{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2589", "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": 2589, "subject": "Free Live Free", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "2001-04-18T11:12:30+00:00", "last": "2001-04-20T09:38:12+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Jordan", "address": "jbjordan4 at home.com" }, "date": "2001-04-18T11:12:30+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Free Live Free", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tI just re-read Free Live Free, and since this list is dormant, thought I'd \ntoss this out to see if anyone wants to discuss it a bit. Here are some of \nmy thoughts, to start us out:\n\tI do think that the Wonderful Wizard of Oz plays a major role in the book. \nIt's alluded to a number of times. But the narrative is greatly \ntransmogrified. FLF is Wolfe's book about America, and to spring off of \nthis quintessentially American fantasy is very apropos. I've not (yet) \nre-read WWOz so I'm going by memory here; but:\n\t1. We begin by arriving at a house presided over by a wizard (not a witch, \nand not a bad person), Ben Free. That house is torn down, and the \ncharacters scatter. Compare the beginning of WWOz.\n\t2. At the end we find the Good Witch of the South (Glinda; formerly Madame \nSerpentina).\n\t3. The movement is from the house, to a hotel (Emerald City), to an insane \nasylum (abode of the wicked witch of the west), back to the hotel (Emerald \nCity), and then on to High Country (the journey south, where the characters \nin WWOz are tested), and finally back to the original house (now \ncorresponding to the city of the south).\n\t4. The destruction of the psychiatric witchery of the insane asylum \ncorresponds to the defeat of the wicked witch of the west and her horde of \nmonkeys.\n\t5. Notice that it is while in the hotel the first time (in the Emerald \nCity), that the four receive a communication from the moon via Serpentina \nabout their destinies (compare the wizard's promise in WWOz).\n\tThus, in a general way the movement of the novel seems to track WWOz. But \nthere are some more general allusions, it seems. For instance, the field of \npoppies seems to link with the drugging of patients in the asylum, though \nit is not in the same narrative order as WWOz. Does the encounter with the \nqueen of the mice link with Serpentina's return to the gypsy king just \nbefore going to the asylum? I suspect that a re-read of WWOz will show many \nmore parallels.\n\tSecond, the characters: I suspect that many of the minor characters come \nfrom later Oz books, since Wolfe is familiar with them. I'm not interested \nin reading these to see if this might be the case, however.\n\tThe four main characters each have a besetting sin. These seem to link \nwith four of the Seven Deadly Sins (Pride, Greed, Envy, Anger, Lust, \nGluttony, Sloth).\n\tFat Candy - gluttony. That's a no-brainer. (Her name links to this also, \nof course.)\n\tOzzie (Osgood = Oz-Good) Barnes (the salesman) - lust. I think his \nmarriage broke up because of unfaithfulness, though this is not stated.\n\tStubb (the detective) - pride. He thinks he can handle everything, and has \na \"little man complex\" or \"Napoleon complex.\" As a short man consumed by \nbeing short, he's a \"stub.\"\n\tMadame Serpentina - witchcraft, perhaps greed as lust for power (the sin \nof the Serpent, Satan). Also, as a gypsy pickpocket she's \"greedy.\" (Note \nthat her name originally was Marie, Mary, but that she has fallen from this \n\"Christian\" name into serving Satan as Madame Serpentina.)\n\tEach is trapped by his/her sin just before being offered a new life. This \ncorresponds to the tests that the characters in WWOz undergo in their \njourney south in the second half of the book:\n\tCandy by her lust for food and drink by Sweet (note the name: sweet guy \nand sweet food);\n\tBarnes by his lust for sex at the Flying Carpet cabaret;\n\tStubb by his pride in thinking he can handle the situation with Cliff \n(Stubb \"falls over the cliff\" because he's not careful enough);\n\tMadame Serpentina by her lust for forbidden knowledge and power \n(symbolized by Egypt, the ancient enemy).\n\tNow, in WWOz the three Oz characters are animal, vegetable, and mineral. I \ndon't know how Wolfe might be playing with this. But they are also mind, \nemotion, and will.\n\tStubb - very smart; mind (Scarecrow; vegetable?)\n\tCandy - very loving; emotion (Tin Woodman; mineral?)\n\tSerpentina - very determined; will (Lion; animal?)\n\tWhich leaves Barnes as Dorothy, and Little Ozzie as Toto.\n\tAnd of course Ben Free as the Wizard. Free is not a humbug, but I think he \nis trapped in \"Oz\" (see below), and only escapes through death. Free does \nmove upwards (compare the wizard's balloon).\n\tNow, overlaid on this fully American fantasy (WWOz) is Wolfe's reflections \non America. America used to be free, but it isn't any longer. (Ben Free = \nbeen free). America has lost her vision, the vision of a free nation, \nsymbolized by the abandonment of High Country (the high ground, the ideal). \nAmerica is full of people living in destructive sins (the four characters) \nand presided over by psychiatrists, who are themselves as insane as the \nAmerica-Asylum they guard. America is a fallen and perverted Land of Oz. \nBen Free escapes this Oz by going back to early America, and so never \nleaves Oz until he dies. The others are given the opportunity to transform \nthis fallen Oz into a good Oz, not by killing back witches, but by killing \nthe bad parts of themselves.\n\tFree-Whitten goes back to the days of Lewis and Clark, when America was \nfree, and when Americans still were explorers with vision. That's his \npersonal escape, but it's not an answer to the problem. The answer is for \nAmericans to go back to being moral and spiritual people. The four \ncharacters are given the chance to change their lives and to become such \npeople. As such, perhaps they as the Quadrivium can lead America forward \n(and back) to what America should be (and once was). The moral part of \ntheir transformation is clear, but the need for Serpentina to see through \nthe fakeries and dangers of witchcraft points to a need for \nreligious/spiritual transformation also.\n\tThus, in a very broad sense, Ben Free is partly a kind of Christ figure, \nproviding an opportunity to have a \"new birth.\"\n\tA final thought. I don't know where the gizmo was hidden in the \"wall\" of \nBen Free's house, but I'm betting that it was behind the sign that read \nFree Live Free. That seems to be hinted at in the last chapter. Little \nOzzie says \"there's a sign,\" and \"sign\" can have two meanings. The physical \nsign is Free Live Free. Barnes seems to link this with the gizmo. But I'm \nnot sure about this.\n\nJBJordan (Nutria)" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "William Ansley", "address": "wansley at warwick.net" }, "date": "2001-04-20T01:11:49+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Free Live Free", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 11:12 AM -0500 4/18/01, James Jordan wrote:\nSecond, the characters: I suspect that many of the minor \ncharacters come from later Oz books, since Wolfe is familiar with \nthem. I'm not interested in reading these to see if this might be \nthe case, however." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I have seen this idea that there are strong parallels to _The \nWonderful Wizard of Oz_ (aka _The Wizard of Oz_ in later printings) \nin _Free Live Free_ batted around in this list over and over, but \nhave never found it very convincing. (Didn't this idea originate in a \nreview by John Clute?)\n\nBut you make a better case than I've seen before. However, I still \nthink that the Oz associations are much looser than you do; I really \ndon't think Wolfe took any of the minor characters from later Oz \nbooks. I think I am qualified to make this statement. I have re-read \nall 14 of Baum's original books fairly recently when I wrote my long \nseries of essays (well, really, rough drafts of essays) about the Oz \nreferences in Wolfe's novella, \"The Eyeflash Miacles.\" This is \npresumably how you know that he is familiar with the books.\n\nAnd don't forget the movie! It is different from the book in many \nways, but it is explicitly referred to in FLF and the Oz books \naren't. Wolfe's Oz references in TEM are almost all from the books, \nor could be, but there is one reference that can only come from the \nmovie. The character/hallucination Little Tib perceives as Dorothy \ntowards the end of TEM wears ruby slippers; in the book they were \nsilver shoes.\n\nTEM seems to have another link with FLF, it, along with _Peace_ and \nsome of Wolfe's other short stories including _The Hero as Werewolf_ \nand _Forlesen_ have characters who mourn a \"lost American past\" and \nfeel that they or their ancestors were somehow banished from their \nrightful place in the American present.\n\nBut you make a good case and if I have time I will re-read FLF and \nkeep a very sharp eye out for Oz stuff, especially from the later \nbooks.\n\nOn a more or less unrelated note, you say:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Thus, in a very broad sense, Ben Free is partly a kind of \nChrist figure, providing an opportunity to have a \"new birth.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think Wolfe makes an extended joke about this in FLF, as I wrote \nquite a while ago (May 6, 1998). I have made a few minor edits, but I \nam quoting in full because nobody commented on this message when I \noriginally posted it, so possibly no one remembers it:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I re-read FLF a while ago and noticed something that hasn't been discussed\nin this group. Since all (most?) of Wolfe's major works have a Christ\nfigure in them, one would expect FLF to have one, too. Ben Free seems to be\nthe closest thing to one. He does offer the four protagonists a \"new life\"\nat the end of the book, just before the epilogue, and just before this he\nsays that he arranged that they all get their greatest desires \"because\nI've learned that we all have to get them before we can have better ones.\"\n\nBut, in FLF, it is (more or less) directly implied that Ben Free is the Son\nof God. Dr Makee \"is\" God. This comes from Ch. 11, P. 69 of the Tor pb. ed.:\n\n---------------------------------------------\n\"Do I look like God?\" the old doctor said. \"I don't know.\" As a matter of\nfact he did look like God. He was a small, elderly man who sported a little\nwhite beard and an even whiter mustache; the collar of a tattersall\nshirt--an almost infallible sign of the presense of deity--peeped above the\ncollar of his overcoat.\n---------------------------------------------\n\nand Ben Free is his son, from ch. 31, p. 206:\n\n---------------------------------------------\nThe old doctor began to pump the blood pressure cuff. \"He was my son, you\nknow.\" Barnes stared at him, and he chuckled again. \"Not my actual\nson--Tommy died a long while ago, and I think Ben was really a few years\nolder than I am. But we used to pretend that way and we had a lot of fun.\n...\"\n---------------------------------------------\n\nand finally this from ch. 36, p. 241-242:\n\n---------------------------------------------\nBarnes shook his head.\n \"She said, 'God, you gotta take care of Baby Phil because he won't never\ntake care of himself.' I wasn't there, but Bubba was, and he told me. God\nhas to get me out, and you're his chosen instrument.\"\n \"Instrument, hell. I never even met Him!\"\n Dr. Makee chuckled and nudged Barnes with an elbow. \"Don't be too sure.\"\n---------------------------------------------\n\nNow all of this is done in a playful, not to mention peculiar, way and\nprobably isn't meant to be taken seriously.\n\nBut then FLF is a playful, not to mention peculiar, novel. Moreover, I am\nnot at all sure it isn't meant to be taken seriously." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "William Ansley" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Jordan", "address": "jbjordan at gnt.net" }, "date": "2001-04-20T09:38:12+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Free Live Free", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think Wolfe makes an extended joke about this in FLF, as I wrote quite a \nwhile ago (May 6, 1998). I have made a few minor edits, but I am quoting \nin full because nobody commented on this message when I originally posted \nit, so possibly no one remembers it:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "William Ansley" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " Sorry. I looked back through all my posts, and did not see this, \nor I'd've given you credit. Good discussion of Makee (maker) and Ben \n(Hebrew for son). Makes sense to me.\n\nJim Jordan" } ] } ] }