{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3543",
    "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": 3543,
    "subject": "PEACE: green book stories and how they branch",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2002-11-03T19:50:50+00:00",
    "last": "2002-11-03T19:50:50+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0211-2031@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi",
        "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com"
      },
      "date": "2002-11-03T19:50:50+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) PEACE: green book stories and how they branch",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "To reiterate, I think that the two stories from the green book are magical\nand in a separate category from the other stories.  (In the larger view I\nthink that Weer is incapable of such invention: his writing style is more a\nProustian reporting, and when he dips into imaginative territory the\nresults are passages like the \"artificial hunter\" and the \"Ted and Lisa\"\nsections.)\n\nThe most secure ground in dealing with these two faux-fairy tales is to\nnote how each one relates to one, and only one, episode in Weer's life:\nthat \"The Princess and Her Suitors\" is the foretelling of the courtship of\nOlivia, and that \"The Tale of ben Yahya and the Marid\" is about Weer's life\nbetween the loss of Olivia and Weer's meeting Lois.  Note that in the first\ncase we have a good amount of Olivia's adventures with two of her four\nsuitors (the tale maps a region developed by the text), whereas the second\ncase more or less fills in a lacuna (the text is relatively quiet in\nreporting on this period in Weer's life) and sets the stage for the \"Gold\nHunt\" adventure.  The corrspondences between tales and text, especially\nwith regard to encrypted names of characters, is so tight as to dispell all\ndisbelief.\n\nThe Princess and Her Suitors = main action of \"Olivia\" section\nTale of ben Yahya and the Marid = prelude to main action of \"Gold\" section\n\nHowever, as we venture outward from this solid footing with ropes (having\nfallen before), we come to notice some odd branching which might be\ndismissed as being a mirage except for the fact that both stories seem to\ndo it in the same place: there is a symmetry.\n\nThat is: in the Princess story, the early part sets the scene and only does\nthat, since we know nothing about Olivia's childhood.  It is only the\nbeginning of the courtship, the meat of the tale, that engages the gears\nand shows us Olivia's adventure.  The beginning is just a sort of filler, a\nnecessary stage of transition and scene building.  It is hard to imagine\nhow a \"wizard in wolfskins\" could have appeared in town at the time of\nOlivia's birth to foretell her future.\n\nAh, but as we have long known, this is a role taken up by Charlie Turner\n(the dog man) in the Doris episode: the man in wolfskins appears at the\nTang plant and tells Weer of a new arrival in the kingdom of the carnies.\nWhich led us to all sorts of wondering.  Since the Doris story is very\nclearly Cinderella, it is not immediately apparent how Cinderella/Doris\nfits into a Princess/Olivia story.\n\nIn a similar manner, the early part of the ben Yahya story involves the\nprotagonist causing an accident with some sherbet . . . which has an\nunmistakable bond to the coldhouse prank, with the further implication that\nWeer was the prankster.\n\nThe Princess and Her Suitors\nprologue = Charlie Turner and Doris\nmain story (3/4 suitors) = courtship of Olivia \"Olivia\" section (2/4 suitors)\n\nTale of ben Yahya and the Marid\nprologue = the coldhouse prank\nmain story = Weer's missing years, prelude to main action of \"Gold\" section\n\nThis shows that both tales contain references to annonymous people whose\nyoung lives were cut short: the 18 year-old coldhouse worker in 1938 and\nteenage Doris in 1963.  If we accept the proposal that Weer was the\nprankster, then he was responsible for the worker's death by either setting\nup the prank or by not letting him out of the coldhouse (more than one\nperson involved).  As for Doris, I have been recently arguing that it was\nWeer's inability to give the freak-making formula that may make him feel\nresponsible for her death.\n\nThe intrusion of Cinderella into the Princess story causes thematic\nstresses and timeframe stresses.  The inclusion of coldhouse prank into ben\nYahya's tale causes no such stresses, but it does add the burden of another\nmanslaughter to Weer's record (and leads toward that slippery slope of\npossible murders: Lois Arbuthnot and John Weer being at the top of the\nlist).\n\nBoth of the green book tales remain unfinished because Weer fell asleep\nwhile reading them, so we don't know how they end.  Yet the text continues\non where the tales leave off, and we are tantalized with visions of which\nconclusions would best fit each tale.  The fact that Smart's tale of Mr.\nTilly, which is unfinished in \"The Alchemist\" (section 3), is given a\nconclusion by Blaine in \"Gold\" (section 4), adds fuel to the fire, further\nencouraging the reader to engage with the text.\n\nHowever much Cinderella differs from the Princess story, the fate of Doris\nas heralded by dogman and consumed by fire provides an uncomfortable match.\n(Are the wicked stepmother and her two daughters somehow transformations of\nthe Princess's first three suitors?  Does not seem like an immediate \"Ah\nHA!\")  Because with the Princess story we are given the whole in a nutshell\nat the beginning.\n\nPutting this tangle aside, what would be the conclusion to the coldhouse\nghost story?  It would probably be the confrontation between the ghost and\nthe prankster who killed him.  Which would explain Weer's sudden fear of\nthat ghost, his fear of somebody else being in the memory mansion, his\naside that middle management didn't like employees with a sense of humor.\n\nHaving wandered this far afield, I cannot resist mentioning my new\ninterpretation of Kate's banshee story: if the Quantrill/Kate Boyne tryst\nis true, I wonder if this is somehow reflected in the banshee story (both\nhave climaxes in a barn).  At the very least, I suspect that the \"barren\ncouple\" at the end of the banshee story might really mask the cuckholdry of\nSean by Quantrill, and a possible together-but-separate nature of the\ncouple ever after.\n\n=mantis="
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}