{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2497", "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": 2497, "subject": "PEACE: Death; lying (was Re: (urth) Grounded in the text?)", "messages": 5, "voices": 3, "first": "2000-12-08T16:35:47+00:00", "last": "2000-12-08T23:23:16+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Adam Stephanides", "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2000-12-08T17:03:35+00:00", "subject": "PEACE: Death; lying (was Re: (urth) Grounded in the text?)", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:\n\nSo do I; but I think the evidence that Weer is dead is overwhelming,\nand will stand with that until and unless." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I, too, am convinced that Weer is dead, but I wouldn't say the evidence\nis overwhelming, especially if you don't regard Wolfe's interview\nstatements as probative. If somebody were to insist that Weer was\nalive, there is no one passage in the book (even the elm-tree passages)\nI know of that I could point out to him/her and say \"See? This proves\nyou're wrong.\" Rather, it's that Weer's being dead ties together a\nnumber of details which, while not contradicting his being alive, remain\nunexplained in that case." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "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": "quote", "depth": 2, "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": "My apologies; I should have said \"lying in his account,\" as opposed to\nlying to one or more of the people in his account. This makes a great\ndeal of difference." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "If he lies to one of the people in his account, and he gives no\nindication to us that he is lying or that he habitually lies in such\nsituations, then he is implicitly lying to us, I think. This is not\njust a convention of narrative, but of ordinary conversation.\n\nThanks for the very interesting post about book covers, by the way.\n\n--Adam" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Straight", "address": "straight at email.unc.edu" }, "date": "2000-12-08T16:35:47+00:00", "subject": "Re: PEACE: Death; lying (was Re: (urth) Grounded in the text?)", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Fri, 8 Dec 2000, Adam Stephanides wrote:\nDan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "So do I; but I think the evidence that Weer is dead is overwhelming,\nand will stand with that until and unless." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I, too, am convinced that Weer is dead, but I wouldn't say the evidence\nis overwhelming, especially if you don't regard Wolfe's interview\nstatements as probative. If somebody were to insist that Weer was\nalive, there is no one passage in the book (even the elm-tree passages)\nI know of that I could point out to him/her and say \"See? This proves\nyou're wrong.\" Rather, it's that Weer's being dead ties together a\nnumber of details which, while not contradicting his being alive, remain\nunexplained in that case." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Oh, come on. Is there anyone who doesn't get a shiver when they first\nconnect the two elm tree passages? That's too good to be an\naccident. Maybe it's a Weer getting a Ghost of Christmas Future look at\nhow his life might look after he's dead, but the ghost has got to be in\nthere somewhere. It's too good not to be right.\n\n(Of course I got also got a shiver when you suggested the tree may have\nfallen after all men are dead, but that's different. I think.)\n\n-Rostrum" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Adam Stephanides", "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2000-12-08T18:04:06+00:00", "subject": "Re: PEACE: Death; lying (was Re: (urth) Grounded in the text?)", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Michael Straight wrote:\n\nOn Fri, 8 Dec 2000, Adam Stephanides wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "So do I; but I think the evidence that Weer is dead is overwhelming,\nand will stand with that until and unless." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I, too, am convinced that Weer is dead, but I wouldn't say the evidence\nis overwhelming, especially if you don't regard Wolfe's interview\nstatements as probative. If somebody were to insist that Weer was\nalive, there is no one passage in the book (even the elm-tree passages)\nI know of that I could point out to him/her and say \"See? This proves\nyou're wrong.\" Rather, it's that Weer's being dead ties together a\nnumber of details which, while not contradicting his being alive, remain\nunexplained in that case." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Oh, come on. Is there anyone who doesn't get a shiver when they first\nconnect the two elm tree passages? That's too good to be an\naccident. Maybe it's a Weer getting a Ghost of Christmas Future look at\nhow his life might look after he's dead, but the ghost has got to be in\nthere somewhere. It's too good not to be right." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Strictly speaking, this \"proves\" only that somebody died, not that Weer\ndid. Of course, I agree that it was Weer; but if somebody were to deny\nit, I wouldn't be able to prove them wrong." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "(Of course I got also got a shiver when you suggested the tree may have\nfallen after all men are dead, but that's different. I think.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Not my suggestion. It may have been Roy Lackey's, or mantis's, who have\nboth touched on the \"end-of-the-world\" hypothesis (another hint I wish\nmantis would flesh out!).\n\n--Adam" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alex David Groce", "address": "alex_groce at gs246.sp.cs.cmu.edu" }, "date": "2000-12-08T19:33:20+00:00", "subject": "Re: PEACE: Death; lying (was Re: (urth) Grounded in the text?)", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Adam, re: the end-of-the-world hypothesis:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Not my suggestion. It may have been Roy Lackey's, or mantis's, who\nhave both touched on the \"end-of-the-world\" hypothesis (another hint\nI wish mantis would flesh out!)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't know that I originated it, but:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\tActually, this line has always given me the haunting image of\nthat elm falling over Weer's grave not just fifty years later, but\nperhaps even after (for whatever reason) men no longer live..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "(from Aug. 25, 1998)\n\nAdam also wrote, about THE ARABIAN NIGHTMARE:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It's actually a while since I read it, and while I'm sure I\ninstinctively pegged it as postmodernist, I would have to reread it\nto tell you why I thought so. Why do you think it's modernist?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Because although the book tells a story about utter disintegration and what\nyou might call utter narrative collapse (no story is ever complete,\nnothing ever \"bottoms out\"), I think the overall story is actually in a sense very coherent and focused, even down to the final revelation\n\nSPOILERS\n\nSPOILERS\n\nSPOILERS\n\nthat our narrator all along has been \"The Ape of God,\" Shaitan, and\nthat our poor protagonist is in Hell--and one of the most nightmarish\nvisions of Hell literature has managed to come up with. PEACE on the\nother hand, \"breaks the loop\"--rather than suggesting that Weer\nundergoes continual disintegration, it suggests that the stories are\ndone in some sense, and he has passed on. But they both use a\nfragmented, complex style to arrive at, ultimately, I think, coherent\nimages. But perhaps this is just my take on modernism as (in a way)\nshattering the narrative but making sure that in the worst case the\npieces add up to a picture of broken glass, while postmodernism is all\nabout making sure there is no authoritative way to put the pieces back\ntogether at all. Which, now that I think about it, leaves few writers\nwho are really postmodernists (or at least few of any interest)." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "\"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.\" John 8:32\n--\nAlex David Groce (agroce+ at cs.cmu.edu)\nPh.D. Student, Carnegie Mellon University - Computer Science Department\n8112 Wean Hall (412)-268-3066\nhttp://www.cs.cmu.edu/~agroce" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Straight", "address": "straight at email.unc.edu" }, "date": "2000-12-08T23:23:16+00:00", "subject": "Re: PEACE: Death; lying (was Re: (urth) Grounded in the text?)", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On Fri, 8 Dec 2000, Alex David Groce wrote:\n\tActually, this line has always given me the haunting image of\nthat elm falling over Weer's grave not just fifty years later, but\nperhaps even after (for whatever reason) men no longer live..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "(from Aug. 25, 1998)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes Alex, I was thinking of you when I mentioned that. Sorry...I think it\nwas an Adam/Alex confusion.\n\n-Rostrum" } ] } ] }