Short Story 60: Forelesen part 1

Kathrin Paschen · 16 Sep 2014, 21:57 · from 2014-September.txt.gz

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From: kathrin.paschen at gmail.com (Kathrin Paschen)
Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2014 23:57:30 +0200
Subject: (urth) Short Story 60: Forelesen part 1
In-Reply-To: <CAF1072x68Ug9KPuB=PECUayLt7Rd0qW=92HcUTJjjrwHvrK0OA at mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAF1072x68Ug9KPuB=PECUayLt7Rd0qW=92HcUTJjjrwHvrK0OA at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAMVv-0PT7OhaC3+mQnSsdTwjVHX-K2ErLVBkzsoxHDCoYmdr8w at mail.gmail.com>

Thank you for the story analyses Marc -- I work my way through them as I
re-read the stories.

On Sun, Sep 14, 2014 at 8:10 PM, Marc Aramini <marcaramini at gmail.com> wrote:

Forlesen means ?to lose completely? and forlorn is derived from it. When
> Forlesen looks at his own face in the mirror, he sees a man much cruder,
> stupider, and less refined than he knows himself to be ? but to the touch,
> it is his face. Everything here is a reflection of what society sees ? he
> knows himself to be different than the exterior reflected back at him.
> While there may be something more to this ?broken mirror? than portraying
> the difference between external and internal perceptions, it also works to
> show that people in this world (and the business world as a whole) are
> nothing more than external perceptions.
>

A minor comment on this. As you mentioned in the part 2 post, "Vorlesen"
(pronounced the same as "Forlesen" if read in German) means "to read
aloud". I took this as a reference to all the written material Forlesen is
given and expected to read and follow. The story feels as though he were
reading aloud from a script (acting much like the actors re-enacting the
creativity discussion) instead of living. He is not real (not created from
clay), his is a scripted life. The script, which contains external
expectations of how he should behave, also dictates his appearance in the
mirror.

This is one of my favourite Wolfe stories, maybe because the corporate hell
resonates with me (yes, I work in a large corporation).

Kathrin

-- 
Always make sure that the obvious is true.
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