{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3471", "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": 3471, "subject": "PEACE as Faust", "messages": 9, "voices": 5, "first": "2002-10-04T13:32:25+00:00", "last": "2002-10-07T15:43:36+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "StoneOx17", "address": "stoneox17 at aol.com" }, "date": "2002-10-04T13:32:25+00:00", "subject": "(urth) PEACE as Faust", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "A while ago, I read Robert Borski's essay, \"The Devil his Due,\" which makes \nthe connection of Peace with Faust, and identifies Weer as the devil. I \nthink that Borski often notices interesting things in Wolfe's writing, \nalthough he doesn't always draw the right conclusions from them, and I think \nthat's the case here. I can't accept Weer as the devil, but the essay did \nlead me to think about identifying Julius with the devil, and that led me to \nan interesting interpretation of the banshee story, which I posted here a few \nweeks ago. Shortly after that, an image suddenly hit me that connects Peace \nto Faust. The image is the one at the end of many versions of Faust, with \nthe devil dragging Faust down to hell as Margrete looks down from Heaven (or \nascends to Heaven) and prays for him to be saved. The connection, of course, \nis to the end of the book, where, while Aunt Olivia calls Weer on the \nintercom, Weer makes the fatal error of looking to the enchanted headrest of \nthe Chinese philosopher (and thus reliving his afterlife) rather than praying \nto Jesus for salvation. So we have the identification of Olivia with \nMargrete, and Weer with Faust. More on this identification later.\n\nIs this really the right interpretation of the ending, leaving the ghost of \nWeer caught eternally in purgatory, while Olivia has ascended to heaven? It \nseems right to me, but I have only a few pieces of evidence for this:\n\nFirst, when she's gathering information about the Chinese egg, Olivia \nconvinces herself that, besides the Lorn's egg showing the scenes from the \nResurrection, there is also a matching egg showing the Ascension, and she \nwrites to a New York museum asking about it. A literal reading of this \nraises some bewildering questions (how does she draw this conclusion before \nshe's even seen the egg?), but I believe this is intended to be read \nmetaphorically: Weer has been resurrected as a ghost, but Olivia has not only \nbeen resurrected but has also subsequently ascended to heaven. \n\nNext, at the end of the Chinese philosopher's story, we find the passage:\n\"Fool!\" the old man exclaimed. \"Do you not recognize me? I have granted \nyour heart's desire, and for it I receive your ingratitude!\" \nIs this not also a plausible response to somebody who has turned down the \noffer of eternal life?\n\nFinally, the end of Peace occurs right after Dan French's story of the geese \nof Loch Conn, which really should have served as a hint to Weer: \"... And in \ntime, men, too, will pass, as every man who lives long learns in his own \nbody. But Jesus Christ saves all.\"\n\nThinking about it some more, I believe that that there are multiple \nidentifications of characters in Peace with those in Faust. We have to \nidentify both Margaret and Olivia with Margrete, both Weer and Julius with \nFaust, and both Julius and Mr. Tilly with the devil. So we have Mr. Tilly \npassing his (carny) knowledge to Julius, who then passes the (secret?) \nformula for turning lead into gold (oops, I mean potatoes into imitation \nfrozen orange juice) on to Weer. From Charles Turner's letter, it's not \nclear whether the carny medicines are really a benefit for their recipients. \nAnd as Borski notes, in the long run the factory certainly has an evil effect \non the surrounding farms. \n\n-- Stone Ox" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2002-10-04T19:27:27+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) PEACE as Faust", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " Stone Ox writes:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Is this really the right interpretation of the ending, leaving the\nghost of\nWeer caught eternally in purgatory, while Olivia has ascended to\nheaven?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I agree that Weer isn't El Diablo. But how is it that Olivia gets to go\nto heaven? She didn't strike me as even a nice person, much less as\nworthy of eternal reward. Before marriage she was a fornicator;\nafterwards an adulteress.\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com" }, "date": "2002-10-04T20:40:28+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) PEACE as Faust", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Roy C. wrote ..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I agree that Weer isn't El Diablo. But how is it that Olivia \ngets to go to heaven? " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The usual method is called \"repentance.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "She didn't strike me as even a nice person, much less as\nworthy of eternal reward. Before marriage she was a fornicator;\nafterwards an adulteress." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Has nothing to do with the case -- the whole point (well, _a_\nmajor point) of Christianity in general, and Catholicism in \nparticular, is that _everyone_ is a sinner, but that doesn't \nstop you from being saved -- in fact it's why you need to be \nsaved. And, because everyone's a sinner, nobody is \"worse\" than \nanyone else. So you just sort of have to accept what you are, be\nsorry for what you've done, and try to do better with God's help, \nand that's pretty much the deal. So being \"not nice,\" \"a \nfornicator,\" \"an adulteress\" (thank you for using these terms so\naccurately, btw) really wouldn't stop her. Might mean some \nPurgatory, but that's a highly-undefined term." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "StoneOx17", "address": "stoneox17 at aol.com" }, "date": "2002-10-05T14:45:21+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) PEACE as Faust", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "blattid (\"Dan'l Danehy-Oakes\" ) writes" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Roy C. wrote ..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I agree that Weer isn't El Diablo. But how is it that Olivia \ngets to go to heaven? " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The usual method is called \"repentance.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "And this also touches on the question of whether Weer gets into \nheaven. In his reminiscences, Weer hasn't even admitted some of\nhis major sins--the cold room prank, whatever happened with Lois--\nlet alone repented of them.\n\n--Stone Ox" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2002-10-05T18:41:13+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) PEACE as Faust", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Blattid quoted and wrote:\nRoy C. wrote ..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I agree that Weer isn't El Diablo. But how is it that Olivia\ngets to go to heaven?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The usual method is called \"repentance.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "And the textual evidence for this is . . . nonexistent." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "mantis also wrote:\nP.S. Olivia an adultress? Roy, you surprise me again! I had not\nthought\nsuch a thing was in your no-nonsense reading of PEACE . . . I hesitate\nto\neven guess who the party or parties might be, nevermind the complicated\nramifications. Please tell!" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The following quote happens to address both Blattid's \"repentance\" issue\nand mantis's query. The context is the point in PEACE where Olivia\ninterrupts Smart's Tilly tale to suggest it's time for Den to go to bed.\nIt is the only place in the text where the subject of repentance and\nOlivia comes up, and it makes clear the depths of her sincerity and\nreligiosity:\n\n \"My aunt Olivia was not serious. She belonged to that school which\nrecognizes the just demands of duty by ritual observance, and had\nordered me to bed in exactly the spirit in which she would later--when\nshe was Mrs. Smart--repent three or four times a year of her casual\nconnection with Professor Peacock and her occasional nights with Mr.\nMacafee.\" (145, Berkley)\n\nAnd, of course, Den didn't go to bed then." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "She didn't strike me as even a nice person, much less as\nworthy of eternal reward. Before marriage she was a fornicator;\nafterwards an adulteress." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Has nothing to do with the case -- the whole point (well, _a_\nmajor point) of Christianity in general, and Catholicism in\nparticular, is that _everyone_ is a sinner, but that doesn't\nstop you from being saved -- in fact it's why you need to be\nsaved. And, because everyone's a sinner, nobody is \"worse\" than\nanyone else." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "So, Herr Hitler and Mother Theresa were equal in God's eyes; what they\ndid in their lives had no bearing on their eternal fate. Interesting. So\nlong as Hitler had the presence of mind to say \"I'm sorry\" before he\ndied in that bunker, St. Peter had no choice but to open up the Pearly\nGates and let him in. I hope Mother Theresa wasn't caught unawares when\nshe died, that she wasn't having a bad day, lest . . . but I digress.\n\nAnd the \"meritorious acts\" ordered by an augur in the wake of a shriving\ncounted for nothing. And Silk, observing Marble's joyful reaction to the\nworking eye he brought her, and feeling warm and fuzzy about it himself,\nmust have been suffering from one of Dr. Crane's cerebral accidents when\nhe had the presumption to write of some day standing before his Maker: \"\n. . . but if ever a time comes when I must justify my existence--when I\nmust account for the space I have occupied, the food I have eaten, and\nthe air I have breathed--I will tell about Maytera's eye first of all. I\ndoubt that I will have to tell anything else.\" (RTTW, 307)\n\nI don't want to get into another theological conflict; I cede you the\nhigh ground. But you can't tell me, so far as Wolfe's religious beliefs\ncan be inferred from his work, that he believes the acts of an\nindividual in life are not weighed in the final balance, regardless of\ntechnical conformity to Christian/Catholic dogma.\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Jordan", "address": "jbjordan4 at cox.net" }, "date": "2002-10-05T20:15:07+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) PEACE as Faust", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Let me see if I've got you right:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 08:32 AM 10/4/2002, Stone Ox wrote:\n Shortly after that, an image suddenly hit me that connects Peace\nto Faust. The image is the one at the end of many versions of Faust, with\nthe devil dragging Faust down to hell as Margrete looks down from Heaven \n(or ascends to Heaven) and prays for him to be saved. The connection, of \ncourse, is to the end of the book, where, while Aunt Olivia calls Weer on the\nintercom, Weer makes the fatal error of looking to the enchanted headrest of\nthe Chinese philosopher (and thus reliving his afterlife) rather than praying\nto Jesus for salvation. So we have the identification of Olivia with\nMargrete, and Weer with Faust. More on this identification later.\n\nIs this really the right interpretation of the ending, leaving the ghost of\nWeer caught eternally in purgatory, while Olivia has ascended to heaven? It\nseems right to me, but I have only a few pieces of evidence for this:" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "snip" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Next, at the end of the Chinese philosopher's story, we find the passage:\n\"Fool!\" the old man exclaimed. \"Do you not recognize me? I have granted\nyour heart's desire, and for it I receive your ingratitude!\"\nIs this not also a plausible response to somebody who has turned down the\noffer of eternal life?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " So, tell me: Weer is Faust. He has been granted his heart's desire \nfor an eternal life, and he has it. He is doomed to walk through his life \nover and over forever. He's not in purgatory, but hell. Is that it?\n\n\nNutria" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com" }, "date": "2002-10-05T20:03:55+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) PEACE as Faust", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Re: Olivia the adultress, ach -- that couch! Of course, how could I have\nforgotten that couch. Apologies to Roy.\n\n=mantis=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "StoneOx17", "address": "stoneox17 at aol.com" }, "date": "2002-10-07T13:19:37+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) PEACE as Faust", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Nutria wrote" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Let me see if I've got you right:\nAt 08:32 AM 10/4/2002, Stone Ox wrote:" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "snip" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Next, at the end of the Chinese philosopher's story, we find the passage:\n\"Fool!\" the old man exclaimed. \"Do you not recognize me? I have granted\nyour heart's desire, and for it I receive your ingratitude!\"\nIs this not also a plausible response to somebody who has turned down the\noffer of eternal life?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " So, tell me: Weer is Faust. He has been granted his heart's desire \nfor an eternal life, and he has it. He is doomed to walk through his life \nover and over forever. He's not in purgatory, but hell. Is that it?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Essentially, that's it. I left out the next line in the Chinese \nphilosopher's \nstory, which is: \"And with that he [the old man] picked up the teakettle \nand dashed the boiling contents into the face of the young man ...\";\nthis could symbolize the casting of the young man into hell.\n\nThere are some things I am quite certain of: I believe that Weer would have\nhad a genuine chance to ascend to heaven if he had understood the \nsignificance of the Irish story of the geese. I also believe that at the end \nof \nthe book, he returns to relive his afterlife, as in the Chinese pillow story. \n I \nam less certain of this, but I think the second and subsequent times, he is \nin hell rather than purgatory, although it may be that these times, he still \nhas a chance to repent of his sins and reach heaven, but given that he didn't \ndo this the previous times, he becomes less and less likely to in subsequent \nrounds. As Robert Borski observed, Gold writes, in Morryster's Marvells\nof Science, \"Heaven ... (like Hell) repeats itself over and over again, always\ndifferent and yet always the same.\" This is somewhat similar to Sartre's\n\"Huis Clos,\" where hell is a room with three people in it, the door to which\nis open exactly when none of the three people want to leave. \n\nIn a different posting, Roy C. quoted and wrote ..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Blattid quoted and wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Roy C. wrote ..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "I agree that Weer isn't El Diablo. But how is it that Olivia\ngets to go to heaven?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "The usual method is called \"repentance.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "And the textual evidence for this is . . . nonexistent." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, very thin. First, I firmly believe that Weer had a genuine opportunity \nto reach heaven, and I don't think Olivia's sins are any worse than Weer's. \nSecond, there is the point that Aunt Olivia is looking for the ascenscion \negg. In Christian theology, looking is half the battle: \"Seek, and ye shall \nfind.\" Finally, there's the parallel with Faust, and the question of where \nat the end, Olivia is speaking to him from (if her voice isn't yet another \nspectre conjured from Weer's imagination). I do agree with Roy that it's \nvery unlikely that Olivia died in a state of grace, so she would have had to \nspend some time as a ghost in Purgatory, as well, but I see no reason\nshe shouldn't have repented of her sins there. \n\n--Stone Ox" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com" }, "date": "2002-10-07T15:43:36+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) PEACE as Faust", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Off topic, but not totally; it goes to the purgatorial interpretation\nof PEACE..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Roy C. wrote:\nI don't want to get into another theological conflict; I cede \nyou the high ground. But you can't tell me, so far as Wolfe's \nreligious beliefs can be inferred from his work, that he believes \nthe acts of an individual in life are not weighed in the final \nbalance, regardless of technical conformity to Christian/Catholic\ndogma." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Nor do I want for a moment to get into any such theological conflict. \nAnd I certainly don't want to suggest that anything less than the\nwhole life of the individual would be involved in that individual's\nEternal destiny. Your example of Hitler having \"the presence of mind\nto say 'I'm sorry' before he died in that bunker\" is a classic case: \ntheoretically, technically possible -- though extremely unlikely in \nthe case of someone who is dying in the _manner_ Hitler did -- but \nsimply saying \"I'm sorry\" isn't the point; it would take a moment of \ngenuine _conversion_, of actually recognizing the horror of what he'd \ndone and hating it. Which is a lot to happen in the moment between \nthe pulling of the trigger and the bullet's smashing his brains out \n... but that bare possibility is a large part of why Catholicism\nembraces the concept of _purgatory_, the idea that, well, yes, you\nmay well be saved from Hell, but you still have a lot of cleaning up \n(literally; purging) to do, and it may not feel very nice. Somehow\nit becomes necessary to encompass both the idea that God is absolutely\njust and the idea that God is merciful.\n\n(Contrariwise, the bit about Mother Teresa having \"a bad day\" wouldn't \nmake much difference; maybe a tiny bit of extra purgation.)\n\nRegarding Olivia's repeated repentances ... well, I honestly don't\nknow. I can't judge a real person I know well; how can I judge a\nfictional character I know only through an unreliable narrator?" } ] } ] }