{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/6613", "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": 6613, "subject": "Short Story 88: A Cabin on the Coast", "messages": 1, "voices": 1, "first": "2014-08-11T21:17:22+00:00", "last": "2014-08-11T21:17:22+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com" }, "date": "2014-08-11T21:17:22+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Story 88: A Cabin on the Coast", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "“A Cabin on the Coast” first appeared in *Zu den Sternen* in 1981 and is\ncollected in *Endangered Species*.\n\nSUMMARY: In his father's cottage, Tim Ryan Neal plans to elope with Lissy.\nTim swims alone and sees something which resembles a crude drawing of a\nship on the horizon. He then returns naked to the cottage, where he and\nLissy exchange some rather pointed banter which brings up his father, who\nis running for office as a Democrat. His mother died near Tim's birth, but\nnamed her ninth child and seventh son after the father, who goes by the\nname Ryan Neal. He resembles his father greatly, and Lissy vows to call him\n“Little Tim” and his father “Big Tim”. After a bit more frolicking near the\nwater, he carries Lissy to bed.\n\nIn the morning, she is gone, her damp bathing suit hanging up in the\ncottage. Tim tries to find her and eventually goes to the police, who\nunderstand his delicate political position because of his father's career\nand will file a missing person's report in 24 hours. He returns to the\ncabin, watches the strange ship a bit longer, and then swims out searching\nfor it until the ship is suddenly before him. Once he reaches its oars, he\ninstantly appears on deck next to a man with an Irish speech pattern\nsmoking a pipe. The man identifies himself as Daniel O'Donoghue, the High\nKing of Connaught. After a discussion of the nature of faerie folk and even\naliens, he says that Tim must get Lissy back with his blessing or drown,\nand that the only way to do it is to serve him. First he asks for a hundred\nyears, and then, when Tim agrees, shortens it to twenty.\n\nHe bursts through the water, and vaguely remembers “drudging, dancing,\nbuying, spying, prying, waylaying and betraying when he walked in the world\nof men. Serving something he had never wholly understood. Sailing foggy\nseas that were sometimes of this earth. Floating among the constellations.\nThe years and the slaps and the kicks were all fading, and with them .. the\ndays when he had begged.”\n\nHe makes his way into the cabin, and returns on the day before he left to\nfind Lissy in bed. She says, “Big Tim — You did come. Tim and I were hoping\nyou would — we're going to be married.”\n\nCOMMENTARY:\n\nWhile this is a supernatural story, it is also one which explores class\ndistinctions in relationships, something that is perhaps relegated to\nwealth, education, and status rather than titles, blood, and birth in much\nAmerican fiction. Many fairy tales confront this class separation, and the\nroot of the modern realistic novel can also be said to underline this\nstratification in society. Here we have an eloping couple representing\nobviously different stations in life, but the story soon drops its\nrealistic basis and returns to the fairy tale root — and we soon see that a\nbond between two different people, whether they are mortal and fairy or\nnot, often comes at a rather stern price.\n\nThe first thing to note is that Tim Ryan Neal is a seventh son of a seventh\nson, and this explains why Daniel O?Donoghue, or whatever his real name is,\nmaintains an interest in his service. These seventh sons were reputed to\nnot only have extraordinary talents as healers, but to also have skills of\nprognostication and magic. For this reason, he attracts the faerie folk.\nHis name also hints at kingly greatness and importance, and Daniel succeeds\nin casting him down to the point of begging.\n\nThe word “cabin”, which Lissy insists on calling the cottage, has another\nimplication: a room or partition in a vessel, and this, coupled with the\nstrange dialog between the two and her reluctance to submerge herself in\nthe water (though her bathing suit is wet and she does claim that she wants\nto learn how to swim) casts some suspicion on both her motives and on her\nidentity. Lissy seems to hint that Tim's mother knew that her seventh son\nwould resemble his father almost exactly.\n\nThe dialog between the two flows almost as vaguely sinister non-sequiturs,\ninvolving castration and consumption — let's trace the interchange between\nthem for a brief feel for this banter:\n\n[On seeing him naked, when he explains it is too early for people] - “Get\ninto bed then. How about the fish?”\n\n?Salt water makes the sheets sticky. The fish have seen them before. Here,\nhe implies his genitals, and immediately she suggests, “They might bite 'em\noff. Sharks, you know. Little ones.”\n\nIn a few lines, when he implies that people will think she might not be\nswimming because it's “that time of the month”, she threatens, “I'm going\nto bite your ears off.”\n\nHe calls her a castrating woman, and later, as she takes a bite of a hot\ndog and repeats his description, her remark is unintelligible. “Cuff tough\nwoof.”\n\nShe won't submerge in the water: “She was afraid of the water. We went in\nyesterday, and even with me there, she would hardly go in over her knees.”\nWhile the name Lissy might be short for Alice or Elizabeth, there is one\nother mythological name that might sound slightly like it, discussed below.\n\nFinally, we have the police officer, when he thinks of her possible fate,\nsaying this: “People think drowners holler like fire sirens, but they don't\n— they don't have that much air.” Even though the cup is bringing up the\nsound of a fire truck or alarm here, Wolfe places the term siren there for\na reason, for this trip to the coast with Lissy, fraught with the lingering\ndisapproval of his father, symbolically resembles the call of the sirens,\nluring men away from safety.\n\nLITERARY AND MYTHOLOGICAL ALLUSIONS:\n\nThe land of Connaught in Ireland which Daniel claims to be King of is real\n— it's name implies “Descendents of Conn”, a legendary High King of\nIreland. When the Tuatha Da Danann defeated the Firbolg, they gave the\nremnants of the Firbolg control of Connaught. Wolfe has overlaid this story\nbefore with American history in *Peace*, where waves of settlers, some\nIrish, replace the Native Americans, and this actually comes up in the\nstory, where Tim claims that he is American rather than Irish and King\nDaniel inquires where his feathers are.\n\nIn many ways this is something of an inverted version of Han Christian\nAnderson's “The Little Mermaid” - in that story, Melusine the mermaid falls\nin love with a human and must serve the good for 300 years to earn a human\nsoul. She gives up her tongue in return for human limbs, and there are\npoints when the dialog between Lissy (could Lissy be derived from Melusine\ninstead of Elizabeth?) and Tim are unintelligible, such as when she has her\nmouth full: “cuff tough woof”, meaning to say “castrating woman.” Lissy,\nlike Melusine, is also reluctant to get wet, and Tim notes she would not\nenter the water above her knees, though her bathing suit is wet the next\nday. Time says that Lissy is the oldest of her parent's children, and this\nis also echoed in the 14th century stories of Melusine by Jean D'Arras, in\nwhich Melusine's mother Pressyne made the human father agree never to enter\nher chamber when she birthed or washed her chilren — Melusine is the oldest\nof her children, and when the father inevitably breaks his word, the mother\nand children escape to Avalon. (I will avoid making any kind of parallel\nhere between the Irish Democrat Tim Ryan Neil and the Kennedy family's\nadministration, with its fanciful Camelot appellation and even the later\nChappaqquidick disaster that involved Mary Jo Kopechne's drowning, though I\nthink there is a faint resonance there.)\n\nIn any case, just as there is often a high price in fairy tales in\nrelationships between the fairy and mortals, here Tim suffers because of\nhis need to obtain the object of his desire. When Daniel puts his foot on\nthe back of his head, this resembles the famous image of the Archangel\nMichael stepping on the head of Lucifer, though here it is probably the fey\nor demonic asserting its dominion over man because of his all consuming\nlust.\n\nNAMES AND THE FAERIE\n\nDaniel O?Donoghue, King of Connaught: Daniel means “God is my judge” and\nO'Donoghue can mean a descendant of Donncadh, “the lord of battle” or “the\ndark-haired man of battle.”\n\nDomdaniel: a fictional cavern at the bottom of the ocean where evil beings\nand sorcerers gather, it is mentioned in many fantasy works, including ones\nby T.H. White, Hawthorne, and Lovecraft.\n\nDaniel, perhaps sarcastically, says, “Tis the Fair Folk we are. The jinn o'\nthe dessert too, and the saucer riders ye say ye credit — Have ye never\nwondered why we're so much alike the world over” Or thought that we don't\nalways know just which shape's the best for a place, so the naiads and the\ndriads might as well be the ladies o' the Deeny Shee? Do ye know what the\nfolk o' the Barb'ry Coast call the hell that's under their sea? ? Why, 'tis\nDomdaniel. I wonder why that is now. The Deeny Shee mentioned are the\nDaoine Sidhe or “the People of Peace” so prominent in *Peace* and in the\nstories of Ireland. Here Greek, Irish, and even Arabian myths are being\nequated with their common denominators, and Daniel even implies that any\nattempt to explain the unknown, such as the concept of aliens, involves the\nsame root of inexplicable mystery which he represents, always knowing how\nto appear to best serve his own goals.\n\nTimothy Ryan Neal: Timothy means “God-fearing” or “God's honor”, Ryan\nimplies the “little king” or “kingly”, and Neal, which is derived from “the\nchampion”. Here, Daniel places his foot upon his head and gains his\nservice, perhaps luring him away with Lissy. There is an exchange between\nthem where Tim is talking of Lissy and says, “We went in yesterday, and\neven with me there, she would hardly go in over her knees. So it was you,”\nto which Daniel replies, “Yer right ? 'twas us”, rather ambiguously —\nwhether or not Lissy is actually faerie in origin, she has served their\npurposes as bait for Tim, causing him to waste his life and lose the\nyouthful love he valued above all else.\n\nUNANSWERED QUESTIONS:\n\nWhy does the ship resemble a child's drawing of a ship?\n\nDoes the title, “A Cabin on the Coast”, somehow refer to the ship rather\nthan to Tim's cottage?\n\nCONNECTION WITH OTHER WORKS:\n\nThe mutable form of faeries began in “The Changeling” and *Peace* and will\nbe seen over and over in Wolfe's later work, such as “The Friendship Light”\nand “Sighting at Twin Mounds”, with a fair amount of syncretic ambiguity in\ntheir nature." } ] } ] }