Subject: (urth) Out of the office (was Re: Digest from [email-masked])

From: Ian Lamont <ian_lamont at harvard.edu>
Date: Tue, 03 Sep 2002 12:59:04 +0000

At 07:56 PM 8/23/02 -0400, you wrote:
>Message-ID: <000901c24a69$721697e0$5ef9c518@robertbo>
>From: "Robert Borski" <rborski at charter.net>
>To: <urth at urth.net>
>Subject: Re: (urth) The Coldhouse Prank
>Date: Fri, 23 Aug 2002 00:53:35 -0500
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>Content-Type: text/plain;
>         charset="iso-8859-1"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>Reply-To: urth at urth.net
>
>Stone Ox writes:
>
> > Robert Borski argues quite eloquently that Ted Singer's father is the
>victim
> > in the coldhouse prank.  I don't think this can be right, because the
>victim
> > lived in a boarding house, was locked in on Friday, and nobody noticed he
>was
> > missing until he was discovered on Monday.  If the victim had had a wife
>or
> > girlfriend, surely he would have been discovered sooner.
>
>But look who imparts this information about the weekend tragedy and the
>boarding house connection: Dan French, who, not having been a factory
>employee at the time, is simply repeating the sanitized version of the story
>as it's been spun down through the years and perhaps even through
>semi-official channels, since there's been a coverup. (I do, however, and
>for obvious reasons, like the notion that the victim died on Friday.) He
>doesn't remember the name of the victim and is completly unaware there is an
>even more sinister side to the entire episode, with a lone person being
>responsible for the victim's death. As Den also reminds us earlier, such
>stories have a way of becoming "both faded and embroidered by time," which
>results in a further blurring of the details. And lastly when Dan French
>tells the story of the sidhe, it deviates from the traditional in several
>respects.
>
>In other words I think there's plenty of reason to doubt his version of the
>story.
>
>Robert Borski
>
>
>
>
>
>--
>From: matthew.malthouse at guardian.co.uk
>To: urth at urth.net
>Message-ID: <80256C1E.004D99D7.00 at ldnmta01.guardian.co.uk>
>Date: Fri, 23 Aug 2002 14:42:15 +0100
>Subject: Re: (urth) PEACE: 3 Misses
>Mime-Version: 1.0
>Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>Reply-To: urth at urth.net
>
>
>
>
>On 20/08/2002 06:08:34 Roy C. Lackey wrote:
>
> > I can make nothing of "Tyler".
>
>Not having read Peace I have no idea if there's any relevance but the word
>can mean door or gate keeper.  Archaic and obsolete except in Masonic
>Lodges where the additional meaning of keeping out the uninitiated applies
>and Tyler is a formal position. To tyle the lodge; bar the doors assured
>that only the aurhorised are within.
>
>The more prosaic meaning being a tiler, one who makes, provides or lays
>(roof) tiles.  The "i" spelling is prfered to the "y" after about 1670
>although the "y" remains more common as a name.
>
> From that a cat that frequents roofs.  A sneak-thief or burgular.
>
>Obscurly; also a c17 shoplifter.
>
>Is that of any help?
>
>
>Matthew
>
>
>
>--
I am on vacation during the last week of August. I will get back to you 
after I return on Labor Day.

Thanks,

Ian Lamont
Assistant Web Site Manager
Harvard Alumni Affairs and Development Office
124 Mount Auburn Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: (617) 495-8183
Fax: (617) 495-0521

--

---

From: Ian Lamont <ian_lamont at harvard.edu>
Date: Tue, 03 Sep 2002 12:59:06 +0000

At 07:57 PM 8/26/02 -0400, you wrote:
>Message-ID: <004801c24cb7$be21af80$1f3dc6d8 at rclackey.stic.net>
>From: "Roy C. Lackey" <rclackey at stic.net>
>To: <urth at urth.net>
>Date: Sun, 25 Aug 2002 23:19:04 -0500
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>Matthew responding to me:
>
>So, Helen Birkhead Tyler yields . . .
>
>torch  +  shininghead (?)  +  gate keeper(?)
>
>flame-topped gate keeper?
>
>Like the cherubim with flaming swords at the gates of Eden, guarding the way
>to the tree of life?
>
>-Roy
>
>
>--
>Message-ID: <14C3784DB7932F458F3A929D779546400235D648 at smtexmb02.siebel.com>
>From: "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" <ddanehy at siebel.com>
>To: "'urth at urth.net'" <urth at urth.net>
>Subject: (urth) Coldhouse Banshee
>Date: Mon, 26 Aug 2002 09:27:00 -0700
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>  charset=iso-8859-1
>Good heavens ... Stone Ox has brought up a marvellous correspondence,
>and then missed something that ... well, I guess it isn't obvious
>because I never saw it before either, but somehow it jumped out of
>his posting at me:
>
> > Jack stays in the barn haunted by the banshee three nights.
>
>...as does the coldhouse prank victim (Friday, Saturday, Sunday nights).
>
>Okay, then: making the banshee story as abstract as possible... J
>wants very badly a treasure in F's possession. F dislikes / looks down
>on J / regards J as a poor recipient for the treasure, but for some
>reason does not give an outright "No." Instead, he sets J to spend three
>nights in a place which should kill him.
>
>Now, one of the things the embedded stories in PEACE seem to do is to
>provide better or happier endings to some of the situations in Weer's
>life. So I am moved to speculate that the Coldhouse Prank was not a
>prank at all, but a deliberat attempt to keep a "real world" (Weer's
>reality) J from acquiring something that a "real world" F did not want
>him to have but could not deny him.
>
>To those for whom the book is fresher in their minds than it is in
>mine, then: Do any possible real-world F's and J's come to mind? The
>most obvious candidate for F would be Julius, who owns the barn /
>coldhouse... is this even plausible? And if so, who would be J?
>
>(Is this another candidate for when Den "really" died?)
>
>--Blattid
>
>
>--
>Message-Id: <v03130302b9901add4af9@[209.179.251.152]>
>Mime-Version: 1.0
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>Date: Mon, 26 Aug 2002 10:59:19 -0700
>To: urth at urth.net
>From: Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis at siriusfiction.com>
>Subject: (urth) Coldhouse Den-die
>Blattid, regarding the coldhouse prank death, wrote:
> >(Is this another candidate for when Den "really" died?)
>
>Well, er, yes and no.
>
>If Weer is lying about his age at the time (invalidating the big anchor for
>the current operating timeline), then the coldhouse death could be his own,
>just as he might be a dead boy next to his chemistry set.
>
>(And he would lie about his age ostensibly to distance himself from the
>prank if he was the perpetrator, too.  In addition to lying about his age
>to avoid facing the fact that he himself died there.)
>
>But if Weer is not lying about his age, and the victim's details are true,
>then no, the death cannot be Weer's.
>
>=mantis=
>
>
>
>--
>Message-ID: <14C3784DB7932F458F3A929D779546400235D64E at smtexmb02.siebel.com>
>From: "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" <ddanehy at siebel.com>
>To: "'urth at urth.net'" <urth at urth.net>
>Subject: RE: (urth) Coldhouse Den-die
>Date: Mon, 26 Aug 2002 11:23:21 -0700
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>  charset=iso-8859-1
> > Blattid, regarding the coldhouse prank death, wrote:
> > >(Is this another candidate for when Den "really" died?)
> >
> > Well, er, yes and no.
> >
> > If Weer is lying about his age at the time (invalidating the
> > big anchor for the current operating timeline), then the
> > coldhouse death could be his own, just as he might be a
> > dead boy next to his chemistry set.
>
>Which was in fact my point ... This is just a goof, really, but
>it's a stfnal idea that I've played with many time and never
>come up with a good storyline for ... I've often had the idea
>of, well, if you can have multiple-sheaf futures, why not multiple-
>sheaf pasts? And then what if Alden, the Reasonably Friendly Ghost,
>actually has lived multiple versions of his life and died at
>several different points along the timeline ... — It would
>certainly clear up (by making irrelevant) many of the
>inconsistencies in the storyline(s). So he died of a stroke, and
>he died playing with his chemistry set, and he died in the
>coldhouse prank ... Just a goof, as I said.
>
>But I'm dead serious about the coldhouse == the barn.
>
>--Blattid
>
>
>--
>Date: Mon, 26 Aug 2002 18:27:21 +0000 (GMT)
>From: Josh Geller <dclxvi at dclxvi.best.vwh.net>
>To: urth at urth.net
>Subject: (urth) The Devil In A Forest and St. Olaf of Norway
>Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.40.0208261815230.8590-100000 at dclxvi.best.vwh.net>
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
>The Devil In A Forest is perhaps a minor work, but an extremely
>interesting one.
>
>There's a hamlet in the woods, the woodcutters who are relics of a
>previous stage of civilization, a bandit who is a woodcutter aristocrat, a
>witch who knows the technology of the old civilization, megalithic ruins
>that are 'not a town' etc.
>
>This is one of the most valuable books for people trying to understand the
>old civilization of Europe.
>
>There's a story about King Olaf the Holy of Norway. See, it was generally
>known that he was a reincarnation of Olaf Geirstadtalf, who was buried in
>the mound at Geirstadt. There had been a prophecy to the effect, he had
>Olaf G.'s sword that came out of the mound etc. The problem was that St.
>Olaf was occupied with the forcible Christianization of Norway, and it
>sort of looked bad that a Christian king should be an incarnate elf. So
>they did a little stage play, where the King and some of his companions
>(who would also have been out of the mound, by the old way) went to Olaf
>G's mound on horseback and one of the companions asked the King if
>he didn't remember when they had been there before, and St. Olaf answered
>that it was not possible for a person  to live more than once, because you
>lived once, died once and were resurrected once on the Last Day. Then he
>was overcome with emotion and rode away, because (in my view) what he was
>saying was so much at conflict with the reality.
>
>Wolfe has a good grasp on all of this, as he shows in 'Devil' and also in
>the Latro books.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>.
>
>
>
>
>--

Thanks,

Ian Lamont

--

---

From: Ian Lamont <ian_lamont at harvard.edu>
Date: Tue, 03 Sep 2002 12:59:10 +0000

At 07:57 PM 9/1/02 -0400, you wrote:
>Message-ID: <013101c25166$e9aa2070$d5456c42@akt>
>From: "Alice K. Turner" <aturner6 at nyc.rr.com>
>To: <urth at urth.net>
>Subject: Re: FW: (urth) FW: Elucidations of the Long Sun:Hyacinth
>Date: Sat, 31 Aug 2002 23:23:06 -0400
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>hartshorn,
>Yes, they (discussions, not discussers, necessarily--it remains to be seen)
>are this loony. Help us back to some semblance of sanity.
>
> > Is it really possible that all the discussions on this list have been this
> > loony, and it is only now I come back after some time away that I am able
>to
> > judge them properly?   :-)
>
>-alga
>
>
>
>
>--
>Message-ID: <20020901084122.65286.qmail at web40307.mail.yahoo.com>
>Date: Sun, 1 Sep 2002 09:41:22 +0100 (BST)
>From: Nicholas Gevers <vermoulian at yahoo.com>
>Subject: (urth) Newt's main referent
>To: urth at urth.net
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
>Considering when EXODUS FROM THE LONG SUN was being
>written (1994-5), Councillor Newt has a pretty obvious
>real-life referent: Newt Gingrich, elected Speaker of
>the US House of Representatives after the unexpected
>Republican congressional election victories of
>November 1994. From what we see of Newt, the
>resemblance is pretty profound...
>
>--Nick Gevers.
>
>__________________________________________________
>Do You Yahoo!?
>Everything you'll ever need on one web page
>from News and Sport to Email and Music Charts
>http://uk.my.yahoo.com
>
>--

Thanks,

Ian Lamont

--

---

From: Ian Lamont <ian_lamont at harvard.edu>
Date: Tue, 03 Sep 2002 12:59:05 +0000

At 07:57 PM 8/25/02 -0400, you wrote:
>From: StoneOx17 at aol.com
>Message-ID: <122.160adf50.2a9a3b34 at aol.com>
>Date: Sun, 25 Aug 2002 09:52:52 EDT
>Subject: (urth) PEACE: the tale of the banshee
>To: urth at urth.net
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
>Hello,
>Despite all the effort spent analyzing many of the embedded stories in Peace,
>there seems to have been relatively little written in this forum about the
>banshee story.  I think that the participants in this story can be identified
>with some of the main characters in Peace, and that this story answers the
>question of "what went wrong?" with Wolfe's relationship to Margaret.  Roy
>Lackey gave much of the same answer to this question already, without relying
>on the hints hidden in the banshee tale, in
>http://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0030/0104.html
>but the banshee story fills in a few more of the details.
>
>My identification in the story is:
>Den Weer is Jack,
>Margaret Lorn is Molly,
>Carl Lorn is Molly's father,
>Julian Smart is the banshee.
>
>Let's review the banshee story.
>
>Molly's father owns a big farm and Molly is his only child, so whoever
>marries her inherits the farm.  Jack and Molly are in love, but Molly's
>father doesn't want Molly to marry Jack, "because Jack had nothing to bring
>to the wedding but his own two hands and a smile."
>
>In the "what went wrong?" speech, Weer says "I was intelligent and
>industrious; Margaret and I loved one another deeply."  But when he comes
>back from college, the Depression has wiped out all of his fortune and made
>jobs very hard to find.  How is he to make a living?
>
>One possibility would be for Weer to marry Margaret and move to the Lorn's
>farm.   The Lorns likely still have their farm, since they wouldn't have had
>large bank loans, because the farm has been in their family for years and
>Carl Lorn is naturally frugal. Even though the income from the farm has been
>greatly reduced, they can at least grow enough food to feed themselves.  It
>would be reasonable for Weer to help on the farm if he is to marry Margaret;
>she is the Lorn's only child, and so will inherit the farm. Later in the
>book, the farmer delivering potatoes to the factory says "When I was a boy,
>there wasn't anything anybody could have that was better'n a farm.  If a
>doctor or a banker could marry a widow that had a good one, they'd stop what
>they was doing and work it."  This farmer is ten or twenty years older than
>Weer, but taking this and the banshee story together, I conclude that when
>Weer was about to graduate, he and Margaret proposed that they get married
>and that Den move out to the farm and help work it.
> 
>
> 
>
> 
>
> 
>
>
>
> From the banshee story, we see that Carl Lorn didn't want Weer to marry
>Margaret.  He disapproved of selling the egg, and he's tight with money
>("only Daddy never gets nothing at the store if he can find something else
>that'll do") so Weer has two strikes against him, being Olivia's nephew and
>being penniless.  In the banshee story, Molly's father tells Jack he'd have
>to spend the whole night in the barn haunted by the banshee and not be thrown
>out; in Weer's real life, Carl probably told Weer that he wouldn't let
>Margaret marry him unless he could support her.  So Weer has to take the job
>at the factory (the real-life parallel of the barn); unfortunately, the
>coldhouse prank kills somebody, and Julius blackmails him into staying at the
>factory until Julius dies.  In this scenario, it doesn't even matter whether
>Margaret knows about the coldhouse prank.  Weer can't marry her unless he
>finds another job which pays better, and he can't leave this job because of
>Julius' blackmail.  Eventually, Margaret gets fed up with Weer's inaction and
>marries Mr. Price (whom we suspect, from his surname, has sufficient money).
>
>There are some interesting differences between the banshees in Peace and the
>banshees in Irish folklore.  Looking on the web, it seems that in Irish
>folklore, the banshee is a woman sidhe who wails before somebody is going to
>die (and most important families have an associated banshee that predicts
>deaths in that family).  In some versions of the legend, if you catch the
>banshee, she has to tell you who is going to die.  However, she only
>foretells deaths, unlike Wolfe's banshee, who causes them.  Note that Wolfe
>is playing off the folklore banshee: when his banshee is caught, she does
>tell Jack "who's to be born," although one might suspect that she's lying out
>of spite.
>
>Wolfe's banshees are ghosts (quite fittingly for Peace) who are "the spirits
>of midwives that have killed the baby because someone gave gold to them to do
>it that it might not inherit."  This gives grounds for identifying the
>banshee as Julius: in
>http://urth.net/urth/archives/v0205/1043.txt.shtml,
>I speculated that Julius may have killed Mr. Tilly so as to inherit the carny
>business, which, while not an exact parallel, is certainly similar.
>
>Jack stays in the barn haunted by the banshee three nights.  The first two
>times, the banshee forces him to speak the name of someone whom she later
>kills, first "the meanest man [Jack] can think of, a man that robbed
>everybody and never gave poor folk a penny," and second, "a real old lady
>that was goin' to die anyway."  The third time, he defeats the banshee.  If
>we identify the banshee with Julius, this is reminiscent of Weer's comment
>that he recalls uncle Julius clearly "only at three stages of his life."  The
>first stage is when Julius tells the story of Mr. Tilly.  The second stage is
>at aunt Olivia's funeral.  And the last is when Julius is an old man and the
>president.  This seems a little strange, because Den lived with Julius for
>quite a while, and this period doesn't seem included in either of these
>stages.  However, if we take these three stages as corresponding to the three
>nights in the banshee story, then we are led to suspect that Julius killed
>both Mr. Tilly and Olivia for their inheritances.  We know (since Wolfe has
>confirmed it) that it was Peacock who actually ran Olivia over in his car,
>but there are at least two reasons to suspect that Peacock might have
>conspired with Julius: first, Julius Smart and Professor Peacock were good
>friends, and second, there's the mysterious letter from Peacock to Julius
>that Weer is unable to read.
>
>Is there any more evidence for this correspondence between the banshee story
>and Weer's life?  In the other stories in Peace that we know have parallels
>(the princess and her suitors, and the marid), there is a correspondence
>hidden in the characters' names.  The link from Molly to Mary to Margaret
>seems obvious, but I don't see how to get from Jack to Den.  Any ideas?
>
>- Stone Ox
>
>--

Thanks,

Ian Lamont

--

---

From: Ian Lamont <ian_lamont at harvard.edu>
Date: Tue, 03 Sep 2002 12:59:08 +0000

At 08:02 PM 8/28/02 -0400, you wrote:
>Message-ID: <001501c24df5$84ab72b0$d5456c42@akt>
>Subject: Re: (urth) Crush's Page and Quetzal
>Date: Tue, 27 Aug 2002 14:13:45 -0400
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>Crush, have you met Robert Borski? You're both gifted with imagination plus,
>and should have much to discuss.
>
>-alga
>
> > For those who haven't checked out Crush's Long Sun page
> > (http://www.visualclick.com/~jwynn/GeneWolfe/LongSun/),
> > I think it ought to be required reading for Long Sun discussion.
>
>
>
>--
>From: "James Wynn" <crushtv at HotPOP.com>
>To: <urth at urth.net>
>Subject: RE: (urth) Crush's Page and Quetzal
>Date: Wed, 28 Aug 2002 08:52:51 -0500
>Message-ID: <PLEFLJEIBGPANKPDCAMPGEJACEAA.crushtv at HotPOP.com>
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>The nice comments I've received recently on my "articlettes" have surely
>turned my head.
>
>I do need to thank Blattid for correcting my grammar on the use of the word
>"inhuma". Having not read the Short Sun books yet, I see now that my usage
>was wildly speculative. I've updated the Dionysus article and over the next
>few days I'll search the other articles for similar mistakes (I'm probably
>still using the word wrong). If anyone else has any technical comments, they
>will surely receive a glad hand. :)
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes [mailto:ddanehy at siebel.com]
>Sent: Tuesday, August 27, 2002 5:36 PM
>To: 'urth at urth.net'
>Subject: (urth) Crush's Page and Quetzal
>
>For those who haven't checked out Crush's Long Sun page
>(http://www.visualclick.com/~jwynn/GeneWolfe/LongSun/),
>I think it ought to be required reading for Long Sun discussion. I
>definitely don't agree with every conclusion he reaches (for example,
>I very much doubt that Incus is female, or that Hyacinth a male chem),
>but, wow, there is some good good stuff here.
>  --Blattid
>
>
>--
>
>
>
>
>--
>From: "James Wynn" <crushtv at HotPOP.com>
>To: <urth at urth.net>
>Subject: RE: (urth) Crush's Page and Quetzal
>Date: Wed, 28 Aug 2002 08:31:22 -0500
>Message-ID: <PLEFLJEIBGPANKPDCAMPIEIPCEAA.crushtv at HotPOP.com>
>MIME-Version: 1.0
> >Crush, have you met Robert Borski? You're both gifted with imagination
>plus,
> >and should have much to discuss.
> >-alga
>
>
>I've never met Robert Borski, although I enjoyed his recent Peace article. I
>haven't to my knowledge met anyone on this list, although it is my desire to
>go to WorldCon one day and put a few faces to the names here.
>:-D
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Alice K. Turner [mailto:aturner6 at nyc.rr.com]
>Sent: Tuesday, August 27, 2002 1:14 PM
>To: urth at urth.net
>Subject: Re: (urth) Crush's Page and Quetzal
>
>
> > For those who haven't checked out Crush's Long Sun page
> > (http://www.visualclick.com/~jwynn/GeneWolfe/LongSun/),
> > I think it ought to be required reading for Long Sun discussion.
>
>
>
>--
>
>
>
>
>--

Thanks,

Ian Lamont

--

---

From: Ian Lamont <ian_lamont at harvard.edu>
Date: Tue, 03 Sep 2002 12:59:10 +0000

At 07:57 PM 8/30/02 -0400, you wrote:
>Subject: (urth) FW: Elucidations of the Long Sun:Hyacinth
>Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2002 09:31:57 -0500
>Message-ID: <PLEFLJEIBGPANKPDCAMPOEKGCEAA.crushtv at HotPOP.com>
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>         charset="us-ascii"
>The following is my response to A. Bin Talal who contacted me off-list but
>has offered of his own accord for my response to be posted on-list.
>------------------------------------------------------------------
>Thanks so much for your comments.
>
>You say:
>In Thelxepeia's Mirrors you assert that Hyacinth is male chem, your
>arguments for Hyacinth being a chem are very compelling, but do not explain
>how she became Viron's top prostitute.
>
>Response
>Well, the story is somewhat vague on exactly how that occurred. It probably
>began while she was sold by her (I'll refer to Hyacinth in the feminine)
>father to be a housemaid. She was attractive and she began to make money for
>sexual favors. From there, she began to take on the necessary modifications
>to make even more money.
>
>You say:
>The other arguments about overpowering the pilot could be taken as clues she
>is not human but a chem, a chem female should be stronger then a human
>
>Response
>True, and I consider her over-powering the pilot to be evidence that she is
>chem - not male. Actually, Marble DOES over-power Musk. This brings up a
>point that I should segregate those arguments that Hyacinth is a MALE chem
>from those that show she is MERELY chem.
>
>You say:
>The arguments for her being a male are alas unsound, you seem to use
>circular logic, she is a male because of  'thematic requirement'(which you
>assert there aren't any), the story about Apollo's lover and the church, but
>she represent that theme because she is a male!! in short you assume she is
>male, then conclude she is male, your conclusion is correct but you can't
>generalize it (I took a course on formal logic, never thinking I will be
>using it.
>
>Response
>I don't consider my arguments circular. I consider the story of Hyacinthus
>is to be a thematic *allowance* that she "could" reasonably be male but not
>a requirement. If one accepts that Hyacinth is chem, then the concept of
>homosexuality might just as reasonably be satisfied by Silk's stated
>doppelganger relationship with Sgt. Sand (in Blood's house in Calde of the
>Long Sun). On the other hand, that would still not be homosexuality since
>chems are sexually divergent like bios. Still, Wolfe *could* have used Silks
>"mentoring" relationship with Horn on the airship to incorporate that aspect
>of the Apollo-Hyacinthus relationship - Wolfe does a lot of character
>syncretism in the sub textual themes of the Long Sun (I haven't yet
>published my essay on Silk and Auk playing duo roles as Hephaestus and as
>Aristaeus, or how Mint, Marble, and Rose merge into the Myrtle-nymphs, but I
>will after I finish reading Robert Graves' "White Goddess.")
>
>My point is that while it "fits" for Hyacinth to be male, she doesn't NEED
>to be as IMO Incus NEEDS to be female because of the roll she plays
>regarding Quetzal (the demon-Dionysus) and the roll she plays in the
>Aristaeus story (not that Incus particularly needs to be a female, but in
>the sense that only a female could play those roles).
>
>The most straight-forward clues that Hyacinth is male (there are weaker
>ones) are the following:
>1. Hyacinth's statement:
>"You know what I look like without all this [make-up and clothes]?...Like a
>boy, only with tits down to my waist."
>2. In the Silks conversation with Horn on the airship, discussing why he
>tried to kill himself, Silk talks about Marble's lie about being Moly and
>the general plight of the chem population *due to the lack* of female chems.
>Silk further points out, "Some male chems were artisans and farm laborers,
>from what I know of them, and a few were servants - butlers and so forth."
>3. In the same conversation, Horn also says that Hyacinth behaves physically
>weak and in a female-identifiable manner, because she wants Silk to be
>attracted to her. Just as the fierce lynx, Lion (a female with a male
>name-note that this is specifically pointed out) pretends to be kittenish
>with Mucor.
>
>Again, thank you so much for your interest, your arguments really made me
>think..
>
>
>
>
>--
>Subject: RE: RE: (urth) Crush's Page and Quetzal
>Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2002 10:15:12 -0500
>Message-ID: <PLEFLJEIBGPANKPDCAMPOEKICEAA.crushtv at HotPOP.com>
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>After checking my sources, here's my response to Robert Borski's questions
>(thanks again Mr. Borski):
>Robert Borski  said
>
>According to you she's a chem. So does this mean that she fabricated the
>story about her father being a head clerk at the Juzgado?  (Newt by my
>reckoning.)  And again, is she lying (or implanted with false memories) when
>she tells Auk that her father is a "pig's arse"?
>
>My response:
>No and no. Actually Silk says that he went to meet him. I sure her father is
>NOT Newt. Newt is a commissioner at the Juzgado in charge of the Guard
>finances. Hyacinth's father is a "head clerk" of the Fisc. Silk also met
>with an "officer" of the Fisc while he was there. Clearly her father is well
>down the chain of command. BTW: see the entry on Newt in "Things of the Long
>Sun".
>
>There's no reason that her father could not be a chemical person. And as
>Silk discovered in Nightside, a talus can be bribed. What would a talus do
>with money? Marble explains in Exodus, "The same thing anyone would do with
>money, dear" So chems are not essentially different from bios when it comes
>to corrupt conduct. Is it so amazing that a chem parent would prostitute his
>child for money when bios sometimes do it?
>
>Actually, the well-flagged concept that chems and taluses can be corrupted
>for money is sitting around in the story like an unfired gun in a play. I've
>fired it by tapping Hyacinth and her father as examples.
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>----------
>Robert Borski  said
>And who is the woman described as her dead mother that Hyacinth sees at
>Mainframe?  Nettle seems to know her (I've theorized elsewhere she's Lime)
>
>My response:
>The woman was Hyacinth's mother. It is easier for me to imagine how chems
>would "go to Mainframe" when they die than it is for me to see how it is
>done with bios. As for Nettle knowing her that's an interesting question,
>but unless her mother can be clearly identified with a bio female it doesn't
>change anything. I'm curious about your "Lime" theory. I don't find it
>explained in the Urth archives. In the archives I DID see you make a
>reference to a snide comment by Wolfe regarding Hyacinth's mother in a "LS
>question list" - what is this?
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>--
>Robert Borski  said
>Simply put, are there really that many chems running around outside the
>military and the religious orders, and are they as prone and subject to
>toxic parenting as your average bios?
>
>My response:
>Well there's not that many chems running around outside the military --
>relatively. Marble is the only one I'm aware of in a religious order.
>Non-military chems are rare relative to when the Whorl left Urth, but they
>are not non-existent. No adults in Viron remarks on chems as if they'd never
>seen one before. I suppose if you or I were to walk the streets of Viron, we
>would no doubt think we saw chems everywhere we looked.
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>--
>Robert Borski  said
>Since you're speculating about someone whose life history does not end with
>SHORT SUN, you also need to read Wolfe's follow-up series because there's an
>event in there that makes your theory even less tenable. I won't spoil it
>for you; suffice it to say I don't think rust is the causative agent.
>
>
>I cannot express the pleasure I get from these e-mails.
>
>  -- Crush
>
>
>
>
>--
>Subject: RE: RE: (urth) Crush's Page and Quetzal
>Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2002 10:35:29 -0500
>Message-ID: <PLEFLJEIBGPANKPDCAMPEEKJCEAA.crushtv at HotPOP.com>
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>I intended to clip the following Boski question from my response since I
>answered it in my other recent posting.  Failing to clip it makes it look
>like I'm being sarcastic when that was NOT my intention.
>
>
>Robert Borski  said
>Since you're speculating about someone whose life history does not end with
>SHORT SUN, you also need to read Wolfe's follow-up series because there's an
>event in there that makes your theory even less tenable. I won't spoil it
>for you; suffice it to say I don't think rust is the causative agent.
>
>
>
>
>
>--
>Message-ID: <20020830203403.90592.qmail at web14410.mail.yahoo.com>
>Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2002 13:34:03 -0700 (PDT)
>From: Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com>
>Subject: Re: (urth) FW: Elucidations of the Long Sun:Hyacinth
>To: urth at urth.net
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>--- James Wynn <crushtv at HotPOP.com> wrote:
> > The following is my response to A. Bin Talal who contacted me off-list
> > but
> > has offered of his own accord for my response to be posted on-list.
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------
> > Thanks so much for your comments.
>...
>
> > You say:
> > The other arguments about overpowering the pilot could be taken as clues
> > she
> > is not human but a chem, a chem female should be stronger then a human
> >
> > Response
> > True, and I consider her over-powering the pilot to be evidence that she
> > is
> > chem - not male.
>
>Why is that inconsistent with her being a healthy young human woman who
>has experience at fighting?  She takes the pilot by surprise, ramming her
>thumbs into her (the pilot's) eyes and kicking her knees until she falls
>down.  Seems quite reasonable to me.  Silk thinks Hyacinth blinded the
>pilot, but Chenille (I think) disagrees.  This is evidence that Hyacinth
>is *not* a chem--someone with superhuman strength could (I imagine)
>obviously blind a person this way by breaking her eyeballs, and probably
>obviously cripple her knees as well.
>
> > Actually, Marble DOES over-power Musk. This brings up a
> > point that I should segregate those arguments that Hyacinth is a MALE
> > chem
> > from those that show she is MERELY chem.
>
>Quite true.
>...
>
> > The most straight-forward clues that Hyacinth is male (there are weaker
> > ones) are the following:
> > 1. Hyacinth's statement:
> > "You know what I look like without all this [make-up and
> > clothes]?...Like a
> > boy, only with tits down to my waist."
>
>She doesn't mean she has a penis.  Silk would have spotted that (and then
>would have nicknamed Hyacinth "Pinto").  I don't think this comment is
>particularly amazing for a slender young woman who has had a breast
>enhancement and tends to speak of her appearance deprecatingly.
>Incidentally, it brings up what I think is one of the stronger criticisms
>of your theory: would Silk really have sex with someone he knew was a
>chem, and if not, could he really be fooled?
>
> > 2. In the Silks conversation with Horn on the airship, discussing why he
> > tried to kill himself, Silk talks about Marble's lie about being Moly
> > and
> > the general plight of the chem population *due to the lack* of female
> > chems.
> > Silk further points out, "Some male chems were artisans and farm
> > laborers,
> > from what I know of them, and a few were servants - butlers and so
> > forth."
>
>I don't see this as a straightforward clue.  In fact, I don't see it as
>evidence at all.
>
> > 3. In the same conversation, Horn also says that Hyacinth behaves
> > physically
> > weak and in a female-identifiable manner, because she wants Silk to be
> > attracted to her. Just as the fierce lynx, Lion (a female with a male
> > name-note that this is specifically pointed out) pretends to be
> > kittenish
> > with Mucor.
>
>This seems to be completely consistent with her being a tough young woman
>thanks to the life at Orchid's that Chenille describes.
>
>By far the best clue I see that Hyacinth *could* be a chem is her name, as
>you pointed out.  But I see nothing to contradict the obvious
>interpretation that she's a bio.
>
>Speaking of Chenille and names, this seems like a good time to restate my
>theory that Chenille, who has an ambiguous name, could be a chromosmal
>male with testicular feminization syndrome (perhaps Tussah's failed
>attempt at a male heir?).
>...
>
>Jerry Friedman
>
>Yahoo! Finance - Get real-time stock quotes
>http://finance.yahoo.com
>
>--

Thanks,

Ian Lamont

--

---

From: Ian Lamont <ian_lamont at harvard.edu>
Date: Tue, 03 Sep 2002 12:59:09 +0000

At 07:59 PM 8/29/02 -0400, you wrote:
>Message-ID: <000801c24ef0$d6dfbd60$ddf0c518@robertbo>
>Date: Wed, 28 Aug 2002 19:12:56 -0500
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>(Extending a right hand blithely across the aether.) How do you do, Crush!
>
>I've never met anyone on the list either, although Nigel Price and I talked
>about getting together last spring; alas, while he was in the American
>Midwest, I was in Central Europe. That being said, however, I fear you've
>misread alga's comments, which were intended not as a suggestion that you
>and I actually meet, but that your work, like mine, is neither valid nor
>substantive, but rather falls into the realm of "fan fiction." Like me,
>you've apparently been "swimming with undines," thus your severe
>intellectual anoxia. Thank the stars she didn't call you my "partner in
>flakiness," like she did Prion (aka Sean Whalen), who promptly left the list
>after the tirade she leveled against him. And heaven forbid your work ever
>find acceptance elsewhere; I fear the six essays I wrote on Wolfe that have
>been published by The New York Review of Science Fiction have forever
>sullied its reputation (obviously Ms. Turner's essays on John Crowley were
>accepted by an editorial cadre in much more command of its critical
>faculties). In other words expect a certain amount of ridicule, scorn, and
>derision to your Long Sun exegeses by what is, thankfully, not a large
>contingent on the list; if you're extremely unlucky, however, as I've been,
>expect a fair amount of shrillness from you-know-who.
>
>Personally, I applaud your efforts. I don't agree with many of your
>conclusions, but rather than take a cheap shot at what has obviously been a
>labor of love, with a fair amount of scholarship  ("Those who have original
>thoughts, post; those who don't, carp"), I thought I'd ask you a few
>questions about your Hyacinth essay. According to you she's a chem. So does
>this mean that she fabricated the story about her father being a head clerk
>at the Juzgado? (Newt by my reckoning.) And again, is she lying (or
>implanted with false memories) when she tells Auk that her father is a
>"pig's arse"? And who is the woman described as her dead mother that
>Hyacinth sees at Mainframe? Nettle seems to know her (I've theorized
>elsewhere she's Lime), but wouldn't she have to be a chem--as must be her
>father? Simply put, are there really that many chems running around outside
>the military and the religious orders, and are they as prone and subject to
>toxic parenting as your average bios? Since you're speculating about someone
>whose life history does not end with SHORT SUN, you also need to read
>Wolfe's followup series because there's an event in there that makes your
>theory even lesss tenable. I won't spoil it for you; suffice it to say I
>don't think rust is the causitive agent.
>
>Robert Borski
>
>
>
>--
>Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2002 18:05:38 -0500
>Message-ID: <PLEFLJEIBGPANKPDCAMPAEKECEAA.crushtv at HotPOP.com>
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>Regarding essays at http://www.visualclick.com/~jwynn/GeneWolfe/LongSun/
>
>Robert Borski  said:
>I fear you've misread alga's comments, which were intended not as a
>suggestion that you and I actually meet, but that your work, like mine, is
>neither valid nor substantive...In other words expect a certain amount of
>ridicule, scorn, and derision to your Long Sun exegeses...
>
>My response:
>Unfortunately, I'm not so harassed by fraternal greetings and compliments
>that I can afford to exegete them when they come my way. I'll presume until
>textually proven otherwise that by "imagination plus" Alga meant merely
>"...plus imagination" rather than "...plus something-else-not-so-wonderful."
>As for receiving derision, I should HOPE to converse with someone who feels
>so strongly about the Long Sun series - that's why I published the essays on
>a website. So deride away! It's up to the derider however to engage me
>enough to respond. I purpose that no shots will be "cheap", I'll do all I
>can to see that they are hard won.
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Robert Borski  said
>I thought I'd ask you a few questions about your Hyacinth essay.
>
>My response:
>I'm working on a response to your questions, but I can't finish until can
>check my sources. Still I've received a couple emails offline on the
>chem-Hyacinth theory that follow the same tack, and I'd like to respond to
>that "tack" first.
>
>First if people are responding off-list because they feel more comfortable
>for some reason, yet *really* want to discuss some point, that's fine. But
>if someone responds off-list to keep from *humiliating* me, their concern is
>misdirected. The purpose of this list, I would guess, is to exchange
>opinions.
>
>Second, no matter WHAT one believes about Hyacinth, her impressive bosom is
>bursting with lies and slight-of-hands about her *true* nature. As I say in
>"Thelxepeia's Mirrors," the Hyacinth citation is not really finished and
>won't be until after I re-read the books. I currently ONLY cite the clues
>that she IS a chem rather than explain the (IMO) mis-directions that she is
>NOT a chem. My conviction currently rests only on affirmative proofs. That's
>only half the ballgame, I know.
>
>Consequently,  while I think I allay certain general concerns like those Mr.
>Borski is asking. I can't really address specific problems like "if Hyacinth
>is a chem, how does she cry? or "then why is she CLAIM to be a junkie?" or
>"why does she stuff her face with nectarines?"
>
>At the end of Silk's discussion with Horn on the airship, Silk says of his
>reasons for trying to kill himself, "Isn't it obvious [after all I've told
>you]?" Well it isn't "obvious." It IS (to me at this point), however,
>inexorable. Still, I welcome all challenges to anything I've published on my
>site, including this. Just understand that I can't answer
>everything.....yet.
>
>Third, as to my need to read the Short Sun, I guess I will have to read this
>one if only to have the credentials to discuss Hyacinth. But I've paid
>enough attention to the Urth list discussion to know she's dies and there is
>some ambiguity as to how. This is not a spoiler for me because:
>Since Silk and Hyacinth are Apollo and Hyacinthus -- and there is more
>reason than just her name to suggest they are - it is necessary that Silk
>will directly cause her death - the only question is how.
>
>I'm inclined to disbelieve, though obviously without evidence, that the
>manner of her death insists that she's bio since every person whose brought
>this up, felt the need to supply other (less persuasive?) proofs. Unless
>there is blood all over the walls, it's hard to imagine that it will present
>in more difficult puzzle than why does she produce snot when she cries and
>why is her breath warm.
>
>Does the event in question take place in "On Blue's Waters?" I do have that
>one already.
>
>Curiously, I kind of expected my other (I thought) controversial theory,
>that Incus is a woman, to provoke at least as many challenges as Hyacinth's.
>I feel much on much better ground to defend it. Then again, perhaps I *have*
>defended it better since no one has yet offered a detailed challenge on
>that.
>
>A sole-proprietor in flakiness,
>-- Crush
>
>
>
>
>
>--

Thanks,

Ian Lamont

--

---

From: Ian Lamont <ian_lamont at harvard.edu>
Date: Tue, 03 Sep 2002 12:59:10 +0000

At 07:57 PM 9/2/02 -0400, you wrote:
>Message-ID: <019e01c2521c$941cea00$d5456c42@akt>
>Subject: Re: (urth) Newt's main referent
>Date: Sun, 1 Sep 2002 21:03:41 -0400
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>Good call, Nick. Some major convention (WorldCon, I guess) was held in, I
>think, Atlanta in the 80s and Newt, for reasons that I think had to do with
>Bruce Sterling, was the banquet speaker. Though I'm not much of a
>conventioneer, I attended this (my parents lived in Atlanta) as a friend of
>Lucius Shepard, and, though I never met him there, I'm pretty sure Wolfe was
>on hand. I'd only barely heard of Gingrich at that point. But, among the
>more politicially minded, there was much furor, and a contingent, including
>Lucius (but not me), ostentatiously walked out of the banquet as Gingrich
>was introduced. Can't remember much about the speech or the evening
>otherwise except that both were boring--but that you expect. Gingrich seemed
>more menacing later, but that was the explicit SF connection. (Sorry to be
>so vague on particulars, but I've sort of accidentally attended a few
>conventions or parts of them; the only ones I remember well are those I'd
>planned in advance, and this was a last-minute thing--if it wasn't Atlanta I
>apologize, but it was somewhere else I just happened to be for other
>reasons.)
>
>-alga
>
>
>Date: Mon, 2 Sep 2002 01:16:54 -0400 (EDT)
>From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
>To: urth at urth.net
>Subject: Re: (urth) Newt's main referent
>Message-ID: <Pine.A41.4.44+UNC.0209020103420.26648-100000 at login0.isis.unc.edu>
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>On Sun, 1 Sep 2002, Alice K. Turner wrote:
>
> > Good call, Nick. Some major convention (WorldCon, I guess) was held in, I
> > think, Atlanta in the 80s and Newt, for reasons that I think had to do with
> > Bruce Sterling, was the banquet speaker.
>
>Also, at the time, Newt was one of the most famous science-fiction writers
>in America (along with William Shatner and, arguably, Stephen King).
>
>-Rostrum
>
>
>
>--
>Date: Mon, 02 Sep 2002 01:29:43 -0700
>From: maa32 <maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu>
>Subject: (urth) male hyacinth
>Sender: maa32 <maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu>
>To: urth at urth.net
>Message-id: <3D737498 at webmail.nau.edu>
>MIME-version: 1.0
>Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
>A couple months ago I posted on the evidence for a male hyacinth, and I was
>taken aback to discover that someone else thought that up independently - it
>was kind of a joke.  Let me briefly go over why I thought so: right before
>Silk meets Hyacinth for the first time, he finds all kinds of statues of boy
>toys for the gods: Ganymede and Catamitus, both boy lovers that I normally
>associate with Musk.  But Hyacinthus is the same kind of mythic figure: male
>lover of Apollo, stricken dead by the jealous wind.  But instead of Musk, he
>immediately meets Hyacinth, who has fake breasts.  Then later, in Calde of 
>the
>Long Sun ,Patera Quetzal, when Silk claims that he slept with a woman, 
>says he
>doesn't believe that his augur has done that.  It sounds like nothing, but
>Wolfe has a ton of those double entendres in his work.  I'm just surprised
>that someone else came up with the same thematic idea - the evidence isn't as
>sketchy as the evidence that suggest that Patera Pike is Blood's father, but
>it's pretty sketchy.  I don't see the chem part as convincing, but I think
>Hyacinth could certainly be an ex-male who had a little transformation 
>enacted
>and it explains the sterility of Silk's relationship.
>I don't know how seriously to take these things, really.  Not as seriously as
>a take a lot of the other stuff I post.
>Marc Aramini
>
>
>
>--
>Message-ID: <80256C28.0036FA7B.00 at ldnmta01.guardian.co.uk>
>Date: Mon, 2 Sep 2002 10:34:24 +0100
>On 31/08/2002 19:24:14 Andy Robertson wrote:
>
>A break does provide one with perspective, does it not?  ;-)
>
>Matthew
>
>
>
>--
>Message-ID: <007301c25251$02914a60$f3919ed9@abcomcus>
>From: "Andy Robertson" <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk>
>To: <urth at urth.net>
>Date: Mon, 2 Sep 2002 08:18:54 +0100
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>Ah well, I love it anyway.   But the idea that Hyacinth is a transsexual bio
>does seem slightly more probable, I confess: though I really see no need for
>it.
>
>     hartshorn
>
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: <matthew.malthouse at guardian.co.uk>
>To: <urth at urth.net>
>Sent: Monday, September 02, 2002 10:34 AM
> > On 31/08/2002 19:24:14 Andy Robertson wrote:
> >
> > A break does provide one with perspective, does it not?  ;-)
> >
> > Matthew
> >
>
>
>--
>Message-ID: <80256C28.0038FC81.00 at ldnmta01.guardian.co.uk>
>Date: Mon, 2 Sep 2002 10:56:20 +0100
>Subject: Re: (urth) male hyacinth
>Mime-Version: 1.0
>On 02/09/2002 09:29:43 maa32 wrote:
>
> >A couple months ago I posted on the evidence for a male hyacinth, and I
>was
> >taken aback to discover that someone else thought that up independently -
>it
> >was kind of a joke.  Let me briefly go over why I thought so: right
>before
> >Silk meets Hyacinth for the first time, he finds all kinds of statues of
>boy
> >toys for the gods: Ganymede and Catamitus, both boy lovers that I
>normally
> >associate with Musk.  But Hyacinthus is the same kind of mythic figure:
>male
> >lover of Apollo, stricken dead by the jealous wind.  But instead of Musk,
>he
> >immediately meets Hyacinth, who has fake breasts.
>
>I too the statuary, Hyacinth's potential androgeny etc as re-inforcement
>of Musk's character and lifestyle.  I'm far from convinced that - even
>with Wolfe's infamous multi-layered work - there's any need to see more to
>it than that.
>
>If one posits that Hyacinth is ex-male, male , chem male or female one has
>to answer what purpose it serves.  More what purpose would it serve to
>have Silk fall in love with such a being.  That would seem contrary to
>Wolfe's normal path in such matters and would require explanation.
>
>Matthew
>
>
>
>--

Thanks,

Ian Lamont

--

---

From: Ian Lamont <ian_lamont at harvard.edu>
Date: Tue, 03 Sep 2002 12:59:05 +0000

At 07:56 PM 8/24/02 -0400, you wrote:
>Date: Fri, 23 Aug 2002 17:29:10 -0700
>Subject: (urth) coldhouse
>Message-id: <3D683069 at webmail.nau.edu>
>MIME-version: 1.0
>I had always assumed that the victim in the coldhouse prank was Sherry Gold's
>brother, who was not on the best of terms with his parents and wanted to move
>out (as I recall from a readiing a few years ago - or was he already 
>living in
>a boardinghouse?)  Perhaps he confronted Weer about his sister after 
>getting a
>job there (he was looking for a job, right?) and then Weer took the
>opportunity to play a convenient prank on him.  Of course, I need to read
>Peace again. Just my  two cents.  At least Gold has motive to get close to
>Weer, and Weer has reason to get rid of Sherry's brother.
>Marc Aramini
>
>
>
>--
>Message-Id: <v03130300b98c8ff35a70@[209.179.250.217]>
>Mime-Version: 1.0
>Date: Fri, 23 Aug 2002 18:30:24 -0700
>To: urth at urth.net
>Subject: Re: (urth) coldhouse
>Marc Aramini wrote:
> >I had always assumed that the victim in the coldhouse prank was Sherry 
> Gold's
> >brother, who was not on the best of terms with his parents and wanted to 
> move
> >out (as I recall from a readiing a few years ago - or was he already
> >living in
> >a boardinghouse?)
>
>The coldhouse prank was in 1938.
>
>Weer met Sherry around 1954.
>
>Sherry was only just born at the time of the prank (1954 - 16 = 1938).
>Which is rather weird, come to think of it.
>
>=mantis=
>
>
>Sirius Fiction
>booklets on Gene Wolfe, John Crowley
>29 copies of "Snake's-hands" until OP!
>http://www.siriusfiction.com/
>
>
>
>--
>Message-ID: <cb.272588ee.2a98413f at aol.com>
>Date: Fri, 23 Aug 2002 21:54:07 EDT
>In a message dated 8/23/2002 7:57:25 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Robert Borski
>writes:
>
> > Stone Ox writes:
>When Dan French is telling the story of the sidhe, it's an embedded story,
>and Wolfe has changed, or invented, many (if not all) of the embedded
>stories, so as to shed light on events in the book.  On the other hand, if we
>believe that Weer was the perpetrator of the coldhouse prank, I'd consider it
>part of Weer's own life story, and I'm much more reluctant to believe that
>Wolfe is altering the details here.  But this relates to the whole unicorn
>debate, which I think we could argue about for eternity.
>I just had the thought that maybe part of the reason there's been so much
>discussion about Mr. Tilly's story and Doris's story is that it's not clear
>whether they should be counted as embedded stories or not.
>
>-Stone Ox
>
>
>
>--

Thanks,

Ian Lamont

--