{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3741",
    "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'"
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  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 3741,
    "subject": "DOORS: More questions and thoughts",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2003-01-04T22:43:42+00:00",
    "last": "2003-01-04T22:43:42+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0301-2598@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "StoneOx17",
        "address": "stoneox17 at aol.com"
      },
      "date": "2003-01-04T22:43:42+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) DOORS: More questions and thoughts",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I've finished my rereading of There are Doors, and know the answers \nto some of the questions I asked in my previous post.  Here are some \nanswers and some more questions.\n\nThe discrepancy in time between the two worlds seems fairly clear. \nGreen goes to the other world, and stays there three or four days\n(depending on how long he was unconscious after his fall) while \n33 days pass here.  He comes back, stays around 44 months, by \nmy count, while four months pass there. So it looks like he was \nthere three days, and time flows in a ratio of eleven to one.  This \nfits with North believing that Nixon should still be president here, \nwhen it seems to be the mid-eighties (TAD was published in 1988, \nand takes place after the Bell system was broken up in 1984).  \nThis time flow doesn't gibe with Lara taking Green into the other \nworld through a \"door into summer\" (that has to be a nod to Heinlein) \nin their walk through the park, but maybe goddesses don't have to \nplay by the rules.  For all we know, it could have been a door into \nthis world's summer.\n\nThe hero's last name is Green.  His first name is either Billy or \nAdam - there's evidence for both.  Which one?\n\nI asked \"Are there any references to other Wolfe books [besides \nPeace]?\"  Maybe.  Doctor Pille was originally named Di, but changed\nit for the obvious reason, a possible reference to \"The Island of Dr. \nDeath and Other Stories.\"\n\nFor a while I thought the explanation for the Kafkaesque episode \nwhen Green is locked out of the hotel was extremely simple -- that\nNorth had already checked out, so the management didn't think \nanybody was staying there any longer -- rather than Fanny's more \ncomplicated explanation of \"a man protecting a man.\"  I still like my \nexplanation, but unfortunately it doesn't quite seem to fit with North's \nsigned confession at the end.  What exactly happened?\n\nThere are a number of things I think are references to the myth of\nAttis and Cybele.  Attis was dead for three days (as was Christ), \nwhich he spent in the underworld; Green spends three days (their time)\nin the other world.  Green's assumed name - that North gives him \nupon checking into the Grand Hotel - is Pine.  Pine trees are prominent \nin the cult of Attis (Attis mutilated himself under one).  Finally, Attis's \ndeath and rebirth are associated with the renewal of life in the spring, \nand most of this book takes place in the winter (their world), with spring \ncoming at the end.\n\nMost frustratingly, I still don't understand what's going on with Green's \nmother, but I remain convinced it's important.  Is this also connected \nwith the Attis mythology?  I looked on the web, and there are apparently\na number of different accounts of Attis's parents (or mother -- in some he\ndoesn't have a father).  I don't know the mythology well enough to know \nwhich version Wolfe would likely have in mind.\n\nStone Ox"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}