{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/6369",
    "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'"
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  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 6369,
    "subject": "Ackroyd's Milton as Wolfean Hero",
    "messages": 3,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "2013-04-11T13:20:12+00:00",
    "last": "2013-04-11T15:00:38+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<20130411132012.18219.qmail@server281.com>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Brian",
        "address": "brian at studiobl.com"
      },
      "date": "2013-04-11T13:20:12+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Ackroyd's Milton as Wolfean Hero",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Has anyone read Peter Ackroyd's Milton in America?  At one point, the blind\nMilton goes into the forest and sits under a tree.  Then follows a passage\nof pronoun/identity confusion, with \"I\" and \"he\" switching back and forth.\nMilton walks on, and is pulled up into a tree by a deer snare, which breaks\nhis leg.  This experience has a healing or rejunenating effect, because his\nvision seems to be restored at least for a time.\n\n\nAny of this remind you of anything?\n\n\n--B-Love"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<1365688823.73221.YahooMailClassic@web160705.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Marc Aramini",
        "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com"
      },
      "date": "2013-04-11T14:00:23+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Ackroyd's Milton as Wolfean Hero",
      "in_reply_to": "<20130411132012.18219.qmail@server281.com>",
      "reply_link": "header",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Fairly interesting - Ackroyd seems to have made his career by riffing on famous literary figures - Wolfe does the same thing but in a less obvious and more allusive way, though of course he is not above writing short sequels to David Copperfield and such. It is fascinating how some authors have such a consistent mode of operation.\n\nI haven't read the book in question, but this might be more Biblical/Miltonian than even Wolfe. Satan falls from a great height, injures his leg. Tree of the knowledge of good and evil and serpent imagery to tempt man to the same fall. So, while Wolfe might have made our leg injured protagonist pulled into a tree a hero, this seems like a definite Paradise Lost and subsequent temptation of mankind theme playing out.\n\n\n--- On Thu, 4/11/13, Brian <brian at studiobl.com> wrote:\n\n\nFrom: Brian <brian at studiobl.com>\nSubject: (urth) Ackroyd's Milton as Wolfean Hero\nTo: urth at urth.net\nDate: Thursday, April 11, 2013, 6:20 AM\n\n\n\nHas anyone read Peter Ackroyd's Milton in America? At one point, the blind Milton goes into the forest and sits under a tree. Then follows a passage of pronoun/identity confusion, with \"I\" and \"he\" switching back and forth. Milton walks on, and is pulled up into a tree by a deer snare, which breaks his leg. This experience has a healing or rejunenating effect, because his vision seems to be restored at least for a time.\n\n\nAny of this remind you of anything?\n\n\n--B-Love\n\n-----Inline Attachment Follows-----"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<20130411150038.23270.qmail@server281.com>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Brian",
        "address": "brian at studiobl.com"
      },
      "date": "2013-04-11T15:00:38+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Ackroyd's Milton as Wolfean Hero",
      "in_reply_to": "<1365688823.73221.YahooMailClassic@web160705.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Marc, yeah, I didn't really think there was a connection to Short Sun, but\nonce I noticed one similarity (the tree and the identity confusion) I kept\nfinding others--the deer, the leg injury, the restoration.  It was kind of\nweird."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}