From: Adam Stephanides <adamsteph@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: (urth) PEACE: "facts"
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2000 17:45:51 

Roy C. Lackey wrote:

> At time of astral visit (AV) to Dr. Van Ness:
[snip]
> Den had been president for less than a year (stopped carrying knife "months
> ago" (12)

I don't think this is correct.  On p. 12 (Harper & Row) Weer says: "I
begin to go through my pants pockets looking for the knife; it is not
there, and I remember that I have stopped carrying it months ago because
I went to the office every day and, because I no longer worked in the
lab, never used it; and that it wore the fabric of my trousers where its
hard bolsters pressed at the corners of my right hip pocket, so that
they wore out first there."  But on p. 17 Weer refers to "those hard
bolsters which, when my life was over and I had come to my desk, wore
out so many gabardines and serges".  Together, these imply that while
Weer stopped carrying the knife less than a year before the AV, 
Weer did not stop carrying the knife as soon as he became president, but
continued to carry it long enough for it to wear out "so many" suits (I
would imagine this would be at least a year).

But there's another possibility as well.  Immediately the first quote,
Weer goes on: "I stand, holding on to the mantel with one hand, and look
again: it is not there.  The rain patters down outside."  Here, Weer
seems to be back in his "museum house."  This raises the possibility
that the first search for the knife took place in museum house as well,
and not in Van Ness's office, in which case "months ago" would refer to
Weer's present (or what he imagines his "present" to be) and not to the
time of the AV.  I think the first reading I gave is more natural,
though, at least in isolation (how either would fit in with the rest of
the timeline I don't know).

--Adam

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