Weer's Death, and J.L. Borges

William H. Ansley · 28 Aug 1998, 00:08 · from urth-v0018.mbox · original

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From: "William H. Ansley" <wansley at warwick.net>
Subject: Re: (urth) Re:  Weer's Death, and J.L. Borges
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1998 00:08:46
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Rostrum (Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>) said:

>> I prefer to believe that the house does/did exist and it did have "museum
>> rooms" replicating important rooms in Weer's life.

>I don't know.  It seems too obviously a reference to the ancient method of
>enhancing memory by creating an imaginary house or castle in which each
>room represents a time period or category of knowledge and the objects in
>each room represent the specific things you are trying to remember.
>
>I guess that doesn't rule out Weer literally building such a house (in
>fact, the more I think about it, the more I like the idea--but I'd like it
>more in a story about some character consciously doing it as an
>extravagant mnemonic device--but then, what is a museum but an extravagant
>mnemonic device?), but I think the shiftiness implies that at a minimum,
>the house in the story has imaginary rooms/qualities in addition.

I really don't think we disagree very much here. I think there was a "real"
house Weer built before he died that had museum rooms in it. I think the
house his ghost inhabits is imaginary and has all sorts of odd properties
that no real building could have but had as its starting point in Weer's
(ghost's) mind the original house the living Weer built.

I agree that the house described in _Peace_ could be wholly imaginary, I
just don't think it *necessarily* is.

(Of course, I mean imaginary within the world of _Peace_ when I use the
word above.)

William Ansley

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