Subject: (urth) Copperhead again

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Sun, 20 May 2001 04:50:36 +0000

Adam wrote:

[snip]
>>Besides, when Lilith was with Adam, they were still in Eden; what would he
have to "groose" about?<<
[snip]
>>So while Lilith is a seducer of men, she does so in order to engender
demons, which Jane Doe has no interest in; conversely, we apparently never
see Lilith using her sexuality to stir up discord.<<
[snip]

But that Lilith (the one in Eden) couldn't! There weren't any other people
around; not even Eve had been invented yet! <g>

[snip]
>>Incidentally, Lilith left Adam not because she wouldn't have sex with him,
but because she wouldn't have sex with him on top: "You will not never grunt
over me" indeed!<<
[snip]

The minute I read that, I was sure I had read that assertion before, that
someone (alga, I think) had posted it before, in another context. But when I
tried to use Ranjit's search engine to find it just now, it wasn't giving
any hits for *anything*, so I can't be certain. If the "who's-on-top"
assertion is valid, then the "grunt over me" comment cements the Jane
Doe-is-Lilith theory. It also doesn't hurt the idea that "Dhoss bhoyes" are
Cain and Abel.

>>I don't believe that if NP had been in office over a year, he would still
be referred to as a "new President," even if he had been elected for the
first time four months ago.<<

Agreed, which was what I was trying to point out in my first post on this
story. Regardless of exactly when or how he came to the office, he has been
president a minimum of six months, because there's no getting around the
fact that he was already president when he went up that hill the previous
autumn. There just aren't any good real-world arguments for referring to him
as "new" after that much time in office, yet Wolfe went out of his way to do
it. The best argument I have seen so far for calling him "new" is Nutria's,
which is thematic:

Nutria wrote:
>>It seems clear enough that the gadget switched an earthly copperhead with
a parallel-universe Lilith, and then the NEW president with a NEW and
unfallen Adam. Still president of the Garden, and the very image of God,
this unfallen Adam pronounces a divine curse upon Lilith.<<

Nutria:
[snip]
>>The New President knows that Boone's note will say both that he murdered
the man (which has been covered up by Rance -- implied) and also will tell
about Jane Doe, so the note must be suppressed.<<

I don't think Rance covered it up, which is why the NP said to him: "I'm
going to stay here, George, until this blows over a little. First the
murder, then this. Washington will be a zoo." Also, if Lilith was connected
to the murder, then the victim almost certainly had to be someone close to
the NP, therefor too prominent for their death to be kept from the press.
This also casts doubt on the idea that Boone was the murderer, otherwise why
wasn't he in jail, which he obviously wasn't?

>>I note some significant language on p. 3:
Rance says, "Find who, Mr. President?"
"Who the HELL do you think?"
"Jane Doe?"
"You're watching her, or you're DAMNED well supposed to be."
"We are." Rance said.
"A HELL of a lot of good it did...."
I think that's all the profanity in the story, which makes its presence
here significant.<<

There's more: "I was President, goddamnit, and he was trying to give me
orders." and "By God, this President stuff can be fun once in a while.", but
I'm not sure of your meaning. Please elucidate.

>>Chronology: The spring trip back to the West, and the fall trip back to
the West to watch football (p. 7) happened during the year of campaigning,
not after the NP was inaugurated, yet that the NP was already president in
the fall when he met with General Martens.<<

The NP specifically states: "I had been working hard. Not only *after my
inauguration*, but for more than a year before it. . . . Spring came and my
wife and I came back here; . . ."

>>But I don't think we have to imagine a parallel world or a disaster in the
US. People burning things in Spokane is nothing more than the Los Angeles
riots or the activities of environmentalists in Seattle -- nothing
apocalyptic.<<

That was my impression. I don't know when Wolfe wrote the story, but if it
was recent (say, this year), he may have had in mind the recent
demonstrations in Seattle you mention, but shifted them to Spokane to make
an awful pun: "Spoke Cain".

>>More: I don't see any reason to believe General Martens pushed any buttons
before he gave the gadget to the NP. He found it right away, phoned the NP
immediately, and the NP told him to bring it to him immediately.<<

The crash was in August. It was autumn when they went up on the hill, so it
was at least two months after the crash before the NP had the Changer.

-Roy

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

---

From: James Jordan <jbjordan4 at home.com>
Date: Mon, 21 May 2001 08:18:26 +0000

>I'm not sure of your meaning. Please elucidate.

         Oh, I just think it associates Jane Doe with hell and damnation, 
anticipating what is shortly revealed about her. The quotation you added 
links being President with God, which again seems significant in that the 
NP is the equivalent of Adam, the Image of God. Obviously, sometimes 
writers put profanity into the mouths of characters simply to provide 
characterization; but sometimes they use it more thematically and 
symbolically. (Think of the use of "God damn" and "God damned world" in the 
film "Network," where the profanity is deliberate and virtually the theme 
of the movie.) It appears to me that Wolfe is using it deliberately and 
thematically in this story.

Jim Jordan