"Who wouldn't hoard them?"

[fearful_syzygy]

OK, I reckon it's my turn to ask a stupid question now:

• Why does Walden have those additional letters in the first place?

And as a corollary to that question (which is quite similar to MicheleVR5's question here, I suppose):

• How to explain the presence of the poem on p. 565?

[John B.]

I'm at work and don't have the book with me, so these comments are rather general.
Walden's tone in the Introduction is rather proprietary with regard to Pelafina--in fact, a more accurate description, from a psychological standpoint, might be "icky." A couple of conversations, and he's smitten. So, he rescues the never-sent letters from the bonfire he describes . . . or maybe, after her death, lifts the letters from her room or her file in the office.
Here's an observation, though, that either answers yours or just adds further complications: Walden writes the intro. to TWL and supplies the never-sent letters . . . but who actually assembles the complete collection of letters? Aside from Walden's mentioning Pelafina's son, there's no other link (aside from what we're told on the cover) between TWL and HoL. Perhaps Johnny assembles the letters in the interim between the first and second editions of HoL and, thus, writes "That Place" as a posthumous honoring of her mother's request? After all, we're told by The Editors somewhere in HoL that Mr. Truant has added other things to HoL at the request of others.
Maybe.

[Edit: I've GOT to start proofreading more closely . . .]

[fearful_syzygy]

I suppose what I'm really wondering is why were those letters never sent? I mean, it makes sense (at least if, as Pelafina asserts on several occasions, the Director (New or Old) is censoring her correspondence) that a letter like March 9, 1983 wouldn't have been sent, in order to shield Johnny from one of his mother's dark spells, but why were some of the later letters (like the lovely December 24, 1988 letter, part of which is identical to the poem on p. 565 of HoL) withheld, unless, as you say, Walden was stealing them, and then made up the story of rescuing them from the bonfire?

Edit:

Walden's tone in the Introduction is rather proprietary with regard to Pelafina--in fact, a more accurate description, from a psychological standpoint, might be "icky." A couple of conversations, and he's smitten.

Just as a side-note: this is also evinced by the dedication at the beginning of the book,¹ clearly inspired by this poem by Apollinaire (I can't imagine that this hasn't been noted before, but the search function certainly couldn't find it, so here it is in its entirety).:

• Le pont Mirabeau
  
  Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine
  Et nos amours
  Faut-il qu'il m'en souvienne
  La joie venait toujours après la peine
  
  Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
  Les jours s'en vont je demeure
  
  Les mains dans les mains restons face à face
  Tandis que sous
  Le pont de nos bras passe
  Des éternels regards l'onde si lasse
  
  Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
  Les jours s'en vont je demeure
  
  L'amour s'en va comme cette eau courante
  L'amour s'en va
  Comme la vie est lente
  Et comme l'Espérance est violente
  
  Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
  Les jours s'en vont je demeure
  
  Passent les jours et passent les semaines
  Ni temps passé
  Ni les amours reviennent
  Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine
  
  Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
  Les jours s'en vont je demeure

(Translations here)

---

¹I think we can assume that this is also a dedication from Mark to his mother, who conveniently shares an initial with Ms. Lièvre.

[Stencil]

It's been a while since I've read TWL, so my memory may be playing tricks, but doesn't the Editor's note from the beginning of the Whalestoe letters appendix in HoL appear in TWL? Then there's your link between the two works: the Editors.

And concerning the new letters: a lot of them can be concieved as rough drafts of letters, or perhaps letters written by Walden himself to play up the connections with HoL (which remains a notable absence from the introduction. Why does he (and especially the Editors) neglect to mention the book?)

Also, Pelafina mentions letters the new Director holds back. The letters on the pyre could be those. Or perhaps they were letters sent back. . . .

Walden's tone in the introduction is a bit 'icky' (and reminds me of Johnny's last bit about Thumper in Chapter XXI), and perhaps ties in with the strange type of romance that pervades TWL: the love over distance, insermontable distance. Perhaps "the pain of loving?" The cover has a bit of a Mills and Boon feel to it, doesn't it?

[fearful_syzygy]

Waheeda, actually, is the one who brought to my attention the initial publication of those letters you are about to read. I won’t deny it. Had it not been for her, it is doubtful I ever would have come across them.

His wording is a little odd here, isn't it? Presumably this just means that he was unaware that there were other letters, or at the very least that they had been published, but we are "about to read" the letters he's supplied as well. (Needless to say it hadn't occurred to him to try to contact the addressee of those letters, preferring to keep them to himself).
The Editors say in their Preface that "there is no direct evidence that any were actually sent". Again this is slightly fuzzy wording, isn't it? It looks like it refers to Walden's letters, but "any" might also refer to all the letters in the collection.

...on the one occasion that Waheeda did meet Pelafina, she instantly confirmed what had taken me weeks to figure out: few get brighter than that.

What? What took you weeks to figure out, Walden?

The cover has a bit of a Mills and Boon feel to it, doesn't it?

Apart from the lack of a beefy, square-jawed guy with a pony-tail, yes I suppose it does.

[Nash]

Walden's tone in the Introduction is rather proprietary with regard to Pelafina--in fact, a more accurate description, from a psychological standpoint, might be "icky." A couple of conversations, and he's smitten.

Just as a side-note: this is also evinced by the dedication at the beginning of the book,¹ clearly inspired by this poem by Apollinaire (I can't imagine that this hasn't been noted before, but the search function certainly couldn't find it, so here it is in its entirety

Indeed

[fearful_syzygy]

Thanks.
In my defence I will say that I did actually discover this myself (in much the same way as I also invented the game of not stepping on the cracks in the pavement as a child), and I did try searching for "mirabeau" "apollinaire" "demeures" and numerous other words and misspellings but to no avail.

[Merouda]

On page xiii, Walden refers to the additional letters as “the eleven drafts now included in this publication”. If the letters were drafts, could it be possible that they, or something similar, might have been sent to Johnny?

Walden refers to Johnny as “the son I would never have the good fortune to meet, or for that matter ever locate …” on page xii, which makes me wonder if he did try to contact Johnny, but was unable to find him.

...on the one occasion that Waheeda did meet Pelafina, she instantly confirmed what had taken me weeks to figure out: few get brighter than that.

I was under the impression that the comment “few get brighter than that” referred to Waheeda, but could that which took Walden weeks to figure out be that “few get brighter” than Pelafina? The use of colon as punctuation appears to suggest this: the statement “few get brighter” appears to qualify “what had taken me weeks to figure out” … unless I am misreading?

[Stencil]

I was under the impression that the comment “few get brighter than that” referred to Waheeda, but could that which took Walden weeks to figure out be that “few get brighter” than Pelafina? The use of colon as punctuation appears to suggest this: the statement “few get brighter” appears to qualify “what had taken me weeks to figure out” … unless I am misreading?

No you're not: if it was referring to Waheeda, surely a full-stop or at the very least a semi-colon would've been used?

[Merouda]

Thank you, Stencil. I was thinking along the same lines.

Pelafina mentions letters the new Director holds back. The letters on the pyre could be those

I hadn’t been taking Pelafina’s claims particularly seriously, but now I wonder, could Pelafina’s letter-snatching paranoia indeed have been based in reality? Walden mentions that the “furniture” from which the alleged fire was made was “unclaimed by employee, relative or neighbor”. Why weren’t the additional letters claimed by Johnny after his mother died? Perhaps he didn’t want them, but since Pelafina makes so many references to the letters being withheld, perhaps they might have been taken by the attendants or the Director after all.

Could the version of “You Shall Be My Roots”, on page 565 be some kind of response to the December 24 1988 letter? (“I shall be your roots”/“You shall be my roots”)

Reading one version of “You (I) shall by your (my) roots” as a response to the other, however, ended up with them playing like a duet in my head, so I am not sure whether I want to continue with this thought.

Since the additional letters are drafts, perhaps Pelafina might have rewritten the letter and sent a different version? Maybe that’s what we see on page 565?

At the moment, I can’t really see anything other than vague unsatisfactory possibilities to explain the presence of “You shall be my roots” on page 565.

Sorry if this wanders a little further from the point of this thread than is necessary, but while re-reading the December 24 1988 letter, I began to wonder whether “Lyve” (found in "In Losing Your Vision Enlighten Your Own Undertaking”) could be pronounced “leave”? This would result in “I leave you. I love you” which appears to me to make sense in relation to the events within HoL.

[fearful_syzygy]

First of all: Happy 100th post, Merouda!
I am flattered that you would choose to post it in my thread.

Sorry if this wanders a little further from the point of this thread than is necessary, but while re-reading the December 24 1988 letter, I began to wonder whether “Lyve” (found in "In Losing Your Vision Enlighten Your Own Undertaking”) could be pronounced “leave”? This would result in “I leave you. I love you” which appears to me to make sense in relation to the events within HoL.

It's a wonderful idea... but it doesn't work.

'Lyve' is an "obs. form of LIEF, LIFE, LIVE v.", and would be pronounced /lΛIv/ rather than /li:v/ I should have thought, unless you were pronouncing it before the great vowel shift (ca. 15th Cent.).
'Leave' (as in 'leave of absence' or 'by your leave') comes from the OE lēaf 'permission' and is related to 'lief' (from OE lēof 'dear, pleasant'), and both are etymologically related to 'love', as well.

So maybe it does work after all, depending on how old you think Pelafina's roots are.

On page xiii, Walden refers to the additional letters as “the eleven drafts now included in this publication”.

Thanks, I had forgotten that little detail.
In the April 17, 1983, Pelafina writes "Do not think I did not write you in March. I was just writing badly." (p. 7) That letter leads us to believe that she wrote quite a lot, but that the Director persuaded her not to send her 'notes'. However, Walden provides only one letter written in March 1983, and although it is quite effective in establishing that Pelafina's madness was fairly severe, at least in bouts, even that early on, it nevertheless does not contain any 'themes' which I would consider 'indelicate' for a boy Johnny's age (11). Were these just figments of her imagination like the 'five reams of paper and postage' she mentions on p. 67 (p. 635 in HoL)?

[Merouda]

Thank you for noticing that I reached 100 posts, f_s. It wasn’t intentional, nor intentionally in a certain thread. It just happened. I think I should be eligible for board marriage in about seven and a half years if I keep this up.

Thank you also for responding to my tenuous thought. Indeed, reading “lyve” as “leave” doesn’t quite work like I had first imagined. It also seems to conflict with “I am close. Don’t forget I am here” which immediately precedes “In losing your…”

However, in much the same way as I can hear "defenestration" when I read Zampanò’s journal entry of November 11th 1994, unfortunately I can still hear “leave” when I read “In losing your…” - despite the explanation of why I shouldn’t, and as well as being aware of the apparent contradictions within the letter. I think that’s probably more indicative of my perception of HoL at the moment, rather than any actual ‘truth’.

“Five reams of paper and postage” appears to me to be somewhat too specific to have been a figment of Pelafina’s imagination. I think that two years at The Whale could plausibly eat up at least five reams of letters and notes, couldn’t it? TWL does not appear to reflect back enough letters between 1986 and 1988, however, was Walden in possession of everything?

[fearful_syzygy]

...in about seven and a half years...

You mean five and a half, surely?

[Merouda]

...in about seven and a half years...

You mean five and a half, surely?

Yes - that would have made more sense.
I wasn't right anyway. I had managed to forget that I was already here.

[fearful_syzygy]

“Five reams of paper and postage” appears to me to be somewhat too specific to have been a figment of Pelafina’s imagination. I think that two years at The Whale could plausibly eat up at least five reams of letters and notes, couldn’t it? TWL does not appear to reflect back enough letters between 1986 and 1988, however, was Walden in possession of everything?

Yes, what happened to "Everything I sent you in August [1986]", for instance? (p. 618)

[MoleculaRR]

So I finally got my own copy of TWL, and it seems this is as good a place as any to jump in to this less noisy place. My initial excitement here is, I think, partly because this is the first "new" writing by MZD that I've read in a good while.

I noticed a lot of obvious echoes in Wyrhta's introduction, but some things seemed like echoes that I didn't recognize, if that makes sense. For example, the passage toward the bottom of xv that mentions Galileo and Walden associates his revelations (pun: revolution) regarding the sun to the importance of her son echos "A son to rend the dark // a sun to read the dark."

But what's up with the list of fishing gear list? This doesn't ring a bell for me in the letters (but then, I haven't made it through the new letters) or in HoL, so I don't know what to make of it. (I could also just be forgetting something obvious, in which case simply point it out.) This sounds a lot like Zampano gathering lists of Photographers from his readers, so it seems like it raises two related questions:

1 - What is the nature of Walden's relationship to Pelafina, and what does he contribute?

and

2 - What does she do with this information?

Again, if this is something obvious I missed, I apologize. If not I'll keep looking.

[zakalwe]

"A son to rend the dark // a sun to read the dark."

cf Hamlet I ii 66-67:

CLAUDIUS:
How is it that the clouds still hang on you?

HAMLET
Not so, my lord, I am too much i'th'sun.

The same pun; Hamlet's relationship with his mother makes an intruiging parallel to the Johnny/Pelafina dynamic.

[fearful_syzygy]

...Galileo and Walden associates his revelations (pun: revolution) regarding the sun to the importance of her son

Two things, Hoss:
I think the eppur si muove can be seen in relation to the quote from the Seafarer in the letter of Dec 24, 1983:
Micel biþ se Meotudes egsa,
for þon hī sēo molde oncyrreð.
Secondly, Merouda pointed out to me how it's ironic that a story like that should serve as an example of how 'truth is all. Always', when it's most likely not true itself. But then again, Muss es sein?

But what's up with the list of fishing gear list?

Perhaps it's for catching all the little pisces?

[fearful_syzygy]

Sorry to dredge up this old topic again, but something which has probably been obvious to everyone all along has just occurred to me, namely that Pelafina's 'lyve/love' code in her Dec 24, '88 letter (as discussed on the previous page) should possibly be read in relation to her assertion on p. 630 (of HoL) that

it was love just the same Johnny. Believe me. For that, should I be
ashamed? For wanting to protect you from the pain of living? From the pain of loving?

Always from loving. Always for loving.

Always.

Perhaps my shame should really come from my failure.

Oddly enough, the previous instance of the word 'ashamed' in HoL is on p. 596 in the 'curse' letter, where Pelafina claims to be 'as sorry as [she is] ashamed' for having failed Johnny when he needed her the most. In other words, perhaps her shame and her failure there are somehow related to her confession later on, i.e. when he needed her most was when she was trying to save him from the pain of living by ending his life.

Naturally Johnny was unable to understand what his mother (thought she) was doing at the time, which only goes to show that she was in effect responding to an impulse (and a pain) within herself (the 'pain so utter' from p. 363, no doubt), which in turn might explain what she means by 'I lyve you'.

But we're getting off topic here, really. I think MoleculaRR's questions above are of great importance. But unfortunately I am ill-equipped to answer them at present.

[Stencil]

But what's up with the list of fishing gear list?

The only connection I can think of is the with the reels of fishing wire used as threads in navigating the labyrinth?

[g@rp]

...or a hook...? :?

[The_key_looker]

where is the fishing gear mentioned in TWL?? maybe I'll read the thread again, but seriously whose walden? I need to read those letteres again to understand this. haha that's what I get for heading into a thread with out my book.

[fearful_syzygy]

but seriously whose walden? [...] that's what I get for heading into a thread with out my book.

For this thread you'll need this book, with an introduction by Walden D. Wyrhta.

[Shadow Girl]

Originally posted by fearful_syzygy
How to explain the presence of the poem on p. 565?

It has been mentioned here that the poem read as a kind of response to the December 24, 1988 letter.

The poem on page 565 is in Zampano's Appendix as one of his poems. I find it very erie that, where Johnny never recieved the letter, Zampano seems to have written a response to it.

My question is this: How is this possible if the letter was never sent? Even more so if it was meant for Johnny? Are most of these letters, not to Johnny...but a kind of reverse of a "Dear John" letter written to Zampano?

I got the last idea while researching Dear John letters on wikipedia and got this:

While the exact origins of the phrase are unknown, it is commonly believed to have been invented by Americans during World War II. Large numbers of American troops were stationed overseas for many months or years, and as time passed many of their wives or girlfriends decided to begin a relationship with a new man rather than wait for their old one to return. As letters to servicemen from wives or girlfriends back home would typically contain affectionate language, a serviceman receiving a note beginning with a curt "Dear John" (as opposed to the expected "Dear Johnny", "My dearest John", or simply "Darling", for example) would instantly be aware of the letter's purpose.

I am quite fond of this idea, seeing as how Pelafina's last letter (May 3, 1989) starts out with "Dear John" where most of the others... especially save December 24, 1988 which is addressed to no one, and is not signed...begin with some form of _____ Johnny.