<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:times new roman,new york,times,serif;font-size:12pt"><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">From:</span></b> Lee Berman <severiansola@hotmail.com><br><div style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><b><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></b></font><br>>>Jerry Friedman: And yet, as I said, he wrote "Under Hill", where the gun specifically isn't <br>>>fired. I wonder whether he was thinking about the Chekhov quotation.<br> ><br>>You'll have to help me out with these. I am unfamiliar.<br> <br>You're familiar with the Chekhov quotation, just not with its authorship.<br><br>"From this period comes an observation of Chekhov's which has become known as "<a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chekhov%27s_gun" title="Chekhov's gun">Chekhov's gun</a>",
noted by Ilia Gurliand from a conversation: 'If in Act I you have a
pistol hanging on the wall, then it must fire in the last act.'"<br><br><span><a target="_blank" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Chekhov">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Chekhov</a></span><br><br>Did you mean you weren't familiar with "Under Hill" either? It's in <span style="font-style: italic;">Innocents Aboard</span>, and it's not my favorite. If you haven't read it and want to, it's at<br><br><span><a target="_blank" href="http://books.google.com/books?id=5Qkl_NxvC4gC&pg=PA68#v=onepage&q&f=false">http://books.google.com/books?id=5Qkl_NxvC4gC&pg=PA68#v=onepage&q&f=false</a></span><br><br>David Stockhoff is right to point out that the weapon doesn't appear till late in the story, so it's not like "Act I".<br>...<br><br>>>There's no accounting for taste. A conclusion that SOME people had been replaced would satisfy me <br>>>just fine.<br> <br>>This I agree with. That conclusion
doesn't suit me and I manipulate my interpretation of the story<br>>accordingly. My only plea would be that more people admit their own prejudices in interpretation<br>>of the stories and avoid wrapping one's self in a cloak of certitude based on "evidence", each piece of<br>>which is subject to individual interpretation.<br> <br>I don't think we have to have prejudices on every point. Any resolution of Veil's Hypothesis would suit me equally well, so I can base my interpretation on my understanding of the evidence. (On the other hand, if anyone here reads Language Log, they know I don't always work that way.)<br><br>Jerry Friedman<br></div></div>
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