{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2971", "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": 2971, "subject": "\"Hour of Trust\" series 2", "messages": 4, "voices": 3, "first": "2002-02-20T04:12:35+00:00", "last": "2002-02-21T21:50:30+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com" }, "date": "2002-02-20T04:12:35+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Hour of Trust\" series 2", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "mantis wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "So Roy, I can see you position on this, but what do you make of the ending?\nDoes it seem \"foreshadowed but still somewhat off\" (in my first sense of\n\"Why would a mole go kablooie on they guy like that?\") or does it make\nperfect sense?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It doesn't make sense to me either; as you have pointed out, if Clio is a\nrebel with the cause, she is more valuable to the cause alive than Peters\nis, dead or alive. The reactions of Donovan and Burglund to Peters'\novertures make clear that the corporations' elite have no intentions of\ngetting their hands dirty doing whatever was needed to insure survival of\nthe corporate state. The corporations are therefore an evolutionary dead\nend. Contrast them with the bureaucratic state (the Library of Congress),\nthe first law of which is survival, which continues to function while the\nworld goes to hell around it, and does so without pay." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Good point, to bring in the Library as another group/mode. But eek, we're\nlost on that ending again!" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Part of the problem in answering these questions is we don't see any of the\nrebels: we see the ken-kins, who seem like something worse than\ncannon-fodder, and we see masked Clio (and probably Tredgold) who are\nhigher up, but of nebulous category/rank. So we don't have a sense of what\nthe mass of rebels is like, what they want, what they are willing to do." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I suspect that the apparent lack of focus on the rebels' objectives is\ndeliberate on Wolfe's part." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Definitely--I tried to make clear that it was our questions that were\ncausing problems; that if we tried different questions, the solution might\nresolve.\n\nBecause the story seems to be about History (he asks for the tape on the\nlast 30 years, meaning what--1965 to 1995?), it is perhaps too easy to see\nit as analogous to the fall of the Western Roman Empire, as I've done in\nearlier messages. So the corporations are the decadent Imperialists (who\ntook over from the Republic), the hairies are the barbarian tribes, the\nimmolators are like . . . well, like the Nihilists in Czarist Russia. The\nimmolators are kind of like early Christian martyrs, except that, as we\nkeep saying, they have no unifying beliefs, and rather than martyrdom they\nare killing others . . . which, hmmm, makes them anti-martyrs. Or Fifth\nColumn: yes, they are rather like a Fifth Column-style (mole/deep agent)\nsuicide/psych ops corps. But again, no belief system beyond \"take as many\nwith you as possible when you suicide.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "As you say, Clio perceives that the corporations will lose the war, so there\nis no good reason for her to kill Peters, if she is a mole. But is she?\nThere is really no good evidence to suppose she is. To make sense of the\nending, I think we have to look to the earlier examples of the ken-kins. As\nI said before, they have no unifying creed. Their reasons for 'sharing'\ntheir suicides vary from idealistic to religious to nutty to who-knows-what.\nThe only thing each may have in common is trust violated in some way. What\ntrust did Peters violate? That he hoped to rock the boat with change? Both\nshe and he knew it wouldn't work. That wasn't it; her reasons were more\npersonal. Could it be that Peters' actions belied his words, that history\nwas being repeated? Clio had recently stopped being Lewis's lover; now she\nfound herself in bed with his heir-apparent, and couldn't \"figure out why\".\nExit stage center." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "So wow, your reading of the ending is: a pure form of nihilism. That is,\nyou are saying that Clio is not a mole (agent of the rebels), she really is\na loyal worker like the rest, but she got the mental infection a little\nwhile ago (days, weeks--maybe when she stopped sleeping with Lewis), mixed\nup the firebomb ingredients on her own, put them on her person (or in the\nbedroom?), and then killed herself and Peters for no reason any better than\nthat of the ken-kins in the earlier part. It is the internal chaos and\nspiritual-vacuum of the individual, not any political or moral or\nhistorical (even \"millennial\") sense." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Adam is right; Clio exploded *after* having sex with Peters. The lights and,\npresumably, the vid screen were turned off.\n\n\"He took her hand in the dark.\" (last paragraph)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I thought the room was dark because the room was dark: it wasn't that he\nturned out the lights to tryst, but that he had never turned the lights on\nwhen he came into the dark room: \"The bedroom was empty and dark. The\nvidlink screen was flashing the identity of some caller\" (p. 167 of my\nfirst edition paperback).\n\nIt is while he is sitting there, in the dark room, and the librarian has\nfaded like Cheshire Cat over that Wolfean helmeted astronaut, and Peters\nwants to know if this is the beginning or the end of the tape, that Clio\nenters the room.\n\n=mantis=\n\n\nSIRIUS FICTION\nbooklets on Gene Wolfe, John Crowley\n57 Lexicons left until OP!\nhttp://www.siriusfiction.com/" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2002-02-21T08:32:18+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) \"Hour of Trust\" series 2", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "mantis wrote:\nSo wow, your reading of the ending is: a pure form of nihilism. That is,\nyou are saying that Clio is not a mole (agent of the rebels), she really is\na loyal worker like the rest, but she got the mental infection a little\nwhile ago (days, weeks--maybe when she stopped sleeping with Lewis), mixed\nup the firebomb ingredients on her own, put them on her person (or in the\nbedroom?), and then killed herself and Peters for no reason any better than\nthat of the ken-kins in the earlier part. It is the internal chaos and\nspiritual-vacuum of the individual, not any political or moral or\nhistorical (even \"millennial\") sense." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes, nihilism. There seems to be consensus that, if Clio is an agent of the\nrebels, her suicide, with or without taking Peters with her, makes no sense.\nWe see very little of the organization of the rebels, but what we do see of\nthe war seems to indicate that there *isn't* much organization. They are\nwinning the war, not because they are good at it, but because the\ngovernment/corporations are so inept, and the masses seem indifferent. The\nself-immolation-with-prejudice tactic is too small-scale and haphazard to be\neffective as a weapon of war. The ken-kins may sympathize with the rebels,\nbut they seem to have individual agendas only peripherally related to the\nrebellion. The bearded young man specifically denies that he is doing it for\nany larger cause. The young girl is doing it because she isn't happy with\nthe world as it is. The bald guy does it because the Dodgers left Brooklyn,\nor the designated-hitter rule, or something equally worthwhile. I doubt that\nClio's motives would make any more sense to me or you or, more importantly,\nto Wolfe--which is why he doesn't give them.\n\n(Where *do* those people hide the explosive? The bearded man at least, and\npossibly Clio, were naked. The explosive acts like napalm but . . .)\n\nAs for the light in the room: yes, it was dark when he entered, but that\ndoesn't mean it stayed that way; in fact, it couldn't have. He opened the\ndrapes (though it was night outside), used the bathroom, had enough light to\nuse the keyboard, be seen by viewers on the vidlink, could discern who\nentered the room, read facial expressions, etc. Clio could see him shake his\nhead and see his hand between her thighs. \"And later . . .\" in the last\nparagraph implies that some amount of time has passed since he touched her.\nHow much time is problematic, but it must have been quite a while, because\nthe tepid water that was poured on him came from the melted ice in the ice\nbuckets. I wouldn't belabor the point about whether or not they engaged in\nsex but for how it influences my view of the ending.\n\nI infer that the lights (and vidlink) were turned off prior to sexual\nactivity, which is a common enough practice. After sex, something set Clio\noff. Of course, this brings up the problem of how they could have engaged in\nsuch intimate activity without Peters being aware that she was primed to\nexplode; but then a similar objection could be raised with another story in\nthe same collection, \"Seven American Nights\", where the female had reason to\nwant the lights kept off and the male was equally oblivious.\n\nIn an earlier post I brought up the subject of violated trust and its\nrelation to the title and the self-immolators. Maybe I'm looking at the\nending the wrong way. Maybe the trust that was violated was not Clio's trust\nof Peters, but his of her. He had absolutely no reason to expect such a\nreaction from her. It wasn't the sex she objected to, or she would have\nblown herself up before it happened. Whatever her reasons, she had no moral\nauthority to kill Peters in the process. If you can't trust the woman you've\njust made love to not to kill you, who can you trust at any hour?\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com" }, "date": "2002-02-21T18:10:38+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) \"Hour of Trust\" series 2", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Roy wrote:\nAs for the light in the room: yes, it was dark when he entered, but that\ndoesn't mean it stayed that way; in fact, it couldn't have. He opened the\ndrapes (though it was night outside), used the bathroom, had enough light to\nuse the keyboard, be seen by viewers on the vidlink, could discern who\nentered the room, read facial expressions, etc. Clio could see him shake his\nhead and see his hand between her thighs. \"And later . . .\" in the last\nparagraph implies that some amount of time has passed since he touched her.\nHow much time is problematic, but it must have been quite a while, because\nthe tepid water that was poured on him came from the melted ice in the ice\nbuckets. I wouldn't belabor the point about whether or not they engaged in\nsex but for how it influences my view of the ending." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I guess it only really matters in the sense of \"where's the bomb?\" which,\nas you note, even granted the difficulty of the naked ken-kin, becomes\nsomewhat more difficult post-coitus.\n\nBut as for my sense of the darkened room: it is just like watching tv in a\nroom when the lights are out--surely this is a common experience. So the\nvid-phoners can see his face by the light cast by the vidphone itself, and\nhe can see in the room by the same light. Opening the curtains at night,\nlooking out to see the street and the ocean, makes more sense to me if the\nroom is dark (it is harder to see out when there is both light glare in the\nroom and one's eyes are light adapted rather than dark adapted).\n\nEnough on that and back to the beginning: what can we make of those two\nphotos, \"Viana do Castelo\" and \"Miro'\"?\n\nViana do Castelo is a city in the far north of Portugal. Looking at their\nweb page I didn't find mention of any castle ruins, but there probably are\nsome. I'm not sure what Miro' is, aside from a family name (I don't know\nwhat it means).\n\nThe v photo seems to show the ruins of a castle on a barren hill. The m\nphoto shows different ruins on a different hill, but it is similar enough\nthat one would easily confuse the two. Wherever the place of the m photo\nis, it is also in Portugal.\n\nThese ruins date from The Reconquista, or something prior to that? Was\nthere some particular historical turning point associated with these ruins\n(if so, it doesn't seem to be a huge one--that is, nothing in the\nencyclopedia under history of Portugal)? (Then again, if nihilism is the\nkey, then those old joke historical markers \"Nothing Happened Here in 1852\"\nwould be appropriate: that is, there are ruins, but nobody knows their\nstories nor cares.) Is the story set in Portugal because the voyages of\ndiscovery started there (tying in with the astronaut image)? And then the\noverseas colonial empires which grew, exploited, died?\n\nAlso: how odd that the beginning has that flash-forward to Clio lighting\nthe candles later in the evening to cheer things up when the fighting was\ngoing badly. Definitely sets up the ending, and much of the story, as\nwell, but still it is odd. Seems to be the point of view of Peters, or a\nblend of Peters and narrator.\n\n=mantis=\n\n\nSirius Fiction\nbooklets on Gene Wolfe, John Crowley\nNow with UPDATES!\nhttp://www.siriusfiction.com/" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Andy Robertson", "address": "andywrobertson at clara.co.uk" }, "date": "2002-02-21T21:50:30+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) \"Hour of Trust\" series 2", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "----- Original Message -----" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: \"Roy C. Lackey\" \n\n(Where *do* those people hide the explosive? The bearded man at least, and\npossibly Clio, were naked. The explosive acts like napalm but . . .)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That is a subtle thought.\n\nMaybe here is something actually \"supernatural\" here? Maybe the religion of\nthe rebels, if that is what it is, actually allows them to turn their bodies\ninto bombs, through meditation or feedback or something?\n\nIt's a wild thought, but then I disagree about the human flamers being\n\"minor\". As I have posted before, I think they are expressing and proving a\nfaith.\n\n hartshorn" } ] } ] }