{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2427", "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": 2427, "subject": "PEACE mansion denizens & one stroke or two?", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "2000-10-27T09:16:30+00:00", "last": "2000-10-27T13:55:59+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at sirius.com" }, "date": "2000-10-27T09:16:30+00:00", "subject": "(urth) PEACE mansion denizens & one stroke or two?", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Roy's post on the plural pronoun (re: the dishwasher) and the cigarettes,\npointing to at least one other person living in the mansion, if true, also\nserves to validate Den's sense of being all alone in the frame tale (in\ncontrast with a different state before)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Roy wrote:\nIf Den had a stroke related to Sherry's death, after becoming president,\nwhere was Sherry that he would even know of it? And why should her death\nprovoke a stroke? She was about 25 years younger than him; did she die of\nnatural causes? Was she in his home the night she died, living there in much\nthe same capacity as Mab served his grandfather?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This brings up many good points. It also seems like an opportunity to\nraise the \"one stroke or two medical emergencies?\" tangle.\n\nIf Den had just the one stroke, and died of it (within, say, twelve hours),\nthen we would have to place that stroke/Sherry's death at Den's age of 60+.\nAnd Den's astral visit to the doctors is about this one and only medical\ncrisis.\n\nOTOH, Dan French and Miss Birkhead seem to see Den's limp and know\nsomething of its history; Dan French expresses concern over Den's upcoming\nappointment to visit Dr. V. This suggests that Den had the stroke, then\nrecovered enough to be able to work at the plant for some time (if we bar\nthe idea that Den's frametale condition is projecting into the astral frame\nso that people can see it). This suggests there was the stroke/Sherry's\ndeath, and then a year or maybe several years later, a second medical\ncrisis that proved fatal. This decouples Sherry's death from Den's age of\n60+, and puts Den's age at time of stroke somewhere between 50 and 59.\n\n(Then again: it is Miss Birkhead who can see the limp, which might be just\nanother pointer to her psychic connection/walking regret condition. That\nis, if there is someone who can see the shadow of the future self, it might\nbe such a person.)\n\n=mantis=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2000-10-27T13:55:59+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: PEACE mansion denizens & one stroke or two?", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "mantis wrote:\nThis brings up many good points. It also seems like an opportunity to\nraise the \"one stroke or two medical emergencies?\" tangle." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Wouldn't you know it; I just happened to have a piece more or less prepared\non this topic! Unfortunately, it repeats some of the points mentioned by\nmantis, but I'm too lazy to change it.\n\nPage numbers from the Berkley paperback, which runs from 1 to 246, if that\nhelps anyone.\n\nWhen Den wakes up on page 1, from sleep in his bed before the fire, it was\nnot because Eleanor Bold's tree fell, as he makes clear. Nor was it, as is\nmade clear later on when he complains that he is \"sicker, even, than I was\nthis winter, before Eleanor Bold's tree fell\" (181), to his Life-After-Death\n(LAD) that the tree woke him. For some unknown period of time he has been\nexperiencing his LAD. The tree falling serves to tell us that he is dead,\nand that he has been dead for a long time, as is, not incidentally, everyone\nelse in the book.\n\nYet his mind seems to be preoccupied with the effects of what he believes to\nhave been a stroke. Whether we regard Den as some sort of revenant, a ghost\nor ghoul or whatnot with some sort of corporeal substance, or that his LAD\nis all cerebral, that he is an ethereal spook lost somewhere between Heaven\nand Hell, I feel equally certain, as certain as can the living, that dead\npeople do not have strokes.\n\nHe can use one ax, but not the other. He drags one leg. He lights candles\nand fires. He eats, or claims to. He pulls weeds and flowers and vegetables\nin his garden for exercise (15), the same garden that was still locked in\nthe weakening grip of winter a few pages before (2). Dead people do not do\nthese things, and dead people do not get any deader, do not need advice on\nhow to treat a stroke. Why, then, does he complain of one, and behave as if\nhe is suffering the effects of one? Clearly a stroke has impressed itself on\nhis mind at some time. He told Dr. Van Ness that he woke up with its effects\nthe morning after Sherry Gold died (14). Whenever Sherry died, it was a long\ntime ago, long before that elm tree was mature. There seems little recourse\nbut to assume Weer had at least one stroke in his life, possibly two, the\nsecond of which led to his death, which would account for having a stroke on\nhis mind whenever he woke to his LAD.\n\nSo was it one stroke or two? If one, then how to account for Dan French\nreporting that Den's secretary could tell when Den was tired, because he\nstarted to drag one leg (233), which is one of the symptoms he complains of\nin his LAD (78)? Did he recover from that stroke, only to die later of some\nother malady? If so, then why was that stroke on his mind in his LAD, rather\nthan whatever malady that eventually killed him? If he recovered from that\nstroke, then he had to have had medical attention, hence no need for\nimaginary medical advice to treat it from Drs. Black and Van Ness. If two\nstrokes, then when did he have the first? On the night that Sherry died? If\nso, then how much time passed between the strokes? Did he then recover from\nthe first stroke, more or less completely, which would account for the leg\ndragging only when he was tired? Did he then have a second stroke, possibly\nyears after the first, possibly right after hearing the Sidhe story from Dan\nFrench, the stroke which killed him, which was why he was unable to keep the\ndoctor appointment he had for that afternoon, the reminder for which was\nnailed to his desk?\n\nThe two-stroke theory does not explain his claim that he had had only one\nstroke (14), that coming the night that Sherry died. I believe that Den died\nshortly after hearing Dan French's story, which is where the book ends. If\nthat is correct, if he had a heart attack that afternoon (which is one of\nthe things he fears on page 1), he may have lived long enough to have a\nstroke (often a consequence of heart trouble), which led to his death, which\nis why the subject was on his mind when he woke to his LAD. If Sherry died\nthe night before this stroke, so much the better (for this theory );\nknowledge of her death leading to the stroke. Note also that the enigmatic\nMiss Birkhead died the same day as the Dan French story. Coincidence?\n\nAs for the stroke/heart attack possibilities: Dr. V asked Den (when he\nquestioned him about the symptoms of his future stroke) \"Do you find it\npainful to move about? Very painful?\" Den answered no. (14) But, on page\n152, in the office in his house, Den writes \"My side hurts so much I do not\nwant to leave my chair. The label on the can says, 'For Den--Merry Christmas\nand Happy Memories from Dad', and I have forgotten in the pain what it\ncontains.\" He had been wondering if he should buzz Miss Birkhead, because he\nthought he heard a door close. _Twice_ in that paragraph he asks \"What if\nshe should answer?\"\n\nThis scene, I believe, is a reenactment of one which occurred at his real\noffice, the day that Dan French told him the Sidhe story and Miss Birkhead\ndied. He suffered a stroke/heart attack, which brought him real-life pain.\nHe fears Miss Birkhead answering the buzzer instead of Miss Hadow, because\nhe had just learned that Miss Birkhead was dead. If she answered--then he\nmust be dead, too.\n\nRoy" } ] } ] }