Home Fires questions

David Stockhoff · 18 Oct 2011, 14:33 · from 2011-October.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2011 10:33:40 -0400
Subject: (urth) Home Fires questions
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more...

On 10/17/2011 10:02 PM, Stephen Hoy wrote:
> David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net> asked:
> > Seriously. Has no one read Home Fires?
>
> My thirst for /Home Fires/ got quenched in the first chapter while 
> trying to figure out why yellow FAX paper would be so 
> comforting--apparently this is a 'finding' in color psychology, which 
> presumably foreshadows the overlays of color-named characters.
>
> > Was Skip once someone else?
>
> Seems like everyone in Home Fires is/was someone else so why not Skip? 
> Question is, who? His initials--S.W.G.--don't help me generate many 
> alternatives, although some sort of "Greene" seems likely. But 
> Skip/overlay might explain why Skip wonders if Chelle will recognize 
> him on her return--despite the Obvious Explanation that Skip will 
> appear different in Chelle's eyes because he has aged. Skip/overlay 
> also fits with Skip's too-easy transformation into agile hero aboard 
> the cruise ship.
>
> > At the formal dinner, his family reunites. All three have trouble 
> recognizing one another (except when they don't). Two are known to be 
> not entirely who they think they are. Surely the third is also not 
> entirely who he is.
>
> I do wonder how any of the Blue family can recognize each other to any 
> degree because they're all replacements/overlays. Still, somehow 
> Chelle recognized her replacement mother at the airport while failing 
> to recognize Skip. Clearly an important clue.
>
Some notes about the beginning. First, it seems to begin with a dream, 
but the dream (Skip's memory of contracting with Chelle, looking in a 
mirror, recoiling) is followed by a reality that appears to be identical 
(he worries about Chelle, he looks in the mirror, recoils).

Second, Skip gets his own "yellow copy." He wonders if it's 
work-related, then tells himself he knows what it is, then tells himself 
it's something else. It turns out to be a message concerning Chelle. 
Pretty much all the narration here is immediately negated or 
contradicted. What was the other thing it could have been?

Odds/ends:

(1) Skip's hands are described as "wrinkled and old" in his dream. Is 
this merely his exaggerated worry that Chelle will find him too old? 
He's only in his late forties.

(2) the sentence "Five hundred." (This after something "seizes" Skip at 
the mirror and before he "shudders.") Years? Hours? Surely not noras.

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