Subject: (urth) Grounded in the text?

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <ddanehy at siebel.com>
Date: Wed, 06 Dec 2000 13:42:42 +0000

Adam Stephanides wrote:

> Much of what you say I agree with, or need more time to digest.  But
> here's an initial response, to keep the dialogue going while it's 
> fresh in my mind:

What he said.

> I'm not sure what you mean here; you seem to be implying a contrast
> between "the story" and "the way in which the story is told" 

No; I'm more interested in the contrast between "telling a story" and
"making points by playing with the readers' heads." Wolfe does in fact
play with readers' heads; but it seems to me that this is in service 
of the story, rather than the other way around. (Generally.)

> I think that Wolfe's concern to "deconstruct" the act of
> narration, which you touch upon below, makes him a radical writer,
> although he's not as flashy as some self-consciously pomo writers (and
> although he sometimes affects an aggressively antimodernist,
> we-don't-need-no-steenking-critics stance).  I think PEACE in particular
> is a very radical, even experimental novel.

Oddly, I don't want to argue this point: but see below. 

I also question whether Wolfe is so much deconstructing as 
reconstructing the act of narration, by (for example) insisting on 
a particular time and place of narration that affect the manner and 
content of the narration. This is not a particularly radical 
gesture; in fact, it's a standard pulp trope. H.P. Lovecraft used 
it (badly) all the time ("They are right outside the door..." or 
"Ia! Ia! Shub-Niggurath, the Goat with a Thousand Young..." or "That 
hideous, three-lobed eye..."). I even ran across it in the Nero 
Wolfe novel I reread last night ("The Second Confession"), though I 
shan't explain because it involves the solution of a mystery, and
those who reveal the ending of mystery novels get a fully deserved,
one-way ride to Hell.

You might even say that he uses it in radical ways, and I might 
agree; but then, as I said, I think he uses radical tools to 
conservative ends. I'll even grant "radically conservative," 
radical in the same way that the Gospel is radical.

> > And, yeah, at first glance,
> > tBotNS looks like a save-the-world story, when it's actually more of a
> > bildungsroman -- "The Making of the Messiah, Parts 1-4" rather than an
> > actual
> > gospel account, which we then get in URTH.
> 
> And I don't think this example really supports your point.  There's a
> great deal in tBotNS whose relevance to the bidungsroman story is
> tangential or unclear.

Unclear I'll grant. Tangential? Perhaps -- but tangential to whom? 
Not, I imagine, to Severian. Tangentiality resolves to unclarity-to-us.

> > Which novel? There are some I haven't completely worked out, but none of
> > them have completely failed to make any sense to me.
> 
> CASTLEVIEW (I had expected that would be obvious).  And I'd love to hear
> what you make of it.

This is the one GW novel about which I can say almost nothing; I've read 
it only once, several years ago. I don't recall it being especially obtuse 
-- not, certainly, compared to PEACE or 5HC -- but I read it under 
somewhat unfavorable conditions (a redeye flight, and immediately following
PANDORA) and may have missed its obtuseosity completely.

> > I
> > remember all the speculation here about "Suzanne Delage"; on rereading
> > that story a month or two ago, I came away firmly convinced that it was
> > just about what it says it's about, the circumstances surrounding an
> > event that the narrator simply cannot remember because it fails to fit
> > into the context of his life. Because he can't remember it, he can't
> > really tell us anything about it, and so we cannot know what it is. End
> > of story.
> 
> A digression here: you apparently believe that the narrator did know
> Suzanne Delage, as do I (am I right?); whereas what the story says it's
> about is the reasons why he didn't know Suzanne Delage.

That isn't quite what I said. I said that something happened which the 
narrator is incapable of remembering, because it doesn't fit into the 
rest of his life. He perceives not-meeting Suzanne as some kind of hole 
in his experience; such a hole may be indicative of the unrememberable, 
though what exactly he can't remember may not be an encounter with her.
I suspect it _is_, but would not care to mount an argument to demonstrate 
it. 

> > I agree with this; I think it's another way of approaching the same
basic
> > thing I am saying: that PEACE is not about the surface events of Weer's
> > life so much as it is about the process of
> > recollection/reliving/reconstruction/falsification (mix 'em and match
> > 'em, kids! The first one's always free!) by which those events are
> > related.
> 
> Which, to return to an earlier point, is not something a "very
> conservative writer" would be likely to do; in fact, it's exactly the
> sort of thing the modernist authors of the early twentieth century were
> preoccupied by.  Nor is it generally the sort of thing people mean when
> they talk about "putting the story first."

This is the "see below" above.

You seem to be pointing at a kind of "experimental" that was very 
experimental indeed in the 1920s, and that most of the pomos would 
sniff at as mere "modernism." And it is indeed putting the story 
first: but the story being put first is not necessarily the story 
that the reader immediately thinks it is. The process by which some 
events are related is every bit as legitimate a "subject" for a 
story as the process by which they occurred. 

Another way of taking this: the _Thousand Nights and a Night_ is 
about the process by which Scheherazade tells a series of stories; 
further, some of those stories are themselves about the telling of 
stories. I do not think I am calling Wolfe terribly radical if I 
suggest he may have adopted this as a model, particularly given 
the "Nights" references in the novel. We might argue from there 
that PEACE is not precisely a novel, and I won't debate that 
point; perhaps it isn't.

>  I think one key to the whole shebang is the question of whom
> > Weer [thinks he] is writing to; at one point he addresses his readers
> > as "ladies." (Olivia?)
> 
> If you're referring to the spot on p. 14 of the Harper & Row edition
> ("Ladies, this was not what I wanted"), Weer is referring here not to
> his readers, but to the women at Weer's birthday party, who apparently
> have mentally intruded on his visit to Van Ness.

That is the passage (it's on p13 of my Berkley ed'n), but is in a 
paragraph set off by slugs, between a "birthday party" passage and 
a "Doctor Van Ness's office" passage. The ladies at the party have 
just been discussing the falsification of the Indian treaty.

The paragraph in full:

	One moment, please. Let me stand and walk to the window;
	let me put this broken elm branch -- shaped as though it 
	were meant to be the antler of a wooden deer, such a deer
	as might be found, possibly, under one of the largest
	outdoor Christmas trees -- upon the fire. Ladies, this 
	was not what I wanted. Ladies, I wish to know only if in
	my condition I should exercise or remain still; because
	if the answer is that I must exercise I will go looking
	for my scout knife.

Now, I could be wrong, but it seems to me pretty darned clear that 
this is Weer in the porch of his memory-house, addressing -- well, 
three possibilities. 

1. He is addressing his hypothetical readers.
2. He is addressing the ladies (Sherry, the nurse, etc.) in the
   doctor's office.
3. He is addressing the ladies at the party.

But of these three, only the first is fully coherent; the third 
involves a level of incoherency where he simply cannot distinguish
between the porch and the party. I suppose this is no worse than a
marginal reading, but I see no special value in a marginal reading 
when a fully coherent one is available. (Unless, of course, you 
want to argue for "all of the above" and maybe others.)

> > Is there anyone on this list who seriously maintains that he is 
> > _not_ dead?
> 
> I don't recall anybody saying that Weer is definitely not dead, but
> several people have discussed the Chinese Pillow reading as one
> possibility.  And mantis has, iirc, dropped some hints that Weer 
> may not be dead (which I hope he will eventually flesh out).

So do I; but I think the evidence that Weer is dead is overwhelming, 
and will stand with that until and unless.

> > I don't see any particular evidence of Weer's lying, except perhaps to
> > himself, defensively. I'm not eliminating it as a possibility, mind, but
> I'd like to see where you think he's lying and why.
> > 
> I don't think that Weer has been definitively shown to be lying, which
> is why I put in  that "perhaps."  The best candidate for his lying is
> his account to Dan of the coldhouse prank, which I discussed in my
> earlier post.

My apologies; I should have said "lying in his account," as opposed to
lying to one or more of the people in his account. This makes a great
deal of difference.

> > > But I'm skeptical that "recreating" can be
> > > the master key to building "a coherent and consistent model," as you
> > > seem to be suggesting, at least one which is grounded in the text.
> > 
> > Okay, here's a bogey model.

[...model postponed...]

> That's why I put in the clause about being grounded in the text.  I
> don't think that this model is, although I've discussed this before and
> I don't expect you to agree with me.

Point by point.

> > Weer is dead, to begin with. 

I hope I don't have to show that this is grounded? Perhaps not proven, 
but certainly grounded.

> >                               In the grave 

I demur on "in the grave." The "freed by the fall of the tree" bit can
be interpreted as saying he is no longer in the grave; however, I did
not mean it as physical location.

> >                                         he is undergoing a process by
> > which he goes, or is led, through his life,

That he is in some sense going through his life is clear. "Is led" is
more questionable; it leads back to my speculation on the doctors, and
possibly others, as psychopomps. Certainly the words and actions of the
doctors seem to spark many of Weer's trips down memory lane; the only
real speculation here is that it is done deliberately.

> >                                             given the opportunity to
> > change his mind (a la the Chinese Pillow; but cf also "Its a Wonderful
> > Life"... H'mm, this paragraph is taking on a holiday theme...), "repent
> > of" his former decisions, and so achieve Peace.

Grounded, to begin with, in the title. A reading that doesn't make sense
of the title is (imo) not particularly interesting. As for "changing his
mind," I don't necessarily mean that he gets to change what actually 
happened, but at least he has the opportunity -- whether or not he takes
it -- to reevaluate his attitude toward it: thus the "repentance" angle. 
(I am still working with variations on the "purgatory" model, if that 
wasn't clear.) 

> > Two additional speculations help:
> > 1. This may be an iterative process, and we may be seeing only one
> >    loop (or part of one)

This obviously is pure speculation; primarily it's a way of accounting 
for the semicoherent opening and closing, but I can't really call it
"grounded" in the text.

> > 2. Weer may not be (almost certainly is not) aware of the nature of
> >    the process.

Grounding by negatives: granting per argumentam the major premise, there 
is nothing in the text that would suggest that Weer _is_ aware of it.

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/

---

From: William Ansley <wansley at warwick.net>
Date: Fri, 08 Dec 2000 00:03:52 +0000

>Adam Stephanides wrote:

...

>want to argue for "all of the above" and maybe others.)

I can't let this pass without comment. I am sure I won't change your 
mind Dan'l, but as far as I am concerned, the only reasonable choice 
from your list of who Weer could be addressing when he says "ladies" 
in the passage you quote above is number 3. I really have no idea 
what you mean when you say choice number 1 is the most 'coherent.'

We have a book written by a dead man who doesn't know he is dead, and 
who seems to believe that he can send his mind back into the past to 
earlier parts of his life and yet doesn't seem to think that this is 
at all unusual. (Here I a describing what it seems to me that Weer 
believes is happening to him rather than what is "really" happening 
to him, assuming that what is really happening in the context of 
_Peace_ can ever be determined.) When he does send his mind back into 
the past, it has a strong tendency to bounce around, as the past 
events he encounters recall other past events ("Billy Pilgrim has 
come unstuck in time.") Various parts of what seems to be the past 
blend together with each other and also with what seems to be the 
present. I am not sure using coherency as the basis for analysis make 
sense.

 From the beginning of the book to the passage you quote, Weer's "time 
travels" seem to go like this. (I have the Orb paperback edition of 
_Peace_ handy and I will have to use page numbers from it. The 
passage you quote above from page 13 of the Berkley edition spans 
pages 13 and 14 in the Orb edition.)

Page  Time/Place
----  ----------
1     Weer's house in the present
3     Dr. Van Ness's waiting room (Weer is about 40-45?)
4     Weer's childhood home at the time of his 5th birthday party
6-7   Weer returns to his house in the present
8     Back to Weer's 5th birthday
10    Weer's childhood home at some unspecified time in the kitchen
       listening to Hannah
12    Dr. Van Ness's office, seemingly at the same time as on p. 3
13    Back to the birthday party
13-14 The quoted passage in Weer's house, back in the present

I have not done justice to the intricate structure of this first 
brief part of the book. There are two or three short passages I have 
left out where Weer's attention returns to the "present," as if he is 
just reminiscing about his past.  But the idea that we are just 
reading reminiscences seems to be contradicted when the Weer in the 
past talks as if he is a visitor from the future.

But, leaving all this aside, I think there is textual evidence that 
Weer is addressing the ladies at his fifth birthday party. On p. 5 we 
see this: "There is a white Pekinese as big as a spaniel at her feet, 
and it snarls when anyone comes too near. (Laugh, ladies, but 
Ming-Sno will bite.)" It is not clear who made this remark (perhaps 
Weer is recalling something his Aunt Olivia said), but it is 
obviously addressed to the ladies at Weer's 5th birthday party. It 
seems clear to me that when Were echoes the word "ladies" later he is 
referring to the same group of people.

When Weer does address his readers in _Peace_ he talks directly to 
us, most of the time implicitly, but on p. 83, directly. "(Have you 
never thought as you read that months may lie between any pair of 
words?)" I find _Peace_ much more coherent if Weer always addresses 
his readers consistently, rather than sometimes deciding to address 
them in the third person and as if they are all female.

You say that my interpretation (and Adam's) "involves a level of 
incoherency [on Weer's part] where he simply cannot distinguish 
between the porch and the party." Obviously, I disagree. In my view, 
Weer's mind has just returned from his 5th birthday party back to the 
"present" and he is addressing the people he has just (in effect) 
left, quite as he or I (or perhaps even you) might make a remark to 
someone who has just left the room, even if we are sure he or she 
cannot hear us any longer.

I am sure that this was a lengthy (and boring) exercise in futility, 
but when I tell someone he is dead wrong, I like to try to explain 
why.

-- 
William Ansley

---

From: Adam Stephanides <adamsteph at earthlink.net>
Date: Fri, 08 Dec 2000 11:17:27 +0000

An excellent post; I was going to defend my position, but you do it
better than I would have.  There are just a couple of amendments I would
make.

> >>  have mentally intruded on his visit to Van Ness.

[snip]

> >       if the answer is that I must exercise I will go looking

[snip]

> cannot hear us any longer.

I would analyze it a bit differently.  I think that when Weer's mind is
in the "past" he remains aware of his "present" situation; this is how
he is able to move back and forth at will, here and on p. 12 of H & R
("I stand, holding on to the mantel...").  Conversely, in this
paragraph, although his attention has turned to the "present" situation,
his mind is still simultaneously at the birthday party (and at Van
Ness's office!).  So the "ladies" of the birthday party he is addressing
are present, though
in another compartment of his mind, so to speak.  It's a small point,
but I think it's important to figure out, as best we can, what exactly
is going on in the course of Weer's narration.

In the further interests of exactitude, an even smaller point:
 
> Weer is recalling something his Aunt Olivia said)

Could be, but I don't recall any other instances of Weer echoing another
person's remark without indicating he's doing so; and I don't see any
reason why it shouldn't be an aside by the present-day Weer,
rhetorically addressed to the "ladies."  Of course, this doesn't affect
your argument.

--Adam

---

From: William Ansley <wansley at warwick.net>
Date: Fri, 08 Dec 2000 23:57:50 +0000

>better than I would have.  There are just a couple of amendments I would

Thank you, but I'm sure you would have done just as well, if not better.

>William Ansley wrote:

[...]

>is going on in the course of Weer's narration.

Very neat. This hypothesis is much better my "Weer's mind as a single 
point travelling through time" idea, if only because it allows for a 
much neater explanation of all the sudden shifts in the text.

>rhetorically addressed to the "ladies."  Of course, this doesn't affect

You know, I actually have always read this parenthetical remark as 
just that, "an aside by the present-day Weer, rhetorically addressed 
to the 'ladies.'" But, I confused myself by thinking about it too 
much and offered a weak alternative.

But I did say "perhaps."

-- 
William Ansley

---

From: Adam Stephanides <adamsteph at earthlink.net>
Date: Sat, 09 Dec 2000 10:42:52 +0000

> (I am still working with variations on the "purgatory" model, if that

I think we pretty much agree on what elements of your model are and are
not grounded in the text (I've snipped the ones you say are not).  I
agree Weer's death is grounded in the text; he is evidently going over
his life; and the title, combined with the ending, do make it reasonable
to infer that Weer is seeking peace.  I don't believe, however, that
they are grounds for inferring that "peace" is an achievable goal, or
that the way to reach it is through "repentance."

But I don't think that these grounded elements, taken by themselves, are
enough to constitute "a coherent and consistent model."  At any rate,
they are too general to be of much help in explaining the mysteries of
Weer's present situation, which is what we want a model for.

--Adam