{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2440",
    "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": 2440,
    "subject": "PEACE and Swedenborg",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "2000-11-05T12:52:19+00:00",
    "last": "2000-11-07T10:07:37+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0030-0085@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Adam Stephanides",
        "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net"
      },
      "date": "2000-11-05T12:52:19+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) PEACE and Swedenborg",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I came across a story by Swedenborg--apparently an excerpt from one of\nhis mysical-theological books--in an anthology.  It's only a page long,\nbut the parallels with PEACE are startling.\n\nWhen the theologian Melancthon (an early Lutheran theologian) dies, he\nis  \"provided with a house deceptively like the one in which he lived in\nthis world.\"  As a result, he doesn't know he's dead and continues\nwriting theology.  Because he never mentions charity, believing faith is\nsufficient for salvation, his clothes and surroundings supernaturally\ndeteriorate.  Eventually he finds that \"the other rooms [of his house]\nno longer matched those of his old house in the natural world.\" \nUltimately he is taken to be \"a servant of demons.\"\n\nIn less than a page, we have four strong parallels: unawareness of\ndeath,  the lifelike house, writing, and the appearance of strange rooms\nin the house.  There are a couple of other episodes which may have\nparallels in PEACE too.  One of the strange rooms Melancthon finds in\nhis house is full of people who praise him, \"but since some of the\nvisitors were faceless and others seemed dead he ended up hating and\ndistrusting them.\"  This reminds me of part five where Weer gets praise,\nwhich he distrusts, from people who seem faceless or dead.  And earlier,\nfor his denial of charity, Melancthon was \"transported ... to a kind of\nworkhouse, where there were other theologians like him.\"  He returns\nafter a few days, and \"tried hard to convince himself\" that it was just\na hallucination.  This might be regarded a parallel to the visit to Van\nNess, especially if you believe that the visit is real and the other\npatients are also after-death souls (which, incidentally, I don't).\n\nDid Wolfe know this story?  I don't know.  The anthology in which I saw\nit, THE BOOK OF FANTASY, was actually co-edited by Borges; but this\nanthology was not translated into English until 1988.  And I don't\nrecall Wolfe ever mentioning reading Swedenborg.  Nor do I know if the\nstory was ever summarized in some more accessible source.\n\nNot everything in the story is (obviously) paralleled in PEACE.  And I'm\nnot arguing that Weer is literally going through what Melancthon did. \nBut given all the parallels that do exist, it would be quite a\ncoincidence if Wolfe's portrayal of Weer's afterlife wasn't influenced\nby Swedenborg's story, consciously or unconsciously.\n\n--Adam"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0030-0096@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Tony Ellis",
        "address": "tony.ellis at futurenet.co.uk"
      },
      "date": "2000-11-07T10:07:37+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) re: PEACE and Swedenborg",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0030-0085@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Adam Stephanides wrote:\nDid Wolfe know this story?  I don't know.  The anthology in which I saw\nit, THE BOOK OF FANTASY, was actually co-edited by Borges; but this\nanthology was not translated into English until 1988.  And I don't\nrecall Wolfe ever mentioning reading Swedenborg.  Nor do I know if the\nstory was ever summarized in some more accessible source."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Borges includes this story in his collection A Universal History of\nInfamy, published in 1954, so it's pretty much a dead cert that Wolfe\nknew it.\n\nThe parallels are quite striking, aren't they? Well spotted.\n\nDoes anyone know if Borges' version is a straight retelling of the\noriginal, or if there are any subtle changes?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "sig",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Tony Ellis\nOn-line Editor, PC Format magazine\n01225 442244 x2349\nhttp://www.pcformat.co.uk"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}