From: Peter Westlake <peter@harlequin.co.uk>
Subject: (urth) Parkroads (the new Suzanne Delage)
Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 13:26:55 +0100

In the introduction to "Storeys from the Old Hotel", Wolfe describes
"Parkroads" as (quoting it from memory) "as good a piece as I've ever
turned out". This is high praise indeed, so I read it again (easy
enough, as it's only four pages) to see if I could find anything more
in it that last time. Wolfe calls it "a short story written in the
form of a film review", which I think is significant; it isn't just
a pastiche review. So, what's it all about? There is the plot of the
film, which involves a Chinese/Korean family looking for a distant
paradise; there are allusions to the making of the film, with all
sorts of symmetries in its structure and history; and there is a
long discussion of the combinatorial problem of getting all the reels
in the right order. This gets quite a lot of space in a very short
story, so it must mean *something*. It is suggested that anyone seeing
the first six reels might be inspired to produce a seventh; has the
whole film been produced by this sort of iterative process? It doesn't
seem likely, as we are told it was made in just two times, 1939 and 1984.

So - any suggestions?

Spectacled Bear.


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