PEACE: rules for reading it

No apology necessary! Messages cross, and I'm glad we agree so tightly on that particular point. I fell behind in my schedule of reading . . . yesterday I chopped down a 70 foot tree and it did not fall the way I told it to (what a Weerish thing). I was not injured, I hasten to add, and the property damage was minimal! I finished reading the "Gold" section, though, and should finish the book today. My head is brimming with all sorts of PEACE-full thoughts, but I want to write something short right now: Another rule for reading PEACE, I'm thinking, after "Trust the text first," would be "All ghosts in PEACE are absolutely real." That is to say, because the whole thing is about ghosts, then the "ghost explanation" for anything has to be considered the most likely of all. We've said this before but I felt it should be codified. =mantis= "But see, there in the distance, The Drusi and the Decii and Torquatus Ruthless in wielding the ax" AENEID, book VI

What, then, is the relevance of Arabella's magazine article to Weer? I mean, most, if not all, of the imbedded stories in PEACE, ghostly or not, can be shown to have some bearing on his life, or afterlife, even if only indirectly as the story pertains to someone close to him, such as Olivia. Arabella's ghost story is inserted into the middle of the account of Weer and Lois going to Gold's to pick up the fake Boyne diary. And Weer heard that story when he was six, when he and his mother went to her father's for Christmas. How is that ghost story related to either of those events? -Roy