Subject: (urth) DOORS: The hero's name

From: StoneOx17 <stoneox17 at aol.com>
Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 17:02:46 +0000

This question Spectacled Bear asked earlier about the hero's name (Wolfe 
always refers to him as "he") is making me wonder whether something 
strange is going on.  It later becomes clear in TAD that the protagonist's 
last name really is Green (e.g., the crate he gets is addressed to Mr. 
Green).  
The first time it's mentioned, however, the context is as follows.  He has 
gone to the downtown mental health center to look for Lara, and he mentions 
to the therapist that Lara's eyes are viridian.

   "Viridan, Mr. . . ?"
   "Green -- viridian's a bluish green."

Later in the conversation, the therapist calls him Mr. Green, and he wonders 
how she knew his name.  But we eventually discover that she should have 
known his name anyway, because she was a therapist that he had already 
been seeing regularly.  However, from the snippet extracted above, it seems 
that the therapist did not know his name when she first sees him.

I'm wondering whether it is possible that it really was his first time at the 
Mental Health Center, and if his name was not originally Green, but that
somehow the goddess altered reality so that he would ex post facto be a 
mental patient and thus not be believed (and maybe so that his name would 
be Green, which fits in well with the winter-spring-renewal-Attis theme)?   

This seems like a lot to be reading into those three dots above, but 
something similar happens with his first name.  During the "Lunch with
Lara" chapter, when he learns that the sea captain's first name was 
William, it seems to be implied, although not explicitly stated, that the 
hero's
first name is also William.  But later, at the fight, Lara introduces him as 
Adam K. Green.  Adam is a name that our hero comes up with when North
checks him in at the Grand Hotel pseudonymously as A. C. Pine, and 
Herr K. is what Klamm has been calling him throughout the book.  Also, 
as maybe a little more evidence that he never actually went to the therapist 
before the first session in the book, he never seems to recover his memory 
of this, although he does recover his memory of most of the things about 
Lara that he forgets after the electroshock treatments. 

The changing of his name fits in quite well with the theme of a man 
jettisoning his old life and rededicating it to the goddess, which I believe 
is
the central thrust of the book.  What do people think?  Am I yet another
fan who has gone off the deep end in overinterpreting?

-- Stone Ox

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From: Bratt Ian <ian.bratt at colorado.edu>
Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 19:31:33 +0000

> be Green, which fits in well with the winter-spring-renewal-Attis theme)?

It was not his first time at the Mental Health Center.  He had been going
there to treat his depression and that is how he met Lora the goddess when
she was working as a receptionist.  Her name was Lora Masterman.  She felt
sorry for Green and changed her appearence slightly and her name to Lora
Morgan to allow Green to pick her up in the park.  Later, when
Lora breaks off the relationship, she leaves Green's world and has to quit
her job as secretary.  The secretary that replaces her is new and doesn't
know Green's name.

on page 267:
Lunch with Lora
"You started blocking. You forgot -- I mean on the conscious level -- that
you were a patient, and that was very bad.  You even forgot that we'd met
in Dr. Nilson's office.  You talked about us meeting in the park, because
we took that walk during lunch.  And now --"

Green later accuses Lora of lying and says that she slightly changed her
appearance from Lora-the-secretary to Lora Morgan and let him pick her up
in the park.  He does, however, admit that Lora was right about the mental
Health Center.

"But you're telling the truth about one thing: I didn't want to admit I'd
been seeing a psychiatrist -- not even to myself.  Somebody like that
wasn't good enough for you -- I knew that."

-Insula

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From: StoneOx17 <stoneox17 at aol.com>
Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 20:56:25 +0000

I wrote:

I'm wondering whether it is possible that it really was 
his first time at the Mental Health Center, and if his 
name was not originally Green, but that somehow the 
goddess altered reality so that he would ex post facto 
be a mental patient and thus not be believed

Insula replied:

Green later accuses Lora of lying and says that she 
slightly changed her appearance from Lora-the-secretary 
to Lora Morgan and let him pick her up in the park.  
He does, however, admit that Lora was right about the 
mental Health Center. 

O.K., there goes that theory.  But it looks like he didn't
realize Lara Morgan was Lora-the-secretary until much
later, which makes things a lot clearer to me.

How does a goddess hold down a full-time job as a 
secretary anyway?  
-- 
Stone Ox

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From: Alice K. Turner <aturner6 at nyc.rr.com>
Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 08:51:43 +0000

> How does a goddess hold down a full-time job as a

You may find this hard to believe, but I know a goddess who holds down a
more-or-less full time job as a secretary for casual moguls, the private
jet-set type.  She is a sort of Holly Golightly figure, once married to a
famous Hollywood director (and it's no-kidding famous), now subsidized by a
bigtime (married) financier who is currently in prison (and it's no-kidding
bigtime), hops over to Italy on odd weekends to hobnob with her clandestine
race-car boyfriend. She is, as you would expect, gorgeous. She has exactly
one topic of conversation, herself, but I am always quite fascinated when I
am with her--goddesses have charisma to burn! She is such a curious,
old-fashioned figure that I feel quite privileged to know her, even
casually.

-alga

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