{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3937", "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": 3937, "subject": "the tree is my hat", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "2003-04-15T09:58:57+00:00", "last": "2003-05-10T18:52:18+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Joshua A. Solomon", "address": "j.a.solomon at city.ac.uk" }, "date": "2003-04-15T09:58:57+00:00", "subject": "(urth) the tree is my hat", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "nice story. new story, no?\n\ns\n\np\n\no\n\ni\n\nl\n\ne\n\nr\n\nat first i thought \"why does the bookseller have to be black?\" it wasn't\nuntil the story was over that i figured out it was because whe wasn't a\n(great white) shark. in fact, the only whites in the story are the narrator,\nhis family and the dwarf with the pasty complexion and the pointy teeth.\ncertainly the dwarf is part shark and the narrator becomes one. the journal\nentries recall \"john marsch\" whose writing also became less legible as the\nstory progressed. i suspect the narrator's \"attacks\" are quite violent.\nperhaps he (and the coconut knife) were ultimately responsible for the\ncarnage at the end. note, at the very end, the shark is seen flying in the\nair. perhaps this is just a reflection in the airplane window.\n\nbee" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Nigel Price", "address": "nigel.aprice at virgin.net" }, "date": "2003-05-10T00:50:49+00:00", "subject": "(urth) The Tree is my Hat", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The recording of GW's story \"The Tree is my Hat\" which is available for free\ndownload at http://www.phaseshift.com/tree/ was due to come down last\nTuesday, 6 May, but for the moment still seems to be there. I commend it you\nall. It's a great story, and a nice dramatisation. It lasts nearly an hour\nand, hey!, it even features Neil Gaiman as an English Christian missionary.\nI've listened to it twice, the last time on my pocket PC as I took the dog\nfor his bedtime walk. I can confirm that it's a really good spooky story to\nlisten to at 11 o'clock at night when you're walking country lanes in the\ndark. I kept looking back over my shoulder...\n\nPlease note that the following discussion is full of spoilers for this fine\nstory.\n\nAges ago, Robert Borski wrote about this story:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "\"The Tree Is My Hat.\" A man afflicted with\nHansen's disease is cured by the Polynesian\nversion of the AntiChrist as the Millennium\nturns. Hey, what did you expect from an\nanthology entitled _999_? Rather liked this\none, but the story is marred in my opinion by\nWolfe's heavy-handed character names: Baden,\nthe leper, is married to Mary Christmas, and\ntheir children's names are Mark and Adam. Sheesh!" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Now, I haven't read this in print, I've only heard it as an MPEG/MP3, but I\ndon't recall any specific reference to Baden having Hansen's Disease or any\nother form of leprosy. His disease is, I think, unnamed. All we know is that\nhe caught it in Uganda, and that he gets repetitive episodes of fever,\nsweating and hallucinations. He tells his wife towards the end of the story\nthat he may die of his disease within a year, and that if he survives, he is\nstill likely to die an early death. (This latter statement is of course\nprophetic, though his death, which is foreshadowed though not recounted in\nthe story, seems to be in an aeroplane crash rather than from his disease.)\n\nAnyway, to an ignorant layman like me, Baden's illness sounds a lot like\nmalaria or some similar tropical disease, rather than leprosy.\n\nLeprosy is mentioned in the story in the discussion between Baden and Rob\nthe missionary about the strange white dwarf which Baden sees on the beach.\nIf I recall, Rob mentions leprosy as a possible explanation of the\nstranger's appearance, but rejects the idea because the nearest leprosarium\nis no closer than the Marshall Islands.\n\nAs for the names, well, I've no problems with these! Baden is known as \"Bad\"\nfor short, and he is, I think, a bad man, for reasons I shall discuss below.\n\nYes, his estranged wife is Mary, and I think at the end of the story, when\nhe sees her ghost on the cliffs above the sea at North Point, she has in\nsome sense become identified with Stella Maris, Mary as \"Star of the Sea\".\n\nIf I remember right, Baden refers to Mary's father as Pop Christmas. Yes,\nshe's Father Christmas's daughter!\n\nAre the names Mark and Adam particularly significant? Obviously, Mark is a\ngospel writer and Adam is the first man but...in this instance, so what? If\nMary's posthumous explanation to Baden is correct, that she stopped taking\nthe pill and then had the children while he was away in Africa, then they\nmust be twins. Um...the apostle Paul refers to Jesus as a second Adam...Mark\nis the \"mark of Cain\"? No, I'm babbling here. At the moment, I see no\nparticular significance to the names of the two boys.\n\nI only question Mary's explanation because early on, when Baden discusses\nhis separation from Mary with Rob, he claims that he has no children. Later,\nhe says that the worst thing a man can do is lie to himself. I did wonder\nwhether we were supposed to see that Baden is lying to Rob and possibly even\nto himself about the inconvenient children. We are not told the ages of the\nboys, and we don't have a time frame for Baden's stay in Africa, but the\nchildren don't seem like babes in arms when Mary brings them to visit Baden\non the island. They can talk and seem much more like 5 or 6. In which case,\ndid Baden know about them and suppress the memory? That would mean that the\nghost Mary is a liar, or a delusion of Baden. On the face of it, that would\nfit in with the idea of Baden as damned and self-deluding (again, see\nbelow!), but sit ill with what seems like a perfectly serious development of\nthe \"ghosts at North Point\" thread in the story.\n\nAs for the business about the millennium turning, well, yes and no. The\ncritical events take place in February, with the nasty ending being on - I\nthink - St Valentine's Day. Is Wolfe, the resident of Chicago, referring to\nthe Death of Love or a more recent and (to him) more local massacre on that\ndate?\n\nAnyway, on another occasion, also a while back, Joshua A. Solomon wrote\nabout this story..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "at first i thought \"why does the bookseller\nhave to be black?\" it wasn't until the story\nwas over that i figured out it was because whe\nwasn't a (great white) shark. in fact, the\nonly whites in the story are the narrator,\nhis family and the dwarf with the pasty complexion\nand the pointy teeth. certainly the dwarf is part\nshark and the narrator becomes one. the journal\nentries recall \"john marsch\" whose writing also\nbecame less legible as the story progressed. i\nsuspect the narrator's \"attacks\" are quite violent.\nperhaps he (and the coconut knife) were ultimately\nresponsible for the carnage at the end. note, at\nthe very end, the shark is seen flying in the air.\nperhaps this is just a reflection in the airplane\nwindow." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well now... We are not told the ethnicity of Rob the missionary, but I think\nthat we are supposed to assume that he is white. Doesn't he refer somewhere\n(I've no easy way of checking!) to someone being \"as white as you or I\" in\nhis conversation with Baden? Possibly not...\n\nMaybe the business with the woman in the shop is simply to show that Baden\nis sexually attracted to black women? He tries but fails to engage her in\nconversation, but will later have an affair with a black islander, even\nthough his wife by that time is on her way.\n\nOK...My take on the story is as follows!\n\nI think that this is a horror story about damnation, about a man who\nwilfully turns his back on Christian belief, only to discover that just\nbecause he doesn't believe in God, that doesn't preclude the possibility of\nthere being devils.\n\nBaden, \"Bad\", is ill with a tropical disease caught in Africa. With typical\nLupine ambiguity, there's a chance that nearly everything he sees in this\nstory is a delusion. I don't think that that is the case, though I do wonder\nwhether his weakened and feverish state doesn't perhaps make him more\nvulnerable to the evil spiritual forces at work on the Pacific island to\nwhich he is sent by the Federal Development Agency (did I get that name\nright?) that he works for.\n\nHe is estranged from his wife Mary and, as discussed above, may be denying\nthe fact that he is also leaving behind twin sons. In some symbolic way, Bad\nis abandoning his religious as well as his marital faith in deserting Mary,\nalthough this separation is still not complete in the early stages of the\nstory when he is still e-mailing Mary and her father and talking to Rob\nabout getting back together his wife.\n\nThe island to which he is posted is peopled by Polynesians. Through various\ndetails in the story, including Rob's account and speculations, we gather\nthat the Polynesians, great sailors and warriors, do not in fact come\noriginally from Malaya as some ethnologists and historians suppose. Rather,\nthey are the descendants of an evil priestly and kingly caste who were\nexiled from their mountain home at some prehistoric date by their subjects,\nwho were revolted by their cruelty and human sacrifices. The story is\nambiguous as to where this mountain home might have been. At first it seems\nthat Rob, who tells Baden about this, is referring to the Andean Incas or\ntheir ancestors. But the references to the stars being like islands, and\nBaden's sighting of a UFO with a dorsal fin \"like a kid's rocket ship\" (but\nalso, of course, like a shark!), introduces the possibility that the\nPolynesians' original home was somewhere on another world. (Yikes! Shades of\nTintin's \"Flight 714\"...) Their skill in navigating across the Pacific would\nthen be but a terrestrial echo of their original feats of faring between the\nstars.\n\nThere is a white, hammerhead (not Great White!) shark in the bay where Baden\nswims. The mysterious white dwarf with the pointed teeth, Hange\n(spelling??), and the shark are one and the same person. When sitting on the\nbeach under the tree, Hange tells Baden that \"The tree is my hat.\" Baden\nthinks that he means that the tree gives him shade, but while the narrative\nindicates that this is not quite what he means, it doesn't say just what he\ndoes mean. I think that this is because Hange is the cruel,\nhuman-sacrificing priest of the hidden temple sunken in the bay. His body is\nburied on the shore, under the palm tree. It grows over his grave and is in\nthat sense his hat. He himself is a shade! On the land, his evil, devilish,\nspirit appears as a dwarf. In the water, it appears as a hammerhead shark.\nHe is after Baden's soul. As a shark, he wants to eat Baden. As a priest, he\nwants to sacrifice it to his cruel and demonic gods.\n\nRob, the missionary, is only partly successful in his mission to the\nislanders. Some sing in his choir, but many or all - as the local girl who\nbecomes Baden lover reveals - still worship the old gods of the sunken\ntemple.\n\nAs time goes on, Baden gradually comes to deny whatever faith he may once\nhave had. When he stubs his toe on the rock in the ruined palace in the\njungle, he cries out \"Jesus!\" (or was it \"Christ\"? - whichever!), and I'm\nsure that we're supposed to be reminded of Paul's words in Romans 9.33 about\nJesus being the stone on which men stumble (quoting or alluding to Isaiah\n8.13-14 and 28.16). Baden stumbles and rejects Jesus, whom he reduces to an\nexpletive. By the end of the story, he is explicitly referring to the shark\ngod as his god and his brother.\n\nBaden's only chance of protection against the evil designs of the shark god\nseems to lie in the fish charm which is given to him by the local chief.\nThere seems to be some sort of contrast being set up between the good\nking/chief, with his palace on the land, and the evil priest, with his\ntemple under water. The chief gives the charm to Baden at a ceremony in the\nruined palace. Later, Baden returns, and this time encounters Rob the\nmissionary in the temple ruins. That's the occasion when Baden stubs his toe\non the \"Christ\" stone. However that may be, the fish pendant seems to be\nboth a pagan charm and an \"Icthus\", the symbol of Christ. (In any other\nauthor, I would have said that those two meanings were completely mutually\nexclusive, but somehow, in Wolfe's stories, he manages to make them\nco-exist. Don't ask me how!) It protects Baden from the shark so long as he\nwears it, but he doesn't always wear it, and when Hange visits his bungalow\nin the night, Baden is persuaded to untie the thong that threads through the\nfish charm's eye and give it to Hange.\n\nThis seems to be the crucial scene that seals Baden's fate. He is untying\nhis last safety line to God, his links with his wife and any Christian faith\nhe may once have possessed. After this, he will share blood with Hange and\nbecome his \"blood brother\". (Note that Hange's blood tastes to Baden like\nseawater. This is because it is shark's blood, which is, I believe - I've\nnever tasted it! - mostly salt water.) He will be unfaithful to his wife by\nhaving an affair with a native woman. And he himself will become part shark,\nable to swim underwater for long periods and...well, this is completely\nambiguous...possibly attack his own family. More on this in a moment.\n\nThe way that the charm works, in its \"pagan\" capacity, seems to be that the\ncarved fish is \"bound\" by the thong threaded through its eye. When Baden\nundoes the thong, he is both untying himself from any residual Christian\ncommitment, and setting the shark god free to attack. There may be some sort\nof hidden reference to Matthew 12.29 here, except that in this case, the\n\"strong man\" is being untied. (I think that the story even refers to Hange\nat this point as a strong man.) There is some sort of third spiritual\npresence in the bungalow at this point, but he or it is unable to save Baden\nbecause the knot binding the fish god has been untied.\n\nIs the other presence in the bungalow that of the chief? An angel? Baden\nwonders about what happened to his Agency predecessor on the island, and I\ndon't think that we are ever told. Was he killed? Is it his ghost haunting\nthe bungalow? I really have no idea.\n\nBaden explicitly denies any belief in Rob's god, although he does believe in\nthe shark god. When his wife Mary visits him on the island, bringing their\ntwo sons with her, she and the boys are attacked by the shark or the shark\nspirit. The account of this attack is fragmented and elliptical, but it\nseems to start at the bungalow, half a mile in land. The humans are driven\nby the shark spirit to the sea, \"like sheep\", and there Mary is devoured by\nthe hammerhead, who takes her up in his \"yard-wide jaws\". Although the boys\nare injured, one of them seriously, Baden is able to save them by attacking\nthe shark with his knife.\n\nWhen the attack takes place, Baden realises that the shark god has tricked\nhim. Like other misleading devils before him, Hange has kept the letter of\ntheir agreement, but not its spirit. Baden proclaims that by attacking his\nfamily, the shark has broken their treaty, because by injuring those he\nloves, the shark has effectively attacked him.\n\nNow, it is still possible that it is Baden himself who kills his wife and\ninjures his son. He is fevered and possibly delirious and, now that he is in\nlove with a native woman, he has a strong motive for getting rid of the\ninconvenient wife who has come looking for him. If this is the case, the\nshark on dry land which explicitly does not \"swim through the air\" when it\ncomes to attack his family is Baden, who has exchanged blood with Hange is\nin some measure possessed by the evil shark spirit. In this reading, he\nloses his hand because when he \"comes too\" in the middle of the murder he\ncuts it off himself with his knife to stop himself causing further injury to\nthose he loves.\n\nOr maybe he really attacks the shark, and that's how he loses the hand. It\nwould also be how he breaks their agreement not to attack each other.\n\nAnyway, Baden has come to his senses, but it is too late. Mary is dead, and\nwhen Baden sets off in the aircraft to fly one of his sons to Cairns, the\nevil shark god is after him, and can be seen swimming below the aircraft.\nOne of the aircraft's engines has failed, and at the end of the story it is\nflying into a thunder storm. It would seem that the hammerhead has become a\nthunderhead, and the reader is left with little hope for Baden's physical or\nspiritual survival.\n\nI'm glad that this tale is due to be included in the next Wolfe anthology.\nI'm one of those who really enjoys Wolfe's short stories, and I think that\nthis is a very good one. Definitely a horror story, though. If I were being\npicky, I might suggest that by introducing gods, ghosts, possession, and\nUFOs into such a brief narrative, Wolfe might be slightly over-egging\nthings. But no, I won't suggest that. I enjoyed the result, grim though it\nis.\n\nNigel (who is delighted actually to have finished one of his Urth list\nmessages at last. Now to finish the other half dozen waiting in my \"Drafts\"\nfolder...plus a similar number of e-mails that I owe to Lupine friends\npatiently waiting by the dock of the Bay)" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Jordan", "address": "jbjordan4 at cox.net" }, "date": "2003-05-10T18:52:18+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) The Tree is my Hat", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Thanks for putting us onto this, Nigel.\n A mother named Mary and a son named Adam certainly seem \nsignificant. If Baden really did not know about them, they he's been away \nfor a long time. Mary conceives, but the father is not present for the \nbirth. Close enough to be a virgin birth allusion, particulary with a child \nnamed Adam (= a new Adam).\n Baden looks like \"Bad 'un,\" Bad One.\n His rejection of true religion is parallelled and expressed by his \nrejection of Mary and ignorance of her son Adam.\n Why a twin named Mark? Are we (gasp!) to think of the Adam Mark \nhotel line, and these sons are an alternate house that Baden does not \ninhabit, has abandoned? Houses of one sort or another (hut, church, temple) \nare thematic in the story. The hut stands between church and temple, a \nplace of human habitation that must be linked with either one or the other. \nBaden has abandoned the good house of Mary nee Christmas, and of her sons. \nHis hut becomes a place of adultery.\n Alternatively, Mark means \"warrior,\" though I don't see how this fits.\n Alternatively, according to modern theory, Mark is the first \ngospel writer, and that might fit thematically: Jesus-Adam and Mark.\n Anyway, since Wolfe had no reason to introduce a second son, a \ntwin, there has to be a reason for it.\n I noticed that after his deal with the shark, Baden is unable even \nto visit the church, being too sick on Sunday.\n A google search shows that Mervyn can mean \"sea hill,\" \"sea \nruler,\" or \"high hill.\" There seems a pregnant reason by Robbins rejects \nthat name, in context. His name becomes Rob Robbins, and Mary's father has \nan \"R\" for his middle name. Seems deliberate. Mary's father is Julius (link \ntoYule, I imagine) R. Christmas.\n Internet: A \"spiritual\" medium that links Baden both with a witch \nand with Yule Christmas. Another manifestation of the choice before him.\n The flying saucer, as is obvious, links with the shark. Are we \nsupposed to think of real extra-terrestrials? I'm thinking of how Wolfe \nconflates the perceptions of people in *Castleview.* My best guess is that \nBaden as a modern man perceives a spiritual reality in terms he \nunderstands, since he (initially) does not believe in a spirit realm. Given \nthat the shark is Satan (see below), it feels wrong to me for Wolfe to \noverlay an SF dimension to this story. And, there is much discussion of \nperception in the story. So I'm more comfortable, at this point, with a \n*Castleview* explanation of the flying saucer.\n My guess is that the third spirit in the hut is indeed the ghost \nof the former agent. He knows what is going on, since it happened to him. \nHe was formerly in Afghanistan, and I think we must see that as a place \nparallel to Africa, a place where \"old religion\" is still somewhat \noperative, as it is on the island. I think we are supposed to understand \nthat he also had become corrupted, and then seduced by the shark spirit.\n Another aspect of the story seems to be a contrast between the \nvery busy pastor and Agent Baden, who has nothing but lazy time on his \nhands. The missionary has come there to work; Baden has come there just to \nbe there. Baden does not use his time to help the natives, as the pastor \ndoes, but finds the time to explore the pagan side of things. His choice of \nhow to use his time, and perhaps the dangers of idleness, seem one theme in \nthe story.\n If I'm right, the back plot is that several years earlier Baden \nhad left his wife, probably adulterously given how quickly he falls into \nthat sin on the island. By rejecting \"Mary\" and also Christianity, he also \nmoves back in the realm of the \"old\" world. He does not even know about the \nnew Adam that Mary brings forth. Symbolically, he has rejected the family \nof Christmas. What happens to him happens between Christmas and Easter, but \nhe will not come to Easter because he has rejected Christmas.\n On the title: I think we have to remember the serpent in the \ngarden, at the Tree of Knowledge, traditionally pictured IN the tree, with \nthe tree as its hat. Think of the coral tree that sprouts from the altar of \nhuman sacrifice in the submerged temple (itself a good image of what \nbecomes of the old religion once the New has come: it is flooded). \nUltimately, the shark is Satan himself, and the Tree of Knowledge in which \nhe dwells is his hat.\n Just some grist for your mill.\n\nNutria" } ] } ] }