{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3413",
    "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": 3413,
    "subject": "PEACE: disintegrating barriers in \"The President\"",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2002-08-20T13:51:31+00:00",
    "last": "2002-08-20T13:51:31+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0208-1579@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi",
        "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com"
      },
      "date": "2002-08-20T13:51:31+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) PEACE: disintegrating barriers in \"The President\"",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Roy wrote:\nMany of the problems associated with the story of Doris would disappear if\nCharlie Turner's letter didn't exist. There is no reference to Doris outside\nthat letter. The letter, too, would cease to exist if Charlie wasn't real."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "[snip]"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "I am suggesting that this may be Wolfe's way of letting the reader know that\nCharlie is no more real than a unicorn."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "To go along with Roy's belief for a moment: there is, I think, a strong\nsense of disintegrating barriers in the final section of PEACE, climaxing\nin the voice of Olivia coming over the office intercom at the very end.\nThe appearance of Charlie Turner might be a sign of such barrier\ndisintegration, in his case the barrier between fiction and reality.\n\nWe have talked before about the frametale, about what Weer is actually\nexperiencing, and we often see it in terms of Billy Pilgrim's experience in\nVonnegut's SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE: that Weer is reliving segments of his life\nin an often non-linear way.\n\nBut unlike Billy, Weer has a notebook and a pen; Weer is writing.  He goes\nto different rooms of the mansion to better capture the feeling of that\nstage of his life, and then he begins.  Begins what, exactly?  Writing,\nwith a few wrinkles that may be prosaic descriptions of the psychological\nprocess of writing (\"evoking the spirit,\" \"talking to characters\") or\nsemi-Billy Pilgrim-type experiences.\n\nIn any event, there are barriers: the memory mansion is one place, separate\nfrom the past yet connected to points in the past via memory rooms; the\nbarrier between the living and the dead;  the barrier between fiction and\nreality.\n\nWeer has (or telegraphs to us) a sense of having done this before, which\ngives rise to the feeling in many readers that Weer's action is cyclic,\nunending, etc.  We've talked about this before, I know, but today it\nresolves for me as a case of:\n\n1. The tree falls, setting Weer free to wander in the non-existent memory\nmansion.\n\n2.  During this initial wandering, Weer learns a few things about the\nmansion and the interaction between his mind, his memory, and the mansion.\n\n3.  Once Weer obtains notebook and pen, his story begins.  His writing\nstabilizes things to a certain extent (in the way that Latro's life is\ngiven form by the writing), and the sense of repetition might be due to\nthat pre-notebook stage.\n\n(Then again, maybe he was wandering the mansion for a year or more before\nthe tree fell, since there are bits suggesting he was up before the tree\nwas down.  In which case the tree-fall is more the action that heralds the\nact of Weer writing; the act of writing is setting him free.  And the\ncyclical nature of the pre-notebook period is established.)\n\nWeer learns his way around the barriers, first fighting against some (as\nwhen he tries to warn Dr. Black about Bobby) and later playing off them\n(his comments to Sherry about being old and suffering effects of a stroke,\ndelivered calmly rather than the urgency with which he spoke to Dr. Black).\nHis attitudes about certain rooms change: where first he is angry that\nthere is a Persian room, in \"The President\" he entertains the idea of\ntaking a long visit there: at this point in the text, Weer is nearly master\nof the maze, summoning spirits at will and/or dealing with spontaneous\nmanifestations, piling impossibilities upon improbabilities, he knows and\naccepts the rules and the boundaries, like a child knows the jungle gym she\nclimbs upon, yet both can still be surprised.\n\n=mantis=\n\n\nSirius Fiction\nbooklets on Gene Wolfe, John Crowley\n29 copies of \"Snake's-hands\" until OP!\nhttp://www.siriusfiction.com/"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}