From: Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis@sirius.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) ENGINE SUMMER: Why?
Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2001 11:51:26 

Adam wrote about ENGINE SUMMER, including this bit:

>The other clues fit in with the suspicion aroused by this one.  Near the
>start of the fifth facet of the second crystal, Rush asks "Do you know this
>story better than I do?" and the angel replies: "Go on.  It's not for my
>sake you tell it."  At first this seems to have an obvious meaning: Rush
>tells the story for the sake of the city of angels as a whole.  But on
>further thought, this doesn't really work.  If the angel knows Rush's story,
>then so does the city.  If the angel is talking about how _this_ Rush will
>tell the story, then she doesn't know this either.  So for who else's sake
>could Rush be telling the story?  In light of the preceding clue, I submit
>that the answer is Rush himself; and ultimately Rush's host, who will thus
>be able to prolong his "possession" by Rush.

There is also the obvious metafictional answer: it is not for the angels,
nor their city, but only for the reader of ENGINE SUMMER.  This ties in
with the large and complex "reader/text" mode (where Rush is like a text
and the recording angel is like a reader; and they are all fictions in a
story, trying to work out another story, for a reader who is above and
beyond them).  Unfortunately this has a side-effect of implicating the real
reader with the torture.

"Why are you torturing me?"

"To entertain the reader.  Look, it is working--she smiles!"

=mantis=

Sirius Fiction
Catalog and errata sheet at http://www.sirius.com/~mantis/



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