{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2488", "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": 2488, "subject": "PEACE: Wolfe a conservative writer? [was RE: Digest urth.v030.n031]", "messages": 1, "voices": 1, "first": "2000-12-06T11:51:58+00:00", "last": "2000-12-06T11:51:58+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Adam Stephanides", "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2000-12-06T11:51:58+00:00", "subject": "(urth) PEACE: Wolfe a conservative writer? [was RE: Digest urth.v030.n031]", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Much of what you say I agree with, or need more time to digest. But\nhere's an initial response, to keep the dialogue going while it's fresh\nin my mind:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:\n\nAdam, thanks for replying.\n\nWell, that's an interesting question -- one that I hadn't really considered\nbecause I think that Wolfe is, in a way, a very conservative writer. He uses\npomo tools like metafiction and auctorial intrusion and such, but he seems\nat\nthe same time to be concerned, first and foremost, with telling a story, and\nI\nthink he uses those tools in the service of the story. If you disagree with\nthat, then you won't agree with anything else I'm going to say, and so might\n\nas well stop reading here." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm not sure what you mean here; you seem to be implying a contrast\nbetween \"the story\" and \"the way in which the story is told\" and saying\nthat Wolfe gives priority to the former over the latter, which would\ncontradict your insistence that PEACE is not the story of Weer's life,\nbut the story of Weer's telling his story (and if the latter counts as\n\"putting the story first,\" then the most pomo book can claim to be\n\"putting the story first\"). But I don't agree, at any rate, that Wolfe\nis a \"conservative\" writer (although that's another term whose meaning\nis unclear). I think that Wolfe's concern to \"deconstruct\" the act of\nnarration, which you touch upon below, makes him a radical writer,\nalthough he's not as flashy as some self-consciously pomo writers (and\nalthough he sometimes affects an aggressively antimodernist,\nwe-don't-need-no-steenking-critics stance). I think PEACE in particular\nis a very radical, even experimental novel." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "And, yeah, at first glance,\ntBotNS looks like a save-the-world story, when it's actually more of a\nbildungsroman -- \"The Making of the Messiah, Parts 1-4\" rather than an\nactual\ngospel account, which we then get in URTH." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "And I don't think this example really supports your point. There's a\ngreat deal in tBotNS whose relevance to the bidungsroman story is\ntangential or unclear." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "after all, he's written one novel and\na number of shorter works which nobody, AFAIK, has yet made any sense\nof)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Which novel? There are some I haven't completely worked out, but none of\nthem have completely failed to make any sense to me." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "CASTLEVIEW (I had expected that would be obvious). And I'd love to hear\nwhat you make of it." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I\nremember all the speculation here about \"Suzanne Delage\"; on rereading\nthat story a month or two ago, I came away firmly convinced that it was\njust about what it says it's about, the circumstances surrounding an\nevent that the narrator simply cannot remember because it fails to fit\ninto the context of his life. Because he can't remember it, he can't\nreally tell us anything about it, and so we cannot know what it is. End\nof story." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "A digression here: you apparently believe that the narrator did know\nSuzanne Delage, as do I (am I right?); whereas what the story says it's\nabout is the reasons why he didn't know Suzanne Delage." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I agree with this; I think it's another way of approaching the same basic\nthing I am saying: that PEACE is not about the surface events of Weer's\nlife so much as it is about the process of\nrecollection/reliving/reconstruction/falsification (mix 'em and match\n'em, kids! The first one's always free!) by which those events are\nrelated." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Which, to return to an earlier point, is not something a \"very\nconservative writer\" would be likely to do; in fact, it's exactly the\nsort of thing the modernist authors of the early twentieth century were\npreoccupied by. Nor is it generally the sort of thing people mean when\nthey talk about \"putting the story first.\"\n\n I think one key to the whole shebang is the question of whom" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Weer [thinks he] is writing to; at one point he addresses his readers\nas \"ladies.\" (Olivia?)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "If you're referring to the spot on p. 14 of the Harper & Row edition\n(\"Ladies, this was not what I wanted\"), Weer is referring here not to\nhis readers, but to the women at Weer's birthday party, who apparently\nhave mentally intruded on his visit to Van Ness." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "But when it comes to Weer's\npresent situation, we can't even agree on the simplest facts: is he\nalive or dead? If alive, is he young or old?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Is there anyone on this list who seriously maintains that he is _not_ dead?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't recall anybody saying that Weer is definitely not dead, but\nseveral people have discussed the Chinese Pillow reading as one\npossibility. And mantis has, iirc, dropped some hints that Weer may not\nbe dead (which I hope he will eventually flesh out)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "(Of course that _is_ possible; it may be able to produce a coherent reading\nin which Weer's future ghost actually moves back in time and takes\npossession of his younger body for these discussions. One would think,\nthough, that his saying such things would give the doctor more concern\nabout Weer's sanity than is shown by his giving TAT-type tests.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, the doctor does ask Weer if he takes drugs. But I don't buy this\nreading either." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Instead, his narrative is a\ncombination of recollection, suppression, and (perhaps) lying that is\nnearly impossible to disentangle. So I don't agree that we have \"very\nlittle in the way of mystery.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I don't see any particular evidence of Weer's lying, except perhaps to\nhimself, defensively. I'm not eliminating it as a possibility, mind, but\nI'd like to see where you think he's lying and why." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't think that Weer has been definitively shown to be lying, which\nis why I put in that \"perhaps.\" The best candidate for his lying is\nhis account to Dan of the coldhouse prank, which I discussed in my\nearlier post." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I dunno -- He doesn't seem like anyone I'd particularly want to know in\nRL." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, he would have a lot of stories to tell, at any rate, and would\ntell them well (at least until the ending)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "But I'm skeptical that \"recreating\" can be\nthe master key to building \"a coherent and consistent model,\" as you\nseem to be suggesting, at least one which is grounded in the text." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Okay, here's a bogey model.\n\nWeer is dead, to begin with. In the grave he is undergoing a process by\nwhich he goes, or is led, through his life, given the opportunity to\nchange his mind (a la the Chinese Pillow; but cf also \"Its a Wonderful\nLife\"... H'mm, this paragraph is taking on a holiday theme...), \"repent\nof\" his former decisions, and so achieve Peace.\n\nTwo additional speculations help:\n1. This may be an iterative process, and we may be seeing only one\n loop (or part of one)\n2. Weer may not be (almost certainly is not) aware of the nature of\n the process.\n\nI suggest that this model offers a coherent and consistent reading.\nFeel free to attack it." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That's why I put in the clause about being grounded in the text. I\ndon't think that this model is, although I've discussed this before and\nI don't expect you to agree with me.\n\n--Adam" } ] } ] }