{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2423",
    "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": 2423,
    "subject": "PEACE Birkhead and inventions",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2000-10-26T17:42:30+00:00",
    "last": "2000-10-26T17:42:30+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0030-0061@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Adam Stephanides",
        "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net"
      },
      "date": "2000-10-26T17:42:30+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (urth) PEACE Birkhead and inventions",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Roy C. Lackey wrote:\n\nWhat is it with Miss Birkhead?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Indeed, there is weirdness going on around Miss Birkhead.  On the second\npage of part five (236 in the Harper 1975 edition) she is in the office\n(so she makes two appearances, not one, though the second is only one\nsentence).  In the time it takes for Weer to read the letter from\nCharles Turner, she has become sick, and a fill-in has already been\nassigned (242).  And later that same afternoon, she is dead, and a\nnotice has already been posted on the bulletin board (261).  This could\nhave happened, but it's not very likely, nor is it plausible that\nneither Weer or Miss Hadow would have commented on her essentially\ndropping dead in an afternoon.\n\nThat's not the only strange thing going on in part five.  In another\npost, Roy points out how Weer's \"present\" infiltrates his \"past,\" but\nthis phenomenon is much more blatant in part five than elsewhere.  His\noffice alternates between being his real office and his memory office,\nas shown by the letters nailed to the desk (243-44, 264; that mail is\nnailed to the desk in the memory office is given on p. 145).  On p. 244,\nWeer has his present memories.  And on p. 250, Dan tells Weer: \"'your\nsecretary...said she could always tell when you were tired, because you\nstarted to drag one leg.'\"  Apparently Weer's present is not only\naffecting his past interlocutors' perceptions of him, but their memories\nof him as well.\n\nAnother odd thing is that, unlike Weer's other recollections/relivings,\nthere's no narrative break from the doctor's office.  Weer just leaves\nVan Ness's office and returns to the plant.  Combined with the other\nanomalies, this makes me suspect that part five is not a genuine\nrecollection, even a distorted one.  Rather, it is an invention of\nWeer's, continuing the invented visit to Van Ness, which enables him to\nround off his narrative by depicting himself as president and the state\nof Cassionsville.  The \"events\" of that afternoon may never have\nhappened, or may have happened but not all on the same day.  I make this\nsuggestion with some trepidation, since it adds a further layer of\nuncertainty; but I don't think part five's anomalies can be swept under\nthe carpet.  At any event, Weer is demonstrably unreliable in part five,\nto a greater extent than in the rest of the book (setting aside his\nbeing dead)."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "So it isn't until the book is\nalmost over before we learn that she is in fact not a Miss, but Mrs. Helen\nBirkhead Tyler, with two children and a husband, Ben. Why did Wolfe wait\nthat late to drop that little detail? Why not leave her Miss Birkhead?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "It could be that Weer's feelings for Miss Birkhead were stronger than he\nadmits, and that Weer waits until the end to reveal yet another missed\nopportunity.  If my guess about the invented character of part five is\ncorrect, then Weer's putting Miss Birkhead's death in that day ties in. \nIt also ties in with Weer's rudeness when Miss Hadow tells him Miss\nBirkhead was proud of being his secretary (261)--is he just annoyed by\nMiss Hadow's blatant flattery, or has she inadvertently struck a nerve? \n\n--Adam"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}