{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3420",
    "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": 3420,
    "subject": "PEACE: sources for the Doris letter",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "2002-08-21T18:59:48+00:00",
    "last": "2002-08-21T20:39:10+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0208-1591@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi",
        "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com"
      },
      "date": "2002-08-21T18:59:48+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) PEACE: sources for the Doris letter",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "William Ansley, writing about my \"real letter somewhat warped\" notion, wrote:\nI see another problem here. Grimm's fairy tales and the Arabian Nights\nactually\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\nseems\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."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Granted we do not have as much extra-textual material in the case of the\nletter as we do with the stories.  In part this is what makes it feel like\na case where Wolfe is taking off the training wheels.\n\nOTOH, the Doris part of the letter is clearly a story, whether or not it\nwas intended by Charlie to be taken as true.  A story told in the course of\na letter thanking Weer for the tour of the plant and the dinner.\n\nIn addition to that epistlary context, we have oft noticed the Dickens\nmentions, so if we put these together we get a literary mode as clear as\nGrimm's fairy tales and the Arabian Nights: a letter-story ala Dickens, but\nset in Middle America in 1963 (which takes the Victorian England out of the\nwhole thing).\n\nDid Wolfe have a specific Dickens episode in mind?  I don't know, and based\nupon the warpage caused for the tales in the style of Grimm and\nScheherazade (I always wonder at how Sherry herself might equal\nScheherazade, even though Sherry isn't much of a story-teller herself--but\nI digress!), it might be nearly impossible for even a Dickens expert to\nfind the take-off point for this particular \"forgery.\"\n\nBut beyond that, we did manage to discover the fairytale element, the\ncomplete, easily recognized Cinderella buried in there.  Which, oddly\nenough, is exactly what is missing from the \"fairy tales\" Weer writes\n(there is no suitors tale; there is no marid story)!  Part of the whole\nwonder.\n\n\"The Princess and Her Three Suitors\"\nmode: fairy tale\nauthorial voice: the brothers Grimm\nmost specific text: Lang's THE GREEN FAIRY BOOK (not there)\n\n\"The Tale of ben Yahya and the Marid\"\nmode: fairy tale/oriental fantasy\nauthorial voice: Scheherazade\nmost specific text: THE ARABIAN NIGHTS (not there)\n\n(the Doris letter)\nmode: epistle, traveler's tale\nauthorial voice: hints of Charles Dickens\nmost specific text: \"Cinderella\" (not connected to Dickens afaik)\n\n=mantis="
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0208-1593@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes",
        "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com"
      },
      "date": "2002-08-21T20:39:10+00:00",
      "subject": "RE: (urth) PEACE: sources for the Doris letter",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0208-1591@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Mantis done wrote..."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "In addition to that epistlary context, we have oft noticed the Dickens\nmentions, so if we put these together we get a literary mode \nas clear as Grimm's fairy tales and the Arabian Nights: a letter-story \nala Dickens, but set in Middle America in 1963 (which takes the Victorian \nEngland out of the whole thing).\n\nDid Wolfe have a specific Dickens episode in mind?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Ummm.\n\nGranted, I've only read about half a dozen of Dickens's novels ... but\nnot a one of the ones I've read (OLIVER TWIST, GREAT EXPECTATIONS, \nDAVID COPPERFIELD, THE PICKWICK PAPERS -- okay, not really a novel -- \nA CHRISTMAS CAROL, and I'm pretty sure something else I'm forgetting)\nwas epistolary or even significantly driven by letters. \n\nActually, when I think Victorian + epistolary novel the first thing\nthat comes to my mind is DRACULA. Which may or may not have anything\nto do with PEACE. (Come to think of it, FRANKENSTEIN has an epistolary\nframe, too.) This may or may not have anything to do with PEACE, a \nnovel of a very different kind of Un-Dead."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}