{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3409", "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": 3409, "subject": "PEACE: 3 Misses", "messages": 6, "voices": 4, "first": "2002-08-17T05:56:28+00:00", "last": "2002-08-26T04:19:04+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2002-08-17T05:56:28+00:00", "subject": "(urth) PEACE: 3 Misses", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Before this latest PEACE discussion dries up altogether, I still have a few\nthings lying around from the last discussion. This is one of them.\n\nSome elderly people, as their physical and mental abilities decline with age\nand they loose the ability, even willingness, to cope with the present,\noften become preoccupied with the past, with their youth, particularly their\nchildhood. One of the ways this manifests itself is the tendency to call\nthings by their old names; say when a store or company changes its name,\nthey often continue to call it by its old name. In the same way, the place\nwhere you buy gas for the car is a \"service station\", even though it's\ndecidedly not anymore, and you store food in the \"ice box\", not the\nrefrigerator, because that's what those things were called when they were\ngrowing up. I think A.D. Weer is like that. The little that we learn of his\nlife is mostly from his childhood; not much about his adulthood and almost\nnothing about the prime years of his manhood. As Weer himself says in his\n\"what went wrong\" soliloquy: \"When I recall my childhood, and forget (as I\nsometimes do) everything else . . .\".\n\nThis is the only good reason I can come up with for his persistence in\ncalling certain married women by their maiden names. He does this with three\nfemales. He does it in the presence of other people in the story, and\ndirectly to the reader. Two of these females the reader knows he knew when\nhe was a child, Eleanor Bold (Porter) and Margaret Lorn (Price), so calling\nthem by the names he first knew them by might be understandable for a\nbefuddled old dead man in his second childhood. But then we have Miss\nBirkhead. We don't learn that she was married with children until Miss Hadow\ninterrupts the concluding Sidhe story. That bit of information, coming where\nit does in the book and otherwise contributing nothing to Weer's story, must\nbe significant. We don't know what she looked like, or how old she was when\nshe died. The only clue along those lines is that she had been Smart's\nsecretary before Weer's, but we don't know for how long. Weer was grown\nbefore he went to work for Smart, and it seems doubtful that he would have\nhad much, if any, contact with Smart's secretary, even if she had been\nworking there that long ago. When he was a middle-aged employee he saw Smart\nonly once every two years. So when did he pick up the habit of calling her\nMiss? If she was unmarried when she became Weer's secretary, then she must\nhave been relatively young, because she went on to have two children. Weer\nwas in his mid-to-late forties when he took over the company, much too old\nto excuse his lack of respect for her married state, if she got married only\nafter he became president, and too old for him to be referring to her as\nMiss in the frametale, if he was reverting to childhood associations as he\napparently did with Eleanor and Margaret.\n\nThe mystery is deepened by the fact that Miss Hadow, someone Weer claims\nnever to have seen before, doesn't bat an eye when he asks the whereabouts\nof Miss Birkhead, even though she clearly knows that that is not her name.\nShe apparently even calls her Miss Birkhead too, when she asks about sending\nflowers. Miss Hadow should have no reason to do that.\n\nCould Miss Birkhead be some unnamed, or differently named, female from his\nchildhood? Someone who appears in the book, or is at least hinted at?\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Robert Borski", "address": "rborski at charter.net" }, "date": "2002-08-18T05:26:55+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) PEACE: 3 Misses", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Roy done writ:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Some elderly people, as their physical and mental abilities decline with\nage\nand they loose the ability, even willingness, to cope with the present,\noften become preoccupied with the past, with their youth, particularly\ntheir\nchildhood." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "[Best to skip here my own personal travails in the decline of my brain, with\nsidejaunts down Nostalgia Avenue saved for unappreciative grandchildren.]" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "This is the only good reason I can come up with for his persistence in\ncalling certain married women by their maiden names. He does this with\nthree\nfemales. Two of these females the reader knows he knew when\nhe was a child, Eleanor Bold (Porter) and Margaret Lorn (Price), so\ncalling\nthem by the names he first knew them by might be understandable for a\nbefuddled old dead man in his second childhood. But then we have Miss\nBirkhead. We don't learn that she was married with children until Miss\nHadow\ninterrupts the concluding Sidhe story. That bit of information, coming\nwhere\nit does in the book and otherwise contributing nothing to Weer's story,\nmust\nbe significant. We don't know what she looked like, or how old she was\nwhen\nshe died. The only clue along those lines is that she had been Smart's\nsecretary before Weer's, but we don't know for how long. Weer was grown\nbefore he went to work for Smart, and it seems doubtful that he would have\nhad much, if any, contact with Smart's secretary, even if she had been\nworking there that long ago." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Don't agree with this last point at all. People who work for different\ndivisions of the same company enter and leave the building every day, so one\nmight easily encounter them coming or departing from work; ditto for the\ncompany parking lot and cafeteria, to say nothing of the social\nget-togethers almost every company has (picnics in the summer, Christmas\nparties in the winter, etc., etc.). You may not see these people in any sort\nof professional capacity during the day, but outside these moments, at\noff-the-clock interstices, such encounters are relatively common. Plus\nCassionsville itself, being small, may provide for further mixing of\nseldom-encountered-on-site co-workers.\n\nThis objection being noted I have yet another thought.\n\nRoy, do you think it's possible that Miss Birkhead is meant to be the third\nmember of some sort of linked trio of women? We know that Den has been\nromantically involved with Miss Lorn, and when he describes Miss Bold at the\nparty commemorating his fifth birthday, it is far from the perspective of a\ntoddler. Writes Den: \"[Barbara Black's sister] is radiantly blonde, slender\nand flexible as a willow--too much so for the other women, for to them a\nphysical pliancy implies moral accomodation, and they suspect Eleanor Bold\nof the most improbable of lovers: farmhands and railroad firemen, the\nrumored sons of departed ministers, the sheriff's silent deputy.\" Later, in\ncomparison to the other women present, he will call her a girl--otherwise,\nhe makes clear, she would be the most beautiful woman at the party--an honor\nhe instead confers on his aunt Olivia. But again it's difficult to attribute\nthese thoughts to a five year old, so somewhere along the\nline, Den, perhaps smitten as a child by the lovely Miss Bold, has sought to\nflesh out the fantasy with bits of gossip he's heard later about Eleanor,\nperhaps even likening himself to be one of her most improbable lovers.\nIndeed, she may represent the first female outside his mother and Olivia to\ninterest him as a male, even though these feelings are puerile and immature.\nMargaret Lorn, on the other hand, may represent the second step in Den's\nsexual development, with Den moving on from the pretend world of his\nchildhood to the very real world of adolescence, with its social and dating\ncomplexities, and maybe even a bit of sexual exploration. Margaret seems a\nlittle too chaste to give herself to anyone outside of the institution of\nmarriage, which perhaps may be another reason their relationship never works\nout. Miss Birkhead, however, is a working woman. Could she represent the\nnext stage in Den's sexual development--perhaps being the very woman he\nloses his virginity to? There's nothing in the text that rules out they're\nbeing similar ages, and as I've said, they could have met in any number of\nways outside of Julius's office--plus knowing that Den might someday inherit\nhis uncle's factory would seem to make elegible bachelor Weer a most\nenticing catch for anyone. Onomastically, the name \"Birkhead\" has eluded me,\nbut according to the OED, \"birk\" is a variant of \"berk\" and derives from an\n\"Abbrev. of Berkeley (or Berkshire) Hunt, rhyming slang for c*nt.\" Which to\nme, by connotative extension, comes very close to \"maidenhead.\"\n\nMight the three eternal misses therefore represent progressive stages in the\nsexual development of Den Weer--the first timers he can never forget?\n\nRobert Borski" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com" }, "date": "2002-08-18T20:12:12+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) PEACE: 3 Misses", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Roy Lackey started this thing and my first reaction is that the \"Miss\"\nthing is simply mid-century corporate sexism, where secretaries hired on as\nnubile sex-objects retain their maiden names as quasi \"professional\" names.\nNot to denigrate exploration, just to say that's how I've seen it.\n\nRobert Borski's musings on Weer's early amorous fixations has led me to\nsimilar noodlings. Just the other day I was saying to myself that attempts\nto solve the coldhouse prank with a motive for Weer might miss the mark in\nthat the motive for Bobby Black's fall (which links to the coldhouse prank)\nseems to rest entirely on the passions of the moment . . . Weer at 25 is\nnot necessarily any more calculating than Weer at 5 (well thats seems hard\nto take).\n\nBut Robert's notes remind us that lovely blonde Eleanor is Bobby Black's\nmaiden aunt: just as Bobby is a twin to Weer, so is his beautiful aunt a\ntwin to Olivia (taking note, as Robert says, of how Weer shifts from\nEleanor to Olivia." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Later, in\ncomparison to the other women present, he will call her a girl--otherwise,\nhe makes clear, she would be the most beautiful woman at the party--an honor\nhe instead confers on his aunt Olivia.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "And since we later see that Weer has a quasi-Oedipal thing for Olivia, we\ncan see a powerful sexual charge in the motive for Bobby's fall: Bobby is\nthe rival of Weer for Eleanor, who is a substitute for Olivia.\n\nPretty interesting!\n\nAdding to Eleanor's alleged wanton ways, we used to toy with John Weer's\npossible extra-marital womanizing.\n\nBut wait!\n\nThe \"Olivia\" section is really AUNTIE MAME rewritten to a tragic ending\n(the Mame is killed by an old lover).\n\nThe \"Gold\" section is really LOLITA rewritten to a happy ending (in that\nthe Lolita does not die young, like, oooh, like Doris the carny Cinderella\ndies young).\n\n=mantis=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2002-08-20T05:08:34+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) PEACE: 3 Misses", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Robert Borski writes:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Onomastically, the name \"Birkhead\" has eluded me,\nbut according to the OED, \"birk\" is a variant of \"berk\" and derives from an\n\"Abbrev. of Berkeley (or Berkshire) Hunt, rhyming slang for c*nt.\" Which to\nme, by connotative extension, comes very close to \"maidenhead.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "My old _Webster's_ gives \"birk\" as [Scot. & Dial. Eng.] \"birch\". It gives\n\"birch\" as akin to the German \"birke\", deriving from an Indo-European word\nmeaning \"shine, white\". I presume that the \"white\" is due to the whitish\ncolor of the tree bark. So, \"Birkhead\" can be taken to mean something like\n\"whitehead\" or \"brighthead\" or \"shininghead\". The same dictionary lists\n\"Helen\" as from the Greek \"Helene\", which means, literally, \"torch\". So, the\ntwo names \"Helen\" and \"Birkhead\" would seem to be reinforcements of each\nother's meaning, for whatever that's worth. I can make nothing of \"Tyler\".\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "matthew.malthouse", "address": "matthew.malthouse at guardian.co.uk" }, "date": "2002-08-23T13:42:15+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) PEACE: 3 Misses", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 20/08/2002 06:08:34 Roy C. Lackey wrote:\nI can make nothing of \"Tyler\"." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Not having read Peace I have no idea if there's any relevance but the word\ncan mean door or gate keeper. Archaic and obsolete except in Masonic\nLodges where the additional meaning of keeping out the uninitiated applies\nand Tyler is a formal position. To tyle the lodge; bar the doors assured\nthat only the aurhorised are within.\n\nThe more prosaic meaning being a tiler, one who makes, provides or lays\n(roof) tiles. The \"i\" spelling is prfered to the \"y\" after about 1670\nalthough the \"y\" remains more common as a name.\n\nFrom that a cat that frequents roofs. A sneak-thief or burgular.\n\nObscurly; also a c17 shoplifter.\n\nIs that of any help?\n\n\nMatthew" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2002-08-26T04:19:04+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) PEACE: 3 Misses", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Matthew responding to me:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I can make nothing of \"Tyler\"." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Not having read Peace I have no idea if there's any relevance but the word\ncan mean door or gate keeper. Archaic and obsolete except in Masonic\nLodges where the additional meaning of keeping out the uninitiated applies\nand Tyler is a formal position. To tyle the lodge; bar the doors assured\nthat only the aurhorised are within." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "So, Helen Birkhead Tyler yields . . .\n\ntorch + shininghead (?) + gate keeper(?)\n\nflame-topped gate keeper?\n\nLike the cherubim with flaming swords at the gates of Eden, guarding the way\nto the tree of life?\n\n-Roy" } ] } ] }