nof his way to make Sherry the instigator of everything between them, \nand of her death, he says only that she killed herself.)\n\nAs for the last page -- there is the odd detail about the appointment \nnote nailed to the desk (see the beginning of part 5 to see why this \nis odd); but the real point is the voice of Aunt Olivia, coming over \nthe intercom -- \"Den, darling, are you awake in there?\" As it \ninterrupted the never-to-be-completed story of Princess Elaia and \nher suitors (and see Mantis' recent posting about that), so too it\ninterrupts our story of Den Weer, and if it ever \"comes out,\" we \nshan't know about it. \n\nOne thing the line signifies clearly: it is time to stop reading.\n\nBut why is her voice coming over the intercom? And is it to wake \nhim or to send him (back) to sleep? Or is it just a last bit of \nrandom memory as his mind finally disintegrates?\n\n*****\n\nSome onomastics:\n\nFrom www.baby-names-meanings.com:\n\tALDEN: Defender\n\tDENNIS: Worshipper\n\n(\"4babynames.com\" gives Dennis as \"wild, frenzied\" and derives\nit from Dionysius.)\n\nJohn Alden, of course, was one of the signatories of the Mayflower \nCompact, whom we mostly know from the \"Courtship of Miles Standish.\" \n\nI don't find any Saint Alden; the nearest I can spot is an Aldo, \nvisionary and giver-to-the-poor (feastday 4/26). St. Denis, on the \nother hand, is quite important -- missionary to Gaul, first bishop \nof Paris, who was martyred (along with SSs Rusticus and Eleutherius) \nby beheading and is thus the patron of France. His remains rest at \nthe abbey of St-Denis in Paris (mention of which I seem to recall \nin Proust: and PEACE is in its way a very Proust-influenced novel). \nMaking matters more confused, his story got munged in with those of \nDionysius the Areopagite and the patristic writer pseudo-Dionysius.\n\nSince the last name is Dutch, I checked an on-line Dutch-English \ndictionary (http://dictionaries.travlang.com/DutchEnglish/), which \ngives this:\n\nweer\n  1. defence, defense\n  2. again, all over again, anew\n  3. again, once more\n  4. weather\n\n... while the only English meaning I find for \"weer\" is \"wee-er,\" \nvery small, or very early in the morning. Going to the nearest \nhomonym, \"weir,\" I get \n\n    1 : a fence or enclosure set in a waterway for \n        taking fish\n    2 : a dam in a stream or river to raise the water \n        level or divert its flow\n\nWhat's particularly interesting to me is the etymology:\n\n      Etymology: Middle English were, from Old English wer; \n      akin to Old Norse ver fishing place, Old High German \n      werien, werren to defend. Date: before 12th century\n\nH'mmm. There's the concept of defense again. \n\nAnd then there's \"Den\":\n\n      1 : the lair of a wild usually predatory animal\n      2 a (1) : a hollow or cavern used especially as\n          a hideout (2) : a center of secret activity \n          b : a small usually squalid dwelling\n      3 : a comfortable usually secluded room\n      4 : a subdivision of a Cub Scout pack made up of two \n          or more boys \n\nThe name then is: Defender - Worshipper/Wild one -- Defense, \nwith a nickname meaning safe place. Is it too much to suggest \nthat Weer is defensive about his life?\n\n***\n\nWho are the doctors that \"can be consulted though dead\" (a nice \nbit of ambiguity there -- it can be \"though they are dead,\" but \nalso \"though I am dead\"). My feeling is that they are in some \nsense more than just memories; that they in fact instigate W's \nreexamination of his life and crimes. Note for example that the \nvery first remniscence -- the birthday party -- is a very slippery \ntransition in response to a question of Van Ness's:\n\n\t\t\"How old are you, Mr. Weer?\"\n\t\tI tell him. (My best guess.)\n\t\tHis mouth makes a tiny noise, and he opens the file\n\tfolder he carries and tells me my birthday. It is in May, \n\tand there is a party, ostensibly for me, in the garden. I am\n\tfive...\n\nThe doctors seem to be more than Weer's memory-reconstructions for\n\"consultating.\" They actively guide him into remembering -- through \nthe TAT among other things. \n\nAll right, then: suppose they are active agents seeking to bring him\nto \"peace\"? Psychopomps? Angels, sent by or through the prayers of \n(say) his aunts and parents? This is still a bit vague, but it seems\nto give the whole a kind of shape. And consider Weer's non-vision --\nhis feeling that if he goes out of the house, he'll see faces looking\ndown at him (but he doesn't).\n\n***\n\nSpeaking of the house.\n\nWeer definitely built a house in life. He probably even built some \n\"memory rooms\" (which explains the \"architect\" comment). \n\nBut what he's wandering in is not the physical house but, coming back \nto it yet again, that egregious memory mansion -- or, \"his life.\" \nIt's his memory, conceived of as a house. \n\nNone of which is to say that he isn't _also_ haunting his actual \nhouse. So we get Wolfe doing his typical foxy, or even Wolfey, tricks \n-- the house is both real and metaphorical, the memory mansion and \nthe real mansion, overlaid upon each other but not identical, and \nWeer getting lost in one becomes disoriented in the other.\n\n(And another side note, because these things just keep popping into \nmy head: a NYRSF article Mantis brought to my attention makes a \ngreat deal about the \"e\" from \"Werwolf\" winding its way to \"Weer,\" \nand since Wolfe has said that there's more of himself in Weer than \nany other of his characters, I guess \"Weer-Wolfe\" becomes a Wolfey \npun, modulo this is a ghost story rather than a werewolf story...)\n\nWeer is not a memory expert, does not have a very well organized \nmemory; so he gets lost in his \"house,\" which we experience as the \ndigressive and wandering style in which he \"tells\" his \"story.\"\n\nFurther, much that doubtless seemed important to Weer during life \ndoesn't get covered in the novel: for example, he's an engineer, \nso he presumably went to college at some point; but I don't think \nwe even know what college he went to ... in fact, I don't recall \nmuch mention of Weer's formal education at _all_. So either his \neducation doesn't matter at all to ghost-Weer, or it's so important \nthat he evades it; but there are none of the usual signs of \nevasiveness, so I conclude that it's just not important to him in \nhis search for peace. On the other hand, the fact that he killed \nBobby Black is, but he can't bring himself to say it.\n\nBasic principle of interpretation:\n\nThings not mentioned at all simply aren't important; things hinted\nat but not stated outright are (the most) important (of all).\n\n***\n\nWhat does it mean that he seems to be (or to believe that he is) \n\"writing\"?  \n\nFrom early times, memory has been conceived of as a process of writing \nor \"inscribing\"; I believe Aristotle used this metaphor. In \"writing\" \nis he in fact re-inscribing his memories -- trying, as Wolfe has said \nin that interview, to make sense of his life -- by revising his memory \ninto a \"preferred\" version? One, say, in which he doesn't need to \nexplicitly think about pushing Bobby Black down the stairs, in which \nhe doesn't need to explicitly think about who locked whom in the \nfreezer room that day in 19(38?): the \"good parts\" version of his own \nlife, so to speak. \n\nShades of Freud's magic writing tablet...\n\n-- but to Wolfe, I should think, this would _not_ allow him to achieve \npeace; he can do so only by coming to terms with his \"sins\" and \naccepting them _as_ sins so he can be forgiven them. (At least so I \nunderstand the doctrines regarding repentance and forgiveness.) I'm \nnot intending here to harp on the \"purgatorial\" aspect, but trying \nrather to understand what Wolfe would expect \"peace\" to involve.\n\n***\n\nSo after all this, oddly enough, we begin to see that PEACE actually\nhas a very \"linear\" aspect: it begins with the freeing of the spirit\nor ghost of Alden Dennis Weer, and ends... Where? \"Den, darling, are \nyou awake in there?\" \n\n(And why _is_ Olivia's voice coming over an intercom she almost \ncertainly never used in life?)\n\nWild-assed guess: if we conclude that Den _does_ actually achieve \n\"peace,\" then Aunt Vi is inviting him to Move On to the Next Stage \n-- in RC terms, to \"graduate\" from Purgatory to Heaven. \n\nAlternatively, she is informing him that it's time to stop \"reading\"\nand \"writing\" and get on with the business at hand, to actually come\nto terms with the \"stuff\" he has avoided/evaded/elided. \n\nA depressing alternate interpretation: He _can't_ deal with these \nthings, and will not achieve peace at all (the \"stagnation\" model \n-- not at all beyond the man who chose the \"do-nothing future\" for\nhis masterwork).\n\nThis matters a great deal to me -- if we've got the meaning of the \nopening line \"settled,\" I want to feel equally confident that we \nhave some idea about the close. I still think that the appointment \nnote nailed to the desk, the intercom, and the other details of \nthe last para all add up to *something*. But I'm not at all clear on\n*what*.\n\n*** \n\nMantis expressed this concern:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "... a straight-line, non-ambiguous reading disposes of most of\nthe novel: it reduces it to a single reading, which, while I\nagree that the reading is supported by text and interviews, is\nstill ... stunted, truncated, over-simplified ..."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I don't see that giving the frame story a clear (even linear) \nreading reduces the whole novel to that. This is \"the story of \nWeer telling Weer's story,\" which by its very nature is going to \nbe twisted and convoluted, and probably ambiguous and possibly \nself-contradictory. \n\nBut the puzzles -- the real puzzles; I get the impression from \nthese various interviews that Wolfe is himself a bit puzzled \nthat anyone would consider the time of narration a puzzle -- \nare in the story Weer tells, not the story of Weer telling it. \n\nClarifying the time-and-place of his telling may help wrap them \nin a context, making the puzzles and (hypothetical) solutions \nmore \"meaningful\" (i.e., why are _these_ the incidents he \nchooses to narrate, out of a long life?), but I don't think it \nsimplifies them any.\n\n***\n\nOkay, I guess I have to pick a Vironese name now, right? Call me\n\n-- Blattid"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0030-0032@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes",
        "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com"
      },
      "date": "2000-10-19T12:01:40+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) What's so funny about PEACE, love, and understanding?",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0030-0031@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
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          "kind": "text",
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          "text": "The Subject: line refers to the fact that I love PEACE, think it is in\nplaces a \nvery funny book, and would very much like to understand it. 8*) \n\nMantis, Doug Eigsti and I have been involved in an off-line trialogue over\nPEACE \nwhich seems to have achieved a sort of critical (no pun intended) mass.\n\nThe rest of this contains -- obligatory warning -- Spoilers For PEACE. In \nparticular, it involves a struggle toward understanding the frame-tale of\nPEACE.\n\nI take as a given (though I guess Doug doesn't) that, yes, dammit, Weer is\ndead, and was \"awakened\" by the blowing-over of the elm tree planted by \nEleanor Bold on his grave. In at least on interview available on line (the\none with James Jordan, at http://world.std.com/~pduggan/wolfejbj.html),\nWolfe\nmakes it clear that this is his intent. Further, he's going over his life,\nin some way, in some form, attempting to make sense of it -- seeking peace.\nHe apparently did not think of \"Purgatory\" as the model for this (but \naccepts it as a reasonable interpretation).\n\nOkay, then. How to view this frame story?\n\nSimply:  It isn't just the frame; it's the real story. PEACE is _not_ the \nstory of Weer's life. It is the story of Weer telling (or retelling or \nrehashing) the story of Weer's life. \n\nWhen? Well, one reference I found, www.elmcare.com informs us that \"Fully \nmature elm trees can live as long as 300 years.\" So we can take the late\ntwenty-first century as a very conservative date. Weer isn't exaggerating\nwhen he says \"everyone\" is dead -- this may or may not refer to some \"fall\nof America,\" but it's certainly true at the surface level. Everyone Weer\nknew, everyone he perceives in the imaginary(?) Doctor Van Ness's office, \nis dead.\n\n\nAlso, \"The American Elm grows to over 115 feet tall and can have a \ndiameter in excess of ten feet.\" This gives some feeling for the \nopening sequence, I think.\n\nSo.\n\nTo understand PEACE we have to understand _why_ Weer is telling his \nstory; to understand that, we need to understand when, and to whom, \nhe believes he is writing.\n\nWeer is clearly a classic Lupine unreliable narrator. I'm not sure I'm \nready to go so far as to say he lies; but his elisions, evasions, \ncircumlocutions, and omissions may amount to lies. We, of course, can \nbase our understandings only on his words; thus we don't have the \nadvantage classic irony offers of \"what we readers know that the \nnarrator doesn't.\"\n\nI'll make a further assertion: I posit that Wolfe had a definite order \nof events, and a definite time of narration, in mind when he sat down \nto write PEACE. \n\nThis does not mean that we can definitely know them -- he _may_ have \ndeliberately effaced evidence, planted false clues, etc., to create \na narrative which allows multiple, contradictory readings. But I don't \nthink so; my sense is that Wolfe plays fair. Not everything has an \nanswer, but everything set as a challenge does: and the nature of \nPEACE is clearly a challenge.\n\nOkay, about that elm tree. If it's Weer's grave tree, then why doesn't \nhe say so? Does he not know? Is he not _permitted_ to know? or is he \nin deep denial about being dead? \n\nThe book is oddly full of evasions about death. Weer almost never \nmentions the deaths of anyone in the book -- the only deaths I recall \nbeing stated openly are Bobby Black's and Sherry Gold's: and both of \nthese are characters for whose deaths he feels or may feel responsible/\nguilty; and both of them are characters for whose death he rather \nelaborately evades taking any responsibility. (Weer doesn't say he \npushed Bobby down the stairs, but that Bobby \"fell;\" and he goes out \nof his way to make Sherry the instigator of everything between them, \nand of her death, he says only that she killed herself.)\n\nAs for the last page -- there is the odd detail about the appointment \nnote nailed to the desk (see the beginning of part 5 to see why this \nis odd); but the real point is the voice of Aunt Olivia, coming over \nthe intercom -- \"Den, darling, are you awake in there?\" As it \ninterrupted the never-to-be-completed story of Princess Elaia and \nher suitors (and see Mantis' recent posting about that), so too it\ninterrupts our story of Den Weer, and if it ever \"comes out,\" we \nshan't know about it. \n\nOne thing the line signifies clearly: it is time to stop reading.\n\nBut why is her voice coming over the intercom? And is it to wake \nhim or to send him (back) to sleep? Or is it just a last bit of \nrandom memory as his mind finally disintegrates?\n\n*****\n\nSome onomastics:\n\nFrom www.baby-names-meanings.com:\n\tALDEN: Defender\n\tDENNIS: Worshipper\n\n(\"4babynames.com\" gives Dennis as \"wild, frenzied\" and derives\nit from Dionysius.)\n\nJohn Alden, of course, was one of the signatories of the Mayflower \nCompact, whom we mostly know from the \"Courtship of Miles Standish.\" \n\nI don't find any Saint Alden; the nearest I can spot is an Aldo, \nvisionary and giver-to-the-poor (feastday 4/26). St. Denis, on the \nother hand, is quite important -- missionary to Gaul, first bishop \nof Paris, who was martyred (along with SSs Rusticus and Eleutherius) \nby beheading and is thus the patron of France. His remains rest at \nthe abbey of St-Denis in Paris (mention of which I seem to recall \nin Proust: and PEACE is in its way a very Proust-influenced novel). \nMaking matters more confused, his story got munged in with those of \nDionysius the Areopagite and the patristic writer pseudo-Dionysius.\n\nSince the last name is Dutch, I checked an on-line Dutch-English \ndictionary (http://dictionaries.travlang.com/DutchEnglish/), which \ngives this:\n\nweer\n  1. defence, defense\n  2. again, all over again, anew\n  3. again, once more\n  4. weather\n\n... while the only English meaning I find for \"weer\" is \"wee-er,\" \nvery small, or very early in the morning. Going to the nearest \nhomonym, \"weir,\" I get \n\n    1 : a fence or enclosure set in a waterway for \n        taking fish\n    2 : a dam in a stream or river to raise the water \n        level or divert its flow\n\nWhat's particularly interesting to me is the etymology:\n\n      Etymology: Middle English were, from Old English wer; \n      akin to Old Norse ver fishing place, Old High German \n      werien, werren to defend. Date: before 12th century\n\nH'mmm. There's the concept of defense again. \n\nAnd then there's \"Den\":\n\n      1 : the lair of a wild usually predatory animal\n      2 a (1) : a hollow or cavern used especially as\n          a hideout (2) : a center of secret activity \n          b : a small usually squalid dwelling\n      3 : a comfortable usually secluded room\n      4 : a subdivision of a Cub Scout pack made up of two \n          or more boys \n\nThe name then is: Defender - Worshipper/Wild one -- Defense, \nwith a nickname meaning safe place. Is it too much to suggest \nthat Weer is defensive about his life?\n\n***\n\nWho are the doctors that \"can be consulted though dead\" (a nice \nbit of ambiguity there -- it can be \"though they are dead,\" but \nalso \"though I am dead\"). My feeling is that they are in some \nsense more than just memories; that they in fact instigate W's \nreexamination of his life and crimes. Note for example that the \nvery first remniscence -- the birthday party -- is a very slippery \ntransition in response to a question of Van Ness's:\n\n\t\t\"How old are you, Mr. Weer?\"\n\t\tI tell him. (My best guess.)\n\t\tHis mouth makes a tiny noise, and he opens the file\n\tfolder he carries and tells me my birthday. It is in May, \n\tand there is a party, ostensibly for me, in the garden. I am\n\tfive...\n\nThe doctors seem to be more than Weer's memory-reconstructions for\n\"consultating.\" They actively guide him into remembering -- through \nthe TAT among other things. \n\nAll right, then: suppose they are active agents seeking to bring him\nto \"peace\"? Psychopomps? Angels, sent by or through the prayers of \n(say) his aunts and parents? This is still a bit vague, but it seems\nto give the whole a kind of shape. And consider Weer's non-vision --\nhis feeling that if he goes out of the house, he'll see faces looking\ndown at him (but he doesn't).\n\n***\n\nSpeaking of the house.\n\nWeer definitely built a house in life. He probably even built some \n\"memory rooms\" (which explains the \"architect\" comment). \n\nBut what he's wandering in is not the physical house but, coming back \nto it yet again, that egregious memory mansion -- or, \"his life.\" \nIt's his memory, conceived of as a house. \n\nNone of which is to say that he isn't _also_ haunting his actual \nhouse. So we get Wolfe doing his typical foxy, or even Wolfey, tricks \n-- the house is both real and metaphorical, the memory mansion and \nthe real mansion, overlaid upon each other but not identical, and \nWeer getting lost in one becomes disoriented in the other.\n\n(And another side note, because these things just keep popping into \nmy head: a NYRSF article Mantis brought to my attention makes a \ngreat deal about the \"e\" from \"Werwolf\" winding its way to \"Weer,\" \nand since Wolfe has said that there's more of himself in Weer than \nany other of his characters, I guess \"Weer-Wolfe\" becomes a Wolfey \npun, modulo this is a ghost story rather than a werewolf story...)\n\nWeer is not a memory expert, does not have a very well organized \nmemory; so he gets lost in his \"house,\" which we experience as the \ndigressive and wandering style in which he \"tells\" his \"story.\"\n\nFurther, much that doubtless seemed important to Weer during life \ndoesn't get covered in the novel: for example, he's an engineer, \nso he presumably went to college at some point; but I don't think \nwe even know what college he went to ... in fact, I don't recall \nmuch mention of Weer's formal education at _all_. So either his \neducation doesn't matter at all to ghost-Weer, or it's so important \nthat he evades it; but there are none of the usual signs of \nevasiveness, so I conclude that it's just not important to him in \nhis search for peace. On the other hand, the fact that he killed \nBobby Black is, but he can't bring himself to say it.\n\nBasic principle of interpretation:\n\nThings not mentioned at all simply aren't important; things hinted\nat but not stated outright are (the most) important (of all).\n\n***\n\nWhat does it mean that he seems to be (or to believe that he is) \n\"writing\"?  \n\nFrom early times, memory has been conceived of as a process of writing \nor \"inscribing\"; I believe Aristotle used this metaphor. In \"writing\" \nis he in fact re-inscribing his memories -- trying, as Wolfe has said \nin that interview, to make sense of his life -- by revising his memory \ninto a \"preferred\" version? One, say, in which he doesn't need to \nexplicitly think about pushing Bobby Black down the stairs, in which \nhe doesn't need to explicitly think about who locked whom in the \nfreezer room that day in 19(38?): the \"good parts\" version of his own \nlife, so to speak. \n\nShades of Freud's magic writing tablet...\n\n-- but to Wolfe, I should think, this would _not_ allow him to achieve \npeace; he can do so only by coming to terms with his \"sins\" and \naccepting them _as_ sins so he can be forgiven them. (At least so I \nunderstand the doctrines regarding repentance and forgiveness.) I'm \nnot intending here to harp on the \"purgatorial\" aspect, but trying \nrather to understand what Wolfe would expect \"peace\" to involve.\n\n***\n\nSo after all this, oddly enough, we begin to see that PEACE actually\nhas a very \"linear\" aspect: it begins with the freeing of the spirit\nor ghost of Alden Dennis Weer, and ends... Where? \"Den, darling, are \nyou awake in there?\" \n\n(And why _is_ Olivia's voice coming over an intercom she almost \ncertainly never used in life?)\n\nWild-assed guess: if we conclude that Den _does_ actually achieve \n\"peace,\" then Aunt Vi is inviting him to Move On to the Next Stage \n-- in RC terms, to \"graduate\" from Purgatory to Heaven. \n\nAlternatively, she is informing him that it's time to stop \"reading\"\nand \"writing\" and get on with the business at hand, to actually come\nto terms with the \"stuff\" he has avoided/evaded/elided. \n\nA depressing alternate interpretation: He _can't_ deal with these \nthings, and will not achieve peace at all (the \"stagnation\" model \n-- not at all beyond the man who chose the \"do-nothing future\" for\nhis masterwork).\n\nThis matters a great deal to me -- if we've got the meaning of the \nopening line \"settled,\" I want to feel equally confident that we \nhave some idea about the close. I still think that the appointment \nnote nailed to the desk, the intercom, and the other details of \nthe last para all add up to *something*. But I'm not at all clear on\n*what*.\n\n*** \n\nMantis expressed this concern:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "... a straight-line, non-ambiguous reading disposes of most of\nthe novel: it reduces it to a single reading, which, while I\nagree that the reading is supported by text and interviews, is\nstill ... stunted, truncated, over-simplified ..."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I don't see that giving the frame story a clear (even linear) \nreading reduces the whole novel to that. This is \"the story of \nWeer telling Weer's story,\" which by its very nature is going to \nbe twisted and convoluted, and probably ambiguous and possibly \nself-contradictory. \n\nBut the puzzles -- the real puzzles; I get the impression from \nthese various interviews that Wolfe is himself a bit puzzled \nthat anyone would consider the time of narration a puzzle -- \nare in the story Weer tells, not the story of Weer telling it. \n\nClarifying the time-and-place of his telling may help wrap them \nin a context, making the puzzles and (hypothetical) solutions \nmore \"meaningful\" (i.e., why are _these_ the incidents he \nchooses to narrate, out of a long life?), but I don't think it \nsimplifies them any.\n\n***\n\nOkay, I guess I have to pick a Vironese name now, right? Call me\n\n-- Blattid"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0030-0033@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Alex David Groce",
        "address": "alex_groce at gs246.sp.cs.cmu.edu"
      },
      "date": "2000-10-19T16:25:20+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (urth) What's so funny about PEACE, love, and understanding?",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0030-0032@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "mantis, blattid:\n\nFabulous work on PEACE!\n\n\nOne very minor thing I'll add immediately: the lich and something else\nthat I can't find right now (damnit, I need a searchable text version\nof Wolfe's work) suggest that Weer's \"memory house\" may also be his\nskull.  That is, his ghost is haunting the interior of his skull as a\nhouse (and where, in life, his memory dwelled).\n\n\nAlso, on the more general topics: a unified list would be fine with\nme.  Ads won't bother me much, although if the mail suddenly becomes\nHTMLified crap, I will probably just read the online archives if they\nexist, since I, like any red-blooded computer science grad student,\nread my mail directly from the command line with UNIX mh.  \n\nAnd, of course, vast kudos and thanks to Ranjit for the list."
        },
        {
          "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": "<urth-v0030-0034@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Alex David Groce",
        "address": "alex_groce at gs246.sp.cs.cmu.edu"
      },
      "date": "2000-10-19T16:25:20+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (urth) What's so funny about PEACE, love, and understanding?",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0030-0033@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "mantis, blattid:\n\nFabulous work on PEACE!\n\n\nOne very minor thing I'll add immediately: the lich and something else\nthat I can't find right now (damnit, I need a searchable text version\nof Wolfe's work) suggest that Weer's \"memory house\" may also be his\nskull.  That is, his ghost is haunting the interior of his skull as a\nhouse (and where, in life, his memory dwelled).\n\n\nAlso, on the more general topics: a unified list would be fine with\nme.  Ads won't bother me much, although if the mail suddenly becomes\nHTMLified crap, I will probably just read the online archives if they\nexist, since I, like any red-blooded computer science grad student,\nread my mail directly from the command line with UNIX mh.  \n\nAnd, of course, vast kudos and thanks to Ranjit for the list."
        },
        {
          "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": "<urth-v0030-0071@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Adam Stephanides",
        "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net"
      },
      "date": "2000-10-28T00:53:58+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (urth) What's so funny about PEACE, love, and understanding?",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0030-0034@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I keep meaning to post my reactions to the Doctors-as-guides theory, but\nnever getting around to it.  Maybe tomorrow.  (But as long as I'm on the\nsubject, why did Wolfe put in the visit to Dr. Black?  Dr. Black doesn't\nelicit any memories; we do get mantis's Liberty clue, but that could\nhave been stuck in elsewhere, as could Weer's excursion into\nmetaphysics.  The only thing in Weer's visit to Black that couldn't have\nbeen put in elsewhere, as far as I can tell, is his unforgivable\ntactlessness (even to a figment of his imagination).  Maybe that's the\npoint.)\n\nFor now, just a few quick comments/queries on Dan'l's original post."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:\n\nThe book is oddly full of evasions about death. Weer almost never\nmentions the deaths of anyone in the book -- the only deaths I recall\nbeing stated openly are Bobby Black's and Sherry Gold's"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I'm not sure what you mean here; Weer frequently, even obsessively,\ntalks about people being dead.  If you're drawing a distinction between\nsaying that a character \"is dead\" and describing their death, there's\nstill Olivia, Doris, and the coldroom victim; and I don't remember\nSherry's death being described."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "and he goes out\nof his way to make Sherry the instigator of everything between them,"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I'm not so sure about this.  The sequence of events is:\n\n1)  Weer notices Sherry's hand moving toward the waistband of her skirt.\n\n2)  Sherry asks Weer, \"'You're not going to the _police_?'\"\n\n3)  \"To see what she would say,\" Weer tells her that he's going to track\ndown her father's victims.\n\n4)  Sherry offers herself.\n\nWeer may not consciously intend sexual blackmail, but he's at least\ntoying with Sherry rather sadistically; and the giveaway phrase, \"to see\nwhat she would say,\" is supplied quite freely by Weer himself."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "and of her death, he says only that she killed herself.)"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Do you have a reference for this?  I don't recall this at all, and I\njust reread the book."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "As for the last page -- there is the odd detail about the appointment\nnote nailed to the desk (see the beginning of part 5 to see why this\nis odd)"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I'm not sure what part of the beginning of part 5 you're referring to. \nIn any case, the significance of the appointment note being nailed to\nthe desk is that he is now in his \"memory office,\" as I said in an\nearlier post.  (And, I would argue, since it's very unlikely that that\nparticular note was included by the architect in the \"stage properties,\"\nits presence shows that he is not in his real memory office, if one\nexists, but inside his own skull.)\n\nOn a more positive note, I want to thank everyone who's participated in\nthis discussion; I've learned a lot from everybody's posts.  If I\nsometimes seem overcritical, it's just my eagerness to understand this\nbrilliant, maddening book.\n\n--Adam"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}