Subject: (urth) PEACE: Olivia's house expanded?

From: Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis at sirius.com>
Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2000 17:05:15 +0000

Roy wrote
>He describes his aunt's house as having "rambling walls that never ran
>straight for more than one room at a stretch" (p.40), and in his
>museum-roomed house there is "the smaller of the halls, the crooked one"
>(p.135), and "Down the corridor and through my aunt Olivia's solarium"
>(p.79). There is a flower garden on one side of the room he wakes up in on
>the first page, as there was on one side of his aunt's house. Could it be?
>His memory mansion superimposed on the house where he was living for much of
>the time period covered by the book? Where he in fact heard his aunt's voice
>saying "Den, darling, are you awake in there?"

Crafty Roy seems to be saying that the memory mansion was begun on the
grounds and form of Olivia's house.  Outrageous!  And yet, here is another
strange detail that may back him up: one of the only other mentions of elm
trees in the book tells us that elms are along the street in front of
Olivia's house.

Or sneaky Roy might be saying that the memory palace (i.e., a purely
cerebral construction) has its mneumonic foundation in Olivia's house.

FWIW, Olivia's house is on the same block as John Weer's house, but across
the alley (and thus on a different street).  Since many of the streets have
tree names, does this mean that Olivia's house is on "Elm Street" (which is
not one of the given street names) and the other streets have their name
trees along them, too?

Back to memory mansion: the implication is that Den died and was buried in
the yard of his mansion, right?  (If we want to cling to the literal
interpretation and avoid the yawning chasm of pure solipsism.)  Like Elvis,
etc.

=mantis=

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/

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From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 01:36:11 +0000

mantis wrote:

<<Crafty Roy seems to be saying that the memory mansion was begun on the
grounds and form of Olivia's house.  Outrageous!>>

<<Or sneaky Roy might be saying that the memory palace (i.e., a purely
cerebral construction) has its mneumonic foundation in Olivia's house.>>

    Or both. If Wolfe himself maintained that the museum-roomed house did
not in fact exist, but was a supernatural or mental aberration, then it
would seem that not even he had any clear-cut idea of its structure. Still
(and I'm not really invested in this notion), Den was rich and he had to
live _somewhere_. The remark to Lois about the house in town he wanted to
own leads me to Olivia's old house; there just aren't any other candidates,
unless it be the unmentioned home of Julius Smart, who also had to be living
_somewhere_, and it wasn't Olivia's house, because that was already the town
library.  And there was at least one other room from her house in his memory
mansion, the one with the Napoleon figure. And we agree that not all of the
described rooms ever actually existed (e.g., the Persian room).

    Then there are the nitty-gritty details few here like to belabor, such
that at the time of Den's imaginary visit to Dr. Van Ness, where he sought
medical advice for his non-existent stroke, Den was then new to the
presidency, yet the doctor advised him to exercise in his "large garden". I
don't think the huge house that is implied by the memory mansion, complete
with flower garden, could have been built in the time available.

<<Back to memory mansion: the implication is that Den died and was buried in
the yard of his mansion, right?  (If we want to cling to the literal
interpretation and avoid the yawning chasm of pure solipsism.)  Like
Elvis,etc.>>

    Could be. The elm tree _was_  just outside his window, and was to be
planted on his grave.

Roy