{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2721", "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": 2721, "subject": "PEACE: conclusion consensus", "messages": 1, "voices": 1, "first": "2001-07-12T16:43:33+00:00", "last": "2001-07-12T16:43:33+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com" }, "date": "2001-07-12T16:43:33+00:00", "subject": "(urth) PEACE: conclusion consensus", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hello Dan, and welcome." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Dan quoted Adam and 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": "quote", "depth": 1, "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." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "We did talk about this a lot before, but the search engine might not be\nable to help (since it was all in the still-open volume?). There is no\nsolid consensus on the ending, but the things you describe are well-mapped.\nThe first is what we loosely call the \"Purgatory\" reading (although I'm not\nquite sure how you are tying in the enigmatic Chinese garden dream), which\nposits a happy ending -- Weer stops writing because he puts his worries\naside and moves up to heaven. (This also gives emphasis to/derives power\nfrom the title of the book, PEACE: Weer is finally at peace after being a\nwandering spirit.) The second you describe is the \"Loop\" reading, supported\nby, for example, the China Pillow story (echoed in the final pages of the\nnovel), and Weer's speculation that he may be still a boy passed out from\nthe fumes of his chemistry set. The Loop reading can be \"one loop\" or\n\"endless,\" and the ending is not usually seen as very happy." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "This 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." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Which is a happy-ending version of the China Pillow story!" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Now 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." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't think he shot Lois, though some readers have added her name to his\nlist of victims: he keeps her gun in what appears to me to be the fear of a\nliving person bent on revenge, rather than, say, a ghost or a victim with\npolice on her side. If all he did was grab the gun and drive off in the\ncar, leaving her stranded in the rural countryside at night, then that\nseems too little for the sort of fear he exhibits.\n\nThe Coldhouse Prank. Well, since Professor Peacock killed Olivia, then\nclearly Weer has a target in Peacock. But Peacock himself couldn't be the\nyoung worker (said to be \"a kid of eighteen or so\"), and since the prank\nhappened ten years after Olivia's death (and 14 years after Peacock's\ncourtship of Olivia), the worker also couldn't be, say, Peacock's son by\nanother woman (hmmm, unless the worker was only 13 or 14 years old? Or\nthis hypothetical woman became pregnant a few years before Peacock courted\nOlivia?).\n\nWell, it goes on and on from there!\n\n=mantis=\n\n\nSirius Fiction\nHas Moved To\nhttp://www.siriusfiction.com/" } ] } ] }