Subject: (urth) PEACE: odd Dr. Van Ness and today's Doris

From: Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis at siriusfiction.com>
Date: Wed, 21 Aug 2002 16:37:36 +0000

Roy Lackey wrote:
>Other characters are being "puppetized", to the extent that words are being
>put into their mouths by frametale-Weer that could not possibly have been
>uttered by them in real life. In addition to Sherry's noncommittal response
>to Weer's comment about the stroke he hadn't had in real life, there is the
>business with Lois questioning Weer's having given her a future phone
>number, sans exchange letters, and his telling her that he had been waiting
>for her at his desk (and he was, so to speak--in the frametale) when in real
>life he had waited in his car. She asked if he meant he had propped a book
>against the steering wheel. Such comments would never have been made by her
>in real life. And, of course, the entire conversation 4-year-old Den had
>with Dr. Black never happened outside of the frametale. Parts of Weer's
>visit(s) with Dr. Van Ness contain dialogue that never happened except in
>the memory mansion.

Well yes, but these cases of frametale vs. main-tale interaction oddities
do not rise to the level of puppetry as proposed in the case of Unicorn
Charlie (where Baton and Birkhead see Charlie and comment about Charlie to
Weer).  I've said before and I say again that these cases you cite show how
the others are =resisting= Weer's tinkering,  how they are deftly avoiding
becoming puppets.  Weer does not have that kind of control over them in the
early parts of the book.  (I would like to correct an earlier mistake I
probably made: Charlie Turner visits the plant in "Gold," section four; the
letter from Charlie Turner, with the Doris story, comes in "The President,"
section five.)

As for the statement "Such comments would never have been made by her in
real life," I strongly disagree.  Her comments are exactly what we would
expect from a person responding to a non sequitorial, off-topic,
out-of-the-blue comment.  The comments from Sherry and Dr. Black are the
same.

There may be a difference in Dr. Van Ness, because he seems to engage with
Weer at key points of what is apparantly a huge pile of time-slippage.  For
example, if Weer in 1974 had a non-lethal stroke and went to Dr. Van Ness,
this establishes a lot of the groundwork (which is then scrambled through
time slippage), but at that point where Dr. Van Ness tells Weer his stroke
is two decades in the future (and nubile Sherry Gold is in the next room),
that means that Dr. V (1954) is really interacting with Weer (2274) via
Weer (1974).

But this is one exception among many other cases.

Back to the Doris letter.  We are agreed, iirc, that if it is real then it
came to Weer in 1963 or so, not too long after the three visitors
(including Charlie Turner).

When Weer tries to show the photos to Miss Birkhead, it is apparently 1974.
More to the point, it is after Weer's stroke.

Because the Doris story comes after the Gold section, today I'm thinking
that Doris is Sherry Gold herself, and as such the tale is about her
post-Weer life, ending with her death in 1974, a span of 20 years
compressed into a gothic carny fairy tale.  (Mrs. Gold's comments about how
the Jews could have been like gypsies feeds into this.)

So I am in a position where I can easily see the letter as a fictionalized
warping, just as the fairy tales that Weer reads (the suitors; the marid)
are based upon something (Grimm's fairy tales; Arabian Nights) but in
reality are not found there sources they claim to be from: instead they are
coinages to transmit disguised stories affecting Weer's heart.

That is to say: even though I cannot find the story of the suitors in
Grimm's fairy tales, I do not deny the existence of Grimm's fairy tales,
nor do I suppose that Weer did not read such fairy tales; the same holds
for the Arabian Nights.  Holding to this, I suppose that there really was a
letter from Charlie, and it had a lot of the elements still recognizable in
the letter we have (especially the scam angle, since I believe Charlie is
trying to work Weer).  The letter may have been forgettable in 1964, but it
has become important because of what happens in 1974 (Sherry Gold's death
closely followed by Weer's stroke), and Weer has warped the seedy scam
come-on (with all its images of underage women and middle-age men) into a
eulogy for Sherry.

(Still, I'll admit that I haven't found such hard evidence as the tale's
suitors linking to Olivia's suitors, nor the way the character names in the
marid story point the way.)

If one can follow this, then the wild time-splicing around Sherry Gold in
the waiting room of Dr. Van Ness makes a lot of sense:

Weer (2274) remembers/relives Weer (1970-something), fat president going to
the doctor for a check up, where he sees Sherry Gold (which reminds him of
1974: he talks to the nurse as Weer [1974]), and after distracting himself
with magazines for a while, when he next sees Sherry she is 16 years old,
i.e., Weer is now the skinny loser Weer (1954), but he persists in talking
to the doctor as Weer (1974).

=mantis=

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From: William Ansley <wansley at warwick.net>
Date: Wed, 21 Aug 2002 17:41:48 +0000

>>uttered by them in real life

[snip]

>out-of-the-blue comment.  The comments from Sherry and Dr. Black are the

I quite agree with you here, mantis.

>marid story point the way.)

I see another problem here. Grimm's fairy tales and the Arabian Nights actually
exist in the real world, so we can read them and see that Weer's stories do
not come from these sources. But Charlie's letter exist only in the reality
within PEACE, so we have no way of knowing that the version Weer presents to
us is fictionalized, the way we do with the two stories. The parallel also seems
to break down in that the two stories are *stories*, that is pieces of fiction
(in the context of PEACE), from the beginning, whereas Charlie's letter is a
real object in Weer's life (the original letter that is, if it ever existed).
That is, the stories, on their surface, have no direct bearing on Weer's life
although I won't deny that they (especially the "Tale of the Three Suitors")
actually are about his life as soon as you delve below the surface.

But, you may have well hit on something that Wolfe had in mind. Weer does seem
to be editing his reality in all of its aspects, retroactively, as it were,
as he recounts his life.

As I have read this most recent discussion of PEACE, I keep wondering: How much
more are we taking out of the book than Wolfe intended to put in? This may be
a question that Wolfe himself can no longer answer completely. In the final
analysis, however, this question probably shouldn't even be asked. The ability
to take more out of a book than the author was aware of putting in it is one
of the things that makes a great book great, or at the very least, a good book
interesting. Or so I think at the moment.

William Ansley

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From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Wed, 21 Aug 2002 20:19:21 +0000

>out-of-the-blue comment.  The comments from Sherry and Dr. Black are the

Maybe, just maybe, some of the responses to Weer's anomalous statements can
be brushed off that way, but take the example of Dr. Black:

A four-year old boy knows words like "metaphysics"? Knows what a stroke is?
Expounds on elements of the theory of relativity? Knows the future? Knows
that Bobby will die in a few years from a fall he hasn't even taken yet?
Mentions five people he couldn't possibly know (at least two of whom hadn't
even been born yet)?

Dr. Black responds as if he hears Den say those things, doesn't like what he
hears, doesn't want to hear more, and sticks a finger in his mouth to shut
him up. Either Dr. Black heard Den say those things or he didn't. If he did,
then that scene didn't happen in real life, not unless Den had supernatural
abilities I'm unaware of. If he didn't hear Den say those things, what was
he responding to when Den states: "'You don't believe me.'", and the doctor
says: "'I think I do, but my business now is with your throat.'"?

Either way, whether the doctor heard him or not, that conversation never
took place, as written, anywhere but in long-dead Weer's mind.

The same applies to the bit about the lack of a telephone exchange
designation in the number Weer first gave Lois at the library. She
questioned it, because the phone company didn't drop those exchange letters
until sometime in the future of that conversation. Did he really give her a
phone number from the future? If he did, where did the knowledge of that
phone number come from? If he didn't, what was she questioning him about?
Again, either Weer has supernatural abilities, or that bit of conversation
didn't take place, as written, in the real world.

-Roy

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