Subject
Re: Mr. Rae and Involution (fwd)
Date
Body
On Thu, 24 Jun 1999, Christopher Berg <Tentender@aol.com>
wrote:
> John Rea (whose name always reminds us all, I'm sure, of a rather famous
> psychologist) reminds me that "The I in the book cannot die" is contradicted
> by VN himself (as of course he contradicts everything about Vadim Vadimich)
> in that "The Eye" does, indeed, die within his own book. (Or am I making this
> up? It sounds too good to be true!)
>
I think Edgar Allen Poe was one of the first to try to circumvent the "I
cannot die" dictum. His concise method can be found in "The Facts in the
Case of M. Valdemar," in which a dead-but-still-hypnotized invalid
actually gets to say the words "I. . . am. . .dead." How lovely. As
is usual with Poe, the story mixes literary daring with geniune
creepiness.