{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4346",
    "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": 4346,
    "subject": "5HC: The opera and other works",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2005-01-31T14:56:05+00:00",
    "last": "2005-01-31T14:56:05+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<20050131225602.96554.qmail@web25703.mail.ukl.yahoo.com>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Jim Raylor",
        "address": "rjraylor at yahoo.co.uk"
      },
      "date": "2005-01-31T14:56:05+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) 5HC: The opera and other works",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "1. Opera\n\nIn one sense all books and opera are linear.\n(beginning middle end).\nHowever Opera of all art forms probably gives most\nscope for the replicating the non-linear aspects of\nGW's 5HC.\nI have no particular expertise in Opera, but I think\nthe idea is a good one. Themes, counterpoint,\nambiguity of characters and events, multi-toned,\nmulti-voiced composition these and other aspects of\nmusical stagecraft could well serve to capture the\nflavour of the book. A post-modern opera with computer\nsimulations.\nThree Acts to match the tripartate structure would\nseem appropriate.\n\n2. Who killed who?\n\nI agree with Broceliande that GW constructed the death\nscene(s) in such\na way as to potentially support a variety of\ninterpretations.\n\nNevertheless I think GW is not such a torturer as to\nwrite a whodunnit without an unambiguous solution.\nAnd like the best of that genre the solution is\nobvious once understood and resolves all ambiguity.\nI don't say I have the solution, but I feel I am\nclosing in on it. So far I have two main suspects; I\nam looking for corroborative evidence in other early\nGW texts: Seven American Nights has some intriguing\nparallels with 5HC. \n\n3. An unstructured synthetic approach?\n\n1.      What is the evidence for and against the\nexistence of the Annese,  \n2.      Is Veil’s hypothesis correct? \n3. Did Victor become Marsch, or did Marsch become\nVictor, or is the prisoner \n\nI would say if you could answer ONE of these questions\nyou could answer them all.\n\nI have just received copies of Younge Wolfe (stories\nwritten between 1951(!) and 1966) and Operation\nAres(1970).\nIf I don't find clues there I will eat my hat.\nI also need to track down some of the stuff in the\nOrbit anthologies.\n\nI am simultaneously reading a book about 'Constants'\nby John D\nBarrow.\nhttp://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/jdb34/\n\nJabez is an interesting character, have you read Ogden\nNash's poem?\nhttp://jrago.com/Ogden_Nash.htm#THE%20BOY%20WHO%20LAUGHED%20AT%20SANTA%20CLAUS\nThe biblical references to Jabez are also relevant I\nfeel.\n\nI found a reference to disease as a 'genocidal' agent\nin VRT.\nThe prisoner is showered, de-loused and given a\nblanket, but Jabez then says he is risking typhus\ntalking to the prisoner (who asks for another\nblanket). Provisional, unless I find more evidence.\n\nI have benefitted from Broceliande's insights and wish\nher well in her research, I feel our investigations\nare\ncomplementary\n\n4. Miscellany\n\nThe longhouse association with Native American culture\nis so obvious I had to take my boots off before\nkicking myself!\n\nRegarding Wagner and Puss-In-Boots.\nAgain Broceliande spotted an important association\nhere,\none that accords with Levi-Strauss' hypothesis!\n\nOdd things that happen! My bhodran, after 10 happy\nyears of silence has just leapt off my wall, landing\nloudly, but undamaged on the green carpet.\nI guess the message is: Ask who the Celts are, where\nthey came from originally and what happened to them.\n\nOne more clue I almost missed:\n\nGW Of course, I did do the rather tricky thing, which\nI suppose is New Wave, of having one of the characters\nin one of the other stories as the purported author\nof, a, aggh...I'm sorry, I've lost the titles of my\nown stories.\n\nLP: \"'A Story,' by John V. Marsch.\"\n\n'one of the characters\nin one of the other stories'\n\nI am gonna consider characters that could purport to\nbe JVM in one BUT NOT BOTH the other two stories.\nThis favours one of my two suspects over the other,\nnamely the 'she-wolf' - not strictly a character in\nthe first story.\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\t"
        }
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    }
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}