{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3225", "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": 3225, "subject": "Ardis Dahl: American Monster", "messages": 5, "voices": 4, "first": "2002-05-07T04:34:15+00:00", "last": "2002-05-09T20:12:26+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Robert Borski", "address": "rborski at charter.net" }, "date": "2002-05-07T04:34:15+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Ardis Dahl: American Monster", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It is only at the end of \"Seven American Nights\" that Nadan Jaffarzadeh is\nfinally able to glimpse the totally-revealed body of his lover, Ardis Dahl,\nand this act in itself requires some trickery--Nadan must ignite an\nalcoholic drink with his laser pistol, viewing by the blue flames it\ngenerates her exposed glory. Far from enjoying the vista, however, Nadan\ndeems Ardis a monster and kills her. But what exactly does he see that\nprompts this, and is it even valid? Quoting again from Kathryn Locey's NYRSF\nessay: \"Nadan's last perception of Ardis is extremely suspect because he has\nseen her face and clothed body by daylight, and felt her in the darkness as\nthey made love. What hideous deformity could she possibly have concealed\nfrom him?\"\n\nIndeed. On my first reading of \"Seven American Nights\" in 1978, I wondered\nif Ardis might not be a man. She's tall for a woman, and popular accounts\nfrom barroom anecdotes to movies like _The Crying Game_ make it seem as if\nsuch sexual deception is at least possible, especially in the early stages\nof a relationship. However, in my readings since, I've abandoned this\nnotion, not only because I believe Nadan would have discovered her concealed\nmanhood before the above climactic moment, but also because of Bobby O'\nKeene's earlier-tendered remark, \"Come and see me when you're ready for\nsomething more wholesome.\" Perhaps he means consentual male-male sex is more\nwholesome than inadvertent male-tranny sex, but I doubt it.\n\nThis led me to re-examine Locey's use of the term \"hideous deformity.\"\nBecause in fact Nadan never mentions anything about a literal deformity,\nalthough I suppose it's inferable enough given his reaction about how,\ncontaminated by his contact with her, he can now never return \"to corrupt\nthe clean wombs of our enduring race\" or even touch the miniatures of his\nheritage should his mission to retrieve them succeed. Plus we have the\nvarious deformed Americans Nadan has witnessed in his week abroad:\nhunchbacks, dwarves, clubfoots, a woman with supernumerary teeth, etc., etc.\nStill, given all of this, it's hard to imagine anything comparable--at least\nthat would provoke as violent a reaction in Nadan as whatever he sees does.\n\nI would therefore like to suggest something else to you. Is it possible that\nwhat Nadan actually notices by the ignited arrack is the burn caused by his\nown laser pistol and that Ardis Dahl is the werebeast he attempts, but\nfails, to kill on the night of the first egg?\n\nRecall, for starters, that when Nadan goes out looking for Ardis's place of\nresidence (for he's already come under her spell at the theater, where she's\nplayed Ellen in Gore Vidal's \"Visit to a Small Planet\"--note too how Nadan\nadjudges her to have a \"wild and innocent affinity for the supernatural\"),\nthe moon is full and bright. Nadan senses something following him, although\nhe also admits it might just be the effects of the possible\nhallucinogen-laced egg. Finding the home of Ardis's parents, Nadan knocks on\nthe door, and is greeted by Ardis's shotgun-wielding father. Nadan devises a\nruse about being lost and offers the couple a silver rial if they'll\naccommodate him with a bed and breakfast, but is refused, although Mrs. Dahl\nappears tempted. Claims Mr. Dahl, \"I don't dare let a stranger in. Not with\nno one here but my wife and myself.\" But is he really afraid of this\nbenighted Persian, and enough so to spurn a silver rial? Or does he simply\nwish to protect the disclosure of his daughter's possible werebeast nature\nshould she return? Possibly even the shotgun is meant to protect them from\nher--although given that he allegedly sells maps to the interior with its\nfabled hoards of treasure, perhaps he merely hopes to protect himself from\nthieves or brigands.\n\nAt any rate Nadan is about to leave (the Dahls having locked their door to\nhim) when he turns and notices a creature on the very top of the Dahl\nresidence. The creature immediately attacks him and Nadan fires his pistol\nat it. When Nadan comes to--for he's knocked unconscious by the falling\ncreature--he's able to examine the beast, which he believes he's killed.\n\"When I glimpsed it on the roof it had seemed a feral dog, like the one I\nhad shot in the park. When it lay dead before me, I had thought it a human\nbeing. In the moonlight I saw it was neither, or both.\" In the first draft\nof my NYRSF essay, \"Wolves in the Fold,\" I pronounce the beast a werewolf\nand will do so now again. But perhaps more saliently the details provided by\nNadan to conclude his description of the monster are most curious: \"It was a\nfemale, with small, flattened breasts still apparent on either side of the\nburn channel.\" But how would this story be any different if the werewolf was\nmale? On the surface it wouldn't--unless Wolfe is trying to make the\nsomewhat quixotic distinction that monsters come in both sexes. And notice\nthe specific site and language Wolfe uses to describe the wound: a \"burn\nchannel\" that runs *between* the breasts. Would such a channel (or its\nhealing scar), nestled where it is, be detectable several days later in the\ndark by an importunate lover? A female colleague of mine with a zipper scar\nfrom heart bypass surgery tells me says it's quite possible, \"depending on\nthe nature of the foreplay, and perhaps even then,\" that such a scar would\npass unnoticed. And we don't know how badly the beast is actually wounded or\nif laser burns cauterize the nerves so there's little post-blast pain.\nThere's also an onomastic link between \"burn channel\" and Ardis, which\nderives from the Latin word for burning (ardent)--plus the laser link\nitself, the weapon revealing the result of its own earlier firing.\n\nNadan, of course, believes he's killed the creature, but when he goes back\nto see if he can find the body the next day he finds no trace. This may also\nbe part of the romantic embellishment on his account, and though he persists\nin claiming he's killed the creature right on up until the journal's\npenultimate paragraph, he also has trouble shaking first impressions,\ncalling the actor Bobby O' Keene Kreton all throughout \"Seven American\nNights.\" Moreover, in describing his reaction to the discovery of Ardis's\nsecret, Nadan pens the following: \"I now know that the thing I killed before\nArdis's father's house is real.\" But how and why does he know this? What\nabout Ardis leads him to conclude that the thing he \"killed\" is genuine? Is\nit the burn channel he finally sees between her breasts--even as he attempts\nto disassociate himself from bestiality by maintaining he killed the monster\nhe now knows is real?\n\nAs the hallucinogen in the final egg begins to take its effects (and I do\nfirmly believe that it's the sixth egg that contains the drug), Nadan sees\nwhat we might describe as the peri and the djinn: Ardis, small and bright,\nstepping from the candle flame, and a hairy face coming through the\nwindow--but both as dynamically linked as the single particle that may be\neither a positron or an electron, depending on its direction. And while in\nNadan's heart he may prefer the peri version, it's a heart illumed with\ndarkness now, and home to other things.\n\nRobert Borski" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com" }, "date": "2002-05-07T15:46:13+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Ardis Dahl: American Monster", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Robert Borski's heroine as werwolf theory seems very sound." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "He wrote:\nI would therefore like to suggest something else to you. Is it possible that\nwhat Nadan actually notices by the ignited arrack is the burn caused by his\nown laser pistol and that Ardis Dahl is the werebeast he attempts, but\nfails, to kill on the night of the first egg?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "FWIW, this has similarity to a bit in URTH, wherein Severian is attacked in\nthe dark on the ship Tzadkiel. As no doubt everyone here recalls, \"Idas\"\nthe albino (actually an undine juvenile) is the first assassin Severian\ndiscovers, but Gunnie-the-love-interest was another one, and Purn was the\nthird (the one bitten). Point: Gunnie was the one who was burned when\nSeverian fired his laser pistol against the assassins, and the burn covered\nher chest and abdomen.\n\n=mantis=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "David DiGiacomo", "address": "david at slack.com" }, "date": "2002-05-08T17:55:58+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: Ardis Dahl: American Monster", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I would therefore like to suggest something else to you. Is it possible that\nwhat Nadan actually notices by the ignited arrack is the burn caused by his\nown laser pistol and that Ardis Dahl is the werebeast he attempts, but\nfails, to kill on the night of the first egg?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No, it's not possible, because..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "... in describing his reaction to the discovery of Ardis's\nsecret, Nadan pens the following: \"I now know that the thing I killed before\nArdis's father's house is real.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "If he had seen the laser burn, it would have been obvious beyond any\nplausible dissociation that he had *not* killed the thing earlier in the\nweek.\n\nThen there are the \"few filthy rags of clothing\" - Ardis would never have\ndressed that way." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "What about Ardis leads him to conclude that the thing he \"killed\" is genuine?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm not sure, but I think he would have noticed a \"blunt muzzle\"." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com" }, "date": "2002-05-08T20:44:13+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Re: Ardis Dahl: American Monster", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "David DiGiacomo quoted Robert Borski and wrote:\nI would therefore like to suggest something else to you. Is it possible that\nwhat Nadan actually notices by the ignited arrack is the burn caused by his\nown laser pistol and that Ardis Dahl is the werebeast he attempts, but\nfails, to kill on the night of the first egg?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "No, it's not possible, because..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "... in describing his reaction to the discovery of Ardis's\nsecret, Nadan pens the following: \"I now know that the thing I killed before\nArdis's father's house is real.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "If he had seen the laser burn, it would have been obvious beyond any\nplausible dissociation that he had *not* killed the thing earlier in the\nweek.\n\nThen there are the \"few filthy rags of clothing\" - Ardis would never have\ndressed that way." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "What about Ardis leads him to conclude that the thing he \"killed\" is genuine?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I'm not sure, but I think he would have noticed a \"blunt muzzle\"." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "You present your case well. It does seem odd, the disconnect between\nkilled/not-killed and \"gone.\"\n\nThen again, I hope we can agree that there is some kind of linkage between\nArdis and that werewolf which Nadan blasted. And that there were no\nremains of the werewolf when Nadan checked later--it was \"gone.\"\n\nBeyond that, we get into the murky realm of lycanthropy: transmitted by\nfilm, by books, and by history, we have various traditions. Some of them\nmatch up to each other, some of them are at odds with each other.\n\nWhen Nadan fails to find remains of the beast, we are invited to think\nalong two tracks: that the thing was imaginary (a hallucination from the\nLSD), or that the thing crawled away.\n\nWith Borski's theory in mind, it seems plain that the solution is a third\nway, a hidden fork in the fork of the path. The critter was killed, and\nbeing killed it disintegrated like a vampire with a stake through it. The\neither/or nature of imaginary/escaped gives way to something like \"both\":\nthe creature was \"imaginary\" rather than corporeal as we know it, and it\ndid vanish like a soap bubble popping.\n\nI hope you can see where I'm leading with this. That Ardis might be\nphysically sleeping in her room, or wherever, and her spirit-self werewolf\ngoes out running around. (Like an Id-Monster, if you will.) The two are\nseparate, but linked, such that when the werewolf gets lasered and\nimplodes, Ardis gets the burn . . . even though she is physically nowhere\nnear the place where the laser is used.\n\nThe werewolf is thus like a witch's familiar, in some senses.\n\nWhat I have just described is not the standard wolfman of motion picture\ntradition, but I believe that it is supported in the older written\ntradition.\n\n=mantis=\n\n\nSirius Fiction\nbooklets on Gene Wolfe, John Crowley\nPEACE: a timeline WITH dates! Come see!\nhttp://www.siriusfiction.com/" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2002-05-09T20:12:26+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Re: Ardis Dahl: American Monster", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "David DiGiacomo quoted Robert and wrote:\nI would therefore like to suggest something else to you. Is it possible\nthat\nwhat Nadan actually notices by the ignited arrack is the burn caused by\nhis\nown laser pistol and that Ardis Dahl is the werebeast he attempts, but\nfails, to kill on the night of the first egg?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "No, it's not possible, because..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "... in describing his reaction to the discovery of Ardis's\nsecret, Nadan pens the following: \"I now know that the thing I killed\nbefore\nArdis's father's house is real.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "If he had seen the laser burn, it would have been obvious beyond any\nplausible dissociation that he had *not* killed the thing earlier in the\nweek.\n\nThen there are the \"few filthy rags of clothing\" - Ardis would never have\ndressed that way." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "What about Ardis leads him to conclude that the thing he \"killed\" is\ngenuine?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I'm not sure, but I think he would have noticed a \"blunt muzzle\"." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "First, I would like to say that I'm glad to see Robert actively posting\nagain, and look forward to more.\n\nSecond, as mantis has pointed out, David's arguments are valid. I have\nalways been puzzled by the nature of Ardis's \"deformity\", if she had one. I\nconcur with Locey that any significant defect could hardly have gone\nunnoticed during the course of their coupling in the dark, so her secret had\nto have been detectable only (or most easily) by sight. There must also be\nsome connection between Ardis and the werebeast earlier killed by Nadan, but\nthey do not have to be the same being. Ardis need only be the same _type_ of\ncreature.\n\nNadan spends two paragraphs relating Osman Aga's account of such a creature\nas attacked him, but does not then name it. By Aga's account, such creatures\nwere the end result of genetic mutations caused by American scientific\nmanipulation of the food supply, to keep food incorruptible as long as\npossible, and to reach market sooner. The werebeasts resulted from the\ngenetic damage caused by the concentrated chemicals found in the human\ncorpses which were being eaten by some people. So, the nature of the beast\nis that of some sort of ghoul.\n\nOn page 385 (Ace pb) Nadan calls the thing that attacked him a \"druj\". Druj\nmeans \"lie\" or \"deceiver\", and in early Avesta texts is a female\npersonification of wickedness and evil thought to spread corruption in the\nworld, inherently unclean. (Which is why Nadan viewed himself as unfit to\nlie with decent women or touch sacred works of art.) There is also a\nconnection between the druj and corpses.\n\nNadan relates a dream in which he and Ardis are walking at night:\n\n \"One of the hideous creatures I shot night before last was pursuing\nus--or rather, lurking about us, for it appeared first to the left of us,\nthen to the right, silhouetted against the night sky.\"\n\nThis implies that such creatures fly, as does the fact that Ardis \"sprang\nup\" when he lit the alcohol. Also, even a werewolf can't \"leap\" from a\nthree-storied building without paying Newton his due, but a winged being\ncould. I don't recall that werewolves can fly, but a similar American\nwerebeast might. According to Aga's account, the type of werebeast that\nattacked Nadan had only been generated since the genetic pollution\noccasioned in America during the previous century. How can that fact be\nreconciled with the long-standing tradition of the garden-variety werewolf?\nI don't see how it can--probability is certainly against it, but perhaps\nScience, run amuck, has created what Fantasy only knew as nightmare, but\nwith wings. In the antepenultimate paragraph of the journal, Nadan writes:\n\n \"Its [America's] eagle is dead--Ardis is the proper symbol of its rule.\"\n\nIn the same paragraph he refers to America as a \"corpse-country\". The sense\nof uncleanness he finds in Ardis is associated with corpses. Werewolves\ndon't eat corpses, do they?\n\n-Roy" } ] } ] }