Subject: (urth) There Are Doors

From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
Date: Wed, 20 May 2009 12:25:14 +0000

I find that one of the more haunting of his novels. That and Peace, and Free, Live, Free.

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Message: 5
Date: Wed, 20 May 2009 00:56:00 -0500
From: Lane Haygood <lhaygood at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Gene Wolfe Fans Talk Politics (Again)
To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
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	<272706220905192256v75226e2bi7fc3162b46ba5c6 at mail.gmail.com>
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I go out for one nice dinner with my wife and look what happens!

In brief, let me say that anyone who is interested in actually
listening to a commie pinko about these things can e-mail me, respond
at my blog (http://citizen-lane.blogspot.com) or just read up on your
own at http://www.marxists.org.  You might be surprised by how
inauthentic a picture of socialism one gets from a US education,
particularly in the realm of economics, where neoclassical liberalism
rules the roost.  We're not out of the shadow of McCarthyism yet.

Now, back to Wolfe.  I bought "There Are Doors" at a used bookstore
last week.  I am thoroughly impressed.

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From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 21 May 2009 15:20:13 +0000

>I bought "There Are Doors" at a used bookstore

TAD is the only "parallel universe" story to offer a systemic justification 
the close similarities in parallel universes that have major variations in 
their histories: Nearby universes are influencing each other at a 
non-rational level.

J.

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From: Jordon Flato <jordonflato at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 21 May 2009 15:26:09 +0000

This story left me Non-Plussed.

Which is a sure indication I need to read it four more times.

On Thu, May 21, 2009 at 8:20 AM, James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com> wrote:

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From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Thu, 21 May 2009 16:00:15 +0000

James Wynn wrote:
> TAD is the only "parallel universe" story to offer a systemic 
> justification the close similarities in parallel universes that have 
> major variations in their histories: Nearby universes are influencing 
> each other at a non-rational level.

What's non-rational about people spreading artifacts, memes, and genes 
back and forth?

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
< http://www.io.com/~jwilson >

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From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 21 May 2009 16:09:44 +0000

> What's non-rational about people spreading artifacts, memes, and genes 

That's not the explanation given. Green compares the universes to two 
adjacent guitar strings tuned to the same note. When you pluck one, the 
other resonates. By the same token, men in our world wear black at their 
weddings. There's no "reason" for it.  They wear black here, because they 
wear black there. They wear black there for a rational reason: The man is 
about to die.

J.

---

From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Thu, 21 May 2009 17:00:26 +0000

James Wynn wrote:
> weddings. There's no "reason" for it.  They wear black here, because 
> they wear black there. They wear black there for a rational reason: The 
> man is about to die.

But there is *also* a vector of frequent physical travel that the author 
tales pains to display, so that resonance explanation need not be valid. 
It may just be another of Green's notions.

As for it being the only story with such a justification, I can think of 
at least three others: Lawrence Watt-Evans' _Out of This World_ and 
Christopher Stasheff's Greymarye series, where the present days in 
worlds of different histories are similar because the mental powers that 
bridge between the worlds only works between worlds where someone is 
thinking with a similar vocabulary along similar lines at either end. 
John M. Ford's _Fugue State_ and his metafictional work in GURPS TIME 
TRAVEL establishes that of all possible worlds, only the most similar 
are reachable with finite resources, and "similar" comes in various degrees.

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From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 21 May 2009 17:45:51 +0000

>>>other resonates.

>>By the same token, men in our world wear black at their weddings. There's 
>>no "reason" for it.  They wear black here, because they wear black there. 
>>They wear black there for a rational reason: The man is about to die.
>
> Christopher Stasheff's Greymarye series...John M. Ford's _Fugue State_

Okay. Then it is the only one I had read and one of the few. It also 
predates two of the three you named. Ford's paradigm (he was also published 
by Tor, I see) seems like such an obvious extrapolation on TAD (I thought 
the same thing when reading it) that I wonder if he was inspired by it.

Physical travel is not rare, but there is little sign that it is common or 
long term.  It's not the same as two adjacent neighborhoods. I think Green's 
explanation is the most likely. I'm sure his psychiatrist would not find the 
other explanation particularly enticing.

J.

---

From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Thu, 21 May 2009 21:35:47 +0000

James Wynn wrote:
>>>>>> justification the close similarities in parallel universes that 
>>>>>> have major variations in their histories: Nearby universes are 
>>>>>> influencing each other at a non-rational level.
>>>
>>>>> What's non-rational about people spreading artifacts, memes, and 
>>>>> genes back and forth?
>>>
>>>> That's not the explanation given. Green compares the universes to 
>>>> two adjacent guitar strings tuned to the same note. When you pluck 
>>>> one, the other resonates.
> 
>>> By the same token, men in our world wear black at their weddings. 
>>> There's no "reason" for it.  They wear black here, because they wear 
>>> black there. They wear black there for a rational reason: The man is 
>>> about to die.
>>
>> But there is *also* a vector of frequent physical travel that the 
>> author tales pains to display, so that resonance explanation need not 
>> be valid. It may just be another of Green's notions.
>> As for it being the only story with such a justification, I can think 
>> of at least three others: Lawrence Watt-Evans' _Out of This World_ and 
> predates two of the three you named. Ford's paradigm (he was also 
> published by Tor, I see) seems like such an obvious extrapolation on TAD 
> (I thought the same thing when reading it) that I wonder if he was 
> inspired by it.

In fact, I first read _Fugue State_ and _The Death of Doctor Island_ the 
same day because they were published as an Ace Double. :)

I doubt JMF took more from TAD than from Moorcock's Eternal Champion or 
a dozen other sources of heroic striving across the boundaries of 
continuity, intentional or otherwise.

> Physical travel is not rare, but there is little sign that it is common 
> or long term.  It's not the same as two adjacent neighborhoods. 

I think it may be exactly that! The Chinese man's shop in the Goddess' 
world has shelves of chattels from Green's world, and there's the 
intricate arrangement of utility wires strung through both 
neighborhoods, making dozens of possible doorways for people to weave 
through. Also, the asylum seems to house people over the long term, and 
enough of them are from Green's world that the handy man is so very 
tired of explaining why they can't have a color TV. And wozzname, the 
Nixonian guy who does the subversive plays, he seems to have been 
transplanted for good.

> I think 
> Green's explanation is the most likely. I'm sure his psychiatrist would 
> not find the other explanation particularly enticing.

I think the resonance theory as Green conceives it is incomplete. There 
should be evidence of many worlds' influence on his, as well as ours on 
theirs, as there should have been at the very least several pagan 
powers, even if they have been subsumed by Laura or the Elohim by now.

---

From: James B. Jordan <jbjordan4 at cox.net>
Date: Fri, 22 May 2009 00:12:55 +0000

Well, but remember that Green is not too bright. He's one of Wolfe's 
successful, I think, usages of a rather low IQ character who is still 
good and good-hearted. Remember how SilkHorn has some very odd 
medical views, which we as readers know to be wrong.

I'm not really disputing you. I'm just tossing in a caveat. What 
Green thinks might not actually be so.

What is clear is that Mama (the church) and her Boys (priests) want 
to save (redeem) this parallel world. It's an Italian Restaurant (the 
sacramental church) that is the main Door.

Some may not know it, but this is Wolfe's favorite novel.

"Hi! I'm your doll! And I can talk!" -- you gotta love it!

Nutria the Nutricious

At 11:09 AM 5/21/2009, you wrote:
>one, the other resonates. By the same token, men in our world wear 
>black at their weddings. There's no "reason" for it.  They wear 
>black here, because they wear black there. They wear black there for 
>a rational reason: The man is about to die.
>
>J.

James B. Jordan
Director, Biblical Horizons
Box 1096
Niceville, FL 32588
http://www.biblicalhorizons.com 
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From: James B. Jordan <jbjordan4 at cox.net>
Date: Fri, 22 May 2009 00:17:39 +0000

Another question is how much Petrarch there is here. Laura, you know.

 From Wikiland:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/File:Francesco_Petrarca01.jpg>
[]

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/File:Francesco_Petrarca01.jpg>
[]

Laura de Noves

On 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/April_6>April 
6, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/1327>1327, 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/Good_Friday>Good 
Friday, after giving up his vocation as a priest, 
the sight of a woman called "Laura" in the church 
of Sainte-Claire 
d'<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/Avignon>Avignon 
awoke in him a lasting passion, celebrated in the 
Rime sparse ("Scattered rhymes"). Later, 
Renaissance poets who copied Petrarch's style 
named this collection of 366 poems 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/Il_Canzoniere>Il 
Canzoniere ("Song Book"). Laura may have been 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/Laura_de_Noves>Laura 
de Noves, the wife of Count 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//w/index.php?title=Hugues_de_Sade&action=edit&redlink=1>Hugues 
de Sade (ancestor of the 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/Marquis_de_Sade>Marquis 
de Sade). There is little definite information in 
Petrarch's work concerning Laura, except that she 
is lovely to look at, fair-haired, with a modest, 
dignified bearing. Laura and Petrarch had little 
or no personal contact. According to his 
"Secretum", she refused him for the very proper 
reason that she was already married to another 
man. He channeled his feelings into love poems 
that were exclamatory rather than persuasive, and 
wrote prose that showed his contempt for men who 
pursue women. Upon her death in 1348, the poet 
finds that his 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/Grief>grief 
is as difficult to live with as was his former 
despair. Later in his "Letter to Posterity", 
Petrarch wrote: "In my younger days I struggled 
constantly with an overwhelming but pure love 
affair - my only one, and I would have struggled 
with it longer had not premature death, bitter 
but salutary for me, extinguished the cooling 
flames. I certainly wish I could say that I have 
always been entirely free from desires of the 
flesh, but I would be lying if I did".

While it is possible she was an idealized or 
pseudonymous character - particularly since the 
name "Laura" has a 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/Linguistics>linguistic 
connection to the poetic "laurels" Petrarch 
coveted - Petrarch himself always denied it. His 
frequent use of l'aura, as in "Erano i capei 
d'oro a l'aura sparsi" is also remarkable: for 
example, the line may both mean "her hair was all 
over Laura's body", and "the wind ("l'aura") blew 
through her hair". There is psychological realism 
in the description of Laura and Petrarch's love 
is nothing conventional - unlike some clich? 
women of 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/Troubadour>troubadours 
and 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/Courtly_love>courtly 
love. Her presence causes him unspeakable joy, 
but his unrequited love creates unendurable 
desires, inner conflicts between the ardent lover 
and the 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/Christian_mysticism>mystic 
Christian, making it impossible to reconcile the 
two, his quest for love a hopeless, endless agony.

Laura is unreachable - the few physical 
descriptions are vague, almost unpalpable as the 
love pines for, and such is perhaps the power of 
his verse, which lives off the melodies it evokes 
against the fading, diaphane image that is no 
more consistent than a ghost. 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/Francesco_De_Sanctis>Francesco 
De Sanctis remarks much the same thing in his 
Storia della lera italiana, and contemporary 
critics agree on the powerful music of his verse: 
Gianfranco Contini, in a famous essay on 
Petrarch's language ("Preliminari sulla lingua 
del Petrarca". Petrarca, Canzoniere. Turin, 
Einaudi, 1964) has spoken of linguistic 
indetermination - Petrarch never rises above the 
"bel pi?" (her lovely foot): Laura is too holy to 
be painted, it is an awe-inspiring goddess. 
Sensuality and passion are rather suggested by 
the rhythm and music that shape the vague contours of the lady.

Nutria

James B. Jordan
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From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Fri, 22 May 2009 01:49:23 +0000

James B. Jordan wrote:
> good and good-hearted. Remember how SilkHorn has some very odd medical 
> views, which we as readers know to be wrong.
> 
> I'm not really disputing you. I'm just tossing in a caveat. What Green 
> thinks might not actually be so.
> 
> What is clear is that Mama (the church) and her Boys (priests) want to 
> save (redeem) this parallel world. It's an Italian Restaurant (the 

Wow! That totally slipped past me.

So what does the moopsball game signify? A commentary on Damon Knight?

> "Hi! I'm your doll! And I can talk!" -- you gotta love it!

I'm not sure what this is supposed to be, other than a sign of Wolfe's 
general fondness for toy people in his stories.

---

From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 22 May 2009 14:24:11 +0000

>theirs, as there should have been at the very least several pagan powers, 
>even if they have been subsumed by Laura or the Elohim by now.

Maybe there are.  Green only goes to one, so he is only able to recognize 
influences of Laura's world on his.

The obvious response to this is, "Then shouldn't Wolfe have alluded to those 
other worlds?" Maybe, but not necessarily. But if Wolfe intended a more 
elaborate, "particle-based" cause for the similarities of the two worlds 
(rather than a "wave-based" one), I would have expected someone else to pose 
it. Unlike the mistaken expert-theorizing in Short Sun and Soldier, Green is 
the only offering an explanation at all. Green's theorizing --I think-- is 
more that of VRT/Marsch in "The Fifth Head of Cerberus": The right one but 
delivered by a non-expert.

J.