{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/498", "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": 498, "subject": "Interpreting Peace", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "1998-04-17T13:41:17+00:00", "last": "1998-04-19T15:58:05+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Paul C Duggan", "address": "pduggan at world.std.com" }, "date": "1998-04-17T13:41:17+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Interpreting Peace", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "SPOILER WARNING if you haven't read Peace.\n\nThe final story of the geese seems to be crucial for making sense of\nPeace. As Adam Stephanides already said Weer is the one who has\ndwindled. But if Christian Baptism is the only hope for Weer in the\nnovel, one might ask where else is this intimated and does Weer ever\nreceive it, or possibly demonstrate the \"baptism of desire\".\n\nSome thoughts, since I just finished reading Peace and had a small book\nclub discussion on it.\n\n[1] The Book of Gold in Peace are the books of Mr. Gold, including one\nthat has a greek name that translates \"The Book that Binds the Dead\". In\nother words, the Necronomicon, fitting right in with Cultes des Ghouls,\nwhich was purchaced for a small Massachussests university library\n(Miskatonic). Weer himself may be similarly writing a \"Book that Binds\nthe Dead\" as he passes through so many stories of his won life and tells\nhis own ghoulish ghost stoires along the way.\n\n(Another Lovecraftian nod is found on p.6 of the Orb trade paperback,\nwhere in a brilliant musing on the potential for other racial\nsterotypes Wolfe writes:\n\n\tthe bland chance of the scientists (whose blind, \n\tpiping ape-god,\tidiot god, we have met before; we \n\tknow you, troubler of Babylon)\n\nwhichg seems to bear more than a passing resemblace ot Azathoth.)\n\n[2] The Necronomicon is a \"fake\", though described by Lovecraft, but\nGold has brought it into existance and in a few hundred years there will\nbe thousands of copies. \n\n[3] Weers old childhood home has been converted into a library, \nfilled with books. But significantly, the library purchaces\nthe fake diary of Kate. This purchace generates the interest in\nsearching for the burried treasure, which creates a rift in the developing\nrelationship bewteen Weer and the librarian (when she pulls a gun on\nhim).\n\n[4] Weer is searching through the memories of his mental house and\ncalling up stories. Are the stories true or false? Are they beneficial,\nor harmful, leading to similar ill-fated relationships?\n\n[5] Weer's \"true love\", Margret Lorn, find the Ressurection Egg after\nrunning through the rain to the farmhouse. If anything this might\nqualify for a baptismal scene which will save Weer from his indulgent\nself-referential memory trip.\n\nAlso of note is his meal of donuts and tea with sugar, \nwhich Maggie slips him under the table. \n\nWhat of the Egg? It conatains scenes of the 'less dramatic' elements of\nthe ressurection narrative. One of which (breakfast on the shore) is the\nstory of Peter's restoration after his betrayal, also relevant for\nWeer's situation.\n\nThe Egg as art-object though causes no end of trouble as Macafee and\nOlivia scheme to get each other to give it to them in return for\nmarraiege.\n\n[6] What's with the memos and such nailed to Weer's desk?\n\n[7] The general themes of inheritance and carrying on into the future\nare all over. The town will revert to the indians. The women play at\nbeing indians. Olivia is concerned with how archaeologists will perceive\nher breeding project. Weer considers himself the last human being and\nfeels as if an arcaologists spade is digging up his skull. Gold \"salts\"\nthe future with fake books. Weer leads the plant tour in reverse, going\nfrom final product, up the conveyor belt, into the processing plant. \n\nI realize that there's not much coherence in these obervations. Maybe\nsomeone else can piece these together.\n\n\"I am an impure thinker. I am hurt, swayed, shaken, | paul + | +\nelated, disillusioned, shocked, comforted, and I | --|--\nhave to transmit my mental experiences lest I die.\" | + | +\n -- Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy | pduggan at world.std.com" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "adam louis stephanides", "address": "astephan at students.uiuc.edu" }, "date": "1998-04-19T15:58:05+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Interpreting Peace", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Fri, 17 Apr 1998 Paul C Duggan wrote:\nSPOILER WARNING if you haven't read Peace.\n\nThe final story of the geese seems to be crucial for making sense of\nPeace. As Adam Stephanides already said Weer is the one who has\ndwindled. But if Christian Baptism is the only hope for Weer in the\nnovel, one might ask where else is this intimated and does Weer ever\nreceive it, or possibly demonstrate the \"baptism of desire\"." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't know. The idea just came to me when I reread the sidhe story\na couple of days ago, and it's been quite a while since I last reread\nthe whole book, so I just threw it out as a speculation. But given\nWolfe's own religious convictions, which appear explicitly in several\nother books and stories of his, it seems a reasonable surmise.\n\nAnd I didn't mean to suggest that Weer had not been baptized, or\nthat if he had been baptized he wouldn't have become a ghost. Rather, my\nidea was that religious belief in general might have helped fill the void\nthat clearly exists in Weer's life, and in that way possibly have gained\nhim \"peace\" after death.\n\nIncidentally, what is the position of the Catholic church on ghosts? I\nwould think that the idea of all souls going to heaven, hell or purgatory\nwould be inconsistent with the idea of ghosts remaining on earth. (While\nI seem to recall reading an article stating that the Catholic church had\nwithin the past few years declared purgatory no longer official church\ndoctrine, that would have been after the publication of _Peace_." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "[1] The Book of Gold in Peace are the books of Mr. Gold, including one" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Nice. There's also a reference to Louis Gold in _Bibliomen_.\n\n--Adam" } ] } ] }