PEACE: is Weer's biography knowable? (long)

Michael Straight · 04 Dec 2000, 09:29 · from urth-v0030.mbox · original

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From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Subject: Re: (urth) PEACE: is Weer's biography knowable? (long)
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 09:29:18
Message-ID: <urth-v0030-0148 at digest.urth.net>
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On Sun, 3 Dec 2000, Michael Andre-Driussi wrote:

> In fact, you could even put a Freudian ("childhood makes the person") spin
> on the whole deal and say that Weer's real biography ends with his
> childhood, and all the rest, the dreams of a life lived, books read, and =
so
> on, is all just a belated attempt to resolve these traumas.  So instead of
> trying to hammer out his life from 15 to 60, and then trace things from t=
he
> fictitious to the biographical, instead use only his life from 1 to 15 (or
> whatever: Freud's deal was 1 to 7, iirc), from which everything else
> phantasmagorically emerges (with no distinction between fiction and
> biography).  Wave upon wave of reiteration.  Such an approach seems quite
> easy at first glance, since there doesn't seem to be much argument about
> that stretch of Den's life.
[...]
> And nine-year-old Den might still be passed out beside his chemistry set!

No, he's fallen asleep on a ceramic pillow!  And and his Aunt is waking
him up to go play at the picnic with Bobby Blake...

-Rostrum

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