{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/6576", "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": 6576, "subject": "Short Story 67: The Marvelous Brass Chess Playing Automaton", "messages": 6, "voices": 2, "first": "2014-07-17T16:45:22+00:00", "last": "2014-07-18T06:42:27+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com" }, "date": "2014-07-17T16:45:22+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Story 67: The Marvelous Brass Chess Playing Automaton", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The Marvelous Brass Chessplaying Automaton*\n\n*I am almost finished with my “Silhouette” write up but still need to\nfinish reading two novels mentioned in the text for research to see if any\nnew connections arise, so I am proceeding with a few of the short stories\nto more quickly close out the 1970s.\n\n“The Marvelous Brass Chess Playing Automaton”, reprinted in Storeys From\nThe Old Hotel, was first published in 1977 in *Universe 7. *\n\nSUMMARY WITH SOME GEOGRAPHICAL DETAILS: The story begins with Lame Hans in\njail with his knees up against the bars, playing the machine, pitied by the\nnarrator, the man who brings him food in jail. It is clear that there are\nsome remnants of high technology, with weather satellites still in the air\neven in a post-nuclear war era characterized by arid, hot droughts. The\nwomen form lines and circles to supplicate for rain on the remains of the\nSchlossberg (Castle Hill — historically the site of a fortress and tree\ncovered hill in Graz, Austria, though the village is called Oder in the\nstory and is most probably Frankfurt, whose fortress-like nature was\nintended to block the Red Army's advance to Berlin). During a truce in the\ncurrent German-Russian war, Herr Heitzmann comes (it is still hot after\ndark) with his chess painted wagon and Lame Hans. That night, in a\ncandlelit inn, Heitzmann challenges the learned men of the town, Baumeister\nand Eckardt, if they know of any of the great computers of the past age to\nhave survived. When they reply in the negative, he boasts he has the only\none, which, instead of controlling human affairs, plays chess. He indicates\nhe is taking it to Dresden, then avers that it cannot be defeated.\n\nBaumeister accepts his challenge and six men carry in the machine. As the\ngame begins, after Baumeister makes the first move and before he can sit,\nthe machine responds with a smooth movement of its own piece. Its reactions\nare instantaneous. After ten moves Baumeister believes a man must be inside\nand demands a look. Heitzmann removes both panels so that the machine can\nbe seen through, with its circuit cards and innards exposed, and when they\nare replaced and the game resumes, Baumeister loses in 22 moves. Albricht\nthe moneylender then bets and loses in 14 moves.\n\nBaumeister offers to buy it, and Heitzmann gets him up to 750 kilomarks as\nis. Doctor Eckardt continues to play with the machine into the night,\nlosing 3 games. The dwarf Lame Hans limps in and rents a garret for ten\nmarks. Here our narrator reveals that from here many things rely on the\ntestimony of Lame Hans, who has no reason to lie, and that somehow Gretchen\nand the dwarf Hans fell in love that night.\n\nIn the morning, the machine will not play chess for Baumeister. He talks\nwith Lame Hans, who reveals some insight into Baumeister's chess\nweaknesses. Knowing he was swindled, Baumeister believes he can sell two of\nhis houses to recover the purchase price of the machine (giving us a fairly\ngood idea of how expensive the machine is, though the ability of Herr\nHeitzmann to front 2000 kilomarks later is a bit astonishing). Baumeister\nacknowledges, “I would be willing to believe that you know a great deal\nabout anything. You play like the devil himself,” of Hans.\n\nA flyer is released with a challenge in the village of Oder Spree in front\nof the Inn of the Golden Apples for prospective players to wager against\nthe machine. Hans meets Heitzmann at the Scharzthor in Furthenwald to\nextend the challenge. Hans offers to defeat the machine if Baumeister can\nget it operational for the challenge, boasting, “I can beat anybody — you\nknow that.” Heitzmann fronts Hans 2000 kilomarks and then follows him in a\nplastiskin mask.\n\nHans plans to open a tobacco shop with Gretchen, and he and Baumeister\ndecide Gretchen can operate the machine according to a preset game. He\ncontemplates the sounds of the artillery and the marching of the German\nforces against the Russians trapped at Kostrzyn (a Polish town — most\ndefinitely Kostrzyn nad Odra on the Polish German border rather than the\nmore centrally located Kostrzyn) as they go over the preset strategy,\nGretchen stating she is not afraid, since for the prospect of marriage and\na shop, she “would do much worse things than to hide in this thing that\nlooks like a stove, and play a game.”\n\nHans shows Baumeister how he hides in the machine, where a panel provides\ncoverage when the chessboard is unfolded as he lifts his body up to avoid\ndetection when the machine is open. The iron black pieces are magnetic, and\nGretchen has a hard time getting in the machine. She must remove her gown\nand shift to get inside.\n\nThe machine is carried out, and the men of the street are glad they aren't\nin the army who “serve one of those big guns, which get hot enough to poach\nan egg after half a dozen shots, even in ordinary weather.”\n\nHans does not appear until the last possible second to play the scheduled\ngame, arriving right at the strike of 9. After five moves, the queen pauses\nin its movement, stopping a square short, and then Hans adapts so that he\nshould lose regardless. The machine proceeds to attack him in an original\nfashion, and he hears the guns attacking the Russians booming, and\nhesitates at the final move which would consign him to the planned loss.\nHans considers that Gretchen has kicked and made the machine work.\n\nThe desire to play chess with someone skillful begins to overtake him as\nmore attractive than a tobacco shop. He begins to play to win, and the\nmachine proves capable of defeating him. At this point Herr Heitzmann in\nhis disguise calls out “Cheat, Cheat”. When the policemen go to open the\nmachine, they are careful not to burn their hands. They pull out Gretchen,\nwho has been dead some time and is getting stiff.\n\nBaumeister and Hans are arrested, and Hans plays the machine every day,\nwhich no longer functions, moving both sides by hand and always letting the\nblack side win. The narrator says, “Sometimes when he is not quick enough\nto move the black queen, I see her begin to rock and to slide herself, and\nthe dials and the console lights to glow with impatience and then Hans must\nreach out and take her to her new position — I have heard that many who\nhave been twisted by the old wars have these psychokinetic abilities\nwithout knowing it; and Professor Baumeister, who is in the cell next to\nhis, says that someday a technology may be founded on them.”\n\nDISCUSSION: For all its small details of a post nuclear and technologically\nregressed society which seems to have the class structure of 18th-19th\ncentury Europe, this particular story is very straightforward in that the\nsolution posited by the narrator at the end actually fits better to explain\nevents than several other possibilities: Lame Hans has some kind of\npsychokinetic and telepathic abilities with his giant head attached to that\nsmall body.\n\nTwo other possibilities are that the machine actually worked for one day,\nthough the original premise is of course that a machine didn't survive\nwhich was believed to have done so. The other is a quite literal Deus ex\nmachina: the ghost of Gretchen in the machine. Unfortunately, she doesn't\nknow how to play chess, and whatever is operating the machine is quite\nskilled, as skilled as Hans, who can “beat anyone”. He considers that\nGretchen might have merely been pretending not to know how to play ?(But he\nknew that she had not been deceiving him.)?\n\nIt is easy to buy the mental powers of Hans not only because of his huge\nhead, but because he never loses at Chess until that final match. He moves\nimmediately, as if he knows what his opponent is going to do. This\nintellect seems more akin to intuition — why is he so good at chess, “like\nthe Devil?” Because his mental powers extend beyond himself, into the minds\nof others. With nascent but subconscious telepathy and psychokinesis, we\ncan explain his great talent at chess and the motions of the machine. Hans\nalso winds up playing himself over and over at the end, always losing to\nthe black “machine” side.\n\nThe small details of the story, like the remains of Schlossburg and the\nextent satellites in a clearly technologically regressed society, as well\nas the extreme heat even after the sun sets, portrays a thorough picture of\na society which has stepped backwards, and presages some of the better plot\nand style effects of New Sun, though the old technology still operates more\nreliably in that setting.\n\nSETTING: The technology mentioned in attacking the Russians trapped in\nKostrzyn involves wood-fired steam tractors, as they explore the\npossibility of turning them into tanks with armor and a canon, the narrator\nthinking — so that the knights of the chessboard would exist in reality\nonce more. The Russians are using powered balloons, and the still air of\nthe summer grants them an aerial advantage. Since it has been almost a\nhundred years since computer parts were mass produced, the earliest that\nthe story could take place would probably be the end of the 21st century\nand is probably a bit later. The action is set in the state of Brandenburg,\nGermany on the Polish-German border\n\nTHE TEXT ON WHAT CONTROLS MAN’S DESTINY:\n\n?[The ancient computers] based their extrapolations on numbers. That worked\nwell enough as long as money, which is easily measured numerically, was the\nprincipal motivating force in human affairs. But as time progressed, human\nactions became responsive instead to a multitude of incommensurable\nvectors; the computer’s predictions failed, the civilizations they had\nshaped collapsed, and parts for the machines were no longer obtainable or\ndesirable.\n\nMYTHIC ALLUSIONS:\n\nThe inn is named after the Golden Apples, but in this case I do not think\nit refers to the apple of discord which began the Trojan War when Paris\ndecided to award it to Aphrodite and start the Trojan War, but rather the\nthree golden apples given to Hippomenes which allowed him to distract\nAtalanta so that he could win a race against her and marry her, indicating\nthe triumph of intellect and trickery over raw speed and power, which fits\nwith Lame Hans' character a bit better (note the plural apples in the name\nof the inn).\n\nLITERARY ALLUSIONS:\n\nWhile Bierce's “Moxon's Machine” deals with a murderous chess playing\nconstruct, the actual machine more closely resembles the situation\ndiscussed in Poe's “Maelzel's Chess Player”, an essay examining why the\nhistorical mechanical chess player known as The Turk was fraudulent. He\nmentions theories that involve a dwarf and a thin tall child, but\neventually settles on a solution that involves the pattern the operator\ndisplays the internal workings of the machine to his audience, relying on\nshadow at times to hide the movement of the possibly full sized operator\nwithin:\n\n“For example, he has been known to open, first of all, the drawer — but he\nnever opens the main compartment without first closing the back door of\ncupboard No. 1 — he never opens the main compartment without first pulling\nout the drawer — he never shuts the drawer without first shutting the main\ncompartment — he never opens the back door of cupboard No. 1 while the main\ncompartment is open — and the game of chess is never commenced until the\nwhole machine is closed.”\n\nHe concludes that the automaton uses its left hand because the mechanism to\ncontrol its movement is inside the shoulder, accessible by the right hand\nof the person inside it. Some of the description Hans gives about holding\nhis body above in a compartment and the natural darkness inside the machine\nconcealing him from view at a certain point matches Poe's essay closely,\nthough the Brass Chess Playing Automaton does not seem to have an\nanthropomorphic attachment.\n\nPoe's essay mentions other automatons such as the Magician of Maillardet\nand the duck of Vaucanson.\n\nCHARACTER NAMES:\n\nThe names in general seem to have little bearing on the actual plot, but\nfor the sake of completion:\n\nLame Hans: A form of John, meaning “gift from God”. He uses the pseudonym\nHerr Zimmer, which means “room or chamber”.\n\nAlbricht the moneylender: his name is a derivation of the word meaning\n“noble” and “shining or bright”, one of the oldest names in Germany. Ironic\nthat he is a moneylender, perhaps showing the regression of the society.\n\nFather Karl - meaning “free man” or “strong”, he runs the church.\n\nDoctor Eckardt — a name indicating “the strong point of a sword” or “brave\nedge”, though this version is missing the h.\n\nBurgermeister Landsteiner (also the name of the scientist who originally\ncategorized blood types). Could mean land-stone.\n\nGretchen — described as “the fat blond serving girl who usually cracked\njokes with the soldiers and banged down their plates”, her name means\n“pearl” and can be derived from Margaret (the popularity of this name\nincreased after Goethe's* Faust*, and the similarity in publication date of\nthis story to “Silhouette”, with its dominant German future, shows Wolfe's\ninterest in German names and themes at this time). Also interesting in\nlight of the statement that Lame Hans “plays like the devil himself”.\n\nProfessor Baumeister - the distinguished visitor, his name means “master\nbuilder.”\n\nScheer the innkeeper- someone who makes scissors — the cutting connotation\nmight resonate in the story in the manner that he prices his various\nlodgings.\n\nVon Koblenz — leader of the German Army, attacking the Russians and\nmarching up the Oder Valley. Hans believes he should advance only to\nGlogow. Koblenz is a place name which means “confluence”, where two rivers\nmeet.\n\nWilli Schacht the strong smith’s apprentice — an occupational name for\nsomeone who makes shafts for tools.\n\nUNANSWERED QUESTIONS: There seem to be very few in this, save for whether\nor not the jailer's assumption that Hans does indeed play himself are true,\nwhich seems to fit the evidence. Perhaps the close metaphorical association\nof the chess game with the war between Germany and Russia (makeshift tanks\nas knights) gives some indication of who will actually win the battle at\nthe Polish-German border, considering that Hans tells Baumeister he should\nuse his knights more carefully and then thinks later that he would run\nthings differently than those in charge of Von Koblenz' army, but this is\nmere speculation.\n\nCONNECTION WITH OTHER WORKS: This is a pretty straightforward story for\nWolfe for all its fine detail, but the future resembling the past is a\nfairly consistent motif in his writing.\n\nWe should note the limp of Lame Hans, evidenced in the walk of the devil in\nWolfe's very early “Easter Sunday” and also present in the main character\nof “Silhouette”, Johann, (which also features women whose names are based\noff of Margaret from Faust). Castle (from *Operation Ares)*, Severian, and\nSilk will also share this feature. The strange dwarf twisted by science and\nradiation to develop mental powers is perhaps present in “Tracking Song”,\nwhile the dwarf in “King Under the Mountain”, even though he exercises\ngreat control over the surface, lurks beneath like a shrunken and repressed\nid seizing control. There is definitely this tension between the conscious\nand subconscious in Lame Hans, who probably loses the chess match with his\nsubconscious powers (and contemplates that perhaps the tobacco shop won't\nmake him happy, as a worthy chess adversary would — but he might be good at\nchess primarily because of his unknown mental powers). Eventually in this\nshort story project, we will discuss the false leg of Wolfe's grandfather\nin conjunction with the limp, as it is specifically referenced in “How I\nGot Three Zip Codes.”\n\nMalzberg and Jack Dann used this as the basis for their sequel, “Tourist\nTrap” in *Shadows of the New Sun*. It is worth analyzing this story briefly\nso that I can talk about the intrinsic destabilization of a more postmodern\nwork. I am not certain that the same logical approach I always take to\nWolfe, where hypothesis that are implied but perhaps not overtly stated are\nused to explain other gaps in the narrative, will work on a writer like\nMalzberg, who seems to begin with the premise of insanity as a\npresupposition and favors extremely subjective but inconsistent viewpoints\nin many of his works, such as *Beyond Apollo*.\n\nTheir story is also narrated by a man bringing Hans his food as a jailer.\nHere Hans claims the computer is moving by itself, though it is not plugged\nin, though the jailer denies it. The Black Queen moves when Hans goes to\ndemonstrate it. The narrator checks to make sure no one is inside. The\nnarrator claims that Hans is ahead of the machine by 160 games to 22. This\njailer sees it as “a dull refraction of Lame Hans's madness.” The narrator\nclaims that he is in the state of Bavaria, though the original seems to be\nset in Brandenburg. He does imagine that Hans has created a persona to\ninflate his own ego, since jailers “see aspects of prisoners that they do\nnot see themselves.” In this story, Hans calls his jail cell Plato's Cave,\nwhich “has something to do with idealization as opposed to the grim\nactuality furnished within the Bavarian compass”. Hans invites his jailer\nto play as the white side, since he has eliminated the machine after 160\nvictories, saying the jailer has now taken the machine's place in the\nsecond series.\n\nIt is here revealed that Hans is something of a tourist attraction,\nreenacting the tournament that resulted in Gretchen's death, and the\nnarrator's own attempt to flee to the north ended by being detained at the\nborder, resulting in being sentenced to the role of Han's jailer, with more\nfreedom than Hans, who is occasionally interrogated (for what?).\n\n“The good aspect of totalitarianism is that it grinds all of its subjects\ninto a monotony of feeling and circumstance” - the story seems to flirt\nwith criticism of a totalitarian state almost totally absent in the\noriginal Wolfe story, with its professor owning two houses and using\nuniversity money as well as the possibility of Hans owning a store — the\noperating system of the community seems completely different in this story.\n\nOur narrator continues:\n\n“The question of who is the prisoner, who the guardian, seems quite\nabstract at this moment. 'Gretchen suffocated,' I observed pointlessly. 'So\nshe did. Life itself is a dismal affliction, an imposition upon us. We\nbreath, we do not breathe; it is all the same. Like totalitarianism. Life\nitself is a species of suffocation. We are now on the clock. An imaginary\nclock of course, but no less determinant for all of this.'”\n\nAt this point our narrator realizes that “Bavaria is more than Bavarian: It\nis the world itself.” As the game continues, the narrative spins outwards\nfrom an objective viewpoint:\n\n?'Mate in ten moves,' he said. 'By the way,' he added, 'all of this is in\nyour imagination.' As if from a great distance, gasps and throttles come\nfrom somewhere behind him, deep in his cell. Gretchen is suffocating again.\n\n This ending might resemble the disintegration at the culmination of Wolfe\nstories such as “Melting”, where the narrative point of view simply\ndisappears into something much more subjective, but I contend that Wolfe\noperates slightly differently than Malzberg (not sure how much of Dann's\nstyle is in the ending). Malzberg's reliance on subjective immersion almost\nalways creates a sea of insuperable insanity from which we cannot claw\nfree, whereas in “Melting”, the name John Edwards shows a theological\nperspective to that angry disintegration of our character and the\nappearance of a previously unknown “I” claiming that it is getting tired of\neveryone in the wake of our viewpoint character simply melting: Buddhist\nprincipals and Christian sermons create sense of this melting. In Wolfe,\nreality still has some objective explanation, even if it is in the mind of\nan angered deity and vessels who temporarily have physical existence before\nreturning to purely spiritual reservoirs.\n\n“Tourist Trap” is completely different, indicating that a totalitarian\nexistence destroys individuality and blurs the line between jailer and\njailed, but giving us little to contextualize this “imaginary” ending.\nMalzberg and Dann may have latched onto the mental powers of Hans, but it\nseems that society itself is under attack for creating this system without\nliberty that leads only to insanity. Is our narrator trapped inside the\nmachine and suffocating? Yes, but it might not be the chess playing\nmachine, but the machine of the jail and of a society without freedom, with\nno egress. Hans, too, seems trapped by the memory of Gretchen suffocating,\nan ideal that he might be projecting upon reality here. Whether the story\nindicates that our jailer is suffocating, literally trapped in the machine,\nor simply trapped in a restrictive social system that effectively makes\nlife an illusory dream, it is difficult to ascribe an objective reality to\nthe story in light of the last two paragraphs. For this reason, I feel that\nWolfe's stories might often parade as postmodern, but only in the rarest of\ninstances does thematic closure require a complete overthrowing of basic\nplot and story elements as if they don't matter or exist in an objective\nframework that is ultimately more or less discernible." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com" }, "date": "2014-07-17T17:07:06+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Story 67: The Marvelous Brass Chess Playing\n\tAutomaton", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Whether the story indicates that our jailer is suffocating, literally\ntrapped in the machine, or simply trapped in a restrictive social system\nthat effectively makes life an illusory dream, it is difficult to ascribe\nan objective reality to the story in light of the last two paragraphs. For\nthis reason, I feel that Wolfe's stories might often parade as postmodern,\nbut only in the rarest of instances does thematic closure require a\ncomplete overthrowing of basic plot and story elements as if they don't\nmatter or exist in an objective framework that is ultimately more or less\ndiscernible." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "On rereading that last sentence I feel as if I created a mixed\nconstruction. Perhaps the last word should be \"indiscernible\", since we\nare talking about what Wolfe's stories DON'T require. Sorry." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com" }, "date": "2014-07-17T17:10:40+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Story 67: The Marvelous Brass Chess Playing\n\tAutomaton", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In any case, you understand that I am saying basic plot and story matter in\nWolfe, and the framework is ultimately discernible." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Thu, Jul 17, 2014 at 10:07 AM, Marc Aramini \nwrote:\n Whether the story indicates that our jailer is suffocating, literally\ntrapped in the machine, or simply trapped in a restrictive social system\nthat effectively makes life an illusory dream, it is difficult to ascribe\nan objective reality to the story in light of the last two paragraphs. For\nthis reason, I feel that Wolfe's stories might often parade as postmodern,\nbut only in the rarest of instances does thematic closure require a\ncomplete overthrowing of basic plot and story elements as if they don't\nmatter or exist in an objective framework that is ultimately more or less\ndiscernible." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On rereading that last sentence I feel as if I created a mixed\nconstruction. Perhaps the last word should be \"indiscernible\", since we\nare talking about what Wolfe's stories DON'T require. Sorry." } ] }, { "message_id": "<53C8B0FB.7040509@clueland.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeffery Wilson clueland.com", "address": "jwilson at clueland.com" }, "date": "2014-07-18T05:30:35+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Story 67: The Marvelous Brass Chess Playing\n\tAutomaton", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 7/17/2014 11:45 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nweather satellites still in the air" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Unless you mean literally in the atmosphere, there's no particular \nreason they would stop orbiting; they might not *work* after a century \nof solar flares, though." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "MYTHIC ALLUSIONS:" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The perpetual heat and vague geography suggests to me they may be in \nHell to some degree." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "LITERARY ALLUSIONS:" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "We have a Hans and a Gretchen, and a woman killed in a hot oven - is \nthis a coincidence?" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - < jwilson at clueland.com >\nA&M Texarkana Computational Intelligence Lab\n< http://www.tamut.edu/cil >" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com" }, "date": "2014-07-18T05:57:45+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Story 67: The Marvelous Brass Chess Playing\n\tAutomaton", "in_reply_to": "<53C8B0FB.7040509@clueland.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't think the geography is more like hell than any atmospheric\nwarming, post nuclear war society would be, but I agree with the hansel\nand gretel resonance... Wolfe has echoed that tale in at least two other\nshort stories (\"in the house of gingerbread\" and I think \"the little\nstranger\") but those ones had witches. This one only has the oven itself." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Thursday, July 17, 2014, Jeffery Wilson clueland.com <\njwilson at clueland.com> wrote:\nOn 7/17/2014 11:45 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "weather satellites still in the air" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Unless you mean literally in the atmosphere, there's no particular reason\nthey would stop orbiting; they might not *work* after a century of solar\nflares, though.\n\n MYTHIC ALLUSIONS:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The perpetual heat and vague geography suggests to me they may be in Hell\nto some degree.\n\n LITERARY ALLUSIONS:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "We have a Hans and a Gretchen, and a woman killed in a hot oven - is this\na coincidence?\n\n--\nJeff Wilson - < jwilson at clueland.com >\nA&M Texarkana Computational Intelligence Lab\n< http://www.tamut.edu/cil >\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<53C8C1D3.8050006@clueland.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeffery Wilson clueland.com", "address": "jwilson at clueland.com" }, "date": "2014-07-18T06:42:27+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Story 67: The Marvelous Brass Chess Playing\n\tAutomaton", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 7/18/2014 12:57 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nI don't think the geography is more like hell than any atmospheric\nwarming, post nuclear war society would be" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "it being parts of different places can mean it is a subjective or \nreconstructed place, based on imperfect recollections or from the lives \nof different inmates - this would provide a nice level of parallelism \nwith Hans's delusional world in his cell, being tormented by the Devil \n(who is) Himself\n\nor perhaps the jailer narrator is the Devil's self-insertion into the \nhellish false sub-creation - he is the keeper of the keys after all\n\nor the jailer could be Wolfe's self-insertion, as he is the story teller \n*and* the keeper of the keys that would let Hans out of his cell, just \nas Wolfe has the keys to the story puzzle after all\n\nor both - it would not be the first time Wolfe casts himself as a devil, \nafter all" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - < jwilson at clueland.com >\nA&M Texarkana Computational Intelligence Lab\n< http://www.tamut.edu/cil >" } ] } ] }