PEACE: the source story

Gwern Branwen · 02 Jun 2009, 01:11 · from 2009-June.txt.gz

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From: gwern0 at gmail.com (Gwern Branwen)
Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2009 21:11:52 -0400
Subject: (urth) PEACE: the source story
In-Reply-To: <d1bb7a150906011645t1b354cb5l7fea0d70d9a224d8 at mail.gmail.com>
References: <d1bb7a150906011645t1b354cb5l7fea0d70d9a224d8 at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <cbf55b100906011811s40ccb6b3nd549e40fdd820f22 at mail.gmail.com>

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On Mon, Jun 1, 2009 at 7:45 PM, Christopher Keiser  wrote:
> Hello there Urth.net, long time lurker, first time poster.
>
> I am suffering, at the moment, a specific mental ailment, Eireneomania.
>
> During my third consecutive read, an allusion that had been nibbling
> away in my brain finally chewed its way free.
>
> "An Inhabitant of Carcosa", by Ambrose Bierce, is the the source story
> for _PEACE_.
>
> http://www.ambrosebierce.org/carcosa.html
>
> In interviews, Gene Wolfe always points to one or another story as the
> root source of his story, the seed of the idea.
>
> Never would I say anything is 100% with Wolfe, but, I will say it now:
> this story is the seed of  _PEACE_.
>
> I believe this will also support the theory that Weer is dead, though
> I am not sure anyone at this point believed otherwise.  My favorite
> interpretation of _PEACE_  places Weer's ghost in the far future,
> after the fall of our civilization. "An Inhabitant of Carcosa" would
> support that hypotheses.
>
> I hope this is not a repeat of something previously posted to Urth. I
> did a search on Urth, and the Internet in general, and found nothing
> similar.
>
> Have a read, any feedback would be appreciated.  Please tell me I am not crazy.
>
> Thanks,

The first time through that story, my head asploded as well, until I
looked up the dates and realized that _The King in Yellow_ had
borrowed the names like Hyades and Carcosa from this story, rather
than some other avenue of influence.

The second time, I don't really see any smoking gun. There must surely
have been other stories where the narrator is a ghost who finally
realizes his spectral nature; just off the top of my head, I'm sure
there was a _Twilight Zones_ episode like that. Do we have any
connection beside the generic ghostly narrator?

- --
gwern
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