Date: Sun, 18 Aug 2002 13:12:12 -0700
From: Michael Andre-Driussi 
Subject: Re: (urth) PEACE: 3 Misses

Roy Lackey started this thing and my first reaction is that the "Miss"
thing is simply mid-century corporate sexism, where secretaries hired on as
nubile sex-objects retain their maiden names as quasi "professional" names.
Not to denigrate exploration, just to say that's how I've seen it.

Robert Borski's musings on Weer's early amorous fixations has led me to
similar noodlings.  Just the other day I was saying to myself that attempts
to solve the coldhouse prank with a motive for Weer might miss the mark in
that the motive for Bobby Black's fall (which links to the coldhouse prank)
seems to rest entirely on the passions of the moment . . . Weer at 25 is
not necessarily any more calculating than Weer at 5 (well thats seems hard
to take).

But Robert's notes remind us that lovely blonde Eleanor is Bobby Black's
maiden aunt: just as Bobby is a twin to Weer, so is his beautiful aunt a
twin to Olivia (taking note, as Robert says, of how Weer shifts from
Eleanor to Olivia.

> Later, in
>comparison to the other women present, he will call her a girl--otherwise,
>he makes clear, she would be the most beautiful woman at the party--an honor
>he instead confers on his aunt Olivia.)

And since we later see that Weer has a quasi-Oedipal thing for Olivia, we
can see a powerful sexual charge in the motive for Bobby's fall: Bobby is
the rival of Weer for Eleanor, who is a substitute for Olivia.

Pretty interesting!

Adding to Eleanor's alleged wanton ways, we used to toy with John Weer's
possible extra-marital womanizing.

But wait!

The "Olivia" section is really AUNTIE MAME rewritten to a tragic ending
(the Mame is killed by an old lover).

The "Gold" section is really LOLITA rewritten to a happy ending (in that
the Lolita does not die young, like, oooh, like Doris the carny Cinderella
dies young).

=mantis=



--