{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/6579", "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": 6579, "subject": "Short Story 69: Our Neighbor by David Copperfield", "messages": 1, "voices": 1, "first": "2014-07-24T14:09:57+00:00", "last": "2014-07-24T14:09:57+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com" }, "date": "2014-07-24T14:09:57+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Story 69: Our Neighbor by David Copperfield", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\"Our Neighbor by David Copperfield\" was originally published in *Future\nTense* in 1978, though according to the wolfe-wiki it was supposed to be\nincluded in a Philip Jose Farmer proposed anthology involving fictional\nwriter stories which never materialized.\n\nSUMMARY:\n\nThe Dickens character David Copperfield gives a few words about his\nsituation in life as a newspaper reporter for the debates of Parliament and\na writer, living with his wife Dora, dog Jip, and a single servant. He sees\na rather shabby looking young man named Tom Tipsing who is watching the\nhouse across from the Copperfield residence. Tom observes several people\nenter, and reveals that he is trying to ascertain exactly what is going on\nnext door, as an acquaintance of his, Mrs. Nedles, has a daughter who quit\nher addiction for two weeks after visiting the house and wants to know how\nthis occurred, but was not admitted herself to talk to the owner, Dr.\nMcApple. (While the addiction might be to alcohol, it might just as easily\nbe to laudanum or anything else which can be drunk). During his next\nvisit to the neighborhood, Dr. McApple actually accosts him in the street\nand reveals that his scheduled visit by a beggar has been interrupted, and\nthat he needs another destitute pauper and would pay Tom for procuring one.\n\nTom comes across a man selling birds and convinces him to come speak to the\nDoctor for money and a meal, more than he could make selling several birds.\nThe man has a wooden leg. Tom is dismissed by Dr. McApple but hides behind\nthe coats and listens to their conversation, during which it is revealed\nthat Dr. McApple is interested in phrenology (physiognomy of the skull) and\nmesmerism. Dr. McApple is seeking “the resolution of apparent conflicts,\nthe cases in which we find that a man’s behavior does not correspond in all\nrespects to what his skull tells us it should be.”\n\nMcApple places the birdman John under a trance in front of his wealthy\nvisitors and cuts or injures him so that he bleeds, then instructs him to\nstop the bleeding. The doctor wants to get the entire story of John,\nclaiming, “poor people’s lives can be compressed into a simple narrative.”\nJohn relates his memories with poverty of his mother, and going to work in\nthe rope-walk at six or seven. He learned how to lime birds there, and the\nwork soon drove him to run home to his mother, whom he never found. He\nenlists on the *Swiftsure* but later tried to desert in Spain and was\nflogged. He lost his leg when a gun fell on it, smashed. His marketable\nlife skill has proven to be his ability to catch and lime birds to hold\nthem until they are sold.\n\nDr. McApple asks him to be young again and recount the pain of looking for\nhis Mother as a child. During his weeping and supplications for his mother,\nthe crowd remarks how amazing it is. As the guests leave, Tom pretends that\nhe belongs and gives them their coats, and they treat him more or less as a\nservant. Dr. McApple remarks that there is rain upon Tom’s cheeks when he\nsees them, though they are tears.\n\nDr. McApple revealed that he made a suggestion to the girl Jenny Nedles\nduring her trance to abandon her addiction, though it only helped for two\nweeks. The doctor says his real business is pity, and he is trying to\ndetermine why the wealthy, no matter how well developed the area of their\nskull that seems related to pity, “the quality itself appears not to exist.”\n\nDISCUSSION:\n\nLuckily, “Our Neighbor by David Copperfield” is an extremely\nstraightforward story for this time period in Wolfe’s writing career\n(unless, as is possible, I missed something). It is a moralistic story in\nthe mode of Dickens about class distinctions that (almost) seriously\nexplores several things like mesmerism and phrenology that were at one\ntimes on the cusp of science but have now gone the way of the dodo into\nfantasy. The question the story asks is why does affluence and money in\nthe modern world lead to an absence of pity? It takes a fairly negative\nattitude towards the wealthy and the affects that wealth has on their\nhumanity. The test subjects of Dr. McApple are actually the rich in their\nresponse to the impoverished and their tragic stories, though he also\nplants helpful suggestions in his destitute case studies when he feels it\nis appropriate.\n\nThe wealthy visitors treat the clerk Tom as a butler when he acts as one,\nand in a way appearances become everything to them.\n\nMost of the fun of the story is a style exercise in emulating 19th century\nprose for Wolfe, something which I will leave to more discerning eyes for\nstyle, though the first sentence should serve as a fairly good example of\nthe self-effacing, almost apophatic, tone the work seeks to recreate:\n\n“Some earlier sketches of mine having been received with some slight\napprobation by the public, my good friend the Editor has asked me, for the\nbenefit of the previously named influential group, to prefix this one with\nsome explanation of the means by which the affecting circumstances here\nrelated reached my attention — a thing I would not otherwise undertake to\ndo, the relation being of so commonplace a nature that only my esteemed\nfriend’s request could embolden me to inflict it on my readers.”\n\nThe situation of this story during Copperfield’s first marriage sets it\nbefore Dora’s miscarriage and death and well before his second marriage to\nAgnes Wickfield, so the sketches David is talking about certainly can’t\ninclude the totality of the novel *David Copperfield*, but will include the\nearlier writing that he undertook, and probably occurs near Chapters 48 and\n49 of the original Dickens? novel. The pity that is McApple?s obsession can\nbe found echoed throughout the original novel, even in scenes such as the\ndeath of the dog Jip and the illness of Dora in Chapter 53.\n\nThe title of Our Neighbor certainly invokes not only the strange behavior\nof McApple as the neighbor of Copperfield but also raises the old biblical\nquestion — who is our neighbor? All of humankind - certainly we should\nempathize with them and treat them as such.\n\nLITERARY ALLUSIONS:\n\nThe work is fairly rife with Dickens references, which seem to be more like\nEaster Eggs than any real metonymic pattern.\n\nDavid Copperfield: from the Dickens novel of the same name, he is working\nas a reporter for a newspaper and also writes in his spare time, fictions\n“no more false, and much more innocent, than those I must often report as\nfact.” His fickleness does not allow him to be entirely content with Dora\nin the original, though he plays only a very small part in this story.\n\nDora: perennially childlike, she will die and David marry again. Some of\nher irresponsibility is captured in this story “Thus, as soon as my darling\nDora was gone, leaving (as her custom is) what remained of the tea things\nbehind her ?”\n\nBrass: one of the visitors to McApple?s, who include “a poor woman with a\nchild, a City merchant, and a gentleman of the legal profession” — the last\nof whom is probably Sampson Brass from *The Old Curiosity Shop*; in the\nnovel, he is a sycophant who helps frame a servant for robbery.\n\nTom Tipsing: a clerk at Lincoln’s Inn, where many of Dicken’s famous novels\nhave scenes. He has aspirations to pass the bar and making money. As far\nas I can tell he and the Nedle family are Wolfe’s creations.\n\nMcApple: Mr. Breedlove supposedly calls him the successor to the historical\nFranz Joseph Gall, whose phrenology is now considered much less than\nscience but did lead to a naturalistic paradigm for considering humanity. He\nis also interested in the works of Franz Mesmer and animal magnetism or\nmesmerism. The apple has its obvious Judeo-Christian symbolic connotations\n— McApple seeks knowledge that will explain the attitudes of the rich.\n\nParsons — the jolly voice that is quieted by the others, he is probably\nGabriel Parsons from “Sketches by Boz”.\n\nAt one point a long legal battle is mentioned in the text: “Why, some of\nthese cases drag on for fifty years. A hundred years!” and this almost\ncertainly references the case of Jarndyce Vs. Jarndyce recounted in *Bleak\nHouse*.\n\nIt is conceivable that the last name Breedlove alludes to the characters in\nToni Morrison’s *The Bluest Eye* (1970), which involves poverty and cruelty\nto children, but certainly not necessarily.\n\nHISTORICAL EVENTS:\n\nThe birdman John served aboard the *Swiftsure*, probably the vessel that\nwas commissioned in 1787, involved in the French Revolutionary and\nNapoleonic wars.\n\nUNANSWERED QUESTIONS: Are all of the unnamed visitors to Dr. McApple?s\nhouse based on Dickens characters? Any meaning to the names Nedle or\nTipsing?\n\nCONNECTION WITH OTHER WORKS:\n\nWolfe’s love of Dickens is well documented, and this is his easiest foray\ninto that territory. Of course he will use Dickens characters again in\n“The Doctor of Death Island” and “The Vampire Kiss”. I feel that Wolfe has\noccasionally sought to emulate writing styles, whether something that\nsounds like Runyan in “Beautyland” or Dickens here. The trend of giving\ncharacters a vulgar or class differentiated method of speaking became far\nmore widespread in Wolfe during and after *The Book of the Long Sun*,\nthough clearly dialog and the manner different characters communicate has\nalways interested him.\n\nThe wooden leg of John seems to resemble the crushed leg of Johann in\n“Silhouette”, also smashed during his service on the ship, and Wolfe’s own\ngrandfather had a wooden leg." } ] } ] }