Subject: PEACE: Death; lying (was Re: (urth) Grounded in the text?)

From: Adam Stephanides <adamsteph at earthlink.net>
Date: Fri, 08 Dec 2000 17:03:35 +0000

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:
> 
> So do I; but I think the evidence that Weer is dead is overwhelming,
> and will stand with that until and unless.

I, too, am convinced that Weer is dead, but I wouldn't say the evidence
is overwhelming, especially if you don't regard Wolfe's interview
statements as probative.  If somebody were to insist that Weer was
alive, there is no one passage in the book (even the elm-tree passages)
I know of that I could point out to him/her and say "See?  This proves
you're wrong."  Rather, it's that Weer's being dead ties together a
number of details which, while not contradicting his being alive, remain
unexplained in that case.

> > > 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.

If he lies to one of the people in his account, and he gives no
indication to us that he is lying or that he habitually lies in such
situations, then he is implicitly lying to us, I think.  This is not
just a convention of narrative, but of ordinary conversation.

Thanks for the very interesting post about book covers, by the way.

--Adam

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

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From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Date: Fri, 08 Dec 2000 16:35:47 +0000

> unexplained in that case.

Oh, come on.  Is there anyone who doesn't get a shiver when they first
connect the two elm tree passages?  That's too good to be an
accident.  Maybe it's a Weer getting a Ghost of Christmas Future look at
how his life might look after he's dead, but the ghost has got to be in
there somewhere.  It's too good not to be right.

(Of course I got also got a shiver when you suggested the tree may have
fallen after all men are dead, but that's different.  I think.)

-Rostrum

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From: Adam Stephanides <adamsteph at earthlink.net>
Date: Fri, 08 Dec 2000 18:04:06 +0000

> there somewhere.  It's too good not to be right.

Strictly speaking, this "proves" only that somebody died, not that Weer
did.  Of course, I agree that it was Weer; but if somebody were to deny
it, I wouldn't be able to prove them wrong.

> fallen after all men are dead, but that's different.  I think.)

Not my suggestion.  It may have been Roy Lackey's, or mantis's, who have
both touched on the "end-of-the-world" hypothesis (another hint I wish
mantis would flesh out!).

--Adam

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From: Alex David Groce <alex_groce at gs246.sp.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Fri, 08 Dec 2000 19:33:20 +0000

Adam, re: the end-of-the-world hypothesis:

> Not my suggestion.  It may have been Roy Lackey's, or mantis's, who
> have both touched on the "end-of-the-world" hypothesis (another hint
> I wish mantis would flesh out!).

I don't know that I originated it, but:

> 	Actually, this line has always given me the haunting image of
> that elm falling over Weer's grave not just fifty years later, but
> perhaps even after (for whatever reason) men no longer live...
(from Aug. 25, 1998)

Adam also wrote, about THE ARABIAN NIGHTMARE:

> It's actually a while since I read it, and while I'm sure I
> instinctively pegged it as postmodernist, I would have to reread it
> to tell you why I thought so.  Why do you think it's modernist?

Because although the book tells a story about utter disintegration and what
you might call utter narrative collapse (no story is ever complete,
nothing ever "bottoms out"), I think the overall story is actually in a sense very coherent and focused, even down to the final revelation

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

that our narrator all along has been "The Ape of God," Shaitan, and
that our poor protagonist is in Hell--and one of the most nightmarish
visions of Hell literature has managed to come up with.  PEACE on the
other hand, "breaks the loop"--rather than suggesting that Weer
undergoes continual disintegration, it suggests that the stories are
done in some sense, and he has passed on.  But they both use a
fragmented, complex style to arrive at, ultimately, I think, coherent
images.  But perhaps this is just my take on modernism as (in a way)
shattering the narrative but making sure that in the worst case the
pieces add up to a picture of broken glass, while postmodernism is all
about making sure there is no authoritative way to put the pieces back
together at all.  Which, now that I think about it, leaves few writers
who are really postmodernists (or at least few of any interest).

--
"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:32
--
Alex David Groce (agroce+ at cs.cmu.edu)
Ph.D. Student, Carnegie Mellon University - Computer Science Department
8112 Wean Hall (412)-268-3066
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~agroce

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From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Date: Fri, 08 Dec 2000 23:23:16 +0000

> > perhaps even after (for whatever reason) men no longer live...

Yes Alex, I was thinking of you when I mentioned that.  Sorry...I think it
was an Adam/Alex confusion.

-Rostrum