{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/748", "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": 748, "subject": "Dis, Dat and D'Otter", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "1998-06-05T21:36:23+00:00", "last": "1998-06-06T03:21:00+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Robert Borski", "address": "rborski at coredcs.com" }, "date": "1998-06-05T21:36:23+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Dis, Dat and D'Otter", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Oh brother mantis across the great aetheric divide:\n\nThe Marsch timeline needs to include the\nI-took-up-smoking-got-fat-and-found-a-decent-pogonocure- detail. Much to my\ndismay, however, the barber mentioned is in Roncevaux, not Laon (my\nassumption, not yours), where he could have been the special correspondent,\nCodename Delilah. I also believe the term 'beard' has some sort of\nconnection with the homosexual equivalent of passing; remember the Seinfeld\nepisode where Elaine must act as the girlfriend of her gay friend, so his\nboss will think he's straight? She's called his *beard.* Wonder if this is\nrelatively new coinage or something Wolfe might have known about, maybe\nfrom the sexual underground, home originally to vibe and other such\nappropriated argot. alga-of-culottes: any clew?\n\nAlso, re timelines: they'd work really well as html hyperlinks, but\notherwise not sure where to put them. Think I should put them after the\nmost appropriate entry or all in one clump somewhere, like an appendix?\n\nDo you think any of the stuff about circumcision in VRT is meant to play\noff the fact that Proust was Jewish? (aka VRT: The Secret Journal of Marcel\nthe Moyle.)\n\nI'd like to see VRT schematically broken down someday, but am too lazy to\ndo it myself, at least right away. One approach would place everything in\nchronological order of event; a separate casting of runes would place\neverything in order of narrative exegesis; i.e., Victor's childhood\nreminisences would come in the section detailing his prison days, near the\nend of the timeline; Marsch's interviews would link to when he conducted\nthem shortly after arrival, not to the linked recalled times he's\nrecording. Then some sort of flowchart approach needs to be taken, showing\nexactly what the garrison scenes either precede, interrupt or follow, with\narrows then subsequently attempting to gestalt everything together. It is,\nafter all, very challenging to sequence events in a straight line from\nbeginning to end and I think it requires multiples reads. Did for me.\n\nFor me, the book's last scene involving the Wolfe clone escaping the silk\nfactory invoked notions of temporal grace and release, of rising above\ndestiny's chains (or helical chains) to a somewhat better fate,\ncomparatively, than being gnawed to death from within by tiny mechanized\ndandruff (or chromosomal bytes, if you will). Not exactly Bodhisattva or\nNew Jerusalem, but still better than his isogenetic kin back at the House\nof Wolfe. In this respect said slave somewhat resembles Roy Trenchard, who\ndoes not die incarcerated (at least that we know of). So, yes, not\neveryone's fate is predetermined and those who attempt to live within the\nboundaries of their universe, as opposed to going the poseur or attempted\nmaster-of-the-planet route, might yet survive. Salvation *is* possible. A\nsmall grace note of hope in an otherwise fugal dirge.\n\nHey, you, the guy who's doing the Wolfe recent short story compilation?\n[Can't find your name--drat.] Any chance you could somehow widen the scope\nof your project and attempt to list all of Wolfe's uncollected short\nfiction for us? I think it would be asset to the group. And then I wouldn't\nhave to keep on being corrected by mantis because I'm more Latro than\nSeverian.\n\nStill puzzling over the most curious bashful hooker scene as well as the\none involving the vaginas-for-hire-Algonquin-Round-Table scene with\nJeannine and John. V. Marsch. \"Tell me, Roxanne: you think a man like\nJoseph Campbell wore boxers or briefs? Oh, do share.\"\n\nLastly then, did you know that in chess, after the first five moves, there\nare more myriad potential games that can be played than there are atoms in\nthe universe?\n\nI bet Gene Wolfe plays chess.\n\nRobert Borski (who doesn't, preferring the mindfields of this list instead)" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "m.driussi", "address": "m.driussi at genie.com" }, "date": "1998-06-06T03:21:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Dis, Dat and D'Otter", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Robert,\n\nRight, the smoking, weight, barber at R--I meant to include that!\n\nAppendix the timeline(s), that's what I think. Dividing the\ndictionary/concordance from the essays--Terminus Est, if you will.\n\nRe: the weird twinness between V.R.T. and Number Five. V.R.T. has\ndreams of the labor camp robots killing him (p. 232) at what looks to\nbe the time that Number Five saw the robots go berserk and kill\nprisoners, three years into his term (p. 77). Makes me wonder what\nwas going on in Number Five's life when V.R.T. sacrificed Dr.\nMarsch--that would be about four years before the murder of Number\nFour.\n\n=mantis=" } ] } ] }