From: m.driussi@genie.com
Subject: Re: (urth) PEACE
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 97 20:57:00 GMT


[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]

Reply:  Item #0140781 from URTH@LISTS.BEST.COM@INET00#

Jason,

Well "sinister" could also be non-Weer related; like the (al-)chemist
who helps turn normal people into circus freaks, for example.  Wolfe
said nearly the same thing with regard to the story "A Solar
Labyrinth"--are you certain you aren't remembering that quote?  (No
offense intended; nor am I insisting that Wolfe wouldn't say similar
things about similarly encrypted stories; just that I remember the
one and not the other, is all.)

Re: "The Changeling," I can't find my notes at the moment.  It is an
enigmatic little puzzle.  The hero is a cold-war "changeling" because
he went over to the Chinese after the Korean War--then he changed
again; his life in China seems like the usual time in fairyland.  The
boy Peter never ages--that's his thing, what marks him as an elf (not
to alarm you, but his secret name is "Peter Pan").  Maybe some of the
"erasure" of the hero Pete can be answered by backwards time traveling
by third party agents?  I only mention this because other "elfish" Wolfe
stories ("A Cabin on the Coast," "The Ziggurat," etc.) often involve
time travel.  I have the sense that old Pete is a victim of Peter
Pan, who took his place for a while and then made him disappear.

Anyway, I do remember that "Peter" is mentioned in PEACE, just before the
group goes out on that picnic (where they visit the cave and ignore
the skull).

=mantis=