Subject: (urth) PEACE: the sepia photo

From: Adam Stephanides <adamsteph at earthlink.net>
Date: Sat, 03 Aug 2002 19:07:52 +0000

I'd always assumed that the photo of the woman was the photo of Candy that
Charlie says he is sending, but looking over the passage again, I have my
doubts.  Weer shows the photos to Miss Hadow, whom he does not know,
implicitly asking for her reaction.  The photo Charlie described showed
Candy in a G-string and pasties.  Is it likely that Weer would have shown
such a photo to a middle-aged woman he didn't know?  And when Miss Hadow
sees the photo, she says "Well, the woman is an obvious tramp."  If the
photo had shown Candy nearly nude, this response would be like being shown a
photo of Chief Sitting Bull in full regalia and being asked to comment, and
responding "Well, he's an Indian."  Miss Hadow goes on to say "The woman
has--you know--an old-fashioned kind of hairdo, and she's the kind that gets
killed by some man, or gets drunk and wrecks her car."  This sounds like a
film noir femme fatale (the movie connection again!), not like a stripper.

Given the problematic nature of Part Five, it's possible that Weer never in
fact showed the photos to Miss Hadow and that the entire encounter is his
fabrication.  But even if that's the case, he would presumably have made
himself and Miss Hadow behave realistically.

--Adam

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From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Mon, 05 Aug 2002 02:42:07 +0000

Adam Stephanides expressed doubt that Candy was the woman Miss Hadow saw in

>himself and Miss Hadow behave realistically.

I don't see how the text can allow for anyone other than Candy to be the
woman in the photo. But another oddity is Weer's response to Hadow's
comments. Hadow really only makes remarks about the attire and general
appearance of the woman and the tall man. The shorter man is not remarked
upon except for his relative height. She concludes her comments with: "'I
don't mean to be offensive, Mr. Weer. Is she someone you know?'" He answers:
"'No. I've never met either of these people.'"

That sort of answers her question, but note the use of "either" rather than
"any". Is he saying that he's never met the woman or the tall man she
commented on, but that the use of "either" implies that he _has_ met the
other, shorter man? Hadow makes no further comments about the pictures. Is
that just because she is afraid to, or does she, like Weer, recognize the
other man? As secretary to a senior plant officer, she has probably been at
the plant for some time and knows the late Smart by sight. (Besides, Smart's
picture is on the wall of Weer's office.)

-Roy

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From: Adam Stephanides <adamsteph at earthlink.net>
Date: Wed, 07 Aug 2002 14:16:30 +0000

on 8/4/02 9:42 PM, Roy C. Lackey at rclackey at stic.net wrote:

> the photo

To be precise, I was only doubting that the photo Miss Hadow saw was the one
Charlie described.
 
> woman in the photo.

Indeed, the photo Charlie says he put in the letter is certainly of Candy.
But my suspicion is that the photo he describes is the one Weer shows to
Miss Hadow.  That is, either
1) Charlie said in the letter he was going to enclose one photo, but instead
placed two different photos in the letter for some reason; or
2) The photos Weer showed to Hadow were never in the real letter at all;
they appear only in Weer's reconstruction of the incident.  This would also
mean that the conversation with Miss Hadow never really took place either,
at least not as described in the book.  This latter is my preference.

Another thing: if the photo is indeed of Candy in a G-string and pasties,
then for the reasons you give in your earlier post, it should not be "faded
sepia," since Candy has only been stripping for two years.

> Hadow makes no further comments about the pictures. Is

If Hoadow knows Smart by sight, then the second man in the photo is unlikely
to be Smart.  If Hadow had recognized him as Smart, she would not have
referred to him as "that other man with him," or been unsure about his
height.

--Adam

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