{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/6413", "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": 6413, "subject": "Short Story 50: La Befana", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "2013-08-15T18:10:17+00:00", "last": "2013-08-15T18:22:58+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "<1376590217.50227.YahooMailNeo@web160705.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-08-15T18:10:17+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Story 50: La Befana", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "“La Befana” first appeared in Galaxy in 1973. It is reprinted in The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories on\npage 55.\nSUMMARY: On an alien planet, expatriate and poor humans get\nby. One such family, the Bananas, have\nbecome friends with a local six footed alien named Zozz, who reclines on\nstones. He comes to their house one\nevening, the day after he brings John Bananas? supposed mother from a “pad” in\nhis rusty wagon. “When John Bananas returns home from his day at\nthe slaughterhouse, the children are playing around and eventually the\nconversation turns to two strains: the story of La Befana, the old woman who\nrefused to go see the Baby Jesus because she had chores to do and failed to\ncatch up with him, and of how John Bananas regrets that his mother should spend\nall her fortune to come here.”?When he was young she was a great fat woman,\nbut has now become a thin and twisted woman who only resembles the memories of\nhis youth in her black dress. A poor\npregnant girl identified as Jewish has labor pains next door, and the story\nends with the rather sentimental examination of La Befana’s curse: \n??Do they have the faith here, Johnny???\n? Zozz told Mark, “You see, the Baby Jesus has never come to\nmy world.” \nMaria said, “And so she goes all over every place looking\nfor Him with her presents and she leaves some with every kid she finds, but she\nsays it’s not because she thinks they might be Him like some people think but\njust a substitute.” She can’t never\ndie. She has to do it forever, doesn’t\nshe, Grandma?\nThe bent old woman said, “Not forever dearest.” Only until tomorrow night.\nCOMMENTARY: Like so\nmany of Wolfe’s Christian allegories, the central conceit makes the tale fairly\nunambiguous. This one is interesting for\nthe sentimental power of its concluding line and the overall feeling of a poor people\nwho find a way to eke out an existence in sparse conditions. He takes the folk lore of the woman who\nrefuses to leave her chores to attend to the baby Jesus, who is then doomed\never after to seek him out and give presents to all children, and turns it into\nan sf-nal meditation on a second (or so) coming on an alien world where people\nare once again in some kind of diaspora. The living conditions of the Bananas family are very sparse: the back\nroom, with no fire, is at one point considered life threatening to the old\nwoman in its cold austerity, and the wife, though only listed at 30-35 years of\nage, already has black hair “shot with gray.”\nThe universal destitution, the desuetude of the dollar, and\nthe need for humanity to take whatever job they can find to stay alive even on alien\nworlds, indicates that the future is pretty bleak. In that regard it resembles the feel of many\nof Wolfe’s stories from the late 60s and 70s — his exploration of failed\nsocialism and economic or morally bankrupt futures can be seen in “Remembrance\nto Come”, “Paul’s Treehouse”, Operation\nAres, “Morning Glory”, “The Hero as Werwolf”, “How the Whip Came Back”, “Beautyland”,\neven “Sillhouette” “and so many others\nwhere something has defeated prosperity far and wide to the point of\ndepression-era poverty.\nRELIGIOUS SIGNIFICANCE: The primary question from an\northodox Christian perspective is when the Theoanthropos manifests as fully man\nand fully divine to bring salvation to the world, is this instantiation for all\ncreation or only for the civilization which will directly receive that\nspiritual philosophy?” ?Is a separate incarnation necessary for each\nnew planet with indigenous life? It does not seem as if the pregnant girl next\ndoor is necessarily a creature of the same species as Zozz — she is labeled as\nJewish. Would her child still be a\nTheoanthropos or something else — and is this new birth meant for the scattered\npeople or the sentient creatures like Zozz?\nNormally I would ascribe almost no value to this quote: “A\ngust of wind brought the cold in to replace the odor of the gog-hutch on the\nother side of the left wall. ?I tell you it’s hell to have your husband’s\nmother with you in a place as small as this” ? ? assuming a gog to be a small\ndomestic animal kept in a cage, either for food or some other farming use\n(milking/breeding). In conjunction with\nquotes like “What Zozz, home from the pit, had licked his fur clean” and\nBananas working in a slaughtering market so bloody that his trouser cuffs are\nred with blood, we should at least mention the biblical origin of Gog (and\nMagog) — some sinister power mentioned in both Ezekiel and Revelations which\nwill stand against Israel. Blood, a pit,\na hellish home environment living with a mother in law, and a place where gogs\nare kept captive, exuding a foul odor — not a posh future.\nAnd when the thousand years are\nfinished, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall come forth to\ndeceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog,\nto gather them together to the war: the number of whom is as the sand of the\nsea. And they went up over the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of\nthe saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down out of heaven, and\ndevoured them, (Revelation 20:7-9)\nIs the mere mention of a gog-hutch enough to indicate that\nthis particular birth will have calamitous results? Probably? not — I prefer the small, sentimental reading of the story — a destitute\nand poor future everywhere, were resources are scant and it has become\nnecessary for faith and salvation once again on alien shores. Or is this second coming in line with that of\nthe second coming promised in Revelation?\nIn light of this being a Christmas story, I can’t much\ncountenance this spin on things, preferring the simpler and more sentimental\ninterpretation that this is a positive and gentle redeeming presence, born\nthrough poverty to bring hope. Is\nidentifying the girl next door giving birth as Jewish, a virtual copy of Mary\nand Joseph and the birth of Jesus, a bit heavy handed? Perhaps, but the real\npower of the story is in the last line — her interminable search is at last over,\nas well as her life. \n“NAMES: ?We have already discussed the presence of the\ngog-hutch, but otherwise the human names are highly Christian: John, Theresa,\nMaria, Mark.\nLa Befana is the old Italian character, a woman on a\nbroomstick who delivers gifts on Epiphany eve, January 5th.” She wears a black shawl and is covered in\nsoot. Bad children get coal or garlic,\ngood ones candy. It is thought her name is a corruption of Epifania, which is the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles as represented by the Magi (with this in mind, perhaps He has come for Zozz and his people)\nWhile Banana is a perfectly acceptable Italian word, as a\nlast name there doesn’t seem to be much history to it. The mob-connected Antonio Caponigro (Blackhead?)\nwas called Tony Bananas because his father was a banana merchant, but otherwise\nthere seems to be little correlation. It\nis a bit ironic that a man with the last name Bananas works at a slaughterhouse\n— simple farming no longer suffices in the environment of the future.\nUNANSWERED QUESTIONS: Is this woman, La Befana, who has been\ndrawn to this alien world, really John Bananas? mother? She looks nothing like the woman he\nremembers. Has La Befana simply been\ncalled to the planet now and positioned herself to be next to the new\nincarnation?\nThe Jewish girl next door - a human or of Zozz' species? The way the Bananas family talks about her, she seems human.\n\nWill this coming be one to redeem the sentient race of which\nZozz is one, or is this the traditional second coming of Revelations — a far\nmore negative and destructive coming? I\nincline towards the former, for both species now on the new world.\nAny significance to Bananas besides being a trade nick name\nonce upon a time?\nThe tale of Jesus being born in a Manger — is that why the\ngog-hutch is mentioned? Is there a farm\nanimal parallel in the story — and if so, is it the relative position of the humans,\nor even Zozz?\nINTERESTING FACT: In\n2011 or thereabouts there was a potential law suit brewing over use of the name\nJohnny Bananas, which a real world star claimed that he was responsible for\ncultivating and growing, and that the show “Entourage” was capitalizing on\nthat. Wolfe should have jumped on that\nlitigation bandwagon and countersued both parties." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2013-08-15T18:22:58+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Story 50: La Befana", "in_reply_to": "<1376590217.50227.YahooMailNeo@web160705.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Any significance to Bananas besides being a trade\nnick name once upon a time?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Perhaps it has the significance of \"crazy.\"" } ] } ] }