Subject: (urth) PEACE: egg and intrigue

From: StoneOx17 <stoneox17 at aol.com>
Date: Sat, 14 Sep 2002 17:10:04 +0000

The recent charge that discussions on this list have become "loony" 
made me start thinking, and I think part of the problem is that we are
concentrating too much on the hard aspects of the books.  In my most 
recent rereading of Peace, I noticed some really nice aspects I hadn't 
noticed before, but I haven't mentioned them here because they seemed 
more obvious than most of the discussions here.  But on looking through 
the archives, it's not clear that anybody else has noticed them, either.  

In http://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0030/0040.shtml, Adam Stephanides says,
on the relation of the embedded princess story to Olivia's life,

> ... in the Chinese egg affair, Olivia tries to maneuver Macafee into using 
his  
> trading prowess for her benefit, like the merchant; but her plan backfires
> somehow, and she ends up buying the egg herself.

It's the "somehow" I will concentrate on in this post.  I had always had the
general impression that Olivia didn't marry Macafee because he ended up 
with the egg, and had thought this seemed quite petty of her.  Now, I think
I understand better what happened.

Both Olivia and Macafee are serious collectors (unexpected connection: as, 
later, is Stewart Blaine) who covet the Lorns' Chinese egg.  Mr. Macafee
conveys to Olivia, via Eleanor Bold, the message that he will buy the egg and
give it to Olivia for her birthday.  Not to be outdone, Olvia sends back the
message that she wants to buy the egg and give it to Jimmy Macafee for his
birthday.  However, her plan actually is to bid the price up, but still let
Mr. Macafee buy it for her (possibly as a test of his devotion, as in a fairy 
tale).  

When they go to look at the egg, Aunt Olivia leaves her checkbook at home
and brings cash; this way she ensures that Mr. Macafee (who, she knows, will
bring his checkbook) will be able to outbid her.  She knows the price of the 
egg
already -- the cost of a good sewing machine -- and she brings enough to bid 
the price substantially above that.

When Em Lorn meets Olivia Weer and James Macafee, however, she likes
Olivia a lot more, so she figures out a way of bending the rules against
commerce on Sundays so as to allow Olivia but not Jimmy to buy the egg.  
Mrs. Lorn says she can accept cash--left in a jar--but not a check, because 
writing her name on the check on Sunday would be the sin.  (This is really a 
fine distinction; I am sure that Mrs. Lorn believes it is a minor sin either 
way, 
and came up this rule to ensure that Olivia gets the egg).  Later, Olivia 
realizes that Mr. Macafee could have evaded this restriction by making the 
check out to cash.
 
Two questions come to mind: Did Mr. Macafee realize this at the time, but
fail to mention it because he wanted Olivia to give him the egg for his 
birthday?
Does Olivia believe he realized it at the time?  If she does, this is a 
somewhat
better reason for refusing to marry him, and further, this reason corresponds
well to that given in the embedded tale of the princess: that "the heavy 
purse 
hanging from his belt bruised her each time they embraced."

While we're on the subject of the egg, in my last rereading I also found the 
answer to a question asked earlier by Roy Lackey:

> _Why was there not a single mention or hint of the famous Egg at the 
> birthday party_? It should have been the center of attention, but doesn't 
> seem to have been there at all.
 
It's there, but (as befits an Easter egg) well hidden.  At the opening of the 
chapter containing the stories told at Macafee's birthday party, Dr. Van Ness 
shows Weer one of the TAT cards:
     "Look at this card.  Will you describe it for me?"
     "There's a woman--at least I think it's a woman, it might be a boy, an
adolescent.  She's handing that other one something."
     "Very good.  Now you are to make up a little story for me--a story
for which this picture is to be one of the illustrations."

Immediately after this follows the story of the Chinese pillow, so at first it
might appear that this is the story the card illustrates, but I think a better
reading is that the card illustrates Olivia handing over the egg at Macafee's
birthday party.

-- stone ox

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From: Andy Robertson <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk>
Date: Sat, 14 Sep 2002 17:47:22 +0000

----- Original Message -----
From: <StoneOx17 at aol.com>
To: <urth at urth.net>
Sent: Saturday, September 14, 2002 6:10 PM
Subject: (urth) PEACE: egg and intrigue

> concentrating too much on the hard aspects of the books.

I agree: but  may remark that it was only one thread I thought "loony".
Thanks for this elucidaton of PEACE, a work I must re-read and pay some real
attention to.

 hartshorn

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From: Adam Stephanides <adamsteph at earthlink.net>
Date: Fri, 20 Sep 2002 17:09:23 +0000

A very interesting post, which motivated me to look at those passages again
myself.  A couple of comments:

on 9/14/02 5:10 PM, StoneOx17 at aol.com at StoneOx17 at aol.com wrote:

> bring his checkbook) will be able to outbid her.

Do we know that Olivia has a checkbook?  I don't know whether a woman living
alone in a small town in 1929 would have automatically had a checking
account.

> She knows the price of the
> egg

It's a minor point, but the sewing machine is just one of the things Em Lorn
plans to buy with the money from the egg (p. 78, Harper & Row hc).

> hanging from his belt bruised her each time they embraced."

But she'd been trying to outmaneuver him.  If she refused to marry him just
because he'd outsmarted her, it still seems pretty petty.

Now my own thoughts upon rereading the egg and Macafee passages:

1) Olivia claims that Macafee's true intent was to prevent her from bidding
against him, by letting her think he planned to give it to her, and then to
actually give her something else more expensive (but less desirable).  But
we have no evidence for this aside from Olivia's assertion.  And surely it
would be look rather awkward for Macafee to withhold the egg after he'd
publicly stated he planned to give it to her, especially since it seems to
be public knowledge that she covets the egg.

I suspect that Olivia herself doesn't believe this.  Her true motive for
bidding up the price is that, as an independent woman, she dislikes feeling
dependent on Macafee.  The Nankeen Nook, she can tell herself, benefits
Macafee as well as herself; but to be given the egg is too much.  At the
same time, she doesn't want to pass up the egg.  By arranging things so
that, instead of being given the egg freely, she has "forced" Macafee to
give it to her (at least in her own eyes), she can have her cake and eat it
too.

2) Is there any indication that Olivia ever intended to marry Macafee in the
first place, any more than she did the other two suitors?  I get the
impression that she's happy to keep her suitors on a string indefinitely.
Perhaps she won't marry Macafee because she feels that married to such a
substantial, almost patriarchal, citizen, she would be too dependent.  This
would accord even better with the princess's reason for not marrying the
merchant in the embedded tale.

--Adam

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From: StoneOx17 <stoneox17 at aol.com>
Date: Sat, 21 Sep 2002 01:54:21 +0000

Adam Stephanides writes, in response to my posting on the egg hunt:

> StoneOx17 at aol.com wrote:

> > and brings cash; this way she ensures that Mr. Macafee (who, she knows, 
> > will bring his checkbook) will be able to outbid her.
>

Even though a substantial part of her income comes from her brother, Olivia's 
a fairly well-off woman with expensive tastes (Pekinese, scientific 
journals, etc.), so she's much more likely to have a checkbook than a typical 
woman from that era.  However, the best argument for her having a checkbook 
is the irony that her act of leaving the checkbook at home so as to have a 
good excuse to stop bidding is the very act that lets Em Lorn find a way to 
give the egg to the lower bidder.

> > She knows the price of the egg
> > already -- the cost of a good sewing machine -- and she brings enough 
> > to bid the price substantially above that.
> 

I thought I'd reread the relevant parts just before my posting, but clearly 
not carefully enough.  I think the sewing machine still manages to set
a ballpark price for the egg, without Eleanor Bold ever having to talk
about anything so distasteful as money.

> > somewhat better reason for refusing to marry him, and further, this 
> > reason corresponds  well to that given in the embedded tale of the 
> > princess: that "the heavy purse hanging from his belt bruised her each 
> > time they embraced."
> 

It's still petty, but now it's a reason I can believe in, as opposed to the 
previous pettiness.

 > 1) ...

Here I've deleted some very good points Adam makes. 

> impression that she's happy to keep her suitors on a string indefinitely.

I somehow got the impression that Olivia was leaning toward Macafee from
the adult Weer's conversation from Stewart Blaine, but upon rereading this
passage, I think I may have been reading too much into it.  

> merchant in the embedded tale.

I was interpreting the princess's reason as saying Olivia thought Macafee 
cared too much about money and material goods, like the egg, and too
little about Olivia.  This is indeed quite hypocritical on Olivia's part, but 
I 
think not out of character.

Finally, I'd like to comment that even if Olivia did realize at the time that 
Macafee could have made his check out to cash, and avoided Em Lorn's
restrictions, I don't see how she could have mentioned this to Macafee.
She's been trapped by her own machinations.

-- Stone Ox

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