Peace: big elm, house

Roy C. Lackey · 19 Jul 2001, 23:22 · from urth-v0030.mbox · original

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From: "Roy C. Lackey" <rclackey at stic.net>
Subject: (urth) Peace: big elm, house
Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2001 23:22:19
Message-ID: <urth-v0030-0562 at digest.urth.net>
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Rostrum asks:
>Does Weer say that the tree was mature?  Maybe it was a sapling that fell.
>I don't like that idea.  The language implies a full-sized tree.  If it
>were a sapling one would be more likely to say it got smashed or uprooted
>by the storm.

The second sentence of the book indicates it was mature: "from the number of
shattered limbs and the size of the trunk there must have been a terrible
crashing." And on page 45 he thought he might "climb into the branches".

>I just figured that Weer knows who planted the tree because it was over
>his grave, not because he was hovering around as a ghost and watched her
>plant it, but that he just has that knowledge because of its connection
>to him.   Weer, like the reader on her first time through the novel,
>hasn't thought through the implications and realized what it means.

And where was his grave? Outside the window of a brick-and-mortar house, or
in some more common necropolis?

Dan'l wrote:
>I think the simplest answer (though not one I'm prepared to argue
>strongly for) is that Weer built _a_ house, and that the "memory
>mansion" bears some strong resemblance to the house he built, for
>reasons which might be obvious.

Very likely, and I don't think that we'll ever get a better answer.

-Roy

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