Subject: (urth) PEACE

From: Jason Voegele <voegele.6 at osu.edu>
Date: Mon, 12 May 1997 01:33:05 +0000

[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]

Hello everybody.  I'm new here so I hope I'm not retreading any old ground,
but I do have a few questions/observations.

Having determined that Weer is in fact dead, it seems to me that an
important question to ask is does he *know* that he is dead, or does he
believe that he is a dying man whose imagination has the power to conjure
(real or imagined) elements of his past?  To quote part of a conversation
Weer has with Dr. Van Ness:  

Dr.: "Do you feel you can control the whole world--just with your mind?"
Weer: "Not the real world--but this world, yes.  In the real world I am an
elderly man, sick and alone, and I can't  do anything about that.  But this
world--your only world now, Van Ness--I have conjured from my imagination
and my memories.  This interview between us never took place, but I wanted
advice about my stroke."

This passage seems to support the latter, but there is the fact that Weer
is--and knows--that he is utterly alone in this world.

Whichever case is true, this book is a showcase for the solipsistic tendency
in Wolfe's writing, which ties in with Wolfe's use of stories as shapers of
memory and thus reality.  In fact, PEACE (or at least one layer of the
"PEACE onion") seems to be saying that all of existence is held within
memories.  This would explain Severian's ability warp reality (via the
"claw") due to his eidetic memory.

Another question relates to this passage:

"Who's that behind you?"
"It's just little Den, Katie.  He's been there before."
"Yes, but there's another, dimmer yet, behind him."
"I can only see the one behind me, Katie."

Why is "little Den" a ghost (so to speak) in this scene?  And who is it
behind him?

One more question.  Has there been a discussion on THE FIFTH HEAD OF
CERBERUS?  If so, is it available in an archive somewhere?

PEACE be with you,
Jason Voegele

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From: m.driussi <m.driussi at genie.com>
Date: Mon, 12 May 1997 15:12:00 +0000

Reply:  Item #9570055 from URTH at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET01#

Jason Voegele,

Welcome aboard!

Re: Wolfe's "solipsistic tendency," I'm pretty sure I know what you
mean (even though I'll admit that I'm imagining this whole
conversation while caught in a daydream about being a human being . .
. <g>), but I would argue or qualify the solipsism in each text.  In
some Wolfe stories, like "Melting," sure, that one is 100% pure
solipsism.  "Toy Theater" is much more ambiguous.  But I find I disagree
with readings of New Sun that veer too far into solipsism--not that
you've done this, mind you.

Re: is Weer aware that he is dead?  Interesting question.  I have a
sense that if/when he finally comes to grips with that fact he will
cease his haunting.

Re: "Who's that behind you?"  I have to admit that this rings bells
in the literary dept. of my brain--T.S. Eliot's "The Wasteland,"
wherein the same haunting question is derived from the journals of
English adventurers climbing Mt. Everest and having hallucinations
from lack of oxygen.  (It also evokes the missionaries in the jungle
garden of Nessus sensing the presence of Severian and Agia.)  But, to
get back to PEACE, I suspect that the dimmer one is the reader.
"You."

(And what does =this= reading do to the solipsistic mode?  It opens
the "one alone in universe" into that literary construct of "reader and
author alone in universe"; feeding the stream of fictions that
self-reference their own fictitious nature; etc.)

I am not aware of any discussion or archive thereof focused on THE FIFTH
HEAD OF CERBERUS.

=mantis=

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From: Jason Voegele <voegele.6 at osu.edu>
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 02:00:37 +0000

OK, I've just finished rereading PEACE, and, of course, it was wonderful.
As with most Wolfe works, it's beautifully written, subtle, multi-layered,
thought-provoking, and extremely intelligent.  What I don't understand about
this book (well, *one* of the things that I don't understand) is why Wolfe
has written such a beautiful book about a (probably mass) murderer.  I
understand that having the narrator kicked-the-bucket from the outset opens
a whole slew of narrative possibilities, but what new facet is added by his
killing spree?  With any other author, I could probably be convinced that
the murders were thrown in just to see if the reader could spot them, but
not with Wolfe.  There is *nothing* in a Wolfe story that doesn't have some
sort of significance.

Personally, I think this probably ties in with the solipsism thing (assuming
there is a solipsism thing.)  Are the murders perhaps signifying that when
Weer passes on, that the world he has evoked in PEACE will also pass on?  Is
PEACE intended to be Weer's catharsis, telling his story and the stories of
his victims so that they can at last Rest In PEACE? (Pun intended, but not
merely as a joke.)  If so, then it's odd that Weer never actually admits to
any killings.

Anyone have any other ideas?

Jason

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From: m.driussi <m.driussi at genie.com>
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 14:11:00 +0000

Reply:  Item #2522919 from URTH at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET03#

Jason,

FWIW, in that recent People Online Chat, Wolfe seemed to say that Weer
was not a mass murderer.  Which would appear to throw a spanner into
the elaborate machine of "Weer killed every character"; but I haven't
heard anything from the killing machine theoretician(s),
originator(s) of the notion, so I don't really know.

I agree with you re: solipsism and "R.I.P." in PEACE.  Have you
reread "The Changeling" yet?  Set in the same town.

=mantis=

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From: Jason Voegele <voegele.6 at osu.edu>
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 10:20:58 +0000

I haven't had a chance to look at the People chat yet.  Is Wolfe denying
that Weer killed most/all characters or is he denying that Weer killed
anyone at all?  I seem to recall reading somewhere (I think in CASTLE OF
DAYS) Wolfe saying that he tried to keep "the sinister elements" hidden in
PEACE, and that he believes that "some people did not even notice the
sinister elements at all."  To me "sinister" seems too strong a word to
refer to the fact that Weer is dead, so I believe Wolfe was referring to the
murders here.

I did pick up "The Changeling".  Wow!  I don't think Wolfe intended this
story to be explicitly horror, but this kind of story scares me a heck of a
lot more than your average Stephen King novel.  Are the two Peters in the
story (the narrator and the mysterious kid) are the same? How so?

Jason

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From: m.driussi <m.driussi at genie.com>
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 20:57:00 +0000

Reply:  Item #0140781 from URTH at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET00#

Jason,

Well "sinister" could also be non-Weer related; like the (al-)chemist
who helps turn normal people into circus freaks, for example.  Wolfe
said nearly the same thing with regard to the story "A Solar
Labyrinth"--are you certain you aren't remembering that quote?  (No
offense intended; nor am I insisting that Wolfe wouldn't say similar
things about similarly encrypted stories; just that I remember the
one and not the other, is all.)

Re: "The Changeling," I can't find my notes at the moment.  It is an
enigmatic little puzzle.  The hero is a cold-war "changeling" because
he went over to the Chinese after the Korean War--then he changed
again; his life in China seems like the usual time in fairyland.  The
boy Peter never ages--that's his thing, what marks him as an elf (not
to alarm you, but his secret name is "Peter Pan").  Maybe some of the
"erasure" of the hero Pete can be answered by backwards time traveling
by third party agents?  I only mention this because other "elfish" Wolfe
stories ("A Cabin on the Coast," "The Ziggurat," etc.) often involve
time travel.  I have the sense that old Pete is a victim of Peter
Pan, who took his place for a while and then made him disappear.

Anyway, I do remember that "Peter" is mentioned in PEACE, just before the
group goes out on that picnic (where they visit the cave and ignore
the skull).

=mantis=