{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2429",
    "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": 2429,
    "subject": "PEACE: Doctors as spirit guides?",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2000-10-29T21:28:11+00:00",
    "last": "2000-10-29T21:28:11+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0030-0072@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Adam Stephanides",
        "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net"
      },
      "date": "2000-10-29T21:28:11+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) PEACE: Doctors as spirit guides?",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Dan's theory that \"Dr. Van Ness, not at all a creation of W's\nmemory/imagination, is a psychopomp, guiding Weer in some way to (if not\nthrough) the memories he must deal\nwith\" is an interesting one, but I disagree, on both internal and\nexternal grounds.  For external evidence, we have this passage from\nJames Jordan's interview: \n\n\"Why didn't you just write it as an old man thinking over his life. What\nadded dimension is there to it that caused you to want to make it a man\nwho is already dead thinking over his life?\nGW: Because I wanted it to lend to the memories certain supernatural\nstrengths that ordinary memories that the old man thinking over his life\nwouldn't have. I wanted to do the rooms that were recreations and rooms\nthat he had known as a very young man and I didn't think that anybody\nwould actually do that. That it had to be a supernatural stick or a\nmental quirk or something of that sort. I wanted some interplay between\nthe remembered figures and the present reality. And so on that I could\nnot have gotten with just reminiscence.\"\n\nThis answer is not incredibly clear (I would say he's referring to how\nWeer relives rather than just recalls his past), but if the \"real\" plot\nof the book involved Weer's being guided through his memories by\nspiritual entities, then I think Wolfe would either have said so or\nevaded the question altogether.  And I'm enough of an intentionalist to\nthink that if Wolfe didn't intend the doctors to be spirit guides, they\naren't spirit guides.\n\nAs far as internal evidence goes, I don't see much indication that Dr.\nVan Ness actual plays the role Dan'l assigns him.  The only things with\nthe possible intent of evoking memories are showing Weer the TAT cards. \nAnd these cards don't seem designed to evoke those memories which bar\nWeer's soul from peace.  At any rate, the first card doesn't evoke such\na memory, as far as I can tell.  And while the memories evoked by the\nsecond card do make Weer uneasy, the card itself (at least going by\nWeer's description of it) is too non-specific to say that Van Ness\nintended to evoke that memory.  (Has anybody looked into whether the\ncards Weer sees are actual TAT cards?  If so, what do they actually\nshow?)\n\nDan'l has quoted passages in which Van Ness appears to act independently\nof Weer's will; but I don't think they're inconsistent with Weer having\nconjured up Van Ness.  Authors sometimes say that their characters have\n\"wills of their own,\" and refuse to follow their author's plans (I'm\ntalking about real authors, not metafictional devices like \"The Last\nThrilling Wonder Story\"); I think Van Ness's \"automony\" should be taken\nin this sense.  And the more likely explanation for Van Ness's failure\nto react to Weer's report of Sherry's death (also cited by Dan'l as\nevidence) is that Van Ness (as Weer imagines him) doesn't believe Weer's\nstory.\n\n--Adam"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}