Short Story 14: Paul's Treehouse

Marc Aramini · 07 Apr 2012, 19:29 · from 2012-April.txt.gz

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From: marcaramini at yahoo.com (Marc Aramini)
Date: Sat, 7 Apr 2012 12:29:48 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: (urth) Short Story 14: Paul's Treehouse
In-Reply-To: <C9A9DC54-2B6D-4632-BD1B-A11495409726 at gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1333826988.9394.YahooMailClassic at web161802.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

yes ... I think I'm going to drop the publication info so these types of things don't happen in the future.  I'm writing up too many at once - I've re-read like the first forty stories and writing up all the commentaries at once as I think about them.  I must have been looking at changeling.  

I don't think Wolfe "identifies" with the adults - he shows them as simply out of touch with reality - they are jerks, alcoholics, cardboard cut outs like Sheila - Paul has no screen time because they don't think he knows what is going on/ is unimportant, so he is completely isolated from the concerns of his father except for "making him obey.

If anything, in this story no one we get screen time with is worthy of any kind of empathy.

--- On Sat, 4/7/12, Darth Ed <darthed77 at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Darth Ed <darthed77 at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: (urth) Short Story 14: Paul's Treehouse
> To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
> Date: Saturday, April 7, 2012, 10:38 AM
> On Apr 6, 2012, at 8:23 PM, Marc
> Aramini wrote:
> > This was first published in 1968 in Orbit.
> 
> 
> Actually, it was toward the end of 1969. http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?57390
> 
> This story has always struck me as Wolfe's commentary on the
> '60s. There's a certain helplessness to it and a lack of
> understanding of what's going on by the adults. It just
> seems like chaos to them. Only Paul understands what's about
> to happen because he's younger and more in tune with what's
> going on, so he's able to prepare for it. Unfortunately, his
> preparations are ineffective.
> 
> I wouldn't say this is one of my favorite Wolfe stories,
> mainly because I don't see it as being Wolfe at his most
> insightful. I think Wolfe identifies with the adults more
> than Paul here.
> 
> Later,
> Ed
> 
> My WolfeWiki profile: http://www.wolfewiki.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Profiles.DarthEd
> 
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