{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4999", "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": 4999, "subject": "PEACE: Gift Exchange", "messages": 4, "voices": 3, "first": "2008-04-22T07:17:19+00:00", "last": "2008-04-24T04:14:18+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "<480D90FF.7070002@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "Dave Tallman", "address": "davetallman at msn.com" }, "date": "2008-04-22T07:17:19+00:00", "subject": "(urth) PEACE: Gift Exchange", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I started thinking about the Christmas gift exchange (pearls for toilet \nwater) in the first chapter, and what it reveals about Weer's family.\n\nI don't believe Mr. Elliot did it. Not that he didn't sleep with Mab that\nnight; Roy Lackey proved he that did in this post: \nhttp://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0210/1901.txt.shtml. But \"Old\nmen... do not make such gifts.\"\n\nI believe that Della did it, but her motive wasn't generosity. She \nexploited her social inferiors (e.g. Mrs. Green as her \"slavey\").\nThe exchange was malicious, like her \"Call me Della.\" It told Mab\n\"I know what you're up to with my father.\" This seems to have worked\nas intended -- after her initial joy, Mab rushed upstairs to her room\nand remained there half a day.\n\nIf you prefer a supernatural explanation, note that Mr. Elliot didn't\nsay the midnight visitor was \"St. Nick,\" but \"Old Nick\" (the Devil).\nA malicious gift exchange is more in his line of work than Santa's.\nWhile he was at it, he could have replaced one or more stories in\n\"The Green Fairy Book\" with wicked prophecies." } ] }, { "message_id": "<473671.64772.qm@web65713.mail.ac4.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Helen Algmin", "address": "helenalgmin at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2008-04-23T15:28:12+00:00", "subject": "(urth) PEACE: Gift Exchange", "in_reply_to": "<480D90FF.7070002@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Dave, I think this is a great explanation for the gift exchange. I didn’t even pick up on him coming “down” for breakfast. I am laughing with Joe, though, because the first time I read Peace I thought, “TOILET water” That’s a TERRIBLE gift!?\n\n\nDave Tallman wrote: I started thinking about the Christmas gift exchange (pearls for toilet \nwater) in the first chapter, and what it reveals about Weer's family.\n\nI don't believe Mr. Elliot did it. Not that he didn't sleep with Mab that\nnight; Roy Lackey proved he that did in this post: \nhttp://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0210/1901.txt.shtml. But \"Old\nmen... do not make such gifts.\"\n\nI believe that Della did it, but her motive wasn't generosity. She \nexploited her social inferiors (e.g. Mrs. Green as her \"slavey\").\nThe exchange was malicious, like her \"Call me Della.\" It told Mab\n\"I know what you're up to with my father.\" This seems to have worked\nas intended -- after her initial joy, Mab rushed upstairs to her room\nand remained there half a day.\n\nIf you prefer a supernatural explanation, note that Mr. Elliot didn't\nsay the midnight visitor was \"St. Nick,\" but \"Old Nick\" (the Devil).\nA malicious gift exchange is more in his line of work than Santa's.\nWhile he was at it, he could have replaced one or more stories in\n\"The Green Fairy Book\" with wicked prophecies." } ] }, { "message_id": "<001401c8a56f$509a46e0$8cd24a0c@rclackey.stic.net>", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2008-04-23T18:24:43+00:00", "subject": "(urth) PEACE: Gift Exchange", "in_reply_to": "<473671.64772.qm@web65713.mail.ac4.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dave Tallman wrote:\nI started thinking about the Christmas gift exchange (pearls for toilet\nwater) in the first chapter, and what it reveals about Weer's family.\n\nI don't believe Mr. Elliot did it. Not that he didn't sleep with Mab that\nnight; Roy Lackey proved he that did in this post:\nhttp://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0210/1901.txt.shtml. But \"Old\nmen... do not make such gifts.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Wolfe was in his early forties when he wrote that, so he wasn't speaking\nfrom personal experience. My experience is just the opposite. Older people\ntend to be less constrained by social conventions with each passing year,\nless likely to give a damn what others think. Unless Wolfe screwed up\nregarding the layout of the house when he wrote that Christmas episode, then\nthe \"old man\" (huh!) was already thumbing his nose at propriety on Christmas\nmorning by conspicuously having spent the night upstairs.\n\nNote also that he had already been upstairs the night before when Den came\ndown to see the tree. He told Den that he had \"just come down myself\". (p.\n23, Berkley pb) Apparently he was upstairs both before and after Den saw him\nthat night. At dinner earlier that evening he had been pissed at Mab for her\npretence that she was anything but an employee. If a six-year-old child was\nperceptive enough to pick up on that, so was his mother. The old man's\nswitching of the gifts forced an end to the charade. Mab's reaction was\nembarrassment that the \"Bible Christian\" (p. 20) conventions she affected in\npolite company could no longer be maintained.\n\nDella had nothing to gain by switching the gifts but petty spite on a woman\nshe had never even met before; Elliot maintained a bed warmer.\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4810091A.1040700@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "Dave Tallman", "address": "davetallman at msn.com" }, "date": "2008-04-24T04:14:18+00:00", "subject": "(urth) PEACE: Gift Exchange", "in_reply_to": "<001401c8a56f$509a46e0$8cd24a0c@rclackey.stic.net>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "*Roy C. Lackey wrote:*" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Wolfe was in his early forties when he wrote that, so he wasn't speaking\nfrom personal experience. My experience is just the opposite." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "These are Wolfe's characters, so they'll do as he thinks they will. But here we have Weer projecting his experience on Elliot; he could be right about himself and wrong about the other man.\n\nIf you are right then some of the malice I attributed to Della seems to transfer to Elliot. Even if he doesn't care what his daughter thinks, he knows that Mab does. Publicly shaming her is not a great idea.\n\nIt looks like their affair has being going on for a while, and it may even be why Mab's husband left her. The switch would have to be a spur-of-the-moment whim, since he already told his grandson who got what. What if the kid blabs? This doesn't add up for me.\n\nOn the other hand, Della is a rich woman. She could easily buy herself pearls just as nice as any he gave her. She might well resent the attempt to buy her affection after flaunting his relationship in front of her and her young son. The switch punishes both her father and Mab.\n\nI think she might well be this mean. \"Fly swiftly, Princess Little Bird,\" wasn't the nicest thing to say to a heavy woman." } ] } ] }