{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1418", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 1418, "subject": "\"KM\" defense II", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "1999-03-07T02:39:52+00:00", "last": "1999-03-08T17:41:14+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "1999-03-07T02:39:52+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"KM\" defense II", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On 3-4-99 Tony Ellis wrote:\nOnce again: since the story doesn't tell us one way or the other whether\nthe elder Malone grew up on the estate, it can't matter. We're not\nsupposed to know precisely what memories KM has or believes he has. All\nwe need to know is that he thinks he's the son of Betty and the elder\nMalone, and that there never was a son.<<" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "----------------------------------------------------------------------------\n------------------------------------------\n\n But we _do_ know what memories he claims. He states that his father was\nthe \"man-of-all-work\", his mother the \"parlor maid\" (p-45). He does _not_\nstate that he was the son of the dead couple. The elder Malone was the\n\"stableman\".\n The narrator says of the staff-photo he is shown: \"Two dozen people,\nmost of them in livery of one kind or another, ...\" (p-40) This is not mere\nverbal ornamentation by Wolfe; it is a clue. Twenty-four people to service\nan estate occupied by two people is overkill. That they are in livery\nindicates that they wear \"uniforms\" appropriate to their peculiar stations.\nA gardener wears different clothing from a chauffeur or stableman.\nPresumably a parlor maid wears clothing that distinguishes her from other\nmaids. There is something of a caste system involved and one servant does\nnot perform the services that are properly the domain of another, as in\ncertain trade unions. The Pines is built on an Italian model, but the\nservants are stereotypically British. My point here is that with such a\nlarge staff, each position is discrete. A man-of-all-work is _not_ a\nstableman.\n KM's memories of growing up on the estate are just what he says they\nare,and he went into the orphanage because his parents \"lost their places\".\nYes, he is possessed, but by the estate itself. Which is what happened to\nMarcella, as well." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Tony also wrote:\n.... No offense, but your explanation turns a fine," }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "insidiously creepy story into something pretty flat. <<\n\n How so? Our fundamental disagreement is only over who/what does the\npossessing, not the fact of it. My idea accounts for Marcella's otherwise\ninexplicable behavior at the end of the story.\n\nRoy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Tony Ellis", "address": "tony.ellis at futurenet.co.uk" }, "date": "1999-03-08T17:41:14+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: \"KM\" defense II", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Roy wrote:\n But we _do_ know what memories he claims. He states that his father was\nthe \"man-of-all-work\", his mother the \"parlor maid\" (p-45). He does _not_\nstate that he was the son of the dead couple. The elder Malone was the\n\"stableman\"." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "You're suggesting that as well as the elder Malone and Betty Malone, there were\nanother -two- Malones on the estate who were KM's parents. To have two Malones on\nan estate may be considered a coincidence; to have four begins to sound like\ncontrivance. Why do they all have to be called Malone? Why didn't Gene Wolfe call\nBetty and her murderer Derby and Joan, and avoid needless confusion? And why does\nthe narrator not find any mention of your two Malones, or their child, when he\nresearches KM's story? Most of all, why are we set up to think that the elder\nMalone and Betty were KM's parents, and why are we then carefully told at the end\nof story that they weren't? If KM has always \"known\" they weren't, what was the\npoint?\n\nThe answer to all those questions is that there weren't four Malones on the\nestate as you suggest, there were two, as the story tells us. Betty Malone and\nher murderer have the same name so that KM can think they were his parents, and\nwe are told that this was coincidental so that we can realise he's wrong." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " A man-of-all-work is _not_ a stableman." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm not sure I share your certainty, but I don't think it matters anyway. Priest,\nI seem to recall, says that the murder happened before his time. He's certainly\ntelling the \"story\" of the murder, as it has come down to him, and in the telling\nperhaps Malone the man-of-all-work has become Malone the stableman. Kevin Malone,\nbeing so much closer to the source, doesn't make this mistake. Just a thought." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Yes, he is possessed, but by the estate itself." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I did consider this once, but it doesn't really tie in with the details of the\nstory. Why did the estate \"want\" to possess Kevin Malone? If we were told that\nthe place burned down after the murder, or was converted into a theme park, we\ncould perhaps understand why it would want to possess someone and make them\nrebuild it, but as the facts of the story stand, why should the estate bother?\nAnd why does KM want so badly to live as a servant, and sleep in the servant's\nquarters of the house he owns? Doesn't that sound more like someone who is\npossessed by a specific person, rather than a whole estate?\n\nI think I've now said all that I want to about \"Kevin Malone\", and then some. If\neveryone else on this list hasn't got fed up with posts on this subject, I know I\nhave. Read the story, folks." } ] } ] }