{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2415", "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": 2415, "subject": "PEACE: ben Yahya and the Marid", "messages": 3, "voices": 2, "first": "2000-10-23T15:38:05+00:00", "last": "2000-10-23T22:38:49+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at sirius.com" }, "date": "2000-10-23T15:38:05+00:00", "subject": "(urth) PEACE: ben Yahya and the Marid", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This is the story fragment that has all the marks of being a genuine\nARABIAN NIGHTS tale: style, form, and substance.\n\nThe tale erupts into the narrative flow when Den (at age 9), sitting in the\nrumble seat as the car speeds towards the Lorn farm, spies a towering\ncolumn of cloud. (That is to say: Den is on the cusp of both meeting\nmaiden Margaret and briefly grasping the Egg.) Apparently this cloud makes\nhim think of a jinni coming out of a bottle; hence the story's frame of a\nfisherman, the bottle he caught in his net, and the jinni released.\n\nThis frame tale is very famous, used at least once very early on in ARABIAN\nNIGHTS (the very first story _Sherry_ tells the king in Burton's\ntranslation). But the nested story (in Burton's translation) does not come\nfrom either the fisherman or the jinni, rather it is told by a last man\n(note) who is discovered in a ruinous town (note).\n\nARABIAN NIGHTS\nThe Fisherman and the Jinni\n The Tale of the Ensorceled Prince\n\nPEACE\nThe Fisherman and the Jinni\n The Tale of ben Yahya and the Marid\n\nOh look! Here's a handy ARABIAN NIGHTS online reference:\n\nhttp://mfx.dasburo.com/an/a_index_commented.html\n\nNote to Dan'l: didn't you have a nice table showing all the nestings of\nstories in PEACE? Please post it here--I've somehow managed to lose my\ncopy.\n\n===\n\"The Tale of ben Yahya and the Marid\" (outline)\n\nA marid (most powerful class of jinni) named Naranj has a human slave\ncalled ben Yahya. The marid, among other magics, regularly turns tubers\ninto sherbet.\n\nOne fateful day, ben Yahya was carrying a huge jar of sherbet through the\ntown when he was stung on the heel by a scorpion. Stopping, he saw a pear\non a limb hanging over a garden wall. He climbed upon the jar to reach the\npear, and as his hand closed over it, he saw a beautiful maiden sitting in\nthe garden.\n\nThe slave fell in love at first sight; and fell in fact, breaking the jar\nand losing the sherbet. (Plus, he didn't even have the pear in hand.) The\nmarid beat him for losing the sherbet, but promised to give him the maiden\nand his freedom if he served silently for thirty years.\n\nSo he served his term and aged accordingly. The marid then took him up and\nflew him to the Haunted City, where he set the slave free and told him that\nthe maiden was there . . . end of fragment.\n===\n\nThis is the first time I've ever worked on PEACE, but over the last ten\nyears I've seen essays and a lot of online works in progress. William\nSchuyler's article in NYRSF #91 was the first I saw that linked ben Yahya's\nstory back into Den's life story (and since I wrote an essay on how the\nbrown book tales link back into TBOTNS, I have an expressed interest in\nsuch things).\n\nben Yahya = \"son of John\" = Den (son of John Weer)\nNaranj = Orange (Arabic) = Julius Smart, alchemist\ntubers into sherbet = potatoes into Tang\nbroken jar of sherbet = coldhouse accident\n\nOkay, so if we sense that Den was the coldhouse prankster (some will refuse\nthis initial condition), then it becomes a clear case: Den, working for\nuncle Julius, causes a terrible accident; after this, he works silently\n(Julius hasn't spoken to him in 25 years) for 30 years.\n\nBut who is the maiden? Where is the Haunted City? How does the story end?\n\nThe maiden at one obvious level is Olivia. She is married to Julius. Den\nhas strong feelings for her. The forbidden vision of the maiden might\nrefer to the times when Olivia called Den to see her while she was in the\nbath (and her husband was in the lab). She is taken away (by death).\n\nWhen the action of the gold hunt episode begins (25+ years after Olivia's\nfuneral), Den goes to the library (formerly Olivia's house, with\ntemple-like architecture) for a bit of research and he sees Lois, who is\nvery clearly an echo of Olivia (an avatar incarnated within her own\ntemple--see examples below). Den falls in love with her and her\nOlivia-ness; and as they travel together through the town, we come to see\nthat in the 30 or so years of change it has come to be a Haunted City for\nDen (Olivia's cook has become a restaurant owner, and even then he is\nabsent; Blaine reduced; Den is working with Ted Singer, who is probably the\ngrandson of Eleanor's friend Sophie; etc.).\n\nA few Examples (non-exhaustive):\n\n1) Age: Olivia was in her early thirties when she married; Lois is in her\nearly to mid-thirties, divorced, no children (an Olivia who did not grow\nlarge).\n\n2) Olivia does not cook for her suitors; Lois does not cook for Den\n(special bonus if the delivered food is _Chinese_, heh).\n\n3) Blaine to Den, with Olivia nearby: \"There is properly no history, Alden,\nonly biography\"; Lois to Den, \"Then you should try biography. Someone said\nthat it was the only history, and I suspect most of it's more than half\nfiction.\"\n\n4) Olivia's Indian club; Lois to Den, \"Have you ever thought of Indians\ninhabiting this land?\"\n\nThe Gold Hunt instigated by Lois is rather a lot like The Egg Hunt started\nby Olivia, another instance of the parallels. And there, at the climax,\nLois pulls a gun on Den . . . end of fragment.\n\nWell, well, well: maybe Lois was a little too much like Olivia; or maybe\nthe opposite, despite all her superficial seeming, she was actually a\nmonster disguised as Olivia (if I were to finish the ARABIAN NIGHTS tale,\nI'd say she was a ghul).\n\nBUT what happened THEN? People have wondered if Den killed Lois; after\nall, he has her gun. I don't think he killed her, but there is a spectrum\nof unpleasantness that stops short of murder: at the very least, Den\nwrestled the gun away from her and drove off without her, leaving her in\nthe countryside at night. However, since Den seems to fear her showing up\nat his doorstep (sleeps with the gun under his pillow), I'll bet it was\nsomething worse than that--rape is a possibility.\n\n(I should stop here, but nah.)\n\nAnyway, as I've hinted already, the maiden is probably represented by more\nthan just Olivia: there is a hint of Margaret Lorn, who, in some ways I'll\ntell you some other time, is the opposite of Olivia.\n\nDen assumed that he would marry Margaret, but suddenly in high school the\nrelationship broke off. The exact details of Den's next several years are\nfuzzy, but: Olivia died (when Den was 20 or 25); a worker died in the\ncoldhouse (when Den was 18 or 23); Margaret married someone else, and had\nhis children.\n\nSo poor-man Den is fearful of an avenging Lois, when who should come to his\ndoor but . . . Sherry Gold. She's come to plead for her father. Yes,\nshe's an older LOLITA (1958), but I also think she's a bit of Scheherazade\n. . . reel it in, boy, reel it in! Right--the main point is that she\ninitially seems somewhat like Margaret as he remembers her (virginal, brown\nhair, teenager), so here Den gets the second attack on his heart, and then\nSherry reveals (like Lolita) that Den is her third lover (and the third\nsuitor, alas, is the least important).\n\nStill: in the Haunted City, perhaps ben Yahya has finally found the true\nlove; the first one he saw was a ghul in disguise, the second one was the\nreal thing.\nHere is the potential for a happy ending (and judging from later events,\nDen felt deeply for Sherry--his stroke came the night of her death), but it\ndoesn't seem to have materialized in Den's real life.\n\nWe will see another case where the fairy tale ending is not realized.\n\n=mantis=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Adam Stephanides", "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2000-10-23T22:38:49+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) PEACE: ben Yahya and the Marid", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Once again, a fascinating post. Too much to digest at once, but a few\nquick questions and comments:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Michael Andre-Driussi wrote:\nThe\nmarid beat him for losing the sherbet, but promised to give him the maiden\nand his freedom if he served silently for thirty years." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Silently? I don't see where in the story the marid makes this\ncondition." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Okay, so if we sense that Den was the coldhouse prankster (some will refuse\nthis initial condition), then it becomes a clear case: Den, working for\nuncle Julius, causes a terrible accident; after this, he works silently\n(Julius hasn't spoken to him in 25 years) for 30 years." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "But Den says that Julius hasn't spoken to him since the Olivia's funeral\n(169 in the first edition), which you (below) date two years after the\naccident. Of course, maybe Den was already in Coventry, and Julius had\nto speak to him for form's sake. Or maybe Julius just didn't have any\noccasion to speak to Den, and hadn't been taken with him enough to seek\nhim out." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Den assumed that he would marry Margaret, but suddenly in high school the\nrelationship broke off." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "What is the reference for their breaking up suddenly in high school? I\nmust have missed that." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "a worker died in the\ncoldhouse (when Den was 18 or 23)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Surely not 18; we're told that the accident happened when Den was \"a\nyoung engineer--two years out of school\" (250), and surely even in those\ndays high school dropouts were'nt hired as engineers, even if they were\nthe boss's step-nephew.\n\n--Adam" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at sirius.com" }, "date": "2000-10-23T20:30:21+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) PEACE: ben Yahya and the Marid", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "The\nmarid beat him for losing the sherbet, but promised to give him the maiden\nand his freedom if he served silently for thirty years." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Silently? I don't see where in the story the marid makes this\ncondition." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\"`For all the days until thy time be done, I will have thee serve me as the\nwindlass serves the well or the oar the ship . . . '\"\n\nI suppose \"selflessly\" would be better than \"silently\" . . ." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Okay, so if we sense that Den was the coldhouse prankster (some will refuse\nthis initial condition), then it becomes a clear case: Den, working for\nuncle Julius, causes a terrible accident; after this, he works silently\n(Julius hasn't spoken to him in 25 years) for 30 years." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "But Den says that Julius hasn't spoken to him since the Olivia's funeral\n(169 in the first edition), which you (below) date two years after the\naccident. Of course, maybe Den was already in Coventry, and Julius had\nto speak to him for form's sake. Or maybe Julius just didn't have any\noccasion to speak to Den, and hadn't been taken with him enough to seek\nhim out." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Gosh, Adam, why not just complain that 25 years doesn't equal 30 years?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Den assumed that he would marry Margaret, but suddenly in high school the\nrelationship broke off." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "What is the reference for their breaking up suddenly in high school? I\nmust have missed that." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yep." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "a worker died in the\ncoldhouse (when Den was 18 or 23)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Surely not 18; we're told that the accident happened when Den was \"a\nyoung engineer--two years out of school\" (250), and surely even in those\ndays high school dropouts were'nt hired as engineers, even if they were\nthe boss's step-nephew." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This has to do with the thorny nature of establishing a timeline for the\n20th century portion of PEACE. If you believe Den is telling the absolute\ntruth, which is easiest if you think he wasn't personally involved with the\ncoldhouse prank, then all is easy, as you say, for this particular instance\n(things get tricky later, maybe).\n\nIf you think Den is likely to lie, to make himself seem older and thus\nnowhere near the coldhouse at the time, well then, you have to toss out\nthat date. (Bill S. thought that the date was ten years off, and the\nincident happened in 1928.)\n\nPlus, if you find an artifact that only existed in 1924, linked to Den at\nage four, then you construct a timeline that makes Den eighteen years old\nin 1938--just like the young fellow who died. Alas, that artifact might be\nthe only red herring in the entire collection of historical pointers!\n\nMy enthusiasm wanes.\n\n=mantis=" } ] } ] }