{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3419", "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": 3419, "subject": "PEACE: odd Dr. Van Ness and today's Doris", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "2002-08-21T16:37:36+00:00", "last": "2002-08-21T20:19:21+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com" }, "date": "2002-08-21T16:37:36+00:00", "subject": "(urth) PEACE: odd Dr. Van Ness and today's Doris", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Roy Lackey wrote:\nOther characters are being \"puppetized\", to the extent that words are being\nput into their mouths by frametale-Weer that could not possibly have been\nuttered by them in real life. In addition to Sherry's noncommittal response\nto Weer's comment about the stroke he hadn't had in real life, there is the\nbusiness with Lois questioning Weer's having given her a future phone\nnumber, sans exchange letters, and his telling her that he had been waiting\nfor her at his desk (and he was, so to speak--in the frametale) when in real\nlife he had waited in his car. She asked if he meant he had propped a book\nagainst the steering wheel. Such comments would never have been made by her\nin real life. And, of course, the entire conversation 4-year-old Den had\nwith Dr. Black never happened outside of the frametale. Parts of Weer's\nvisit(s) with Dr. Van Ness contain dialogue that never happened except in\nthe memory mansion." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well yes, but these cases of frametale vs. main-tale interaction oddities\ndo not rise to the level of puppetry as proposed in the case of Unicorn\nCharlie (where Baton and Birkhead see Charlie and comment about Charlie to\nWeer). I've said before and I say again that these cases you cite show how\nthe others are =resisting= Weer's tinkering, how they are deftly avoiding\nbecoming puppets. Weer does not have that kind of control over them in the\nearly parts of the book. (I would like to correct an earlier mistake I\nprobably made: Charlie Turner visits the plant in \"Gold,\" section four; the\nletter from Charlie Turner, with the Doris story, comes in \"The President,\"\nsection five.)\n\nAs for the statement \"Such comments would never have been made by her in\nreal life,\" I strongly disagree. Her comments are exactly what we would\nexpect from a person responding to a non sequitorial, off-topic,\nout-of-the-blue comment. The comments from Sherry and Dr. Black are the\nsame.\n\nThere may be a difference in Dr. Van Ness, because he seems to engage with\nWeer at key points of what is apparantly a huge pile of time-slippage. For\nexample, if Weer in 1974 had a non-lethal stroke and went to Dr. Van Ness,\nthis establishes a lot of the groundwork (which is then scrambled through\ntime slippage), but at that point where Dr. Van Ness tells Weer his stroke\nis two decades in the future (and nubile Sherry Gold is in the next room),\nthat means that Dr. V (1954) is really interacting with Weer (2274) via\nWeer (1974).\n\nBut this is one exception among many other cases.\n\nBack to the Doris letter. We are agreed, iirc, that if it is real then it\ncame to Weer in 1963 or so, not too long after the three visitors\n(including Charlie Turner).\n\nWhen Weer tries to show the photos to Miss Birkhead, it is apparently 1974.\nMore to the point, it is after Weer's stroke.\n\nBecause the Doris story comes after the Gold section, today I'm thinking\nthat Doris is Sherry Gold herself, and as such the tale is about her\npost-Weer life, ending with her death in 1974, a span of 20 years\ncompressed into a gothic carny fairy tale. (Mrs. Gold's comments about how\nthe Jews could have been like gypsies feeds into this.)\n\nSo I am in a position where I can easily see the letter as a fictionalized\nwarping, just as the fairy tales that Weer reads (the suitors; the marid)\nare based upon something (Grimm's fairy tales; Arabian Nights) but in\nreality are not found there sources they claim to be from: instead they are\ncoinages to transmit disguised stories affecting Weer's heart.\n\nThat is to say: even though I cannot find the story of the suitors in\nGrimm's fairy tales, I do not deny the existence of Grimm's fairy tales,\nnor do I suppose that Weer did not read such fairy tales; the same holds\nfor the Arabian Nights. Holding to this, I suppose that there really was a\nletter from Charlie, and it had a lot of the elements still recognizable in\nthe letter we have (especially the scam angle, since I believe Charlie is\ntrying to work Weer). The letter may have been forgettable in 1964, but it\nhas become important because of what happens in 1974 (Sherry Gold's death\nclosely followed by Weer's stroke), and Weer has warped the seedy scam\ncome-on (with all its images of underage women and middle-age men) into a\neulogy for Sherry.\n\n(Still, I'll admit that I haven't found such hard evidence as the tale's\nsuitors linking to Olivia's suitors, nor the way the character names in the\nmarid story point the way.)\n\nIf one can follow this, then the wild time-splicing around Sherry Gold in\nthe waiting room of Dr. Van Ness makes a lot of sense:\n\nWeer (2274) remembers/relives Weer (1970-something), fat president going to\nthe doctor for a check up, where he sees Sherry Gold (which reminds him of\n1974: he talks to the nurse as Weer [1974]), and after distracting himself\nwith magazines for a while, when he next sees Sherry she is 16 years old,\ni.e., Weer is now the skinny loser Weer (1954), but he persists in talking\nto the doctor as Weer (1974).\n\n=mantis=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "William Ansley", "address": "wansley at warwick.net" }, "date": "2002-08-21T17:41:48+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) PEACE: odd Dr. Van Ness and today's Doris", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "mantis wrote:\nRoy Lackey wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Other characters are being \"puppetized\", to the extent that words are being" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "put into their mouths by frametale-Weer that could not possibly have been" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "uttered by them in real life" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "[snip]" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "As for the statement \"Such comments would never have been made by her in\nreal life,\" I strongly disagree. Her comments are exactly what we would\nexpect from a person responding to a non sequitorial, off-topic,\nout-of-the-blue comment. The comments from Sherry and Dr. Black are the\nsame." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I quite agree with you here, mantis." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Back to the Doris letter. We are agreed, iirc, that if it is real then it" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "came to Weer in 1963 or so, not too long after the three visitors\n(including Charlie Turner).\n\nWhen Weer tries to show the photos to Miss Birkhead, it is apparently 1974." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "More to the point, it is after Weer's stroke.\n\nBecause the Doris story comes after the Gold section, today I'm thinking\nthat Doris is Sherry Gold herself, and as such the tale is about her\npost-Weer life, ending with her death in 1974, a span of 20 years\ncompressed into a gothic carny fairy tale. (Mrs. Gold's comments about how" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "the Jews could have been like gypsies feeds into this.)\n\nSo I am in a position where I can easily see the letter as a fictionalized" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "warping, just as the fairy tales that Weer reads (the suitors; the marid)\nare based upon something (Grimm's fairy tales; Arabian Nights) but in\nreality are not found there sources they claim to be from: instead they are" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "coinages to transmit disguised stories affecting Weer's heart.\n\nThat is to say: even though I cannot find the story of the suitors in\nGrimm's fairy tales, I do not deny the existence of Grimm's fairy tales,\nnor do I suppose that Weer did not read such fairy tales; the same holds\nfor the Arabian Nights. Holding to this, I suppose that there really was a" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "letter from Charlie, and it had a lot of the elements still recognizable in" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "the letter we have (especially the scam angle, since I believe Charlie is\ntrying to work Weer). The letter may have been forgettable in 1964, but it" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "has become important because of what happens in 1974 (Sherry Gold's death\nclosely followed by Weer's stroke), and Weer has warped the seedy scam\ncome-on (with all its images of underage women and middle-age men) into a\neulogy for Sherry.\n\n(Still, I'll admit that I haven't found such hard evidence as the tale's\nsuitors linking to Olivia's suitors, nor the way the character names in the" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "marid story point the way.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I see another problem here. Grimm's fairy tales and the Arabian Nights actually\nexist in the real world, so we can read them and see that Weer's stories do\nnot come from these sources. But Charlie's letter exist only in the reality\nwithin PEACE, so we have no way of knowing that the version Weer presents to\nus is fictionalized, the way we do with the two stories. The parallel also seems\nto break down in that the two stories are *stories*, that is pieces of fiction\n(in the context of PEACE), from the beginning, whereas Charlie's letter is a\nreal object in Weer's life (the original letter that is, if it ever existed).\nThat is, the stories, on their surface, have no direct bearing on Weer's life\nalthough I won't deny that they (especially the \"Tale of the Three Suitors\")\nactually are about his life as soon as you delve below the surface.\n\nBut, you may have well hit on something that Wolfe had in mind. Weer does seem\nto be editing his reality in all of its aspects, retroactively, as it were,\nas he recounts his life.\n\nAs I have read this most recent discussion of PEACE, I keep wondering: How much\nmore are we taking out of the book than Wolfe intended to put in? This may be\na question that Wolfe himself can no longer answer completely. In the final\nanalysis, however, this question probably shouldn't even be asked. The ability\nto take more out of a book than the author was aware of putting in it is one\nof the things that makes a great book great, or at the very least, a good book\ninteresting. Or so I think at the moment.\n\nWilliam Ansley" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2002-08-21T20:19:21+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) PEACE: odd Dr. Van Ness and today's Doris", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "mantis wrote:\nAs for the statement \"Such comments would never have been made by her in\nreal life,\" I strongly disagree. Her comments are exactly what we would\nexpect from a person responding to a non sequitorial, off-topic,\nout-of-the-blue comment. The comments from Sherry and Dr. Black are the\nsame." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Maybe, just maybe, some of the responses to Weer's anomalous statements can\nbe brushed off that way, but take the example of Dr. Black:\n\nA four-year old boy knows words like \"metaphysics\"? Knows what a stroke is?\nExpounds on elements of the theory of relativity? Knows the future? Knows\nthat Bobby will die in a few years from a fall he hasn't even taken yet?\nMentions five people he couldn't possibly know (at least two of whom hadn't\neven been born yet)?\n\nDr. Black responds as if he hears Den say those things, doesn't like what he\nhears, doesn't want to hear more, and sticks a finger in his mouth to shut\nhim up. Either Dr. Black heard Den say those things or he didn't. If he did,\nthen that scene didn't happen in real life, not unless Den had supernatural\nabilities I'm unaware of. If he didn't hear Den say those things, what was\nhe responding to when Den states: \"'You don't believe me.'\", and the doctor\nsays: \"'I think I do, but my business now is with your throat.'\"?\n\nEither way, whether the doctor heard him or not, that conversation never\ntook place, as written, anywhere but in long-dead Weer's mind.\n\nThe same applies to the bit about the lack of a telephone exchange\ndesignation in the number Weer first gave Lois at the library. She\nquestioned it, because the phone company didn't drop those exchange letters\nuntil sometime in the future of that conversation. Did he really give her a\nphone number from the future? If he did, where did the knowledge of that\nphone number come from? If he didn't, what was she questioning him about?\nAgain, either Weer has supernatural abilities, or that bit of conversation\ndidn't take place, as written, in the real world.\n\n-Roy" } ] } ] }