{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3996",
    "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": 3996,
    "subject": "Hat Tree: Robert's reply",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2003-05-11T11:56:30+00:00",
    "last": "2003-05-11T11:56:30+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0305-3403@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Nigel Price",
        "address": "nigel.aprice at virgin.net"
      },
      "date": "2003-05-11T11:56:30+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Hat Tree: Robert's reply",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I thought that it was far too long since we heard from Robert Borski, so I\nwas delighted when I got up early this morning to find this message waiting\nfor me. I've asked Robert whether I can post this to the list, but as he's\noff on his travels and may not be back in touch till June, I thought that I\nwould take a liberty and post it anyway, without waiting for his reply.\n(Robert, if this is now June and that wasn't OK, then please accept my\napologies!)\n\nNigel\n-----------------------------------------\n\nNigel:\n\nJust a few short points before I begin the long drive over storm-drenched\nroads to O' Hare.\n\nRe malaria vs Hansen's disease: I concede to you that malaria seems the more\nlikely disease than leprosy. My notebooks are back in Europe and a quick,\nvery cursory, glance over the relevant text turned up nothing, so I'm not\nsure why I diagnosed Hansen's. I do like the symbolic value of leprosy,\nhowever, as well as its Biblical resonance, and I seem to remember (but\ncould not find) a passage wherein the dreaming Baden has a nightmare about\nbody parts falling off. (Also have not listened to the audio version yet,\nbut hope to do so on the flight back over.) But while malaria's symptomatic\nprofile seems more in line with Baden's illness, what I don't like about it\nis that is it carries little symbolic freight and tells us next to nothing\nabout Baden that we don't already know. Granted, Wolfe may have not\ndisclosed what's afflicting Baden out of sheer lupine mischievousness, but\nit makes him a poorer writer in my opinion. Then I came across your musings\nabout HIV and thought a-ha: at least a sexually-transmitted disease would\nhelp make sense of Baden's reluctance to come out and name the disease; it\nalso shows he may have strayed from the marital bed; and if he's passed it\non to his wife, it may help explain their estrangement. Curiously also, in\nthe text version of \"Tree,\" the following passage occurs. Baden, talking\nabout his new island neighbors, states: \"The people are fat and happy, and\nmy guess is not more than half are dumb. Once or twice one gets yaws or some\nsuch, and Rev. Robbins gives him arsenic. Which cures it. Pooey!\" (The\nitalics are Wolfe's; had he not used them I would have highlighted the\nPooey.) Now yaws, as you may or may not remember from your tropical island\ndiseases seminar, is caused by the Treponema pertenue spirochette, which,\nwhile non-venereal in nature, is morphologically and serologically\nindistinguishable from T. Pallidum, the causative microbe of syphilis.\nMoreover, various secondary and tertiary stages of the disease closely\napproximate many of Baden's symptoms. (There's also a superficial\nresemblance between the skin lesions caused by yaws, syphilis and\nleprosy--and this might explain Baden's nightmare if the\nfalling-off-parts-passage I cited above isn't imaginary). Could therefore\nBaden's secret disease--one that has not responded to antibiotics (\"Pooey!\")\nand that he may have passed on to his wife--be syphilis? At least for me\nthis helps explain a number of story's unresolved plot points, whereas\nmalaria does almost nothing.\n\n\"Baden,\" for those of us who speak German, means \"to bathe,\" and surely this\nis the most relevant onomastic.\n\nAnd lastly, Wolfe's rather Oliver Sachs-like title: besides being something\nfrom which natives can fashion island haberdashery, the tree represents the\nTree--Christ's cross--showing once again its subversion/denigration as a\npotent symbol by the Satanic Hanga. (Especially since Catholic men are not\nallowed to wear hats in church.)\n\nI would have posted these to the list, but as I am no longer a subscriber\n(it's easier for me to play catchup by checking the urth site on an\ninfrequent basis than try to peruse 600 entries in my email box every ten\nweeks or so), this seems the simpler route.\n\nAll in all, I rather enjoyed the series of posts you contributed on the\ntale, and look forward to the next series on whatever else-- although it\nwill probably be late June before I get to read them.\n\nBest.\n\nRobert"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}