{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2906", "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": 2906, "subject": "\"Hour of Trust\" itself", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "2002-02-01T00:29:56+00:00", "last": "2002-02-03T15:02:20+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com" }, "date": "2002-02-01T00:29:56+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Hour of Trust\" itself", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\"Hour of Trust\" is the short story in THE ISLAND OF DOCTOR DEATH AND OTHER\nSTORIES AND OTHER STORIES. Spoilers to follow." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Adam Stephanides quoted Nutria and wrote:\nDoes he? In \"Hour of Trust\" (*Island of Dr. Death etc.*) Wolfe\nhimself joins a rebellion reciting the Lord's Prayer." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It's not clear to me why you think the bald man reciting the Lord's Prayer\nis Wolfe, or even why you think Wolfe approves of the rebellion. Among\nother things, the bald man is a suicide bomber, and while Wolfe as a\nCatholic might approve of rebellion under some circumstances, I doubt he\ncould approve of suicide, which is definitely a sin. Moreover, the\nrecruiting centers for volunteers include not only Buddhist spiritual\ncenters, which Wolfe might possibly be ecumenical enough to approve of, but\na temple of Kali (166, Orb edition), which he almost certainly isn't. And\nthe government against which they're rebelling is portrayed as incompetent,\nbut not tyrannical.\n\nIt's a strange story anyway, and one which I think has been dismissed too\nreadily (myself included). I remembered it as just an anti-corporation\ntract, and it is that, but it may also be the Wolfe story which wears its\nmodernist mannerisms most boldly on its sleeve, aside from jeux d'esprit\nlike Parkroads. (And I have to admit that it was only on this reading that\nI realized where the story was taking place.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm not certain but I'm pretty sure that Kali worshipers do not have to be\nthugees, nor are they more inclined toward suicide than Christians\n(Buddhists are definitely different: in that case we have the spectacle of\nBuddhist monks self-immolating in protest, captured on film, and I'm sure\nthat this real-life image is one of the driving forces of the story).\n\nIt =is= a strange story. It starts out with the obsessive detail worthy of\nREPORT ON PROBABILITY A, but then this gradually lets up and it becomes\nmore like a Brunner novel (THE JAGGED ORBIT and THE SHEEP LOOK UP, say).\n(It is also similar in some ways to Wolfe's \"The Haunted Boardinghouse\" in\nSTRANGE TRAVELERS). The twisted way in which Peace (white flag, naked\ncivilian, etc.) is used to further War (the kamikaze hug of the Peace\npeople) is well done, and probably rises out of the reports of Vietcong\nwomen and children doing similar things to US servicemen. The sense of\n\"America goes it alone\" (i.e., no payback for having helped Europe in two\nworld wars) is well done. The corporate approach to warfare, while evoking\nthe chaos and \"strange bedfellows\" of 20th century civil wars, also is\nprobably related to the real-world corporate approach in Vietnam, a new\nform which emphasized incremental quotas rather than military goals (this\ngave rise to the whole \"body count\" thing, and was itself a greater or\nlesser factor in the whole debacle). The telescreens recapture the Vietnam\nWar brought nightly into American livingrooms, \"in living color,\" etc.\n\nAll good and fine.\n\nBut then there is that ending.\n\nWhich is either \"simple\" (\"she was a fembot all along!\" )\nand I don't get it, or it is ambiguous and I don't get it.\n\nI mean this: I understand the image of the woman bursting into flames as he\ntouches her erogenous zones, since this was already established as the\nkamikaze hug of the Peace woman. But if that is truly the case, then I\nhave to wonder: why him, why now, why here? She claims to have slept with\nhis boss--wouldn't the boss be a better target? Then again, she says that\nthe boss is purposefully losing the war, that is, he is perhaps her puppet,\nor at least not doing anything she doesn't want. (Or maybe she is lying\nabout one or more things [sleeping with boss/boss losing war on purpose] to\nsee his reaction.) Whereas our hero has the one iota of shame/fighting\nspirit/refound nationalism or whatever it is, he has the one speck of it in\nthe whole congregation, so maybe that has to be eliminated pronto before he\n\"inherits the throne\"? What, is he going to \"inherit the throne\"? No, he\nis going to go out to all the expat watering holes in Lisbon, drum up a\nLincoln Brigade, and personally turn the tide of the war.\n\nThe telescreens pose an interpretive challenge, or so it seems to me. They\nare two way: viewer is being viewed, except in the case of tv-feed. They\npresent \"reality\" in real time, yet they are also subject to hacking (the\nkid in Philadelphia). So for example we get the image of a severed head\nheld aloft on a spear, then we see it is the face of the General, and then\nthe General resumes talking in his office hundreds of miles away from the\nfighting, and the hacker kid admits he did that fade for effect.\n\nThis fact, the blending of images, lends itself quite well to the end: it\nis as if the hacker kid has cut into the signal we are watching (i.e., our\nview from the two-way telescreen) and substituted the image of the kamikaze\nhug.\n\n(The Peace people seem to require the following conditions: a battle-front\nwhere they can appear and cause confusion; soldiers to see them and react,\nand die in favorable ratios [that is, better than one soldier for one Peace\nperson]; cameras to film the whole thing for viewers.\n\nClio's nova is private, unless one counts the screen; it isn't at a\nbattle-front; it isn't being filmed; she doesn't wave a flag. Well sure,\nshe's a deep agent.)\n\nBut no, it is the simple answer. Clio (\"history\") is tempting Peters,\ntesting him, just as she (presumably) tested his boss. If he agrees with\nthe cues she is giving, then he can have her body (as the boss did), but if\nhe is infected with patriotism/whatever-you-wanna-call-it, then he gets the\nflaming death (as does she). And she, fembot-like, is always primed,\nalways ready to go off. (Well, maybe not =always=, but certainly for a\nparty/historical event like this.)\n\n=mantis=\n\n\nSirius Fiction\nLEXICON URTHUS -- 68 copies remaining until OP!\nbooklets on Gene Wolfe, John Crowley\nhttp://www.siriusfiction.com/" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Adam Stephanides", "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2002-02-03T15:02:20+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) \"Hour of Trust\" itself", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "on 1/31/02 6:29 PM, Michael Andre-Driussi at mantis at siriusfiction.com wrote:\n\"Hour of Trust\" is the short story in THE ISLAND OF DOCTOR DEATH AND OTHER\nSTORIES AND OTHER STORIES. Spoilers to follow.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAdam Stephanides wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Moreover, the\nrecruiting centers for volunteers include not only Buddhist spiritual\ncenters, which Wolfe might possibly be ecumenical enough to approve of, but\na temple of Kali (166, Orb edition), which he almost certainly isn't. And\nthe government against which they're rebelling is portrayed as incompetent,\nbut not tyrannical." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I'm not certain but I'm pretty sure that Kali worshipers do not have to be\nthugees, nor are they more inclined toward suicide than Christians" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That wasn't what I meant to imply (I actually hadn't been thinking about\nthuggee at all). But Kali is a goddess of death, and I don't know why Wolfe\nwould drop in a reference to Kali in this context if he didn't want to\ndiscredit the rebels." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It =is= a strange story. It starts out with the obsessive detail worthy of\nREPORT ON PROBABILITY A" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I had been thinking Robbe-Grillet (which was a main influence on REPORT, if\nI'm not mistaken)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The sense of\n\"America goes it alone\" (i.e., no payback for having helped Europe in two\nworld wars) is well done." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "My impression was that Wolfe thought the Europeans were just being smart:\nthe \"government\" forces clearly can't win, so it makes no sense to throw\ngood money after bad." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The corporate approach to warfare, while evoking\nthe chaos and \"strange bedfellows\" of 20th century civil wars, also is\nprobably related to the real-world corporate approach in Vietnam, a new\nform which emphasized incremental quotas rather than military goals (this\ngave rise to the whole \"body count\" thing, and was itself a greater or\nlesser factor in the whole debacle)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Virdon even refers to Vietnam when justifying the government's approach to\nthe war. (152)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I mean this: I understand the image of the woman bursting into flames as he\ntouches her erogenous zones, since this was already established as the\nkamikaze hug of the Peace woman." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'd interpret the final paragraphs to mean that they make love first, and\nonly after Peters' post-coital conversation does she go up." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " But if that is truly the case, then I\nhave to wonder: why him, why now, why here? She claims to have slept with\nhis boss--wouldn't the boss be a better target? Then again, she says that\nthe boss is purposefully losing the war, that is, he is perhaps her puppet,\nor at least not doing anything she doesn't want." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Referring to her statement \"'That's why Lowell is losing his war.'\"? (164)\nBut in context, this just means that the war is being lost; and I don't see\nanything else implying that Lowell is purposefully losing." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "(Or maybe she is lying\nabout one or more things [sleeping with boss/boss losing war on purpose] to\nsee his reaction.) Whereas our hero has the one iota of shame/fighting\nspirit/refound nationalism or whatever it is, he has the one speck of it in\nthe whole congregation, so maybe that has to be eliminated pronto before he\n\"inherits the throne\"? What, is he going to \"inherit the throne\"? No, he\nis going to go out to all the expat watering holes in Lisbon, drum up a\nLincoln Brigade, and personally turn the tide of the war." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't know why she picked him as a target either. My guess would be\nsimply that he's one of the few competent people working for the\nanti-rebellion forces, and therefore worth eliminating. You'd think,\nthough, that having a spy working for one of the enemy leaders would be\nworth more than eliminating one subordinate, especially one who hasn't done\nanything amazing yet. Or maybe she's not working for the rebellion at all,\nand commits murder/suicide on her own, for whatever reason.\n\nSymbolically, though, it make more sense to me. Clio is history, as you\npoint out (good call; I hadn't noticed that), and she stopped sleeping with\nLou about six weeks ago (165), signaling that history has withdrawn its\nfavor from the \"government\" cause. In signaling his intention to try and\nturn things around, Peters is attempting to stand in the path of history,\nand people who do that get steamrollered by history, if you'll forgive the\nmixed metaphor. (This doesn't explain why history should commit suicide,\nthough.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The telescreens pose an interpretive challenge, or so it seems to me. They\nare two way: viewer is being viewed, except in the case of tv-feed. They\npresent \"reality\" in real time, yet they are also subject to hacking (the\nkid in Philadelphia)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I wonder if there's an ironic allusion to 1984 here; ironic, since here the\ntelescreens signify not the government's omnipresence but its incompetence." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "(The Peace people seem to require the following conditions: a battle-front\nwhere they can appear and cause confusion; soldiers to see them and react,\nand die in favorable ratios [that is, better than one soldier for one Peace\nperson]; cameras to film the whole thing for viewers." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Realistically, it seems like a poor tactic. All the soldiers have to do is\nshoot anybody approaching their lines who doesn't stop when ordered to. And\nin any case, the bombers only get a favorable ratio if the soldiers are\nstupid, like the ones who tried to rape the girl. Its value, if any, seems\nto be primarily symbolic: \"Look how dedicated we are.\"\n\n--Adam" } ] } ] }