{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2719", "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": 2719, "subject": "PEACE: Coldhouse expanded", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "2001-07-10T09:59:34+00:00", "last": "2001-07-11T11:54:44+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com" }, "date": "2001-07-10T09:59:34+00:00", "subject": "(urth) PEACE: Coldhouse expanded", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I wrote:\nHere's another quick one: FEAR and LOVE. It may be that the whole point of\nthe cold house prank is to show how Weer is in fear of the other person (a\nvengeful ghost) who seems to be inside the empty house with him in the\nframetale. In the final page, in one reading at least, the other person is\nrevealed to be Olivia, the loved one (whose death was so crushing to him).\n(Thus: Weer is dead; yet death is an illusion.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Allow me to expand upon that.\n\nWe read the coldhouse story. Because of the context of the larger novel,\nand because it is spooky, we sense that Weer is scared. Because of the\nconventions of ghost stories, as well as the context of the larger novel\n(Bobby Black), we suspect that Weer was somehow responsible for the prank,\nand that is why he is fearful of the ghost.\n\nSpeaking only for myself and others I've talked with, we have spent a lot\nof time, often enjoyable, trying to figure out this angle: timeline issues,\npossible motives, the odd tie-in with the enigmatic Chinese garden dream,\nthe off-stage death of Professor Peacock, and other threads.\n\nBut today I backtrack, and it seems that the simple answer is that Weer\nfears the ghost because it is a ghost, just as anyone might fear a\nghost--one need not be the murderer of a person to fear that person's\nghost. We know that Weer is responsible for Bobby Black's death (at least\nuntil that stage when we start to doubt the historicity of Bobby Black),\nbut that doesn't mean that Weer was the prankster (even though he seems to\nknow a lot of details, etc.). In fact, Weer as president might feel\nsomewhat more singled out for revenge than the average worker, but again,\nanybody can be afraid of a ghost.\n\nApplying meta-answer number one (\"Weer getting used to being dead . . .\"),\nwe have the irony that Weer himself is the ghost haunting the house--a\nghost afraid of ghosts! But that's what the majority of the book is about." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I also wrote:\nThe next meta-answer, also simple but I think also important, is something\nlike \"Weer spent perhaps too much of his life reading books rather than\nliving life directly, and as a result his afterlife experience is a journey\nlike that of Don Quixote/Walter Mitty/Gumby; as he experiences his own\nAMERICAN BOOK OF THE DEAD he cobbles together a text from the various texts\nhe read and loved throughout his life, texts which, ultimately, might have\nlittle or no relation to \"real\" history, but intimate relation to the\nessential dream history (his psyche, his spirit, his whatchamacallit); his\nis an apology (or a working out, or a therapy, or a regurgitation) for\nhaving read too much.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In PEACE there is a strong theme of how books are lies. Fiction, of\ncourse, is all lies; but even non-fiction includes untruths, and science\nitself is just an imperfect approximation. Then there are forgeries, which\nwould seem to be the most complete lies of all.\n\nWeer's story has little to do with his life and much to do with his\nreading. In the past we have taken this in realistic, psychological terms\nas meaning he is masking some things that are too painful for him to deal\nwith otherwise (so the romancing of Olivia turns into a fairytale\nfragment--the best case we have of \"history\" being mapped by \"fiction\").\nBut, to backtrack, to try a different tack, it may be more the case that\nWeer did not have much of a life outside of books--the thing he is\n\"masking\" is the fact that he wasn't engaged in life the way he was engaged\nwith books (ala Don Quixote).\n\nOne might go further and say that Weer regrets he didn't skip all those\nother books and read the Bible alone, but I don't think the text goes in\nthat direction.\n\nNow I'll trot out the old Robert Graves' chestnut, the five-stages of the hero:\nBirth, Initiation, Reign, Repose, Death.\n\nBirth -- Alden Dennis Weer (section 1); covers the childhood.\nInitiation -- Olivia (section 2)\nReign -- The Alchemist (section 3)\nRepose -- Gold (section 4); features the wounding of the hero.\nDeath -- The President (section 5)\n\n=mantis=\n\n\nSirius Fiction\nHas Moved To\nhttp://www.siriusfiction.com/" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Adam Stephanides", "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2001-07-11T11:03:21+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) PEACE: Coldhouse expanded", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "on 7/10/01 11:59 AM, Michael Andre-Driussi at mantis at siriusfiction.com\nwrote:\nWe know that Weer is responsible for Bobby Black's death (at least\nuntil that stage when we start to doubt the historicity of Bobby Black)," }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "At the time of the big PEACE discussion, I dreamed up a theory as a reductio\nad absurdum of the unreliable Weer: that nothing interesting actually\nhappened to Weer--he made up Bobbly Black, the egg hunt, the coldhouse\nprank, the treasure hunt, and all to conceal the fact that he led a boring\nlife. It sounds like you've been seriously contemplating something like\nthis theory (which I'd actually be more willing to take seriously now than I\ndid then).\n\n--Adam" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan", "address": "meliza at ocf.berkeley.edu" }, "date": "2001-07-11T11:54:44+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) PEACE: Coldhouse expanded", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Dan here, finally delurking after being both enlightened and\nintimidated for some time now:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Adam Stephanides wrote:\nAt the time of the big PEACE discussion, I dreamed up a theory as a\nreductio ad absurdum of the unreliable Weer: that nothing interesting\nactually happened to Weer--he made up Bobbly Black, the egg hunt, the\ncoldhouse prank, the treasure hunt, and all to conceal the fact that he\nled a boring life. It sounds like you've been seriously contemplating\nsomething like this theory (which I'd actually be more willing to take\nseriously now than I did then)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't know what the consensus is on the ending of the novel, but I\ntook Weer's remark about waking, in the context of the Chinese garden\ndream, to mean either that he is at last waking to a higher, more\nrealized existence (as in the Borges tale - I forget the title - of\nthe man who dies and only after a series of nightmares realizes that\nhe has in fact been in heaven all along), or that Weer is himself as a\nchild dreaming of his own future and death.\n\nThis in turn reminded me of a fairy tale I read once upon a time (so\nlong ago that though I can remember the shape of the book and the\npictures I have no clue what the source was), in which a boy is given\na magical ball of string. Whenever he pulls on the string his life\nadvances by a proportionate amount. One morning in school he pulls\nthe string and finds that school has already let out for the\nafternoon. When he's drafted into the army he pulls it a great ways\nuntil that's over. And so on. Until at last when he's an old man he\nrealizes that he can remember nothing of his life because he never\nexperienced it. At that point I think the angel who gave him the ball\nreappears and grants him a second go at it.\n\nNow with Adam's and mantis's remarks I find myself thinking about that\nstory again and wondering if a person who has essentially opted out of\n'real life' wouldn't try in various ways to fill in the gaps, to at\nleast speculate on what might have occurred. Weer might not be\nfabricating his life in totum (except in the sense that he may be\ndreaming it) but I do think he wants his account to guess at bigger\nthings. Of course Wolfe has a habit of leaving big things off-stage\nand may have a variety of aesthetic reasons for it, but I begin to\nsuspect that his full-moon alter ego is coming as close as possible to\noutright lying in order to imply that (for instance) he shot Lois or\nlocked the worker in the coldroom.\n\ndan" } ] } ] }