Subject: (urth) "KM" defense II

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Sun, 07 Mar 1999 02:39:52 +0000

On 3-4-99 Tony Ellis wrote:

>>Once again: since the story doesn't tell us one way or the other whether
the elder Malone grew up on the estate, it can't matter. We're not
supposed to know precisely what memories KM has or believes he has. All
we need to know is that he thinks he's the son of Betty and the elder
Malone, and that there never was a son.<<
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    But we _do_ know what memories he claims. He states that his father was
the "man-of-all-work", his mother the "parlor maid" (p-45). He does _not_
state that he was the son of the dead couple. The elder Malone was the
"stableman".
    The narrator says of the staff-photo he is shown: "Two dozen people,
most of them in livery of one kind or another, ..." (p-40) This is not mere
verbal ornamentation by Wolfe; it is a clue. Twenty-four people to service
an estate occupied by two people is overkill. That they are in livery
indicates that they wear "uniforms" appropriate to their peculiar stations.
A gardener wears different clothing from a chauffeur or stableman.
Presumably a parlor maid wears clothing that distinguishes her from other
maids. There is something of a caste system involved and one servant does
not perform the services that are properly the domain of another, as in
certain trade unions. The Pines is built on an Italian model, but the
servants are stereotypically British. My point here is that with such a
large staff, each position is discrete. A man-of-all-work is _not_ a
stableman.
    KM's memories of growing up on the estate are just what he says they
are,and he went into the orphanage because his parents "lost their places".
Yes, he is possessed, but by the estate itself. Which is what happened to
Marcella, as well.

Tony also wrote:

>>.... No offense, but your explanation turns a fine,
insidiously creepy story into something pretty flat.<g>   <<

    How so? Our fundamental disagreement is only over who/what does the
possessing, not the fact of it. My idea accounts for Marcella's otherwise
inexplicable behavior at the end of the story.

Roy

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/

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From: Tony Ellis <tony.ellis at futurenet.co.uk>
Date: Mon, 08 Mar 1999 17:41:14 +0000

> state that he was the son of the dead couple. The elder Malone was the

You're suggesting that as well as the elder Malone and Betty Malone, there were
another -two- Malones on the estate who were KM's parents. To have two Malones on
an estate may be considered a coincidence; to have four begins to sound like
contrivance. Why do they all have to be called Malone? Why didn't Gene Wolfe call
Betty and her murderer Derby and Joan, and avoid needless confusion? And why does
the narrator not find any mention of your two Malones, or their child, when he
researches KM's story? Most of all, why are we set up to think that the elder
Malone and Betty were KM's parents, and why are we then carefully told at the end
of story that they weren't? If KM has always "known" they weren't, what was the
point?

The answer to all those questions is that there weren't four Malones on the
estate as you suggest, there were two, as the story tells us. Betty Malone and
her murderer have the same name so that KM can think they were his parents, and
we are told that this was coincidental so that we can realise he's wrong.

>  A man-of-all-work is _not_ a stableman.

I'm not sure I share your certainty, but I don't think it matters anyway. Priest,
I seem to recall, says that the murder happened before his time. He's certainly
telling the "story" of the murder, as it has come down to him, and in the telling
perhaps Malone the man-of-all-work has become Malone the stableman. Kevin Malone,
being so much closer to the source, doesn't make this mistake. Just a thought.

> Yes, he is possessed, but by the estate itself.

I did consider this once, but it doesn't really tie in with the details of the
story. Why did the estate "want" to possess Kevin Malone? If we were told that
the place burned down after the murder, or was converted into a theme park, we
could perhaps understand why it would want to possess someone and make them
rebuild it, but as the facts of the story stand, why should the estate bother?
And why does KM want so badly to live as a servant, and sleep in the servant's
quarters of the house he owns? Doesn't that sound more like someone who is
possessed by a specific person, rather than a whole estate?

I think I've now said all that I want to about "Kevin Malone", and then some. If
everyone else on this list hasn't got fed up with posts on this subject, I know I
have. Read the story, folks.