Subject: (urth) the dog-boy of Carnies Past

From: Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis at siriusfiction.com>
Date: Sat, 03 Aug 2002 17:45:23 +0000

Roy quoted me and wrote:
>>This might be something, because it would mean that Weer loses Olivia,
>>chases after Lois-as-Olivia, sees the photo of Doris-as-Olivia, and then,
>>in the end of the book, finally hears Olivia's voice again (bringing
>>closure to this thread).
>
>Not to nit-pick, and I know we covered this before, but there was no photo
>of Doris. As I read it, the two sepia photos depict a total of three people.
>One is the girlie picture of Candy, alone, that Charlie mentioned in the
>letter. She is the "tramp" Miss Hadow refers to, who looks like Carole
>Lombard and has an old-fashioned hairdo. The other photo is of two men; one
>of them very tall (who is probably Tom Lavine), and a much shorter man
>(possibly J. T. Smart).

(Oh good, my message got through after all!)

Ugh, right -- no photo of Doris, just one of Candy (graphic description of
another one of Candy), and the one with the two guys.  Where Candy is
supposedly the half-sister to Doris. So Weer's interest in Doris is not
from his actually seeing Doris.

In dealing with the Three Visitors of President Weer, is the "A Christmas
Carol" model of past, present, and future ghosts still okay?  (Note the
Charles Dickens  link to Charlie Turner's letter, too.)  Where Bill Batton
is the ghost of the Present (factory, maybe "freak-factory"),  Charlie
Turner is the ghost of the Past (carny), and Mrs. Porter is the ghost of
the Future (grave)?

Dimly I recall going over all this, but still I persist in wondering.  Odd
that the sepia picture has Smart on it . . . putting aside the "novelty
photo" notion that the sepia is artificial, Smart is dead at the point Weer
sees the picture, so it has emphasis on the Past.  (It also has a weird
connotation of afterlife as carny . . . would that be heaven or hell?)
Assuming the sepia is natural, the photo was taken years ago when Smart was
connected with the carnies . . . but the photo might suggest a stronger
bond than merely the secret "freak-maker" pharmacist -- he seems like one
of the "family."  But maybe not.

Anyway, if Charlie Turner is the ghost of the Past, then he may have a
timewarping quality around him which causes the apparant time paradoxes in
much of our thinking on Doris.  If Weer intuits that in talking with
Charlie he is somehow seeing into the past of Julius T. Smart (as it
happens rather than as completed action), then what does he see
(figuratively speaking) in Doris?

And is Sherry another avatar of Olivia (a small-town Auntie Mame), or is
she something different (the real Lolita)?

Uh-oh, I'm caught in an image whirlpool again . . .

=Statues and characters=
Venus of Milo and armless Cleopatra the Seal Girl (aka Janet, mother of
Charlie)
Marble-ized cuckholded husband in the Arabian Nights and Mr. Tilly
China Napoleon and Julius Smart

Back to Janet Turner.  We know a surprising amount about her family.  Is
Turner her married name?  Her brother, with wife and farm, does he live
around Cassionsville? (I know we've wondered about that one before, but if
Turner is her married name, then gee, she could be related to the Lorns or
the Greens.  Or even somehow to the Weers?)

=mantis=

Sirius Fiction
booklets on Gene Wolfe, John Crowley
29 copies of "Snake's-hands" until OP!
http://www.siriusfiction.com/

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From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2002 08:16:59 +0000

>from his actually seeing Doris.

Ah, yes. I had forgotten that the mysterious Mr. Mason was the father of
Candy and Arline, as well as Doris. That's another strike against the idea
that Weer was the father of Doris. So far as we know, Weer never married at
all, much less twice. It would also make him the father of Candy, which puts
another ugly twist on the girlie picture Charlie sent him. But then, why
does Charlie write: "Anyway, if you have any comments on the picture you
would like to make, go ahead and make them to me and I will pass them along
to Candy; she will be glad to hear from you."? Why should Candy be glad to
hear from Weer? Who is he to her? Surely not her father!

>that the sepia picture has Smart on it . . .

I said only that it was "possibly" Smart. Against that idea is the near
certainty that the tall man with thick glasses is Tom Lavine. Tom's
constitution is such that, as Charlie writes, he "won't live long". If the
sepia is natural, the picture taken decades ago, how likely is it that Tom
would still be alive to pay court to Doris at a time when Weer was about
fifty? Charlie referred to Tom as a "kid". Weer was president for only about
15 years before he died, not enough time for the photos to have faded and
turned brown on the day he showed them to Miss Hadow. If the sepia was
faked, the pictures still shouldn't have faded in 15 years. In other words,
it would be pretty hard for Tom Lavine to have been a contemporary of both
Smart and Doris.

>the Greens.  Or even somehow to the Weers?)

We are given no hint as to who Charlie's father might be, but Turner must be
Janet's maiden name; Smart notes that she wears no wedding band (142). The
surviving brother inherited the family farm, but the only hint as to its
location is Janet's accent (or lack of one), which Smart thinks "might be
from Ohio or maybe Pennsylvania" (139).

-Roy

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From: Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis at siriusfiction.com>
Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2002 16:25:29 +0000

>hear from Weer? Who is he to her? Surely not her father!

Well right, there is the question of what Charlie's motives are and whether
Charlie and Weer are on the same page, as it were.  As we've discussed
before, it sure seems like Charlie is setting up some sort of scam to get
money out of Weer, but when Weer seems to go for it, suddenly Charlie has
to fold the project up and disappear again.  What spooked the scam?

"Mason" has ties to the stoney fate of Mr. Tilly, as we've said before.
The story of Tilly, while Southern Gothic in tone, seems at root to be a
tale from the Arabian Nights involving a cheating wife and her semi-statue
husband.

Mr. Tilly + Mrs. Tilly
          |
       Rodney

Janet + Mr. X
      |
    Charlie Turner

Mr. Mason + Mrs. Mason
          /\
     Candy  Arline

Mr. Mason + other woman
          |
        Doris

Uh oh, style whirlpool . . .

As Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus, in PEACE do two threads
resolve into two separate groups?

ARABIAN NIGHTS crops up in the "ben Yahya and the Marid" (an "in the style
of" tale about Weer, Smart, Olivia, and the factory), in the Tilly story (a
real one in disguise, about Tilly, Mrs. Tilly, Janet, and Charlie by
Smart), in the unexpected presence of the Persian room of the mansion.

European fairy tales (specifically Grimms?) show up in "The Princess and
her Three Suitors" (another "in the style of," tale about Olivia) and the
fate of Doris (a disguised version of Cinderella).

The Arabian tales presented seem to involve inheritance from non-relatives.

The fairy tales here (and maybe the others in PEACE, I don't know) involve
courtship.

Things get very murky with Tilly and the carnies.  Surely we have discussed
in the past the possibility that Charlie is the son of Tilly and Janet?  He
may be "Rodney" (i.e., there is no other son, it is a lie that the son
died), he may be Rodney's half-brother.

Then the rather intense way that, the night after telling Margaret Lorn the
story of Tilly on their fateful picnic, Weer dreams of the story, and sees
walking statues, and deals with the dog-boy . . . who comes between Weer
and Margaret (146).

The linkage of Weer to Charlie Turner might only be a product of the fact
that Weer inherited from Smart who inherited from Tilly, and Tilly created
freaks for the carnies.  Or there might be buried bloodlines involved.

>it would be pretty hard for Tom Lavine to have been a contemporary of both

Right, but to resolve the time paradoxes (and also examine "Doris <> Den's
daughter") I'm playing with the idea that Charlie is, in effect, a time
traveller from the past, ala Ghost of Carnies Past.  (The other view I'm
toying with would be Smart in Carny Hell -- the photo is real time, like
Pickman's model [Lovecraft story], showing Smart [hello Den, wish you were
here <g>] and the devil's Candy.)  Charlie time-traveler might age as he
goes into his future and grow young as he returns to his past (Wolfe has
played with this side-effect of time travel); if so, then items he carries
may also age, thus a fresh photo becomes sepia photo (this would be exactly
like Thyme in EMPIRES OF FOLIAGE AND FLOWER).

Again, I'm saying that Charlie is providing a "window to the past" just
like the ghost of Christmas past does for Scrooge.

>from Ohio or maybe Pennsylvania" (139).

Yes, and we have reason to believe that Cassionsville is in Ohio, home
state of Quantrill (194).

=mantis=

Sirius Fiction

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From: Robert Borski <rborski at charter.net>
Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2002 17:53:58 +0000

Dog-determined Roy has written:

--Ah, yes. I had forgotten that the mysterious Mr. Mason was the father of
Candy and Arline, as well as Doris. That's another strike against the idea
that Weer was the father of Doris. So far as we know, Weer never married at
all, much less twice. It would also make him the father of Candy, which puts
another ugly twist on the girlie picture Charlie sent him. But then, why
does Charlie write: "Anyway, if you have any comments on the picture you
would like to make, go ahead and make them to me and I will pass them along
to Candy; she will be glad to hear from you."? Why should Candy be glad to
hear from Weer? Who is he to her? Surely not her father!--

But does the mysterious Mr. Mason even exist? As Charlie writes to Den
"[Doris] was a kid that belonged to Mr. Mason (whoever he was--I myself
never laid eyes on him and there were quite a few people around the lot that
would have given you nine to five that there never was one."

This to me suggests the strong plausibility that the notion of a "Mister
Mason"--at least in Doris's case--is a nom de convenience. Mrs. Mason needs
to explain where Doris has come from--she may have been or is being paid to
be her ward, and "Mister Mason" may have placed her in the carnival to rid
himself of the illegitimate child who may be a major embarassment for
him--especially if he's on-track to be a major town figure. (There's also
the potential of statutory rape charges if someone like Sherry Gold is
involved.)

Charlie also notes that "Mr. M." must have been quite a ladies' man. But
while lifetime bachelor Den Weer may not have bedded Margie Lorn, surely
Sherry Gold and Lois Arbuthnot were not his only sexual conquests--a virgin
well into his forties if indeed so.

Note too that "M" upside down is "W."

In other words I'll take that 9-to-5 bet.

Robert Borski

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From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2002 21:22:07 +0000

>the potential of statutory rape charges if someone like Sherry Gold is

Whoever the real Mr. Mason may have been (Tilly or Smart or Weer or Other),
the cover-story in Charlie's letter is that Mr. M. has just died. Even if
that's a lie, and ignoring the problem of Doris being at least ten years too
old to be the daughter of Den and Sherry, _where has she been for the last
fifteen years or so since birth_?

Tilly had been dead for forty years before Charlie showed up at the plant.
Smart had recently died (but not, I think, recently enough to have been the
departed father Doris claimed), but surely he could have provided better for
a child (where had he kept her all that time?), and who was the mother? The
difficulties of Den being the father are even greater than for Smart.
Timeline problems aside, Doris's mother is said to have been dead for some
time before her father. If Sherry was that mother, then her death should
have precipitated Weer's stroke. Weer had _not_ had a stroke before
Charlie's visit. Besides, where had mother and child been living before
Sherry's death? With Weer? I don't think so. More importantly, with whom had
Doris been living during the time between her mother's death and the "death"
of her "father"? Weer certainly wasn't dead. What circumstance caused him to
suddenly farm out his daughter to the circus? Adam has already addressed the
improbability of Weer doing such a thing.

Then there is the problem of Mrs. Mason. Why should she, ostensibly the
jilted woman, feel a moral obligation (if she felt one) to finish raising
another woman's daughter? What hold did Weer (if he was Mr. M.) have on her?
Money? Not according to Charlie's account, and her niggardly treatment of
Doris seems to affirm that. If Charlie's account of Doris's story is true,
and if Weer was Mason, why had he been sending support money all those years
to Mrs. M. for Candy and Arline? Was he their father, too? More to the
point; why did he _stop_ sending money, as Charlie's account indicates, when
he should have been sending even more money to support Doris? He was very
rich and very much alive. It just doesn't add up. Weer could have quietly
arranged to have any bastard child sent to a girls' school in Switzerland,
or something, if her presence was inconvenient.

Also, Mrs. M.'s hostility toward Doris is too great to be accounted for just
by money concerns. The mere presence of Doris seems to be a personal affront
to her. Not letting her get enough to eat, even when someone else pays for
it, and tearing up her new clothes, that someone else bought, aren't about
money. It seems to me that Mrs. M.'s animosity is misdirected to Doris
because she can't get at Mr. M., probably because he's dead. If Weer was Mr.
Mason, he was alive, and all she had to do to get even with him was threaten
to expose him in his home town.

-Roy

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From: Robert Borski <rborski at charter.net>
Date: Mon, 05 Aug 2002 19:19:48 +0000

> fifteen years or so since birth_?

Hattiesburg, Mississippi--or somewhere around there. At least according to
Charlie that's where the carnival is playing when Doris joins the show.
Perhaps she's been in an orphanage there--very often the typical repository
for unwanted children--at least until she's too old to be considered
adoptable, given the boot, and forced to find work. (I know you're old
enough, Roy, to remember a time when children born out of wedlock were a
source of great shame, embarassment, and scandal--not like today--and when a
woman began to show she was said to have gone off  visit distant
relatives--frequently a euphemism for a home for unwed mothers. This, in
fact, is how my father entered the world.)

> to expose him in his home town.

You're attempting to apply real-world logic here to what is essentially a
modern retelling by Gene Wolfe of Perrault's "Cinderilla." Wicked
stepmothers are a staple of such tales--as is Mrs. Mason here. Wolfe
cleverly adds enough details to make you wonder who "Mr. Mason" might be or
whether the tale is even real or simply part of Charlie Turner's Dickensian
sensibility imagination run amok--just as you wonder whether Julius T. Smart
is really apothecary Tilly, and if so the horde of questions this raises.
(How has young son Rodney died? Who or what moves the curtains in Tilly's
house? Why does Julius never mention being married before?) Perhaps it
doesn't even matter because in the tale of "The Alchemist", it's the
parallels that count--Smart is an alchemist too whose hardened heart costs
him a wife. Indeed, as mantis has shown in a series of posts, all of the
little stories in PEACE have some further relevance to the larger account.
I'm therefore curious as to what you (or Adam S.) believe the overall
significance of Doris's sad history is to either the novel or the life of
Den Weer. Does it have any relevance--typological, symbolic--or is it just
simply tossed into the mix for sheer entertainment value, making it alone
the dog-that-wagged-its-own-tale?

Robert Borski

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From: Adam Stephanides <adamsteph at earthlink.net>
Date: Tue, 06 Aug 2002 02:32:23 +0000

> it would be pretty hard for Tom Lavine to have been a contemporary of both

In fact, Charlie says that Tom is eighteen.  So if the letter is factual,
and the picture is indeed of Tom, it must have been taken around the time
the letter was written, which is inconsistent with the "faded sepia" color,
as you argue.  So either the letter is a fiction, or the picture is not of
Tom, or some sort of weird time-slippage thing is going on, as mantis
suggests.  And why does Charlie not mention the second picture in his
letter?

--Adam

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From: Robert Borski <rborski at charter.net>
Date: Wed, 07 Aug 2002 06:25:46 +0000

Adam S. pondering:

"And why does Charlie not mention the second picture in his letter?"

Not sure if you think we don't know what is in the second photo, Adam, or
simply that Charlie Turner never mentions its contents.

The first one, obviously, is of stripper Candy. Says Charlie: "The other
girls in the show all consider this a pretty modest picture because as you
have probably already seen, she is wearing a G-string and pasties, which is
as far as they are allowed to strip in Sunday School towns where our patch
can't fix the cops much."

Secretary Hadow looks at the photo and says, "Well, the woman is an obvious
tramp, though I must say her face reminds me of Carole Lombard's--do you
remember her?" [The heyday of Lombard's file career was from 1934-1942; she
died in a 1942 aircrash.]

Then, though neither she, Den, nor Wolfe say anything, she looks at the
second photo, saying, "The tall man--well, what can you say about him? He's
terribly tall. I don't think that other man with him is really very tall,
but still that other man must be--oh, I don't know. Six foot ten? Perhaps
more."

(Why would Candy, attired so scantily, have a picture taken with the two
men, anyway? As Charlie notes, "Candy had pictures of _herself_ taken" and
they appear to be self-promotional glossies or souvenirs--possibly for sale
to lonely horny men.)

Den asks Miss H. if she believes the pictures are of living people and she
uses the plural in refuting this idea: "Well, for one thing, the pictures
just look old." She then first describes the clothes of the two men since
they are in the uppermost picture, the one she has just looked at; then she
shuffles the pictures (again, without comment) so that Candy's is again on
top and describes her as having "an old-fashioned kind of hairdo."

The dated aspect of clothing and hairdo, plus the sepia tone of the
pictures, suggests to me that both pictures are from a much earlier
time--and clearly predate the Golden Year, when supposedly the encounter
with Charlie Turner takes place. Moreover, the second male figure in the
photo is described as being not "really very tall," implying rather he is
simply tall. Roy has suggested that this mystery figure may be Julius Smart,
but Julius Smart is so small he has to buy boy's shoes for his tiny feet,
whereas Den, as we know from his medical checkup, is 6 feet tall. (President
Smart is also described as wearing old-fashioned clothes: "He wore a vest,
and a gold chain across the front of it during that period when it seemed
the vest had vanished never to return." Compare this to what the tall
man--Tom Lavine--in the sepia-tinged photo is wearing: "He's even wearing a
vest with a watch chain across the front." But are his clothes contemporary
or hand-me-downs from a long-ago era?) The fact that Miss Hadow does not
recognize photo-bound Den further indicates some passage of time--as anyone
who's been to a high school reunion or two knows, some people look exactly
the same as they did when they were younger, while others morph into
something else altogether. Den lies when he says he's never met either
figure in the photographs--i.e., Candy and Tom--perhaps not wishing to be
tainted by association with "the obvious tramp." But he's also never met the
third figure in the photographs--since it's impossible to meet yourself. And
if the second picture is a snapshot of Tom and Den--taken after the latter
possibly checks out the carnival as potential home for his illegitimate
child, or after having trysted with part-time hooker Candy--this might
explain why Charlie sent it to him.

Robert Borski

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From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Wed, 07 Aug 2002 16:58:27 +0000

Robert B. writes:

>with Charlie Turner takes place.

A quibble: the Golden Year is the year Den met Lois and Sherry, when he was
about 45, and before he became president. His meeting with Charlie took
place a few years later, after he was president.

> Moreover, the second male figure in the
>whereas Den, as we know from his medical checkup, is 6 feet tall.

Smart isn't all that small; he's "just under average height" (114). Miss
Hadow underestimates Tom's true height (7' 6") by eight inches, mostly
because the other man is so much shorter--two feet shorter, if he's Smart;
she's not used to seeing such relative disparity. Another possibility, if
Smart is the shorter man, is that the photo is a few years older than the
one of Candy, and that Tom hadn't reached his full height yet.

[snip]

>And

Either I'm seriously misreading you, or this last sentence of this paragraph
contradicts the first (quoted above). If "both pictures are from a much
earlier time--and clearly predate the Golden Year", and if the two men are
Tom and Den, then you have Den looking for a home for a teenage daughter he
begot on a 16 year old Sherry he hasn't even met yet!

-Roy

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From: StoneOx17 <stoneox17 at aol.com>
Date: Thu, 08 Aug 2002 11:41:01 +0000

> tale from the Arabian Nights involving a cheating wife and her semi-statue

There's another connection nobody seems to have mentioned yet.  In the 
Arabian Nights story, the marid Naranj (corresponding to Julius) earned his 
living not only by turning roots into sherbet, but also by turning stones 
into kine, and making Ben Yahya (corresponding to Den) slaughter and sell 
them.  While Julius probably isn't able to turn stones into kine, Mr. Tilly 
(and Julius if, as I now believe, he took over the carnie practice) certainly 
could have turned kine to stone.  

- Stone Ox

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From: Adam Stephanides <adamsteph at earthlink.net>
Date: Thu, 08 Aug 2002 13:38:37 +0000

[snip]

No, it is clear that there are two photos.  I am just questioning why
Charlie only mentions sending one photo.

> time

Indeed; but then, as I asked in an earlier post, how can the tall man in the
photo be Tom?

> explain why Charlie sent it to him.

Since there is *no* evidence for the second man in the photo being Den, I'll
just say that the idea of Den caring enough about his supposed daughter to
"check out" the carnival, and then deciding that the carnival is a suitable
place for her, is even more implausible then the rest of your theory.  And
if the picture is of Tom, that would itself explain Charlie sending it; but
neither would explain Charlie not mentioning having sent it.

--Adam

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From: Robert Borski <rborski at charter.net>
Date: Thu, 08 Aug 2002 18:32:35 +0000

> place a few years later, after he was president.

I was going by the timeline in the Peace Indexicon, where under the Golden
Year, six events are listed, including the following: "Charlie Turner, the
dog man, arrives unexpectedly."

> >And if the second picture is a snapshot of Tom and Den--taken after the
latter

> begot on a 16 year old Sherry he hasn't even met yet!

No, you have it right exactly. Because as I've been attempting to
demonstrate all along it is not possible to construct a hard and true
chronological ordering of the events in PEACE. There are just too many
contradictions and mutually-exclusive events.

Example 1: If the mystery man in the second photo is J. Smart as you
suggest, when was it taken? At the same time as the Candy photo? (Both are
sepia toned and depict old-fashioned styles of dress and coiffure.) If at
differing times, why do each still depict similar antequated fashion
sensibilities--and why now, all of a sudden, has Charlie sent the much older
photo of Smart and young Tom to Den? Also, if the mystery man is Smart, why
does Den claim he's never met him? Similarly, why doesn't Miss Hadow
recognize Smart?

Counter-example 1: If the mystery man in the second photo is D. Weer, why is
the giant wearing the old-fashioned vest and watch, which dates from a much
earlier time  period? (Is he modeling himself on fashion guru J. Smart as a
tribute to his creator? Or can he only afford rummage sale bargains, there
not being a whole lot of money in being a sideshow freak?) Why doesn't Miss
Hadow recognize Weer or Weer admit that he is the man in the photo and
therefore knows the giant? (I've suggested one solution.)

Example 2: the Birkhead anomaly.

Example 3: Once again, I cite the scene where Den has sex with Sherry Gold.
Sixteen-year old Sherry shows up at Weer's door and Den invites her in. Says
Den to the girl: "Excuse me for not rising. I have suffered a stroke
resulting in partial paralysis of my leg." Kind-hearted Sherry, though
nervous (as Wolfe tells us), responds, "That's all right."

But how can this be? Den's stroke is years in the future--long after he has
sex with Sherry Gold. It's clearly impossible--and yet there it is, right on
the page before us. Possible solutions include: 1) post-stroke Den is
looking back to the encounter and re-imagining it from the perspective of
his current present, complete with revisionist dialogue; 2) Den, adrift in a
maze of memories, is conflating events, as confused or disoriented as anyone
who's suffered a stroke, or in the twilight of their life has vivid
recollections of their childhood, but can't remember what they had to eat
yesterday.

Unfortunately, either solution presents difficulties with placing this or
any other event within a real-time continuum--thereby making all proofs
requiring a strict chronology invalid.

Time, in PEACE, is a river that runs everywhere.

Robert Borski

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From: Adam Stephanides <adamsteph at earthlink.net>
Date: Thu, 08 Aug 2002 20:22:50 +0000

on 8/5/02 2:19 PM, Robert Borski at rborski at charter.net wrote:

> modern retelling by Gene Wolfe of Perrault's "Cinderilla."

I don't buy this line of reasoning.  Wolfe's characters don't stop behaving
realistically just because they're in retellings of older tales (as most of
his characters seem to be).  Either Doris's story is true, in which case the
people in it must have act for plausible motives; or it is Charlie's
invention, in which case there's no reason to think Doris even exists, let
alone is Weer's daughter.  (I'm speaking in general here, not in reference
to Roy Lackey's point; there are more convincing reasons why Doris can't be
Weer's daughter.)

> the dog-that-wagged-its-own-tale?

Well, Doris's tale is essentially Cinderella with an unhappy ending.  And
Weer is himself a sort of Cinderella.  Abandoned by his parents, he is taken
under the wing of a "fairy godmother" (Olivia), who enables him to meet his
"prince" (Smart).  And whatever the relationship between Smart and Weer was,
Weer does end up inheriting Smart's "kingdom."  In Doris's tale, the
"godmother's" well-intentioned intervention leads to disaster; Weer's life,
too, has not turned out happily, and the analogy suggests that Olivia may
have been, in part at least, the unintentional cause of this.

But these are just tentative ideas; I don't claim to understand the book.

--Adam

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