{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2417",
    "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": 2417,
    "subject": "Skulls and Houses and Such",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "2000-10-25T16:42:31+00:00",
    "last": "2000-10-25T20:42:21+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0030-0051@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes",
        "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com"
      },
      "date": "2000-10-25T16:42:31+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Skulls and Houses and Such",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Alex David Groce wrote:\n... the lich and something else that I can't find right now (damnit,\nI need a searchable text version of Wolfe's work) suggest that\nWeer's \"memory house\" may also be his skull.  That is, his ghost is\nhaunting the interior of his skull as a house (and where, in life,\nhis memory dwelled)."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "And these are pearls that were his eyes... I incline to the view that\nthe house is his skull, also, but there is somehow too much physicality\nto Weer's \"after\"life for me to accept that there's no \"memory house\"\nat all. He feels physical pain, his feet pounding, the weight of the\nelm branches; hears the sounds of the weather; etc.\n\n***\n\nH'mmm. In searching for a reference to something I'll get to in a \nminute I just ran across this. He's talking about his Scout knife:\n\n\tThe bolsters -- those hard bolsters which, when my life\n\twas over and I had come to my desk, wore out so many\n\tgabardines and serges ... [17]\n\n(Oh, yeah: page references to the Berkley ed'n.)\n\nInteresting: his life was over when [or by the time] he came to his\ndesk. Coming to the desk marked the end of his life? Or came after \nit? How and in what way did his life end? Are we to consider Weer,\nthe President, as a walking-dead-man?\n\nOkay... Way-out speculation: Did Weer die in the coldhouse prank, a\nyoung man; and is the rest of his \"life\" a China-pillow dream?\n\nProbably not. But this passage will have to be dealt with.\n\n***\n\nAnyway, and this is what I was heading for when I found the above,\nit isn't until page 35 that Weer actually describes the memory\nmansion -- after he's well into his wanderings through memory.\nI suspect that a multilayered model is necessary to deal with all\nwe know about Weer's house. My best inference right now is that\nhe did indeed build a home. He probably included _some_ \"memory\"\nrooms in it. But the house Weer dwells in at the time of narration\nis not the house he built, or not exactly. Primary evidence:\n\n\t...I made the mistake, when the company at last came\n\tinto my hands and I had funds enough to build, of\n\tduplicating, or nearly duplicating, certain well-\n\tremembered rooms whose furnishings had fallen to me\n\tby inheritance. ...\n\n\tI made the error of interspersing among the functional\n\trooms of my home certain \"museum rooms\"; but when I\n\ttry to recall where they lie -- or, for that matter,\n\twhere the stairs are -- or the closet in which I once\n\tkept an umbrella, I find myself lost in a maze of\n\tpictures without names and doors that open up to nowhere.\n\t... I remember the architect unrolling his blue plans on \n\tthe table in the dining nook of my little apartment, \n\tand indeed he unrolled them many times there, for \n\tthere were changes and consultations -- as it seemed \n\tthen -- without end. I remember the squares and \n\trectangles that were to be rooms, and his telling me \n\tover and over that those rooms that were to be without\n\twindows would be dark, despite the windows we had\n\tarranged for them in appropriate places, windows that\n\twould be curtained always, with diffused light behind\n\tthe shades; or blocked -- for my aunt Olivia had\n\tarranged some of hers so, in imitation, I think, of \n\tElizabeth Barrett -- with painted screens; or which\n\twould open on illusions like those of a puppet theater.\n\tBut I do not remember their positions with reference\n\tto this long, walled porch on which I live, or even\n\tupon what floor they were. I should, I suppose, begin\n\tby going out, and walking all around the house, if I\n\tcan, peering in through windows like a burglar while I\n\tnote the damage winter has done. But it seems too much,\n\ttoo elaborate, for a man who only wishes to walk about\n\tin his own home, behaving as though it were the fun \n\thouse at a carnival, a place in which all the walls \n\tnot glass are mirrors. [35-36]\n\n(Immediately after this passage, btw, Weer begins Dr Van Ness'\nbattery of tests.)\n\nAssuming that Weer is not actively lying (which may be an\nunwarranted assumption), he actually built a house (Sorry, \nAdam), with the help of an architect, with some \"museum \nrooms.\" But the layout of this house, which we might expect \nhim to remember well (and which indeed he seems to remember \nquite well) does not quite match that of the house he's \ncurrently \"living\" in. Because he believes the house he's \nin is the house he built, he is confused.\n\nGiven the physicality of the house, the presence of the elm\ntree, etc., I feel certain that the house Weer inhabits is\n_in some sense_ that house, overlaid with the \"memories\" in\nhis skull.\n\nThis is part of a larger model I'm slowly building up here.\nDoug and, to some extent, Mantis, seem to have the view that\nthere is no \"correct\" reading of PEACE. I am taking the \ncontrary view that there is a correct and unified reading, but\nthat things appearing as single items in the narrative may be \nmore than singular: that the house is Weer's skull _and_ the\n\"memory mansion\" _and_ the physical house he built (and quite\npossibly haunts) ... and possibly Aunt Vi's house, also (thanks,\nRoy).\n\n***\n\nBy the way, Weer wondering the stairs are reminds me that Wolfe\nhas punned in at least one title on the \"storeys\" of buildings.\nRelevant? Who knows?\n\n***\n\nVizcacha ponders the China Pillow story:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "just as in the fable, Weer lives or dreams his entire life,\nseeing the consequences of the choices he makes, and then at\nthe end Olivia wakes him to live it all over again as a wiser\nman.  I don't see the point of including that story unless it\nspeaks to something else in the novel, as all the other\nincluded tales do.  What is its relevance to the novel,\nunless it is that?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Well, and it's a good question. The reference at the end is, \n\"It is time, I think, that I see the enchanted headrest of the\nChinese philosopher looming behind me, and I wait its coming.\" \n[246] Note that he does not say he sees it -- he desires to \nsee it. Weer wishes to have his life to live over, but nothing\nin the text entitles us to believe that he will actually get \nthat chance except in remniscence.\n\n[The lich, and his cry, \"O shades of the unborn years, depart\nfrom me...\"? But the story of the lich is from Gold's forged\n_Necronomicon_. ... I want to follow that thought out a bit, \nthough, because it haunts me every time I reread _tBotNS_. The \ntale of the lich, from the _Necronomicon_, is the one passage \nfrom any book of Gold's we actually hear: On the one hand, the \nBook of Gold is the _Necronomicon_ (or at least the \"book that\nbinds the dead\"); on the other, the Book of Gold is a forgery. \nI find myself unable to believe that this was not present in\nthe mind of the author of tBotNS...]\n\nStrewth, I don't have a good answer to the \"meaning\" of the\nChina Pillow in PEACE. Yet.\n\n***\n\nSpeaking of the China Pillow, Mantis wrote that"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "... it is also important to note the context of Olivia's \nstory: it seems to be a strong message to Macafee for his \n\"ungentlemanly\" winning of the Chinese Egg ... the giver\nof the gift says, \"Fool! Do you not recognize me? I have\ngranted your heart's desire, and for it I receive your\ningratitude!\"  And thereby ends the dream of a happy life\nby withdrawing the real gift."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I'm afraid I just don't see this. For one thing, she's giving\nan example -- to _all_ present, not just Macafee -- of the\nkind of story she wants from her game of \"spin-the-bottle;\"\nfor another... I think that the messages in the embedded\nstories are primarily messages to or for _Weer_. Often they\nappear to encode events not shown in the story, as the story\nof the Princess appears to encode information about Olivia's\nsuitors.\n\nWhat message then does the China Pillow yarn have _for Weer_?\n\"Life is but a dream?\" Ho-hum, I hope not -- even the slightly \nmore interesting \"This life you are leading, Alden Dennis Weer,\nis but a postmortem dream\" would be banal beyond words."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Note to Dan'l: didn't you have a nice table showing all the\nnestings of stories in PEACE?  Please post it here--I've\nsomehow managed to lose my copy."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "If I did, I've long-since misplaced it. But there's one in\nDoug's pamphlet; is that perhaps what you're thinking of?\n\n***\n\nFinally, Mantis also asked..."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Since many of the streets have tree names, does this mean\nthat Olivia's house is on \"Elm Street\" (which is not one of\nthe given street names) and the other streets have their\nname trees along them, too?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I _sincerely_ hope not. If so, the China Pillow interpretation\nbecomes irresistable, so we can say that it was all a dream...\nor rather a Nightmare..."
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0030-0052@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Alex David Groce",
        "address": "alex_groce at gs246.sp.cs.cmu.edu"
      },
      "date": "2000-10-25T20:42:21+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (urth) Skulls and Houses and Such",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0030-0051@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Wonderful continuing PEACE discussion, everybody.\n\nSome points of my own, taking off from Dan'l:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "       The bolsters -- those hard bolsters which, when my life\n       was over and I had come to my desk, wore out so many\n       gabardines and serges ... [17]"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Hmmm...  The desk is also, in my reading, the center of Weer's\nafterlife.  The elements of his past life are nailed down on his desk\nas he comes to understand them.  However, I agree that there is a\nconflation of Weer's skull, a memory palace, and quite probably a\nmansion he had built or modifed from some other building (maybe\nOlivia's house).  This all seems perfectly reasonable to me, but then\nI think that the notion of haunting one's own skull and memories and\nbeing perpetually within the shades of the significant architectures\none has dealt with fits my experience of present life.\n\nAlso, the part that nails it down for me that the haunted house is in\none sense Weer's skull in the grave is the part from the Lich passage\nthat reads (p. 234 Orb edition): \"...I knew this spark for the soul od\nthe dead man, seeking now in all the chambers under the vault of the\nskull in its old resting places.\""
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "       ...I made the mistake, when the company at last came\n       into my hands and I had funds enough to build, of\n       duplicating, or nearly duplicating, certain well-\n       remembered rooms whose furnishings had fallen to me\n       by inheritance. ..."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "(rest snipped)\n\nThis seems to refer to memory also, on a figurative level.  The things\nthat Weer can barely bring himself to approach in his life even\nthrough the disguise of stories have become \"museum rooms\" in his\nmemory.  They are dark, without the windows of understanding.\n\"Curtained\" and \"blocked\" indeed.  Also, the statement that \"all the\nwalls not glass are mirrors\" ties in perfectly with Wolfe's theme, in\nPEACE and elsewhere that we ARE the stories we tell ourselves in our\nmemory.\n\nThe Chinese pillow story may suggest that it is folly to desire to\nrelive, to undo.  The life Weer lives has, though he will not\nrecognize it (at first, at least) been the result of his heart's\ndesire--the playing out of his wishes, however disastrous those\ndesires have been.  Rather than desiring to live them again, and\ndifferently, like the soldier in the story, Weer's role now is to\nunderstand those desires and escape from the prison of his skull.  To\nme the indication of the ending is that he has at last fulfilled that\ngoal, which is his final wish."
        },
        {
          "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"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}