{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2739",
    "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'"
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  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 2739,
    "subject": "Wolfe's Carrollean Drabble",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2001-07-26T21:38:34+00:00",
    "last": "2001-07-26T21:38:34+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0030-0571@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Adam Stephanides",
        "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net"
      },
      "date": "2001-07-26T21:38:34+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Wolfe's Carrollean Drabble",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "While digging through some of my old, packed-away books, I came upon an\nanthology entitled THE DRABBLE PROJECT (ed. Rob Meades and David B. Wake).\nThis is a collection of one hundred Drabbles: i.e., short stories (or\noccasionally poems) precisely one hundred words long.  One of the sf\nluminaries and non-luminaries contributing is Gene Wolfe.\n\nDespite its brevity, Wolfe's Drabble, entitled \"Read Me,\" is\ncharacteristically Wolfean: it is a pastiche of the Alice books, complete\nwith wordplay, and thoroughly enigmatic.  What happens (while it would be\neasy to post the whole thing, I'm reluctant to violate copyright so\nblatantly on this list) is that Alice meets a pack of Tarot cards, one of\nwhom--the Fool--tells her that because they are curious, they have troubled\n(i.e. disturbed) the Future, and now they tell the Future they're sorry.\nWhen Alice protests that they foretell the future, the Fool replies:\n\"'No,'...'We four tell it.'  And he indicated the Falling Tower, the Devil,\nthe Magician and himself.\"  And that's the end of the story.\n\nThe story's title, \"Read Me,\" may provide a clue.  I take the Tarot pack to\nrepresent science fiction writers, who once \"troubled\" the future and now\ntell it they're sorry.  I'm tempted to go further and say that the writers\nwho \"troubled\" the future are the Campbell-era writers with their\ntechnological optimism, and the ones who apologize to it are present-day,\nless optimistic writers.  But I wouldn't stake the ranch on this reading.\n\nIf this reading is correct (or if it isn't) why are those particular four\ncards mentioned?  That they are inventoried at the end of the story suggests\nthat they are somehow key to the story's meaning, but I'm at a loss to see\nhow.  Devil, Magician, and Fool could plausibly be intended to signify types\nof sf writers, but this is as far as I get.\n\n--Adam"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}