Mark's Story Chapter 1 Once upon a time there was an average Joe named Jim. After the bagel incident, Jim had gone on to accrue obscene amounts of money, power, and fame, but still he lacked the one thing that could make him truly happy: an electronic copy of Woolf's "The Mark on the Wall," digitally signed by the author. And so, for more years than he could have counted on his severed left hand, Jim suffered in silence--until that fateful day when he remembered his alphanumeric pals. Jim: e? e: I'm here, Jim. Jim: Oh, good. I was afraid you'd abandoned me. e: I would never do that. Silly boy. Jim: Thanks, e. Let's dispense with the usual small talk so's this story don't get outta hand. I need Virginia Woolf's .sig and I need it bad. e: That shouldn't be a problemo. We need but a convenient temporal anomaly; I hear they're pretty common this time of year. Alice: Temporal anomaly detected at (12,63,5). Jim: Ah, the laundry chute. I'll allow it. Well, let's go, then. <zyllllp> Jim: Ow! Oh, e, that hurt! When are we? Alice: Current date is [be]51.Dec.02. It is cloudy, with a 3% chance of large hail. 3: Hey, Jim. Jim: Hey, 3. Woolf was still alive in 1940, correct? Alice: [p1613] -> "In 1941, ..., drowned herself in the nearby river Ouse." Jim: Okay, good. Let's form search parties--e and 3, you go west. 8, Alice, and I will go Mark: Excuse me. Looking for someone are you? Jim: Uh, yes. We're looking for a woman named Virginia Woolf, [gesturing] about this tall, born in 1882? Mark: Woolf! You seek Woolf! 8: Pure genius. Mark: Guy I am not. Wolf I am. Jim: Wolf? Woolf: No, Woolf. Please get your spoken homophones correct. Jim: Sorry, Alice usually fixes those. Anyway, I've come to get your autograph. If you could just use Alice's external keyboard here... Woolf: Certainly. [It takes Ms. Woolf a few minutes to sign the document, as she is a hunt-and-peck typist.] 3: Well, that was eazy. Alice: Spelling correction: eazy -> e.z. Jim: Thank you, Ms. Woolf, and may I say it was an honour to meat you. Woolf: Will there be anything else, gentlemen and computer? Jim: Hold on, let me think. e: Jim, was there a Freudian intention in the word meat you used in place of meet a few sentences ago? Jim: Ah, yes, I've always meant to ask you one question. Do you think your stream-of-consciousness writing style and its emphasis on "reflections" has any sort of connection to Flaubert's use of the external to describe the internal? Flaubert: Summon me, and here I yam! potato/leek wa Woolf: Flaubert. Flaubert. No, never heard of him. Though the word does have a nice woody quality to it. Caribou. Not like mint. 8: Lord, no, mint is much too tinny. Flaubert: My God, it can't be Virginia Woolf! Author of "To the Lighthouse" (1927)?! Famed guardian of the feminist spirit? I love your work! It was an inspiration to me, and to many other Realist authors of the mid-1800's. Woolf: Okay, thanks, I guess. Flaubert: Let me just say, Virginia--can I call you Virginia--that were it not for your stream-of-consciousness writing style and its emphasis on reflections, I never would have hit upon the concept of using the external to describe the internal. Though I do hate writing like that anyway. Myself, I'm a Romantic at heart. Woolf: Really. <scratches nose impatiently> Jim: As I thought. So, Gustave, Ms. Woolf's idea that people can only see the surface of others, the ripples on the pond of the soul as it were, is directly reflected [pun intended] in your work. Id est, you make no pretense of being able to understand the mind, and instead ask the reader to derive a person's inner feelings and thoughts from the external appearance. 3: Ice-cream! Where the hell is that resonating bass coming from? 8: The barbarians next door in Loft 3, I think. They're not human. e: I don't understand how this relates to Woolf. She uses thoughts in her work, something which Flaubert does not. Woolf: Yeah. Flaubert's work is thoughtless. Flaubert: Consider a three-tiered model: the soul, surface thoughts, and the external (including outward appearances). Neither of us put the "reality" of the soul in our works. I use the external to substitute or hint at internal processes of the soul, invoking surface thoughts occasionally. She uses the surface thoughts in place of the internal soul, invoking objects occasionally. Alice: Logic flaw: Woolf "pared the 'description of reality' down to a minimum" [1614] only in a few works, not in all works. Flaubert: Oh. Sorry about that. Jim: There's still a definite parallel in "The Mark on the Wall," though. Woolf: I kind of see what you're saying. 3: But Woolf uses objects as touchpoints in her stream-of- consciousness narrative, seeds from which her surface thoughts germinate and branch. And stuff. But Flaubert uses objects only. He doesn't use thoughts as touchpoints. Jim: I didn't say it was an *exact* parallel, just a close one. 3, I would appreciate it if you didn't undermine my arguments; I'm trying to get a good grade here. 3: Grades, grades, grades. All you're ever interested is grades. What about us? Jim: Us? 3: It's always "Not tonight, I have a headache, 3" or "I'm tired, 3" or "I don't have enough akira points, 3". How do you think _I_ feel? 8: Gustave, Virginia, it was nice meating you both. 3: If you keep this up, I'm going to have to go seek solace in R! 8: throw(R); // pre-emptive strike e: You two need to see a counselor, I think. I am the psychotherapist. Please, describe your problems. [From here it goes downhill. The psychotherapist is of no help. Jim and 3 go to sleep angry. Woolf and Flaubert have a brief love affair. 8 and Alice become bored. As does the writer.]