{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4468", "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": 4468, "subject": "PEACE", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "2005-06-29T19:48:35+00:00", "last": "2005-06-30T09:10:17+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Maru Dubshinki", "address": "marudubshinki at gmail.com" }, "date": "2005-06-29T19:48:35+00:00", "subject": "(urth) PEACE", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I just finished PEACE (and Watchmen, but everyone is still tired from\ndiscussing that the last time 'round, so I'll forbear, aside from\nnoting that it appears to me to be far from clear whether the Pirates\ntale applies to Rorschach or Ozymandias or the owl-dude) and I am a\nbit confused.\n\nMy central confusion is over master-narrative: which do I apply to\nrender meaning out of the shifting, kaleidoscopic pieces and fragments\nof stories and anecdotes and ruminations? I've narrowed it down to\ntwo possibilities.\n\nOne, I take the taoist Tale of the Jade Pillow, and the whole book is\nsimply Den's imaging whilst his Aunt negotiates for the Egg (or\nearlier.) This makes the book fairly straightforward, with none of the\nmore exotic possibilities I've seen mentioned in the archives, such as\nWeer-as-mass-murderer, Weer-as-dead-narrator (which I didn't notice at\nall.), Weer-as-single-murderer... etc. That counts against it, but\nWolfe can write reasonable simple tales (Ex. There Are Doors struck me\nas fairly simple, at least as compared against the Sun tales).\n\nTwo, I home in on the tale of the pharmacist, Julius Smart. Weer\nhimself says that Smart is the central character when he is recounting\nthe tale of the alchemist^H^H^Hpharmacist, even though he appears only\nobliquely in most of the novel. This is, I sense, a vastly more\ninteresting avenue of approach. Weer early on claims that he will be\nutterly honest- excepting that he will be omitting things.\nObviously something is being hidden, since we do not see anything that\nwould account for the inordinate importance Weer places on Smart\notherwise (assuming that we reject the Pillow hypothesis, since dreams\nare but a variant of lies, which renders null Weer's promise not to\nlie, to only omit.)\nWhat exactly I am at a loss to say. I have a vague intuition that\nthere was something less than licit about Weer's sudden restoration to\nwealth (he mentions at least twice that the family fortune was lost,\nand that he was poor in his fifties, but became even more wealthy than\never in his sixties; why he does not say.), and this may be connected,\nbut there is no 'smoking pocket knife', to twist a phrase. Has anyone\nelse thought along these lines and hunted down a more satisfactory\nconclusion?\n\nSalaam,\n~Maru" } ] }, { "message_id": "<000c01c57d34$d997c1e0$c73ec6d8@rclackey.stic.net>", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2005-06-29T22:30:40+00:00", "subject": "(urth) PEACE", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Maru wrote:\nOne, I take the taoist Tale of the Jade Pillow, and the whole book is\nsimply Den's imaging whilst his Aunt negotiates for the Egg (or\nearlier.) This makes the book fairly straightforward, with none of the\nmore exotic possibilities I've seen mentioned in the archives, such as\nWeer-as-mass-murderer, Weer-as-dead-narrator (which I didn't notice at\nall.),<<" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This is old hat, but the first sentence of the book lets you know Weer is\ndead. That is, you know he's dead if you remember Mrs. Porter's hobby and\nthat her maiden name was Bold. There was a big discussion about PEACE here\nduring the last four months of 2000.\n\n[snip]" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "What exactly I am at a loss to say. I have a vague intuition that\nthere was something less than licit about Weer's sudden restoration to\nwealth (he mentions at least twice that the family fortune was lost,\nand that he was poor in his fifties, but became even more wealthy than\never in his sixties; why he does not say.), and this may be connected,\nbut there is no 'smoking pocket knife', to twist a phrase. Has anyone\nelse thought along these lines and hunted down a more satisfactory\nconclusion?<<" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Weer became personally wealthy when Smart died and left the juice plant to\nhim. There is no reason to suppose that Smart's death was other than of\nnatural causes. And, just to maintain my penchant for pedantry, Weer was \"a\npoor man at forty, and a very rich one at fifty\". You can find a timeline\nfor PEACE here, but be forewarned that I am biased about it. \n\nhttp://www.siriusfiction.com/peacetimeline.html\n\nSalaam, indeed\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Iorwerth Thomas", "address": "iorweththomas at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2005-06-30T09:10:17+00:00", "subject": "(urth) PEACE", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It's been close to a year since I last read it (and I think I need to do so \nagain) so take the following with a pinch of salt..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: Maru Dubshinki " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "My central confusion is over master-narrative: which do I apply to\nrender meaning out of the shifting, kaleidoscopic pieces and fragments\nof stories and anecdotes and ruminations? I've narrowed it down to\ntwo possibilities.\n\nOne, I take the taoist Tale of the Jade Pillow, and the whole book is\nsimply Den's imaging whilst his Aunt negotiates for the Egg (or\nearlier.) This makes the book fairly straightforward, with none of the\nmore exotic possibilities I've seen mentioned in the archives, such as\nWeer-as-mass-murderer, Weer-as-dead-narrator (which I didn't notice at\nall.), Weer-as-single-murderer... etc." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I did get the impression that he may have been the one who committed the \nprank leading to the death of the guy at the factory, but I'm not clear on \nwhy I did so..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Two, I home in on the tale of the pharmacist, Julius Smart. Weer\nhimself says that Smart is the central character when he is recounting\nthe tale of the alchemist^H^H^Hpharmacist, even though he appears only\nobliquely in most of the novel. This is, I sense, a vastly more\ninteresting avenue of approach. Weer early on claims that he will be\nutterly honest- excepting that he will be omitting things.\nObviously something is being hidden, since we do not see anything that\nwould account for the inordinate importance Weer places on Smart\notherwise (assuming that we reject the Pillow hypothesis, since dreams\nare but a variant of lies, which renders null Weer's promise not to\nlie, to only omit.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I have to admit that the pharmacist sequence confused the hell out of me. I \nhave next to no idea what to make of it. Help would be welcome.\n\nSome other things that bother me:\n\nThe faces outside the window of the house early on: who could they be?\n\nVisiting his grandfather for Christmas: 'Old Nick' referred to instead of \n'Saint Nick'. Is this his grandfather actually referring to Satan, or have I \njust got hung up on a colloquialism? (Or does the 'Fantasy Masterworks' \nedition have a misprint? Wouldn't be the first time...)\n\nSeveral of the segments carry a strong sense of something having lingered \ntoo long somwhere, beyond when it should have left - mainly the \n'Necronomicon' excerpt and the story of the Sidhe. I keep thinking that it \nimplies that, whatever he did or didn't do, Weer is unwilling to leave\ni) the memories of his now-dead town (obvious)\nii) his now-dead town in a more literal sense (probably wrong)\n\nI have a half-assed theory that he's hallucinating the whole thing as he \nexpires from a stroke (or, if I rely strongly on the necronomicon bit, he's \ndoing so while stuck inside his own decaying corpse, rather like the dead in \n'Dr Bloodmoney'), but there's almost certainly something in the text that \nrules that out.\n\nI'll try and track down that discussion, I think. And reread the damn book, \nwhen I have time.\n\nIorwerth" } ] } ] }