PEACE: enigma Doris, Cinderella electric

Roy C. Lackey · 26 Oct 2000, 14:30 · from urth-v0030.mbox · original

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From: "Roy C. Lackey" <rclackey at stic.net>
Subject: (urth) Re: PEACE: enigma Doris, Cinderella electric
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 14:30:58
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mantis writes:

<<What a day that was for President Den: Bill Batton with his clockwork
orange, er, clockwork elephant; Eleanor Bold with her rather ominous
request to plant a tree on his grave ("I'm not dead, I feel better--much
better!"); and dinner with dog man Charles Turner!>>

<<Difficult to date this day, other than to say that Den is President (safe
bet: age 50 to 60; wild range: age 41 to 60ish).  Is it within the first
few years of his Presidency, or say a dozen years in?>>

Den said that he started to tell the Tilly Tale to Bill Batton "thirty-five
or forty years" (135) after hearing it at age 9, therefore he can't be older
than 49 on that day.

<<However, there are some readers (for instance Bill S. and Roy C. Lackey)
who find Charlie's sudden appearance simply too weird to be true within the
realistic frame.  They think that Den is making it up: the visit, the
dinner, the letter.  It is all a vehicle to tell the tale he cannot bear to
tell--well, I can agree with that part, but if Den is making things up, and
people in the astral projection timeframe =3Dcan see and hear=3D the stuff =
he's
making up (Bill Batton and Miss Birkhead both see Charlie at the factory),
then it seems to me that rules seemingly established throughout the novel
are being broken, or bent.>>

People in the astral projection timeframe *can* at least *hear* things Den
makes up. At several points Den incorporates anachronisms into his
conversations; e.g., giving Lois (in the 1950s) his future telephone number
without an exchange prefix (162), which Ma Bell started doing in the 1960s;
and when Sherry came to his apartment he asked her to forgive him for not
standing up because "I have suffered a stroke resulting in partial paralysis
of one leg." Sherry responds: "That's all _right_." (202)

Perhaps I should go ahead and post my timeline, such as it is, which will at
least give us a starting point to argue from.

Roy

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