Ardis Dahl: American Monster

Michael Andre-Driussi · 08 May 2002, 20:44 · from urth-v0205.mbox · original

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From: Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis at siriusfiction.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Re: Ardis Dahl: American Monster
Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 13:44:13 -0700
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David DiGiacomo quoted Robert Borski and wrote:
>>I would therefore like to suggest something else to you. Is it possible t=
hat
>>what Nadan actually notices by the ignited arrack is the burn caused by h=
is
>>own laser pistol and that Ardis Dahl is the werebeast he attempts, but
>>fails, to kill on the night of the first egg?
>
>No, it's not possible, because...
>
>>... in describing his reaction to the discovery of Ardis's
>>secret, Nadan pens the following: "I now know that the thing I killed bef=
ore
>>Ardis's father's house is real."
>
>If he had seen the laser burn, it would have been obvious beyond any
>plausible dissociation that he had *not* killed the thing earlier in the
>week.
>
>Then there are the "few filthy rags of clothing" - Ardis would never have
>dressed that way.
>
>>What about Ardis leads him to conclude that the thing he "killed" is genu=
ine?
>
>I'm not sure, but I think he would have noticed a "blunt muzzle".

You present your case well.  It does seem odd, the disconnect between
killed/not-killed and "gone."

Then again, I hope we can agree that there is some kind of linkage between
Ardis and that werewolf which Nadan blasted.  And that there were no
remains of the werewolf when Nadan checked later--it was "gone."

Beyond that, we get into the murky realm of lycanthropy: transmitted by
film, by books, and by history, we have various traditions.  Some of them
match up to each other, some of them are at odds with each other.

When Nadan fails to find remains of the beast, we are invited to think
along two tracks: that the thing was imaginary (a  hallucination from the
LSD), or that the thing crawled away.

With Borski's theory in mind, it seems plain that the solution is a third
way, a hidden fork in the fork of the path.  The critter was killed, and
being killed it disintegrated like a vampire with a stake through it.  The
either/or nature of imaginary/escaped gives way to something like "both":
the creature was "imaginary" rather than corporeal as we know it, and it
did vanish like a soap bubble popping.

I hope you can see where I'm leading with this.  That Ardis might be
physically sleeping in her room, or wherever, and her spirit-self werewolf
goes out running around.  (Like an Id-Monster, if you will.)  The two are
separate, but linked, such that when the werewolf gets lasered and
implodes, Ardis gets the burn . . . even though she is physically nowhere
near the place where the laser is used.

The werewolf is thus like a witch's familiar, in some senses.

What I have just described is not the standard wolfman of motion picture
tradition, but I believe that it is supported in the older written
tradition.

=3Dmantis=3D

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--=20

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