{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/29", "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": 29, "subject": "PEACE", "messages": 6, "voices": 2, "first": "1997-05-12T01:33:05+00:00", "last": "1997-06-12T20:57:00+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jason Voegele", "address": "voegele.6 at osu.edu" }, "date": "1997-05-12T01:33:05+00:00", "subject": "(urth) PEACE", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hello everybody. I'm new here so I hope I'm not retreading any old ground,\nbut I do have a few questions/observations.\n\nHaving determined that Weer is in fact dead, it seems to me that an\nimportant question to ask is does he *know* that he is dead, or does he\nbelieve that he is a dying man whose imagination has the power to conjure\n(real or imagined) elements of his past? To quote part of a conversation\nWeer has with Dr. Van Ness: \n\nDr.: \"Do you feel you can control the whole world--just with your mind?\"\nWeer: \"Not the real world--but this world, yes. In the real world I am an\nelderly man, sick and alone, and I can't do anything about that. But this\nworld--your only world now, Van Ness--I have conjured from my imagination\nand my memories. This interview between us never took place, but I wanted\nadvice about my stroke.\"\n\nThis passage seems to support the latter, but there is the fact that Weer\nis--and knows--that he is utterly alone in this world.\n\nWhichever case is true, this book is a showcase for the solipsistic tendency\nin Wolfe's writing, which ties in with Wolfe's use of stories as shapers of\nmemory and thus reality. In fact, PEACE (or at least one layer of the\n\"PEACE onion\") seems to be saying that all of existence is held within\nmemories. This would explain Severian's ability warp reality (via the\n\"claw\") due to his eidetic memory.\n\n\nAnother question relates to this passage:\n\n\"Who's that behind you?\"\n\"It's just little Den, Katie. He's been there before.\"\n\"Yes, but there's another, dimmer yet, behind him.\"\n\"I can only see the one behind me, Katie.\"\n\nWhy is \"little Den\" a ghost (so to speak) in this scene? And who is it\nbehind him?\n\nOne more question. Has there been a discussion on THE FIFTH HEAD OF\nCERBERUS? If so, is it available in an archive somewhere?\n\nPEACE be with you,\nJason Voegele" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "m.driussi", "address": "m.driussi at genie.com" }, "date": "1997-05-12T15:12:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) PEACE", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Reply: Item #9570055 from URTH at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET01#\n\nJason Voegele,\n\nWelcome aboard!\n\nRe: Wolfe's \"solipsistic tendency,\" I'm pretty sure I know what you\nmean (even though I'll admit that I'm imagining this whole\nconversation while caught in a daydream about being a human being . .\n. ), but I would argue or qualify the solipsism in each text. In\nsome Wolfe stories, like \"Melting,\" sure, that one is 100% pure\nsolipsism. \"Toy Theater\" is much more ambiguous. But I find I disagree\nwith readings of New Sun that veer too far into solipsism--not that\nyou've done this, mind you.\n\nRe: is Weer aware that he is dead? Interesting question. I have a\nsense that if/when he finally comes to grips with that fact he will\ncease his haunting.\n\nRe: \"Who's that behind you?\" I have to admit that this rings bells\nin the literary dept. of my brain--T.S. Eliot's \"The Wasteland,\"\nwherein the same haunting question is derived from the journals of\nEnglish adventurers climbing Mt. Everest and having hallucinations\nfrom lack of oxygen. (It also evokes the missionaries in the jungle\ngarden of Nessus sensing the presence of Severian and Agia.) But, to\nget back to PEACE, I suspect that the dimmer one is the reader.\n\"You.\"\n\n(And what does =this= reading do to the solipsistic mode? It opens\nthe \"one alone in universe\" into that literary construct of \"reader and\nauthor alone in universe\"; feeding the stream of fictions that\nself-reference their own fictitious nature; etc.)\n\nI am not aware of any discussion or archive thereof focused on THE FIFTH\nHEAD OF CERBERUS.\n\n=mantis=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jason Voegele", "address": "voegele.6 at osu.edu" }, "date": "1997-06-11T02:00:37+00:00", "subject": "(urth) PEACE", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "OK, I've just finished rereading PEACE, and, of course, it was wonderful.\nAs with most Wolfe works, it's beautifully written, subtle, multi-layered,\nthought-provoking, and extremely intelligent. What I don't understand about\nthis book (well, *one* of the things that I don't understand) is why Wolfe\nhas written such a beautiful book about a (probably mass) murderer. I\nunderstand that having the narrator kicked-the-bucket from the outset opens\na whole slew of narrative possibilities, but what new facet is added by his\nkilling spree? With any other author, I could probably be convinced that\nthe murders were thrown in just to see if the reader could spot them, but\nnot with Wolfe. There is *nothing* in a Wolfe story that doesn't have some\nsort of significance.\n\nPersonally, I think this probably ties in with the solipsism thing (assuming\nthere is a solipsism thing.) Are the murders perhaps signifying that when\nWeer passes on, that the world he has evoked in PEACE will also pass on? Is\nPEACE intended to be Weer's catharsis, telling his story and the stories of\nhis victims so that they can at last Rest In PEACE? (Pun intended, but not\nmerely as a joke.) If so, then it's odd that Weer never actually admits to\nany killings.\n\nAnyone have any other ideas?\n\nJason" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "m.driussi", "address": "m.driussi at genie.com" }, "date": "1997-06-11T14:11:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) PEACE", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Reply: Item #2522919 from URTH at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET03#\n\nJason,\n\nFWIW, in that recent People Online Chat, Wolfe seemed to say that Weer\nwas not a mass murderer. Which would appear to throw a spanner into\nthe elaborate machine of \"Weer killed every character\"; but I haven't\nheard anything from the killing machine theoretician(s),\noriginator(s) of the notion, so I don't really know.\n\nI agree with you re: solipsism and \"R.I.P.\" in PEACE. Have you\nreread \"The Changeling\" yet? Set in the same town.\n\n=mantis=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jason Voegele", "address": "voegele.6 at osu.edu" }, "date": "1997-06-12T10:20:58+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) PEACE", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I haven't had a chance to look at the People chat yet. Is Wolfe denying\nthat Weer killed most/all characters or is he denying that Weer killed\nanyone at all? I seem to recall reading somewhere (I think in CASTLE OF\nDAYS) Wolfe saying that he tried to keep \"the sinister elements\" hidden in\nPEACE, and that he believes that \"some people did not even notice the\nsinister elements at all.\" To me \"sinister\" seems too strong a word to\nrefer to the fact that Weer is dead, so I believe Wolfe was referring to the\nmurders here.\n\nI did pick up \"The Changeling\". Wow! I don't think Wolfe intended this\nstory to be explicitly horror, but this kind of story scares me a heck of a\nlot more than your average Stephen King novel. Are the two Peters in the\nstory (the narrator and the mysterious kid) are the same? How so?\n\nJason" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "m.driussi", "address": "m.driussi at genie.com" }, "date": "1997-06-12T20:57:00+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) PEACE", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Reply: Item #0140781 from URTH at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET00#\n\nJason,\n\nWell \"sinister\" could also be non-Weer related; like the (al-)chemist\nwho helps turn normal people into circus freaks, for example. Wolfe\nsaid nearly the same thing with regard to the story \"A Solar\nLabyrinth\"--are you certain you aren't remembering that quote? (No\noffense intended; nor am I insisting that Wolfe wouldn't say similar\nthings about similarly encrypted stories; just that I remember the\none and not the other, is all.)\n\nRe: \"The Changeling,\" I can't find my notes at the moment. It is an\nenigmatic little puzzle. The hero is a cold-war \"changeling\" because\nhe went over to the Chinese after the Korean War--then he changed\nagain; his life in China seems like the usual time in fairyland. The\nboy Peter never ages--that's his thing, what marks him as an elf (not\nto alarm you, but his secret name is \"Peter Pan\"). Maybe some of the\n\"erasure\" of the hero Pete can be answered by backwards time traveling\nby third party agents? I only mention this because other \"elfish\" Wolfe\nstories (\"A Cabin on the Coast,\" \"The Ziggurat,\" etc.) often involve\ntime travel. I have the sense that old Pete is a victim of Peter\nPan, who took his place for a while and then made him disappear.\n\nAnyway, I do remember that \"Peter\" is mentioned in PEACE, just before the\ngroup goes out on that picnic (where they visit the cave and ignore\nthe skull).\n\n=mantis=" } ] } ] }