{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2432", "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": 2432, "subject": "The genres of PEACE", "messages": 3, "voices": 2, "first": "2000-10-31T08:49:40+00:00", "last": "2000-11-01T21:29:42+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Adam Stephanides", "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2000-10-31T11:29:11+00:00", "subject": "(urth) The genres of PEACE", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't know if this observation has been made before, but each of\nPEACE's five parts is \"in the mode,\" so to speak, of a different genre. \n(I'm referring to the predominant action of each part, not to the short\ntales embedded within them.)\n\nPart one is, I think, in the \"genre\" of serious realistic fiction, the\n\"Dickens and Jane Austen and Proust and Stendahl\" that Charles Turner\ncraves. We see a scene of childhood innocence about to be shattered, as\nin the beginnings of many \"literary\" novels. (Actually, I'm less sure\nabout this first part than about the others.)\n\nPart two is a screwball comedy, with its eccentric, spirited heroine\nbaiting her stuffy suitors, the \"scavenger hunt\" for the Chinese egg,\nand its farcical discovery in the barn.\n\nPart three is a horror story, of course; even the storytelling frame is\na frequent device of horror stories.\n\nPart four is a hardbooiled detective story. We have a crime being\ninvestigated (forgery) and an alluring but treacherous woman whom the\n\"detective\" gets entangled with. The bogus treasure is out of THE\nMALTESE FALCON, and Gold's dusty bookshop is out of THE BIG SLEEP. Weer\neven compares himself to \"Humphrey Bogart or Charlie Chan.\" (213)\n\nAnd part five is a documentary, or a journalistic expose: a day in the\nlife of a corporation.\n\nI doubt that Weer intended this structure. But Wolfe has experimented\nwith telling a single story through several different genres elsewhere,\nin the four-part story beginning with \"The Dark of the June.\" Here he\napplies the technique to a man's life.\n\nIncidentally, I take back what I said earlier about beginning to\nunderstand PEACE. I still think there was a lot of truth in what I said\nabout Weer's psychology; but I no longer think that the book can be seen\nas fundamentally a straightforward psychological novel in disguise, as I\nwas trying to read it. There's too much more going on.\n\n--Adam" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at sirius.com" }, "date": "2000-10-31T08:49:40+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) The genres of PEACE", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Re: the five genres of PEACE, good call Adam! It seems so self-evident\nafter you've said it that it seems surprising that we haven't been using it\nas a mantra!" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Part four is a hardbooiled detective story. We have a crime being\ninvestigated (forgery) and an alluring but treacherous woman whom the\n\"detective\" gets entangled with. The bogus treasure is out of THE\nMALTESE FALCON, and Gold's dusty bookshop is out of THE BIG SLEEP. Weer\neven compares himself to \"Humphrey Bogart or Charlie Chan.\" (213)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That part is especially good, Adam. (Although technically: wasn't the\nbookshop in THE BIG SLEEP more an open, uncluttered, false front for\nsomething else? I remember Bogart bamboozling the faux-bookwoman regarding\nobscure titles. Or were you talking about the bookstore across the street\nfrom that one, with the real bookwoman who keeps a bottle in her desk and\nlooks better without her glasses on?)\n\n=mantis=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Adam Stephanides", "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2000-11-01T21:29:42+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) The genres of PEACE", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Michael Andre-Driussi wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Part four is a hardbooiled detective story. We have a crime being\ninvestigated (forgery) and an alluring but treacherous woman whom the\n\"detective\" gets entangled with. The bogus treasure is out of THE\nMALTESE FALCON, and Gold's dusty bookshop is out of THE BIG SLEEP. Weer\neven compares himself to \"Humphrey Bogart or Charlie Chan.\" (213)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "That part is especially good, Adam." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Thanks. I actually got the part four-detective story connection first,\nand that encouraged me to go after the others." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "(Although technically: wasn't the\nbookshop in THE BIG SLEEP more an open, uncluttered, false front for\nsomething else?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, I was seeing the bookshop as just an allusion, not evidence for\nany real parallelism with THE BIG SLEEP (although the decrepit Blaine,\nwith his \"proud, cold eyes (184) does put me in mind of General (?)\nSternwood). It's actually been a long time since I either read or saw\nTHE BIG SLEEP.\n\nOne thing I didn't mention in my original post was that my list of\ngenres was surprisingly cinematic. \"Screwball comedy\" is really a film\ngenre, and part four owes as much to film noir, it seems to me, as to\nwritten detective stories. And parts three and five could also easily\nbe films. Surprisingly, because there are almost no explicit references\nto films, although there is that unexplained projector and can of film\nin his memory office. (Any other references aside from the Bogart\nmention I quoted above?)\n\n--Adam" } ] } ] }