{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2441", "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": 2441, "subject": "Wolfe on PEACE", "messages": 5, "voices": 3, "first": "2000-11-05T17:24:17+00:00", "last": "2000-11-06T13:32:11+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Robert Borski", "address": "rborski at charter.net" }, "date": "2000-11-05T17:24:17+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Wolfe on PEACE", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I've been enjoying immensely the recent series of posts on PEACE--quite\npossibly my all-time favorite list discussion--so please accept my thanks\nand congratulations to everyone who has participated. Perhaps someday\nsomeone (all right, mantis) could gather the material and publish it in a\nhandy reference guide.\n\nI also thought I'd pass on a few comments Wolfe made about PEACE in a 1983\nTHRUST interview conducted by Robert Frazier that some of you may not have\nseen or read before.\n\n**********\nWolfe: When Tom Disch reviewed [\"The Hero as Werwolf\"], he pointed out the\nmissing E of _werewolf_ on the end of my own name. I wasn't conscious of\nthat when I wrote the story, but I suspect he's right. _Werwolf_ is a valid\nold spelling. I used it to point up the fact that _werewolf_ means\n\"man-wolf.\" _Wergild_ is the price of a man's life. Note also that the\nprotagonist of PEACE is Alden Dennis _Weer._ I've always been conscious, you\nsee, that I am neither exemplary nor popular, and every so often I try to\ntell my side of the story.\n\nThrust: I found the material in PEACE fresh and wondrous; was it\nautobiographical?\n\nWolfe: Some, but not a lot. My father came from Logan, Ohio. I went there\nseveral times as a boy for more or less extended visits, and lived there\nonce for a year or so. Those memories gave me a great deal of background,\nbut that was about the end of it.\n\nThrust: PEACE seems to to be told by a _sidhe,_ mentioned in the last pages\nof the book. As if some immortal creature lives by constantly reliving. What\nexactly _is_ going on with Alden Weer?\n\nWolfe: Weer is dead. In spirit, he is reliving his life, which he confuses\nwith the house he built during his final years. Note that at the end of the\nbook Miss Bold asks permission to plant a tree on his grave. It is the fall\nof that tree, at the beginning of the book, that has freed his ghost--an old\nsuperstition.\n\n**********\n\nRobert Borski" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Adam Stephanides", "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2000-11-06T11:44:02+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Wolfe on PEACE", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Robert Borski wrote:\nWolfe: Weer is dead. In spirit, he is reliving his life, which he confuses\nwith the house he built during his final years. Note that at the end of the\nbook Miss Bold asks permission to plant a tree on his grave. It is the fall\nof that tree, at the beginning of the book, that has freed his ghost--an old\nsuperstition." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Many thanks for posting this, Robert.\n\nIt's a bit difficult to reconcile what Wolfe says here with his\nstatements re the house in the Jordan interview that I cited earlier. \nThe best I can do is to say that he did build a house, but didn't put\n\"memory rooms\" in it. The other alternative, of course, is that Wolfe\nwas mistaken in one of the interviews. (Although I tend to regard\nWolfe's exegeses of his own work as authoritative, I've never been\ncompletely at ease about it. That part of the People On-line Chat where\nWolfe is asked whether Weer is a mass murderer, and has to pause and\nthink before saying \"no,\" suggests that has memory of the book may have\nbecome fuzzy over the years.)\n\nAssuming that this interview is indeed reliable, we can also infer that\nWeer is not actually haunting his house, which means that we don't have\nto place his grave in his backyard. I'm unclear as to how to reconcile\nthe statement that Wolfe's ghost was freed at the start of the book with\nWeer's memories of having been \"sick\" for some time before the book\nbegins. Are we to take these memories as doubly unreliable--false\n\"memories\" of hallucinatiions that were never hallucinated, so to speak?\n\n--Adam" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Urash, Tom", "address": "turash at firstam.com" }, "date": "2000-11-06T11:27:36+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) Wolfe on PEACE", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "-----Original Message-----\nFrom: Adam Stephanides [mailto:adamsteph at earthlink.net]\nSent: Monday, November 06, 2000 1:44 PM\nTo: urth at lists1.ba.best.com\nSubject: Re: (urth) Wolfe on PEACE" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Robert Borski wrote:\nWolfe: Weer is dead. In spirit, he is reliving his life, which he confuses\nwith the house he built during his final years. Note that at the end of\nthe\nbook Miss Bold asks permission to plant a tree on his grave. It is the\nfall\nof that tree, at the beginning of the book, that has freed his ghost--an\nold\nsuperstition." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Many thanks for posting this, Robert.\n\nIt's a bit difficult to reconcile what Wolfe says here with his\nstatements re the house in the Jordan interview that I cited earlier. \nThe best I can do is to say that he did build a house, but didn't put\n\"memory rooms\" in it. The other alternative, of course, is that Wolfe\nwas mistaken in one of the interviews. (Although I tend to regard\nWolfe's exegeses of his own work as authoritative, I've never been\ncompletely at ease about it. That part of the People On-line Chat where\nWolfe is asked whether Weer is a mass murderer, and has to pause and\nthink before saying \"no,\" suggests that has memory of the book may have\nbecome fuzzy over the years.)\n\nAssuming that this interview is indeed reliable, we can also infer that\nWeer is not actually haunting his house, which means that we don't have\nto place his grave in his backyard. I'm unclear as to how to reconcile\nthe statement that Wolfe's ghost was freed at the start of the book with\nWeer's memories of having been \"sick\" for some time before the book\nbegins. Are we to take these memories as doubly unreliable--false\n\"memories\" of hallucinatiions that were never hallucinated, so to speak?\n\n--Adam\n\nCould Weer's \"sickness\" be the ghost's interpretation of whatever travails\nor confusion of being it experienced between physical death and the release\nbrought on by the felling of the elm? How would this being interpret a prior\npurgatorial state if given a chance to reflect, and isn't it traditionally\nthe case that ghosts are ghosts because of attachments to the physical\nuniverse they are unable or unwilling to let go of? I don't read a great\ndeal of horror or supernatural fiction, so this may be a stretch, but if you\nwere to relate the condition of being a ghost to the condition of most\nindividuals when dreaming, I think there are some parallels, e.g.,\nvolitional control of movement and context are often severely limited, and\ncritical examination of surroundings and events is practically non-existent,\notherwise we'd all be lucid dreamers (aware that we are dreaming during\nevery dream). So, instead of \"false 'memories' of hallucinations\", etc.,\nmaybe we have the ghost's best (or most comfortable, soothing)\ninterpretation of an otherwise non-sense-ical state of being, one that would\nbe neither true nor false in the usual sense of those words. \n\n...tom" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Urash, Tom", "address": "turash at firstam.com" }, "date": "2000-11-06T13:32:11+00:00", "subject": "FW: (urth) Wolfe on PEACE", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "-----Original Message-----\nFrom: Adam Stephanides [mailto:adamsteph at earthlink.net]\nSent: Monday, November 06, 2000 1:44 PM\nTo: urth at lists1.ba.best.com\nSubject: Re: (urth) Wolfe on PEACE" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Robert Borski wrote:\nWolfe: Weer is dead. In spirit, he is reliving his life, which he confuses\nwith the house he built during his final years. Note that at the end of\nthe\nbook Miss Bold asks permission to plant a tree on his grave. It is the\nfall\nof that tree, at the beginning of the book, that has freed his ghost--an\nold\nsuperstition." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Many thanks for posting this, Robert.\n\nIt's a bit difficult to reconcile what Wolfe says here with his\nstatements re the house in the Jordan interview that I cited earlier. \nThe best I can do is to say that he did build a house, but didn't put\n\"memory rooms\" in it. The other alternative, of course, is that Wolfe\nwas mistaken in one of the interviews. (Although I tend to regard\nWolfe's exegeses of his own work as authoritative, I've never been\ncompletely at ease about it. That part of the People On-line Chat where\nWolfe is asked whether Weer is a mass murderer, and has to pause and\nthink before saying \"no,\" suggests that has memory of the book may have\nbecome fuzzy over the years.)\n\nAssuming that this interview is indeed reliable, we can also infer that\nWeer is not actually haunting his house, which means that we don't have\nto place his grave in his backyard. I'm unclear as to how to reconcile\nthe statement that Wolfe's ghost was freed at the start of the book with\nWeer's memories of having been \"sick\" for some time before the book\nbegins. Are we to take these memories as doubly unreliable--false\n\"memories\" of hallucinatiions that were never hallucinated, so to speak?\n\n--Adam\n\nCould Weer's \"sickness\" be the ghost's interpretation of whatever travails\nor confusion of being it experienced between physical death and the release\nbrought on by the felling of the elm? How would this being interpret a prior\npurgatorial state if given a chance to reflect, and isn't it traditionally\nthe case that ghosts are ghosts because of attachments to the physical\nuniverse they are unable or unwilling to let go of? I don't read a great\ndeal of horror or supernatural fiction, so this may be a stretch, but if you\nwere to relate the condition of being a ghost to the condition of most\nindividuals when dreaming, I think there are some parallels, e.g.,\nvolitional control of movement and context are often severely limited, and\ncritical examination of surroundings and events is practically non-existent,\notherwise we'd all be lucid dreamers (aware that we are dreaming during\nevery dream). So, instead of \"false 'memories' of hallucinations\", etc.,\nmaybe we have the ghost's best (or most comfortable, soothing)\ninterpretation of an otherwise non-sense-ical state of being, one that would\nbe neither true nor false in the usual sense of those words. \n\n...tom" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Urash, Tom", "address": "turash at firstam.com" }, "date": "2000-11-06T11:27:36+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) Wolfe on PEACE", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "-----Original Message-----\nFrom: Adam Stephanides [mailto:adamsteph at earthlink.net]\nSent: Monday, November 06, 2000 1:44 PM\nTo: urth at lists1.ba.best.com\nSubject: Re: (urth) Wolfe on PEACE" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Robert Borski wrote:\nWolfe: Weer is dead. In spirit, he is reliving his life, which he confuses\nwith the house he built during his final years. Note that at the end of\nthe\nbook Miss Bold asks permission to plant a tree on his grave. It is the\nfall\nof that tree, at the beginning of the book, that has freed his ghost--an\nold\nsuperstition." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Many thanks for posting this, Robert.\n\nIt's a bit difficult to reconcile what Wolfe says here with his\nstatements re the house in the Jordan interview that I cited earlier. \nThe best I can do is to say that he did build a house, but didn't put\n\"memory rooms\" in it. The other alternative, of course, is that Wolfe\nwas mistaken in one of the interviews. (Although I tend to regard\nWolfe's exegeses of his own work as authoritative, I've never been\ncompletely at ease about it. That part of the People On-line Chat where\nWolfe is asked whether Weer is a mass murderer, and has to pause and\nthink before saying \"no,\" suggests that has memory of the book may have\nbecome fuzzy over the years.)\n\nAssuming that this interview is indeed reliable, we can also infer that\nWeer is not actually haunting his house, which means that we don't have\nto place his grave in his backyard. I'm unclear as to how to reconcile\nthe statement that Wolfe's ghost was freed at the start of the book with\nWeer's memories of having been \"sick\" for some time before the book\nbegins. Are we to take these memories as doubly unreliable--false\n\"memories\" of hallucinatiions that were never hallucinated, so to speak?\n\n--Adam\n\nCould Weer's \"sickness\" be the ghost's interpretation of whatever travails\nor confusion of being it experienced between physical death and the release\nbrought on by the felling of the elm? How would this being interpret a prior\npurgatorial state if given a chance to reflect, and isn't it traditionally\nthe case that ghosts are ghosts because of attachments to the physical\nuniverse they are unable or unwilling to let go of? I don't read a great\ndeal of horror or supernatural fiction, so this may be a stretch, but if you\nwere to relate the condition of being a ghost to the condition of most\nindividuals when dreaming, I think there are some parallels, e.g.,\nvolitional control of movement and context are often severely limited, and\ncritical examination of surroundings and events is practically non-existent,\notherwise we'd all be lucid dreamers (aware that we are dreaming during\nevery dream). So, instead of \"false 'memories' of hallucinations\", etc.,\nmaybe we have the ghost's best (or most comfortable, soothing)\ninterpretation of an otherwise non-sense-ical state of being, one that would\nbe neither true nor false in the usual sense of those words. \n\n...tom" } ] } ] }