{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4009", "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": 4009, "subject": "Doomed men's manuscripts", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "2003-05-15T22:36:13+00:00", "last": "2003-05-15T23:08:23+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Nigel Price", "address": "nigel.aprice at virgin.net" }, "date": "2003-05-15T22:36:13+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Doomed men's manuscripts", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Nutria wrote concerning my recent confusion of names..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Yes. Twas me. But Tree of the Knowledge of\nGood and Evil, where the original man-eating\nshark dwelt." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "You see? I even get the names of my trees mixed up." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "But I'm hampered in analysis, not having the full text." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It might have been better if, suffering a similar lack, I had shared your\nreticence!" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Well, how likely is it that Wolfe managed to\nfind Severian's memoirs after they travelled\nthe corridors of time? And Latro's journal,\nfor that matter? Somehow, he gets hold of these\nthings. No one knows how. He's not telling.\nHe's obviously got some kind of inside track." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The ancients speculated that all things lost on earth might eventually end\nup on the moon. That, for example, is where Ariosto located Orlando's lost\nwits. But Ariosto and the ancients were wrong. The Limbo of the Lost is\nactually located in the basement of an ordinary-looking house in the suburbs\nof Chicago. Manuscripts, stories and ideas lost in other times, places and\ndimensions all end up there.\n\nThe owner of the basement comes down early every morning, dusts them all off\nand, having selected the finest and most unusual, proceeds to polish them\nand polish them until they shine with a light to rival that of the new sun\nat its zenith. He then passes them on to a merchant who lives on a high tor,\nand he in turn sells them to curious and discerning collectors around the\nworld. They treasure these strange findings, though few understand their\ntrue meaning or purpose." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Maybe the Outsider gives them to him." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm sure He does.\n\nI still, on balance, see \"The Tree is my Hat\" as a story of damnation rather\nthan a \"just in time\" repentance. I'm fascinated to find, though, as so\noften before, that when I look, or in this case listen, hard enough, I find\na sort of counter-current running through the story which hints at a\npossible outcome completely opposite from the one that I still think is\nintended.\n\nJust to illustrate how another writer might have tackled the story, here is\nthe ending of the journal kept by another doomed narrator, this time the\nhero of the embedded tale in William Hope Hodgson's gothic masterpiece, _The\nHouse on the Borderland_ (1908). The hero lives in a castle built over a\nchasm leading to a hellish parallel dimension. We join the story near the\nend. The hero is writing his journal, even as The Monster is finally about\nto break through into the castle and Get Him..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "\"Hush! I hear something, down - down in the\ncellars. It is a creaking sound. My God, it\nis the opening of the great, oak trap. What\ncan be doing that? The scratching of my pen\ndeafens me.... I must listen.... There are\nsteps on the stairs; strange padding steps,\nthat come up and nearer.... Jesus, be\nmerciful to me, an old man. There is\nsomething fumbling at the door-handle.\nO God, help me now! Jesus - The door is\nopening - slowly. Somethi-\"\n\nThat is all.\n\nNote.-From the unfinished word, it is\npossible, on the MS, to trace a faint line\nof ink, which suggests that the pen has\ntrailed away over the paper; possibly\nthrough fright and weakness.-Ed." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I've always thought that this was a great ending, even if the idea of the\nhero scratching away at his journal while the Monster climbs the stairs and\nenters the room is patently ludicrous. (If only he had had a dictaphone!)\nBut you don't have any doubt that the hero is going to meet An Awful Fate.\n\nThere are similarities with the ending of \"The Tree is my Hat\", but Wolfe, a\nfar more sophisticated artist, says much less, and ends his narrative well\nbefore his hero actually encounters the fatal thunderstorm.\n\nIncidentally, Hodgson provides a frame story to explain exactly how he and\nhis friend discovered the doomed man's manuscript, which he then \"edited\"\nfor publication. Wolfe does a little of this TBotNS, but provides no such\naccount for \"The Tree is my Hat\".\n\nNigel" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Chris", "address": "rasputin_ at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2003-05-15T23:08:23+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Doomed men's manuscripts", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This kind of thing was a staple with Lovecraftian fiction. The device might \ngo way further back than that, but it seems to me that just about every \nCthulhu story I've seen consists of a short lead-in by the skeptical editor \nwho finds (or is given) the manuscript, then the manuscript itself often \n(but not always) ending abruptly, with suitable editor's notes at the end to \nwrap things up with some comment about how he doesn't believe the story, or \nthe body was never found, etc.\n\nIt doesn't seem unreasonable that Wolfe might have been deliberately going \nfor a bit of a Lovecraft atmosphere.\n\nChris" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "\"Indeed it is hard to grasp why it hasn't already given birth... to its \nhero, that demon who will stage without scruple that horrifying play that \nreduces the whole age to laughter and to unconsciousness of the fact that it \nis laughing at itself.\" -- Soren Kierkegaard" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I've always thought that this was a great ending, even if the idea of the\nhero scratching away at his journal while the Monster climbs the stairs and\nenters the room is patently ludicrous. (If only he had had a dictaphone!)\nBut you don't have any doubt that the hero is going to meet An Awful Fate.\n\nThere are similarities with the ending of \"The Tree is my Hat\", but Wolfe, \na\nfar more sophisticated artist, says much less, and ends his narrative well\nbefore his hero actually encounters the fatal thunderstorm.\n\nIncidentally, Hodgson provides a frame story to explain exactly how he and\nhis friend discovered the doomed man's manuscript, which he then \"edited\"\nfor publication. Wolfe does a little of this TBotNS, but provides no such\naccount for \"The Tree is my Hat\".\n\nNigel" } ] } ] }