Reply: Item #0907478 from URTH at LISTS.BEST.COM@INTERNET#
Geoff,
IMHO it isn't a stupid question, but yeah, it is hard not to feel stupid in asking almost any question.
Wolfe's answer =suggests= (to me at the moment, at least) that there
is no single murderer; that it is either a case of a few unrelated murders or a more elaborate daisy-chain of murders. I've seen a few people put a lot of work into this, but sadly I don't think it was ever published. People usually start with a suspicion about Bobby Black and the guy in the warehouse; these two are upgraded to "certain homocide" as other suspicions arise about the missing father, Miss Gold, the librarian, etc. Then we note that, metaphorically/economically speaking, the ersatz juice factory destroys the town by turning it into a monoculture of the potato . . .
But hey, speaking of that People Online Chat interview, long overdue kudos go out to our own Patrick O'Leary for getting the Big Recommended Reading Citation from Gene Wolfe. Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!
(Don't get writer's block now, Pat-o, just because =Gene's= watching you! <g>)
=mantis=
Reply: Item #8855844 from URTH at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET03#
alga,
"The Changeling" is collected in GENE WOLFE'S BOOK OF DAYS and CASTLE OF DAYS. Under "Homecoming Day."
=mantis=
Reply: Item #8744137 from URTH at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET01#
Matt Freestone,
Interesting point, and it is true that I seem to have taken the crazy Pete passage out of (spaghetti-like) context. My point was to suggest that the Peter Pan cycle was locally eternal, but this may not be supported by the text.
OTOH, Schuyler's timeline for PEACE gives 1954 as the year "Weer consults Dr. Van Ness." Which is at odds with my chronology for "Changeling," precisely by the ten year amount that Schuyler's timeline is at variance with other PEACE timelines. Strange.
TIMELINE
1931 -- Maria Palmieri born in Chicago; youngest US soldiers of Korean War born.
1932 -- Palmieris move to Cassonsville, where 8 year old Peter appears and warps reality around him.
1934 -- fourth grade class of 1944 born; narrator Pete born in Cassonsville?
1939 -- Peter is Maria's twin brother.
1940 -- Paul Palmieri born in Cassonsville.
1944 -- fourth grade photo (in spring); Pete wrestles with Peter Palmieri over fate of a frog (and Pete had hit Maria with a rock); Pete and family leave Cassonsville (change names?) (in summer).
1945 -- fire burned old newspapers.
1949 -- Pete's father dies in Buffalo.
1950-53 -- Korean War.
1953 -- POW exchange, Pete refuses and goes to China where he works in a textile mill.
[1954 -- in PEACE Weer consults Dr. Van Ness, according to Schuyler.]
[1957 -- circa, Weer talks to Bill Batton; Eleanor Bold asks to
plant a tree on his grave; he sees Charlie Turner]
1959 -- Pete back in US, faces court martial.
1964 -- out of US prison, Pete (changes name?) goes to
Cassonsville.
[1969 -- circa, Sherry Gold dies; Weer has stroke]
[Note: Schuyler's timeline for PEACE is in "New York Review of Science Fiction No. 91," March 1996, p. 17]
=mantis=
Urth Net