URTH |
From: Jason Voegele <voegele.6@osu.edu> Subject: (urth) PEACE Date: Mon, 12 May 1997 01:33:05 [Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works] Hello everybody. I'm new here so I hope I'm not retreading any old ground, but I do have a few questions/observations. Having determined that Weer is in fact dead, it seems to me that an important question to ask is does he *know* that he is dead, or does he believe that he is a dying man whose imagination has the power to conjure (real or imagined) elements of his past? To quote part of a conversation Weer has with Dr. Van Ness: Dr.: "Do you feel you can control the whole world--just with your mind?" Weer: "Not the real world--but this world, yes. In the real world I am an elderly man, sick and alone, and I can't do anything about that. But this world--your only world now, Van Ness--I have conjured from my imagination and my memories. This interview between us never took place, but I wanted advice about my stroke." This passage seems to support the latter, but there is the fact that Weer is--and knows--that he is utterly alone in this world. Whichever case is true, this book is a showcase for the solipsistic tendency in Wolfe's writing, which ties in with Wolfe's use of stories as shapers of memory and thus reality. In fact, PEACE (or at least one layer of the "PEACE onion") seems to be saying that all of existence is held within memories. This would explain Severian's ability warp reality (via the "claw") due to his eidetic memory. Another question relates to this passage: "Who's that behind you?" "It's just little Den, Katie. He's been there before." "Yes, but there's another, dimmer yet, behind him." "I can only see the one behind me, Katie." Why is "little Den" a ghost (so to speak) in this scene? And who is it behind him? One more question. Has there been a discussion on THE FIFTH HEAD OF CERBERUS? If so, is it available in an archive somewhere? PEACE be with you, Jason Voegele