{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/5940", "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": 5940, "subject": "Home Fires and Chelle", "messages": 4, "voices": 3, "first": "2011-01-25T21:26:22+00:00", "last": "2011-01-29T02:04:17+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dave Tallman", "address": "davetallman at msn.com" }, "date": "2011-01-25T21:26:22+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Home Fires and Chelle", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I have just read \"Home Fires\" and I was wondering what others thought of it.\nMuch is explained, but there are several points left as mysteries. One is\nthe true relationship between Chelle Blue and Jane Sims. Another is Charlie.\nIn the last few lines we have:\n\n\"I'm going on Charlie's picnic, out of the smoke and the dirt, away from\nMick and the bottles behind the bar, and all the gray faces. I'm going away,\nand I'm not coming back.\n\nThey'll tell me when you do, and I'll be there.\"\n\nWhat does it mean that she's going on Charlie's picnic and not coming back?\nCharlie apparently has plenty of pull and is above the law. Another name\nCharlie uses is Coleman Baum. Baum clearly comes from Lyman Frank Baum,\nauthor of \"The Wizard of Oz.\" This suggests he, like the Wizard, is \"the\nman behind the curtain,\" secretly running things. (There's even a\nconnection between Coleman and Lyman. Artificial coal can be made from\nsulfite lye.)\n\nAcceptance of Charlie and Vanessa may allow Chelle to find a better life.\n(Why is she living in such a dump? I thought she had a big pension.) She's\nnot going to void the contract with Skip, so she will be notified when he\ncomes back. But will she go into space again? Do espionage ops for Charlie?\nOr resume physics/military research, if she really has that much of Jane's\nmind?\n\nJane's personality clearly comes through at times, especially her love for\nDon. She wrote the note \"I am Jane Sims\" and one time she asks Don how he\nknew she was \"in here\" (in Chelle). Chelle herself seems unaware of these\nlapses.\n\nThere are several possibilities.\n\n1) Chelle has more of Jane than she knows: perhaps part of her brain,\nperhaps an uploaded scan. Against this possibility is the fact that expert\nspies (Rick for the Os, Ortiz and his men for the EU) tried very hard to\nbring back Jane and her memories and got nothing.\n\n2) Perhaps there was once a deeper relationship between Jane and Chelle than\nChelle now admits, and she now carries Jane's persona as a symptom of\npost-traumatic stress. Possibly they were lovers at one time. Susan's story\nof a Jane Simmons who contracted with a woman in the rapeseed oil business\nmay be significant. (Contracting has solved the gay marriage issue with the\nsocial consequence that marriage has become a virtually forgotten religious\ninstitution). Jane Simmons could have changed her last name to Sims for\nprofessional reasons, just as Susan changed her last name to Clerkin to help\nher get a job. Physicists often run simulations, or \"sims.\"\n\n3) There could be a supernatural aspect. Perhaps the spirit of Jane haunts\nher arm and the body connected to it. Tante ?lize seems to count Chelle as\ntwo people; she is associated with supernatural creatures like zombies.\n\nThe name Chelle, which Wolfe emphatically tells us is pronouced \"Shell\" must\nbe significant. Somehow she is two persons in a single shell." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Andrew Mason", "address": "andrew.mason53 at googlemail.com" }, "date": "2011-01-28T00:43:33+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Home Fires and Chelle", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dave Tallman wrote:\nMuch is explained, but there are several points left as mysteries. One is\nthe true relationship between Chelle Blue ..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Is there a character called Green?" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dave Tallman", "address": "davetallman at msn.com" }, "date": "2011-01-28T03:15:09+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Home Fires and Chelle", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Andrew Mason wrote:\nIs there a character called Green?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No, but there's a character called White. As Skip says, there's someone who\n\"likes to play games with colors.\"" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Matthew Keeley", "address": "matthew.keeley.1 at gmail.com" }, "date": "2011-01-29T02:04:17+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Home Fires and Chelle", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "No, but there's a character called White. As Skip says, there's someone who\n\"likes to play games with colors.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Sounds like Wolfe to me. The Blue family brought to mind Pandora by Holly\nHollander, and I couldn't help but mentally compare the Blues in this novel\nwith Aladdin Blue in Pandora. Though I think this is probably an\ninterpretive dead end.\n\n-Matt" } ] } ] }