{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3518", "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": 3518, "subject": "PEACE: the office of Dr. Van Ness (again!)", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "2002-10-28T04:33:03+00:00", "last": "2002-10-30T17:17:31+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com" }, "date": "2002-10-28T04:33:03+00:00", "subject": "(urth) PEACE: the office of Dr. Van Ness (again!)", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Roy and I, on this list, have discussed the big plate of spaghetti that is\nPEACE. The most tangled noodle of the whole thing is, I believe (well, for\nthe moment at least -- bear with) the visit of Weer to Dr. Van Ness's\noffice and alll the weirdness that follows.\n\nIn the past we have looked at the clear evidence of \"bad splices,\" where\ntime-frames have been patched one on top of the other. This is part of\nwhat makes the Dr. V thread difficult to trace, because Weer has visited\nthis one doctor for 30 years, from a period when he was a skinny loser to\nwhen he was a fat king of the town. If Weer only had yearly physical\nexams, that would be 30 visits to pick and choose from for the splicing.\n\nFor the purposes of debate, there must be two conflicting points of view.\nRoy has volunteered to champion the view that Weer's situation is\nnearly-solipsistic, and the ghosts he sees are puppets of his psyche: Dr.\nVan Ness, as the ghost who most interacts with Weer, is by this action the\nmost complete puppet of all.\n\nI am putting forth the option of 0% puppetry and 0% solipsism. The trade\noff is 100% time travel. (And unlike Billy Pilgrim of SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE,\nWeer's travel is =not= paradox free.)\n\nNow then, getting down to the gist of it. The text suggests to me that the\nDr. Van Ness thread is made up of at least three visits, each one in a\ndifferent decade: 1953, 1963, 1973. Each visit had a crisis: the 1953\nvisit had Weer flustered/tormented by seeing Sherry again (and probably\nfearing that she is pregnant by him); it is clear that the 1973 visit was\nimmediately after his stroke.\n\nSo what happened in 1963? Our timelines get rather hazy there, other than\ncertain key facts: Weer became president; Weer had three visitors (Bill the\nad man, Eleanor the tree lady, and Charlie Turner the dog man).\n\nThe text suggests that Weer bounces around in time at the Doctor's office\n(skeleton key: arranging \"Life\" magazines in sequence by cover, applies\nespecially to the doctor's office) before more-or-less stabilizing in 1963.\n\nHow is this perceived in linear time? President Weer has had some type of\nnervous breakdown, naturally! Thus all that talk of a future stroke\n=really did= happen. The mirror test, the TAT cards: all real. And what\ndid Dr. Van Ness think of it? He seems to have decided that Weer was\nsuffering from overwork -- the sudden change in becoming president, moving\nfrom apartment to mansion, etc. Because note what his advice is: work is\nnot to be liked; Weer should find a hobby; Weer should walk around some,\nand talk to people. This advice is not really appropriate for \"stroke\nrecovery,\" which is what Weer is asking about (and he takes it as adequate\nfor stroke recovery by puttering around in the garden and reliving\nconversations); but it is perfect for helping a person out of an episode of\nmental illness.\n\nIn this way, we see that \"the madman is right,\" in the sense that Weer of\n2274 invaded the Weers of 1953, 1963, and 1973 and spoke the truth (as much\nas he understood it in a vague post-1974 sort of way) about his situation\n(which amounts to \"last man on Earth\" stuff). Hence the paradox: does Weer\nrecall the mental breakdown he had at Dr. Van Ness's office in 1963, or did\nit not happen until he did it as a ghost, overriding the Weer of 1963 to\nspeak out (in a way that Scrooge and Billy Pilgrim cannot)?\n\n(Or wait, have I already said all this before?)\n\n=mantis=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2002-10-30T04:52:04+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) PEACE: the office of Dr. Van Ness (again!)", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "mantis wrote:\nFor the purposes of debate, there must be two conflicting points of view.\nRoy has volunteered to champion the view that Weer's situation is\nnearly-solipsistic, and the ghosts he sees are puppets of his psyche: Dr.\nVan Ness, as the ghost who most interacts with Weer, is by this action the\nmost complete puppet of all." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "My senility is getting worse; I don't remember volunteering for anything!\n However, if I've been dragooned . . ." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I am putting forth the option of 0% puppetry and 0% solipsism. The trade\noff is 100% time travel. (And unlike Billy Pilgrim of SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE,\nWeer's travel is =not= paradox free.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Halfheartedly I parry: didn't Wolfe write somewhere that PEACE was\noriginally published as a \"mainstream\" novel; that it was not labeled (or\nmarketed) as \"fantasy\", as is the case with my Berkley paperback? Is time\ntravel allowed in mainstream fiction?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "In the past we have looked at the clear evidence of \"bad splices,\" where\ntime-frames have been patched one on top of the other. This is part of\nwhat makes the Dr. V thread difficult to trace, because Weer has visited\nthis one doctor for 30 years, from a period when he was a skinny loser to\nwhen he was a fat king of the town. If Weer only had yearly physical\nexams, that would be 30 visits to pick and choose from for the splicing." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I know I've gone over this before, so I'll give just the broad view. Those\n\"bad splices\" you mention are, for me, what most clearly demonstrates that\nWeer is *not* time traveling. He's dead. Whether his existence in the\nframetale is purgatorial, hellish, cyclical, or whatever; *it's all in his\nhead*, and he is not entirely sane. He is powerless to alter his \"reality\",\nwherever he is. (If people could get out of hell, or limbo, or even\npurgatory just because they didn't like it, the vacancy rate would be quite\nhigh. And he doesn't *like* being where he's at.) He is unable to change\nthe past. If he could change *his* past, that would necessarily change the\npasts of everyone he interacted with after he made the change(s), causing an\nexponential ripple effect in the lives of everyone in the world.\n\nWhether Wolfe intended Weer's situation to be remediable or not, I don't\nknow, but Weer can't change it by an act of will alone. Perhaps Wolfe's\nreligious views allow Weer an eventual out, but in the short term all he can\ndo is think, to remember, and to rail against his fate. Weer's memories are,\nby and large, not happy ones. Those he chooses to \"write\" down get altered\nin the process of remembering. When he gets in his head the notion of his\ndead-man stroke, and seeks medical advice for it down the corridors of time\nfrom equally dead doctors, it's all imagination. His existence is defined by\nhis memories--that's all he has to work with. He is free to reconstitute his\nmemories any way he wants to, and he's only giving us a small part of them.\n\nWhen he draws on the memory of a visit to Dr. V as the stage setting for his\ninquiry about his stroke, and remembers a time when he was in a waiting room\nfull of people, he, childlike, wants to see the doctor right *now*. When the\nnurse points out that he must wait his turn, he just moves ahead to another\nmemory of when he had already been admitted to the doctor. The \"stroke\" he\ncomplains of in the frametale is imaginary (even if based on a real one he\nhad when he was alive), because he's dead. The spiritual dissatisfaction he\nfeels with his current state of being manifests itself--in his mind--as a\nstroke. He wants relief, so he turns to a dead doctor he has known to find\nit, which, of course, doesn't work.\n\nWhen his frametale-self interacts with Dr. V (or Lois, or Sherry), so that\nthe doctor responds with comments that were never made when both were alive\n(and which *couldn't* have been made in real life, like those to Dr. Black),\nWeer is playing mind games with himself, revisiting memories like someone\ndaydreaming; variations on a theme, with what-ifs and might-have-beens.\n\nI don't necessarily believe all this, but it is one solipsistic take on\nWeer's situation." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "In this way, we see that \"the madman is right,\" in the sense that Weer of\n2274 invaded the Weers of 1953, 1963, and 1973 and spoke the truth (as much\nas he understood it in a vague post-1974 sort of way) about his situation\n(which amounts to \"last man on Earth\" stuff). Hence the paradox: does Weer\nrecall the mental breakdown he had at Dr. Van Ness's office in 1963, or did\nit not happen until he did it as a ghost, overriding the Weer of 1963 to\nspeak out (in a way that Scrooge and Billy Pilgrim cannot)?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "*If* Weer were able to travel in time, then I would choose the second\noption.\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com" }, "date": "2002-10-30T17:17:31+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) PEACE: the office of Dr. Van Ness (again!)", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Roy quoted Mantis ..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I am putting forth the option of 0% puppetry and 0% solipsism. The \ntrade off is 100% time travel. (And unlike Billy Pilgrim of \nSLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE, Weer's travel is =not= paradox free.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "... and wrote ... " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Halfheartedly I parry: didn't Wolfe write somewhere that \nPEACE was originally published as a \"mainstream\" novel; that \nit was not labeled (or marketed) as \"fantasy\", as is the case\nwith my Berkley paperback? Is time travel allowed in mainstream\nfiction?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Pedantically I riposte: Time travel of the variety Mantis \ndescribes occurs in at least one mainstream novel, \nSLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE, which, to the best of my knowledge, has \n_never_ been labelled or marketed as science fiction or \nfantasy. \n\n--Blattid, pedantic to the last hiss" } ] } ] }