{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2431",
    "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": 2431,
    "subject": "PEACE: Psychopompous Circumstances",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2000-10-30T09:22:32+00:00",
    "last": "2000-10-30T09:22:32+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0030-0074@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes",
        "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com"
      },
      "date": "2000-10-30T09:22:32+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) PEACE: Psychopompous Circumstances",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "ADG wrote:\n... perhaps there's something less solipsistic about this than we\nthink.  "
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Well, yeah, I was trying to make that point but did it far less\nclearly than this. As nearly as I can read it, Sherry Gold really\n_is_ in the \"next room\" of Dr V's office, etc."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "I think WEER sees them to some extent as simply memories, ghosts,\nor shadows, but what if that is a reflection of his isolation\nrather than the actual state of things?  "
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Beautiful! That's another aspect I hadn't picked up but fits\nmarvellously with this whole reading -- W has to come to \"peace\"\nnot only with himself but with his neighbors; and as long as he\ncontinues to regard them as figments, he can't.\n\nWhich makes Part V, and especially the last few pages, a real\nbreakthrough. What I at first thought of as W's consciousness\nundergoing final disintegration makes as much sense, or more, if\nwe look at it as W ceasing to deny the reality of the people \nhe's interacting with in his \"LAD.\"\n\n(Alex's sigquote [Jn 8:32] fits this idea nicely, too.)"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "This fits nicely with the lich's implication that Den and Gold\nare the spirits; perhaps to Miss Birkhead, Den is simply a\ncharacter in her TAT-guided \"purgatory.\"  "
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I agree with double demurral:\n\n1) We see only W's \"purgatory\" or search for \"peace;\" there's\nno particular reason to suppose that Miss Birkhead would regard\nthe psychopomps as doctors or their guidance as psych tests.\n\n2) We see only W's point of view; perhaps Miss Birkhead does not\nshare his trouble in perceiving her fellow \"inmates\" as real."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "This sharing of stories makes more sense thematically than to\nhave the characters simply be dredged up by Den's dead soul --\neven Den states openly that this is not his story.  "
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "But Den is kind of clueless about what's going on here 8*) -- the\nstory we read is Den's story. And while "
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "He calls Julian Smart, of all people, the central character."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Specifically, if I recall correctly, \"the central character of \nmy book,\" though I'm too lazy to go hunt it up at the moment. \nBut remember also the extremely suspect status of books in PEACE.\n\n--Dan'l"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}