PEACE: a poor man at forty

Adam Stephanides · 08 Nov 2000, 11:14 · from urth-v0030.mbox · original

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From: Adam Stephanides <adamsteph at earthlink.net>
Subject: (urth) PEACE: a poor man at forty
Date: Wed, 08 Nov 2000 11:14:40
Message-ID: <urth-v0030-0102 at digest.urth.net>
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Describing the unanticipated course of his life, Weer says: "I found
myself instead a poor man at forty, and a very rich one at fifty; and
never found Margaret at all." (216, Harper & Row)  How Weer got to be
rich at fifty seems pretty clear, and some of us have speculated on why
he never married Margaret.  But Weer, iirc, never discusses why he was
"a poor man at forty," and I don't think it's ever been discussed here.=20
It seems to me worth pondering, especially since it bears upon two other
matters which are important to Weer but which he says very little
about--his parents and his career as an engineer.

In the preceding paragraph, Weer describes the life he should have led:
he would "enjoy a career that, if not brilliant, would at least be
locally distinguished. 	I would inherit, between the ages of twenty and
thirty, my father's estate, an inheritance that would not make me really
wealthy, but that, added to what I earned myself, would give Margaret
and me a comfortable position in life.  None of this happened..."

Weer did inherit his parents' house, though perhaps not between the ages
of twnety and thirty; did he only inherit the house and not the rest of
the estate for some reason?  Or was the estate not enough to lift him
out of poverty (perhaps because his parents spent most of it travelling
in Europe)?

And apparently Weer's career as an engineer, though evidently important
to him, was not "locally distinguished."  It could not have been
distinguished within the company either, if, as a veteran engineer with
over a decade and a half of experience (according to both Roy Lackey and
mantis's time schemes) working for a prosperous company, his salary
still didn't lift him out of poverty.

It's clear, at any rate, that besides the disappointments Weer dwells
upon, he has suffered other disappointments which he says little about,
perhaps because they are among the things he finds it too painful to
write about.

--Adam

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