(urth) Home Fires questions

[David Stockhoff]

On 10/19/2011 3:59 PM, Stephen Hoy wrote:
> David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net> wrote:
> > > > At the formal dinner, his family reunites. All three have 
> trouble recognizing one another (except when they don't). Two are 
> known to be not entirely who they think they are. Surely the third is 
> also not entirely who he is.
> > >
> > > I do wonder how any of the Blue family can recognize each other to 
> any degree because they're all replacements/overlays. Still, somehow 
> Chelle recognized her replacement mother at the airport while failing 
> to recognize Skip. Clearly an important clue.
> >
> > Some notes about the beginning. First, it seems to begin with a 
> dream, but the dream (Skip's memory of contracting with Chelle, 
> looking in a mirror, recoiling) is followed by a reality that appears 
> to be identical (he worries about Chelle, he looks in the mirror, 
> recoils).
> > Second, Skip gets his own "yellow copy." He wonders if it's 
> work-related, then tells himself he knows what it is, then tells 
> himself it's something else. It turns out to be a message concerning 
> Chelle. Pretty much all the narration here is immediately negated or 
> contradicted. What was the other thing it could have been?
>
> I agree about the dream-like start--a re-read of Chapter One feels 
> like Skip is recovering from a recent mind-plant. Note also the 
> details toward chapter's end, from the window conversion paragraph 
> thru the tea garden paragraph--the open window and budding roses 
> suggest an expansion of consciousness.
>
> Wolfe doesn't openly discuss the effects of superposing one mind onto 
> another without first performing a wipe, but that seems to be what 
> we're both considering. I think Skip has an overlay of some sort, 
> possibly an agent's persona designated to watch over Chelle.

Yes. And that would explain a few things: (1) if the agent rider (or 
observer?) is very young, that would explain both Skip's quick reactions 
and his horror at Skip's age. Mist may be a clue. (2) That lets Mr White 
be the same kind of composite persona. Hard to say who is riding whom. 
(3) Skip's ready production of an alibi for Chelle's mom (I still find 
it suspicious). (4) Possibly, just possibly, the memory of rallying the 
nearly-unarmed Ellen Woodward and others when the agent rode someone 
else. Is the agent a kind of mental Sky Marshal? Odd that this "agent" 
seems experienced at hijacking-type situations; when Skip emerges from 
the mists, he hasn't even thought of his cruise idea yet. Maybe 
hijackings have become common, but then why no Marines on the ship?

And Chelle appears not to be valuable anyway, at least not in the way 
some characters seem to think.

>
> > Odds/ends:
>
> > (1) Skip's hands are described as "wrinkled and old" in his dream. 
> Is this merely his exaggerated worry that Chelle will find him too 
> old? He's only in his late forties.
> > (2) the sentence "Five hundred." (This after something "seizes" Skip 
> at the mirror and before he "shudders.") Years? Hours? Surely not noras.
>
> Here's a thought...a year may not be a solar year.
>
> What if a year is actually ten hundred-days? Is there anything in Home 
> Fires that might contradict this metrification?  Twenty-two years of 
> hundred-time equals about sixty of ours, which would help explain 
> Chelle's failure to id Skip right off the ship, as well as Skip's 
> early self-perception as "wrinkled and old." Also, it helps explain 
> the confusion of Martha Ott, the disoriented elderly woman at the end 
> of the book who sips tea with Chelle at Carrera's Cafe. On the down 
> side, it's not a world-building premise I'd expect an author to obscure.

There was some discussion of time a few months ago (see "Home Fires and 
calendar reform"). The year seems to be 400 days, with 100-day quarters 
and (I guess) 33-day months. So 500 days would be more than a year. I 
just returned the book to the library---how long is Chelle supposed to 
be on leave? Anyway, the agent's assignment to Skip could be that long.

Now, if you allow massive rounding (odd in a metric time system, but 
maybe common among people who haven't adapted to it yet), "200 days, 
about half a year" could mean almost 250 days, so a year might be 500 
days. BTW, I think you're off by a decimal: 22 x 100 = 2200; 2200/365 = 
6 of our years or 5.5 400-day years. Or did I misunderstand you?

Another approach: if tours of duty are similar to our own, i.e., 6 
months to 2 to 4 years, maybe that's a place to start. Given 
interstellar distances, 2 years may be the minimum time Chelle was away. 
Would 1000 days be a typical tour, or 500 + star travel? How many years 
would pass on Earth?
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