{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2731",
    "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": 2731,
    "subject": "Elm? A net-tree, my dear Watson",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2001-07-18T09:35:16+00:00",
    "last": "2001-07-18T09:35:16+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0030-0560@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes",
        "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com"
      },
      "date": "2001-07-18T09:35:16+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Elm? A net-tree, my dear Watson",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Roy, having duly considered, wrote:\nFor all the times I've read that sentence, it is only now that\nsomething strange about it strikes me. How is it that Weer knew\nthe tree in question to have been planted by her? There are two\npossibilities: 1) he recognized the site as one known by him\n(while he was alive, of course) to be the grave of someone other\nthan himself, another of Eleanor's friends, or 2) he recognized\nhis own (prearranged, necessarily) grave site and only _assumed_\nthe tree to have been planted by her. "
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Or, more simply, (3) he starts out knowing that he is dead and \npromptly \"forgets\" -- the normalization process. As you say,"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Weer had to know, from the first page of the novel, that he\nwas dead."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Right. To put it otherways: it isn't that Weer doesn't know he's \ndead; it's that he won't _permit_ himself to know (or to admit \nthat he knows) that he's dead. He's floating around in Egypt, \ndiggez-moi?\n\nThis answers most of your questions, actually. Why the physical\nmaladies? Why eat?  Why haul axe? Na, na, na, na, stayin' alive,\nor at least maintaining the appearances.\n\nWith one point will I take exception:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "He _did_ know his consultations with the doctors weren't real\n-- he said as much to Dr. V. "
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Yes, he knew it but I think he was wrong. My current (for the\nlast few months, anyway) grand unification theory (call it a\ngut feeling?) for PEACE involves the Doctors and possibly \nothers acting as guiding angels leading Den Weer toward the \nelusive \"peace.\""
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "At one point Weer speaks of being \"sicker, even, than I was\nthis winter, before Eleanor Bold's tree fell\". "
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I can see at least two useful possible-meanings for this.\n\n1. Weer died in winter. He was mighty sick then.\n2. Weer was conscious in the grave and trapped by the tree, as\n   many have suggested, and felt mightly low indeed down there.\n\nIn fact, #2 fits nicely with the general Purgatorial theory; \nWeer's time under the tree is the \"temporal punishment\" of \nwhich some Catholic theories of Purgatory speak. (Punishment\nfor what? Well, Mantis speaks of \"a weird kind of revenge for\nkilling Bobby Black\"; certainly this could be one thing. He\nis trapped in the tree, as in a net, underground.)\n\nWhen his \"time\" is up [and keep in mind that no specific \namount of time is or need be involved; the ghost's time, in \nEternity, is private and not related, at least in any simple \nor obvious way, to the physical time of Cassionsville], the \ntree falls and Weer is \"freed\" to move on towards, uh, peace. \nHe still has to complete the process of repentance, which is, \nat some level, what the guiding angels are leading him through.\n\nThat's my theory and I'm sticking by it.\n\nUntil something better comes along, anyway.\n\n-----\n\nMantis articulates similar ideas, and I like the 2001 comparison.\n\nA few specifics:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "We definitely went over the \"was it ever really built or not\"\nangle before. It gets tricky, because Weer will say strong things\nlike there was never a Persian room, which makes it sound as if\nthe thing was concrete; comments about the contractor; and that\nthe blue plans were on the table back in the Commons apartment."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I think the simplest answer (though not one I'm prepared to argue\nstrongly for) is that Weer built _a_ house, and that the \"memory \nmansion\" bears some strong resemblance to the house he built, for\nreasons which might be obvious. \n\nDeep suspicion: This _is_ the house that Weer built -- but in the\nsense that Marley says, to Scrooge, \"These are the chains I forged \nin life.\" \n\n\n--Dan'l"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}