The Coldhouse Prank

StoneOx17 · 24 Aug 2002, 01:54 · from urth-v0208.mbox · original

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From: StoneOx17 at aol.com
Subject: Re:  (urth) The Coldhouse Prank
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 2002 21:54:07 EDT
Message-ID: <urth-v0208-1601 at digest.urth.net>
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In a message dated 8/23/2002 7:57:25 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Robert Borsk=
i=20
writes:

> Stone Ox writes:=20
> > Robert Borski argues quite eloquently that Ted Singer's father is the=20
victim
> > in the coldhouse prank.  I don't think this can be right, because the=20
victim
> > lived in a boarding house, was locked in on Friday, and nobody noticed =
he=20
was
> > missing until he was discovered on Monday.  If the victim had had a wif=
e=20
or
> > girlfriend, surely he would have been discovered sooner.

> But look who imparts this information about the weekend tragedy and the
> boarding house connection: Dan French, who, not having been a factory
> employee at the time, is simply repeating the sanitized version of the st=
ory
> as it's been spun down through the years and perhaps even through
> semi-official channels, since there's been a coverup. (I do, however, and
> for obvious reasons, like the notion that the victim died on Friday.) He
> doesn't remember the name of the victim and is completly unaware there is=
 an
> even more sinister side to the entire episode, with a lone person being
> responsible for the victim's death. As Den also reminds us earlier, such
> stories have a way of becoming "both faded and embroidered by time," which
> results in a further blurring of the details. And lastly when Dan French
> tells the story of the sidhe, it deviates from the traditional in several
> respects.

> In other words I think there's plenty of reason to doubt his version of t=
he
> story.

When Dan French is telling the story of the sidhe, it's an embedded story,=20
and Wolfe has changed, or invented, many (if not all) of the embedded=20
stories, so as to shed light on events in the book.  On the other hand, if =
we=20
believe that Weer was the perpetrator of the coldhouse prank, I'd consider =
it=20
part of Weer's own life story, and I'm much more reluctant to believe that=20
Wolfe is altering the details here.  But this relates to the whole unicorn=20
debate, which I think we could argue about for eternity.
I just had the thought that maybe part of the reason there's been so much=20
discussion about Mr. Tilly's story and Doris's story is that it's not clear=20
whether they should be counted as embedded stories or not.

-Stone Ox



--=20

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