Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2002 18:11:59 -0700
From: Michael Andre-Driussi 
Subject: RE: (urth) PEACE: What happened to everybody else?

Jeff Veyera wrote:
>So may we assume PEACE and "Seven American Nights" are related?

Well they have always seemed thematically related, but I don't recall
anyone trying to make a stronger case.  Interesting thought, to arrange all
the tales of America declining and falling, from "Hour of Trust" and "The
Blue Mouse" onward . . . well, I don't know about all that.  But 7AN seems
like a plausible nesting inside the PEACE timeline, what with its mutants
and tumble-down monuments.


>Mantis wrote:
>
>Weer isn't the "last American," since he is dead, but he might well be
>among the last American ghosts (delayed by that elm tree, in his case).
>Very much like the goose sidhe in the story you mentioned, who have
>survived past the death of their species.
>
>[snip]
>
>Might that not explain the letter nailed down?  If Weer is a ghost, perhaps
>he kept moving that letter, and someone among the living nailed it down so
>that it would stop moving.

It might, indeed.  I'm still not sure exactly what happened with Weer's
wandering essence =before= the elm fell, but now my sense is that the thing
was more like a mere shade, possessing only lower intelligence.  When the
elm fell another piece was released and the essence graduated up to being a
ghost, a step higher than a gibbering shade.

The shade, if I may use that term to denote "Weer's essence prior to elm
fall," seems to have not left the "room" with the fireplace near the elm.
(I use quotes because there is reason to believe that the memory mansion
has no physical presence at all.)  When Weer's ghost ventures out into the
other rooms and eventually finds the president's room (which has the nailed
letter you are referring to), it seems to be for the first time (as opposed
to those actions which seem like repetitions of actions that the shade went
through, like maybe questioning the doctors about his stroke).

How many categories of spirit are there?  I don't know, but Weer's aunt
Bella knew!

=mantis=



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