Subject: (urth) John Crowley committee, re: ES: why?

From: Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis at sirius.com>
Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2001 17:52:30 +0000

Adam wrote about ENGINE SUMMER, including this bit:

>The other clues fit in with the suspicion aroused by this one.  Near the
>start of the fifth facet of the second crystal, Rush asks "Do you know this
>story better than I do?" and the angel replies: "Go on.  It's not for my
>sake you tell it."  At first this seems to have an obvious meaning: Rush
>tells the story for the sake of the city of angels as a whole.  But on
>further thought, this doesn't really work.  If the angel knows Rush's story,
>then so does the city.  If the angel is talking about how _this_ Rush will
>tell the story, then she doesn't know this either.  So for who else's sake
>could Rush be telling the story?  In light of the preceding clue, I submit
>that the answer is Rush himself; and ultimately Rush's host, who will thus
>be able to prolong his "possession" by Rush.

There is also the obvious metafictional answer: it is not for the angels,
nor their city, but only for the reader of ENGINE SUMMER.  This ties in
with the large and complex "reader/text" mode (where Rush is like a text
and the recording angel is like a reader; and they are all fictions in a
story, trying to work out another story, for a reader who is above and
beyond them).  Unfortunately this has a side-effect of implicating the real
reader with the torture.

"Why are you torturing me?"

"To entertain the reader.  Look, it is working--she smiles!"

=mantis=

Sirius Fiction
Catalog and errata sheet at http://www.sirius.com/~mantis/

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

---

From: Adam Stephanides <adamsteph at earthlink.net>
Date: Sun, 22 Apr 2001 22:03:33 +0000

Hello, Michael:

You seem to have sent two posts to the urth list, identical in text, but one
with the above subject line and the other with the subject line "Re: ENGINE
SUMMER: why?"  Did you accidentally send out the wrong post?  I would like
to hear more about this "John Crowley committee"!

--Adam