{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/6586", "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": 6586, "subject": "Short Story 72: War Beneath the Tree", "messages": 1, "voices": 1, "first": "2014-07-29T06:10:02+00:00", "last": "2014-07-29T06:10:02+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com" }, "date": "2014-07-29T06:10:02+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Story 72: War Beneath the Tree", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "“War Beneath the Tree” first appeared in *Omni* in 1979.\n\nSUMMARY:\n\nRobin’s toys, the spaceman, bear, dancing doll, and guardsmen, provide him\nwith more company and guidance than his mother, who wonders what he will do\nwhen he doesn’t have robotic sycophants to spoil him. Her robot maid\nreadily agrees with everything she says. The maid tells the toys to\nstraighten up. Bear and Robin hold a conversation about squiggling and\nproblems sleeping, and Robin says that he will get something for Bear on\nhis birthday tomorrow. Bear sings a Christmas Carol and thinks of the\nproblems with the other toys and of the toys from the previous year. Bear\ngoes out to plan strategies with the other toys for the coming battle. Robin\ndreams of ice skating and hitting his head, but awakens in bed. He creeps\nout to see his mother, Mrs. Jackson, described as fat as Santa, and all the\nnew toys under the tree.\n\nRobin watches all the new toys move and get out of their boxes: a clown, a\nraggedy girl, and a climbing monkey, along with cowboys, Indians, and a\nknight with a dragon. The fierce battle begins and the old toys are burnt\nand defeated one by one. Bear considers running and hiding in a box in the\nbasement but fights on.\n\nIn the morning Robin is playing with his toys, and says one of the Native\nAmericans doesn’t work, damaged in the previous night. The maid asks where\nthe new toys are, and Robin’s mother says, “They’re programmed to\nself-destruct, I understand — But Robin, you know how the new toys all\ncame, the Knight and Dragon and all your Cowboys, almost by magic” Well,\nthe same thing can happen with people. Robin looks frightened as she\nfinishes, ?The same wonderful thing is going to happen here, in our home. ?\n\nCOMMENTARY:\n\nA fairly straightforward satire of poor parenting and the isolation of\nchildhood, it also provides an interesting metaphor for an interesting\npart of growing up — the putting aside of childish things in favor of\nalmost equally but perhaps slightly more age appropriate new, shiny things,\nthat soon die and lose their luster in turn. The lonely children in\nWolfe’s fiction occupy a pretty important part of his writing, and here,\ndespite the fact that there is very little more than the surface metaphor\nof objects that mean the world when they are new and are then are almost\neasily replaced with fickle novelty, we can see that fantastic escapism at\nwork. There is a slightly more critical tone to the treatment of the\nmother, Mrs. Jackson, who is completely out of touch with her child’s\nfeelings and perspective.\n\nThe toys do the parenting, with the Spaceman saying it is time for bed and\nthe mother echoing it, and with a doll programmed to begin the boy’s sex\neducation, and the mother remains blind to her own pampered surroundings by\n“transistorized sycophants.” Her smoking while pregnant is another example\nof her rather poor parenting (this was, after all, written in the late 70s).\nFinally, Wolfe shows us what an only child would feel at the prospect of a\nnew baby: fear of being replaced, destroyed inside and out and meaning\nnothing to a parent. To a young child, it might very well be like being\nthrown into the fire emotionally. Her lack of empathy for the son’s\npotential horrified response (albeit influenced by the absurdity of the\nliteral situation he witnessed) is captured quite nicely.\n\nI feel there is an indictment of the consumerism inherent in Christmas and\nbirthdays here, where Robin considers buying his toy a present, but this is\nmore innocent and sweet than the impression we are left of the mother, and\na father who is completely absent as he travels in Brazil over Christmas.\n\nWhat makes the story effective is the emotional truth of the tale: how does\nit feel to be forgotten and cast aside? The early everyday horrors of\nchildhood that stem from unfamiliarity with the world are nicely captured\nhere.\n\nOne other detail is that besides the Christmas Carol the Bear sings, there\nis little mention of what Christmas is actually supposed to connote —\nsalvation and the birth of Christ, instead merely being a time of new toys\nreplacing old ones.\n\nWolfe commented “This is simple truth: Tonight you and I, with billions of\nothers, are sitting around the fire we call ?the sun”, telling stories; and\nfrom time to time it has been my turn to entertain. I have occasionally\nremembered that though you are not a child, there is a child alive in you\nstill, for those in whom the child is dead will not hear stories. Thus I\nwrote “War Beneath the Tree”, and certain others.\n\nCONNECTION TO OTHER WORKS:\n\nThis has a dark parallel with the much later “And When They Appear”, but\nWolfe’s treatment of isolated and lonely children found their best\nexpression in “The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories” and “The Death\nof Doctor Island.”" } ] } ] }