{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/6653", "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": 6653, "subject": "Short Story 75*: The Doctor of Death Island", "messages": 1, "voices": 1, "first": "2014-09-04T18:01:17+00:00", "last": "2014-09-04T18:01:17+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com" }, "date": "2014-09-04T18:01:17+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Story 75*: The Doctor of Death Island", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "*THE DOCTOR OF DEATH ISLAND*\n\n“The Doctor of Death Island” first appeared in *Immortal* in 1978 and is\nreprinted in *The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other\nStories.*\n\nSUMMARY:\n\nAfter an opening quote from *Oliver Twist* which states that in some cases\nthe outside covers are far better than the contents of books themselves,\nprison orderlies halt to discuss Alan Alvard, who “used to be a big blond\nguy” (and killed his business partner). One named Stan indicates that\nAlvard got “the long string” and rode it all the way, clear out the gate.\nThe other asks if he is out now, and we flash back to the start of Alvard’s\nstory. Each section begins in a brief, relative present tense before\nreverting to past tense.\n\n“The beginning-end of the string, when it comes, is not readily\nrecognizable. It is cancer of the stomach; and it begins as a long\nbellyache that hurts even when he and dark Jessica, no longer jealous,\ntumble over one another on the big bed.” Alvard writes of shadows in his\njournal as winter approaches and says he would like to read Dickens? *Christmas\nCarol* again, and mentions how his stomach hurts terribly as it never did\nwhen he and Barry were partners. He is incarcerated, serving a life\nsentence for the murder of Barry Seigle, but wants his attorney Glazer to\ndo something for him or lose him as a client.\n\nThe next section describes the gray blankets over inmates? faces as the\norderlies and prison workers go about their business night and day. Alvard\nworks in the hospital by day. That night Dr. Baldwin, the night shift\nphysician, sees Dr. Margotte, the day physician. Baldwin asks if he ever\nsleeps, and Margotte says “All the time. I nap. This is my excuse.” Yet\nMargotte does not snooze. One of the prison orderlies comments that someone\nmust be dying, for Margotte is always there and knows when the time comes.\n“They’ll take somebody off the top floor with a sheet on his face tonight.\nYou watch and see if I’m not right,” the orderly says.\n\nOnce again, the next part starts with a sheet over Alvard’s face, who\ndreams of tinkering with his Genre Jinn invention and imagines himself\ninside the box, dead (this merely presages Alvard in his cryogenic sleep —\nand perhaps after the story ends). It flashes back slightly to a\nconversation with his cellmate Riemer before he was frozen, when he talks\nof his dream: he was working and Margotte was the boss. In his dream, the\nboss was coming to see if he had done what he was supposed to do; he could\nnot breathe, and even though he was facing away, he could see Margotte’s\nhand on the knob, with its two fingers gone. (This scene seems to describe\nAlvard’s murder of Barry, doing the work of Margotte, whose hand creeps on\nthe knob to watch him, though it might also invoke working on his\ninvention.) Riemer changes his voice and says that, “It was Karajan. I\ntrust you know how it was done?” Then he laughs.\n\nA newspaper clipping reveals that Alvard has been frozen at his own cost\nsince he was suffering a terminal illness. He was given a life sentence two\nyears before his freezing.\n\nHe awakes far into the future, and the woman briefing him says, “All your\nlife has been spent in a remote country — the past. Now you have to live\nhere.” She reveals doctors have used cell therapy to alter DNA, which\nhastens the death of old body cells and stimulates new ones. There was a\nrevolution when the government tried to keep the treatment from people, and\nnow even clones are possible.\n\nAlvard asks, ?'You mean I’ll live forever?' Words in his mind became\nfleeting pictures of a hillside covered with long, sweet grass. A hillside\nsmiling in the sun. Day always. No night ever.\n\nShe warns that he is like a vase that can be broken at any time, but will\nendure interminably otherwise. He has only been gone forty years, and\nwanders at the thought of ten thousand years of existence. Then he realizes\nthat his orderly and the woman briefing him are inmates, and she says she\nhas been there for 18 years. When the orderly bumps into her, she shoves\nhim. After she leaves, he tells the orderly in the old days there were no\nwomen in the prison. When he receives his food much of it is tasteless and\nlike sour milk made of straw, but some of it pleases him. He imagines\nhimself like Miss Havisham in bed from *Great Expectations.*\n\nAlvard considers the top floor of the hospital and thinks of it as an abode\nof death whose wind carries men away. (He perhaps wonders what the seventh\nfloor is used for with no need for a ward for incurables and hears another\nvoice yelling a question before he collapses below the window — though\nlater he considers that the United States and Kingdoms has adopted a\nBritish floor labeling scheme ). A woman named Megan Carstensen brings him\na Bible — when he opens it, a voice asks “Who is the Son of Man?” and\nAlvard reveals the speaking book was his invention. She is impatient and\noffers to leave his file with him and asks about his state under the\nwindow.\n\nMegan leaves, and his file talks to him in his own voice, revealing he is a\npatient in room 617 (at first he thinks that is a floor below Death Island,\nthe seventh floor). He asks what time it is and realizes that even though\nit is only 6:30, there is no sun in the window. He interrogates his file\nand tries to determine why Megan wanted to learn nothing about him. When an\norderly brings dinner, he questions him about the lack of sun in the\nwindow, but notices that the artificial lights are brighter than he\nthought. The file tells him his invention has been a great success, but the\npatent is broken. An orderly offers to “dial” him down for the night.\n\nThe next day Megan tells him he will have three visitors (Jessica Alvard,\nLisa Stewart, and Jerome Glazer) after responding to his complement on her\nlooks with, “I poisoned a young man who was much prettier than I am — So\nhow do you like having me sit beside you while you eat?” He opens the Bible\nand it says, “He makes his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of\nfire.” (This, from Hebrews 1:7, is a passage which highlights the power and\nimportance of Christ over the angels).\n\nAn orderly takes Alvard up on the rooftop after he sleeps through his\nguests? visit, to see the sun. Their dialogue allows us to assume the\naction takes place circa 2040 and that a life sentence will still last for\nlife. The United States is now called The United States and Kingdoms. The\nbirth rate has gone down as women are unwilling to risk their lives to have\nchildren. He sees that the prison has grown immensely, and the walls\nactually keep him from seeing the setting sun in his room. He ruminates,\n“Now there was no longer that urge to achieve immortality through children.\nReal immortality was at hand. Possibly that was why Catholic priests and\nnuns, for so many hundreds of years, had not cared about having children —\nthey had felt immortality already, believing in the survival of the soul\nafter death.”\n\nJessica returns to visit him, and speaks of what has happened to her,\nrevealing that there have been men over the years (though his partner Barry\nwas before him), and that she will not be jealous of Lisa, her clone.\nAlvard has a vision of Margotte outside his door when he pushes the call\nbutton for the nurse — this vision of Margotte is juxtaposed next to\nJessica's presence in the prison, connecting the concept of death with\nJessica.\n\nAlvard steals a knife from a meal and manages to conceal it from the\nguard’s search in order to tamper with his books. It does not take long for\nhim to infect other talking books with Dickens' characters. Soon, Thomas\nWolfe's *You Can't Go Home Again *displays dialogue from Dickens' *Bleak\nHouse. *The female warden and a man named Lon Matluck who serves on the\nAdvisory Commission on Technological Development offer him a chance to work\nin his old field again, and he says he won't help them for anything less\nthan total freedom. He reveals that his murder of Barry Siegle was inspired\nby Barry's belief that a useless suggestion actually made the Genre Jinn\nwork — that Barry saw himself as the creator when he understood nothing\nabout the work involved. Merely intending to smash Barry's head against the\nwall, when the window on the 83rd floor broke, Alvard picked him up and\ntossed him into the abyss, using the large belt buckle that represented\nnostalgia for the 1980s.\n\nAlvard is transferred to the main prison and is accepted by Megan Cartensen\nas one of her lovers. While there, he discusses the increasingly hostile\nrelationships between men and women with a worker, a hostility which has\nreplaced the class strife between blacks and whites. Alvard receives a\nletter from Jessica stating that she hears he has a lover, but implores her\nnot to tell him, and states that she looks forward to his freedom. The\nletter includes an introduction to her clone Lisa Stewart, who tries to\nsell herself as a model or for part time employment (before the voice of\nMiss Snevellicci from *Nicholas Nickleby *interrupts her, asking, “I beg\nyour pardon, but did you ever play at Canterbury?”) When he asks to speak\nto Snevellicci, knowing that his infestation of Dickens' characters has\nbeen a success, instead the dying voice of William Dorritt from *Little\nDorritt* calls out for Bob, remembering his days in debtor's prison.\n\nAlvard is called to the Presidential Center, floating six kilometers above\nthe city, where he meets Dr. Edith Pomme and Brenda Yarwood, a physicist.\nDr. Pomme is the chair of modern English Literature at Yale and says that\nboth minor and major Dickens characters have been infiltrating the talking\nbooks of all manner, and the President is concerned that there will be no\nway to return to true literacy — the plague of Dickens must be stopped.\n\nAlvard uses this opportunity to secure his freedom, and on the way down he\nflirts with Brenda Yarwood, who resembles Megan Cartensen. On his way to\nliberty, pressed close to Brenda, he encounters Dr. Margotte, who exclaims\nthat he has been waiting for him, and was frozen for a time. When he\nintroduces Brenda to Margotte, Alvard “only then, despite all his aversion\nto Margotte, learns why he fears him. His eyes are precisely the\nprotuberant eyes of Barry Seigle, going over the edge, going down to the\npavement eighty-three floors below.” He sees Jessica steadying a gun on the\ntop of a nearby car and drops the book from his arm, where he hears the\nvoice of a peddler pursuing the murderer Bill Sikes from *Oliver Twist*.\n\nAlvard thinks that it must be a camera rather than a gun, for he saw the\nflash, the book at his head, calling out ?Mud-stain or blood-stain--?\n\nCOMMENTARY:\n\nThe fragmentary nature of the text is not intentionally obfuscating. The\nfirst feature we should note about the short sections is of course that the\nstart of each is in present tense, and this is mirrored in the entire set\nup — the first section is in the “present”, the rest of the story in the\npast. In many ways, the story does play with its first in text Dickens\nreference quite a bit, with the ghosts of past, present and future — we\nhave a man from the past brought into the future world, and the occasional\nsections written in present tense as if they were still occurring.\n\nIt is quite easy to establish that the entire beginning section, when the\norderlies talk, actually occurs after the final scene of the novella\n(symbolically mirroring the present tense transitioning to past tense of\nevery section), though this placement is somewhat ambiguous and perhaps on\na first reading we are tempted to place it during Alvard’s cryogenic sleep,\nbut it is clearly after Alvard has coerced the government into freeing him.\nOrderlies discuss Alvard, the older asking if the younger knew him, and the\nyounger asks “What were they doing?” The older orderly, Stan, doesn’t know\nand discusses an ?it? ? ?He got it — the long string — and he rode it all\nthe way. Clear out the gate. Only a couple years ago, I think it was. The\nquestion “Is he out now?” isn’t answered — because Alvard is dead. [Borski\nerroneously sees Margotte’s presence at the end as hopeful for mankind here\nand also astonishingly tries to, in effect, link Little Nell with Helen of\nTroy onomastically — see Resources below.]\n\nWe are immediately reintroduced to the older man, Stan, as 19 year old\nStanley Johnson in the very next section, in Greyhame for killing a little\ngirl during a robbery, though he wants to be called Snake there, to show\nhow much time has passed.\n\nAll of Alvard’s hopes are crushed when he “awakens”, and the symbols of\ndeath are unrelenting. Even when he thinks he has made it off the seventh\nfloor, the island of death, because of his room number (617), it is just a\ntemporary illusion — the British numbering system for floors assures us he\nis still on the American seventh floor. Just as he thinks he is walking out\nof his prison, he is only going to his own death.\n\nAlvards writings of shadows in the opening section after his conjugal visit\nwith Jessica eventually culminates in stating they are “like tall and\nbeautiful women, drawing an old gray blanket over the dead.” This presages\nnot only the stillness of his cryogenic sleep, but also the stagnation of\nthe culture that has finally received immortality and lost all vitality\n(and the final scene, where the “dark Jessica” will be jealous once again\nand end Alvard’s immortal life.)\n\nSeveral other images contribute to the overwhelming impression that even\nthough mankind is immortal, it is also dead: the repetition of shadows like\ndark women covering a dead body, the idea that Alvard’s cryogenic sleep was\na kind of death, and the lack of joy and art in the new world, where the\nart has returned to haunt humanity like a malevolent spirit (no\ncoincidence, as already stated, that the first Dickens referenced is “A\nChristmas Carol” with its visiting ghosts — though the opening quote of the\nentire story emphasizes that sometimes the covers can be the very best\nparts of books.)\n\nAll creation has become vile — women and men are at war, jealousy will kill\nAlvard and resentful pride prompted him to murder his own partner — all the\nadvancements have led to total stagnation and a death-like life, so even\nthough we end the book with Alvard still technically alive, his death, and\nthe eventual death of everything that was human is all but assured\nthematically. The “cover” of the society is far better than its actuality —\nimmortality for man, while everything worthwhile is dead.\n\nEven early in the story, the idea of a sheet over Alvard’s head is already\nthere: “Alan Alvard lies sweating in his bed. The sheet has gotten over his\nface somehow, and perhaps it has lent his dream a character of suffocation.”\n\nThere are several passages in the story which state the main ideas of the\ntext far more powerfully and effectively than I ever could:\n\n“Not frozen, not sleeping, not hibernating. Dead. — What was death” The\ncessation of breath? They had waited for that. The end of heart action?\nThey had that too. The termination of cellular processes? That had occurred\non freezing. Where had he been then? Or was he only a wind-up toy, equipped\nnow with the near miraculous battery (originally intended for wristwatches)\nwith which he had equipped his books. If only a toy did it matter — even to\nhim — if he was wound up or not, if there was no child to see? A book then.\nHe was a book, of course. — And this, this was a bookcase. This prison. How\ncould it have taken so long for him to understand?\n\nThese are the themes — his life is a colorless and repetitive drive, with\nno new creation, simply reliving the same pages, stored up in an unchanging\nprison without color. The story posits the idea that if a person doesn’t\nend, all new creation and meaningful change becomes impossible. Alvard is\nalready dead, going through the motions of life in this world, and the\nworld is doing exactly the same thing.\n\nHaving said that, we should note that the figure of death, looming Dr.\nMargotte with his three fingered hands, has not been physically tangible in\nthe text for some time, but will return when needed to bring an end to\nlife. An orderly says that when someone is passing over, “Doc Margotte\nknows. He comes in to see them go — or maybe they go when he comes in.\nThey’ll take somebody off the top floor with a sheet on his face tonight.”\nThis is made even more explicit later, when Alvard thinks of a mountain\ninside a gold fish tank that he and Jessica had — its bottom part submerged\nand imprisoned, its peak an island of death, and compares it to Grayham\nprison:\n\nThere was no difference between the ornament and the hospital in which he\nhad worked but size. Like the ornament, the hospital had its lower\nsix-sevenths thrust in the teeming life of the prison. Only its highest\nfloor, Margotte’s ward, higher than all the surrounding buildings, was free\nto look out over the countryside — but the highest floor was the abode of\nDeath, and the wind that breathed through its open windows carried away\nmen.\n\nThe equation of Margotte and Death could not be more overt. Indeed, when\nAlvard is transferred to the general prison, the mail man there says, “Up\nat the hospital, everybody's askin' if we killed you yet. Especially one\nguy, the brain surgeon”, at which point he makes a hand with three fingers\nextended. Three fingered Margotte knows that Alvard is soon doomed to be\nkilled by the people. Here, Alvard speculates that Margotte must be dead,\nand thinks, “Maybe there are a whole line of them, the doctors with blasted\nhands. Maybe they don't know themselves.” Here, he cries — something even a\nlife sentence and cancer could not prompt.\n\nIn this future, the only freedom from a stultifying existence is the\nrelease of death. Indeed, the young women who brings him a Bible comments\nthat he was frozen before a work called *The Death of Love* by Kinglake.\nLove has died — the text dismisses class differences between white and\nblack constituents of society and says that the new struggle is between men\nand women.\n\nIndeed, this struggle is what kills Alvard at the end, when Jessica's\njealousy (Alvard remarked that she once pulled a gun on his partner, Barry)\ncomes to the fore, even though the blond beside him is not the one she\nshould be jealous of. (The metaphor of the books passing their diseases\ncover to cover “socially” expands this idea as well — just as Megan\nCartensen says she poisoned a young man, when Yarwood and Alvard descend\nnext to a woman named Dr. Pomme (which means apple), we see the fall\nthrough temptation repeated once again — the relationships between men and\nwomen in this novella are fatal and poisonous.)\n\nOne of the most inexplicable sections comes early in the text, when Alvard\nis talking to another inmate and says he is sure that he sees a hand on the\ndoor (during his murder of his partner transposed with the creation of the\nGenre Jinn in a dream). His cell mate changes his voice and says it was\nKarajan. This is a rather odd non sequitur and can perhaps be explained by\nthe identity of Herbert von Karajan, a prominent master conductor of the\nBerlin Philharmonic. The text hints that all of this is masterminded and\norchestrated by someone, in this case, the hand on the door — that of the\ntitular character, almost never seen in the story: the doctor of Death\nIsland. (There is another possible reason for the allusion to Karajan — he\nwas related to the Slovene composer Hugo Wolf.)\n\nWhat of the “beginning end of the string” mentioned in the start of the\nnovella, which is cancer? It seems likely that this is an association with\nthe idea of the string of a man's life (despite the orderlies' opening\nconversation) — Alvard's is about to be cut, and the cancer the disease\nthat propels him into the future of unchanging destitution, which will lead\nto his own demise and a rather problematic horde of Dickens' characters set\nfree after his death. Perhaps no one else will be able to stop them from\ninfiltrating the world of knowledge, science, and all attempts to\ncommunicate - given the widespread illiteracy and the attitude towards\nactual reading even those in important positions maintain.\n\nNAMES:\n\nThe Genre Jinn that Alvard creates works almost exactly like a genie or\ndjinn would in granting an impossible wish — talking to our favorite books\nand living with them, but in a backhanded way — killing the need for\nliteracy, without which new creations are impossible. Alvard will also use\nthe powers of his creation of corrupt the other books of the world and gain\nhis freedom. Like most wishes granted by the djinn, stepping outside of the\nprison walls will have immediate negative consequences.\n\nAlan Alvard: Borski notes that the word alvary implies “womb”, and that the\nalliterative qualities of his name would be typical of Dickens. Alan means\n“fair or handsome.”\n\nBrenda Yarwood: The name Brenda means “sword” , Yarwood is a combination of\n“eagle” and ?wood?. A mistaken resemblance to Megan Cartensen costs Alan\nhis life.\n\nMargotte: He is the titular character, though he only appears in a few\nscenes, briefly. His methaphorical association with death becomes literal —\nthere doesn't seem a way for him to have survived long enough for the\nimmortality process to have been administered to him. As a first name it\nimplies “Pearl”.\n\nDr. Edith Pomme: As previously stated, Pomme implies “apple” - the future\nof humanity seems to have eaten fully of the apple of temptation. Edith can\nimply “rich”, ?happy?, and even “war”.\n\nLon Matluck: The chairman for advancing technology, his first name Lon\nimplies “fierce”, though the family name is more difficult to identify.\nPerhaps it signifies fierce luck.\n\nBarry Seigle: Barry means ?spear. The last name is an occupational name for\na maker of seals or signets.\n\nJessica and Lisa Stewart: Jessica means “rich” or “God beholds” - when she\nsees Alvard's behavior, she strikes. Lisa means “devoted to God” - Alvard\nnever gets to meet her face to face. Stewart can mean “guardian” or\n“warden” of a hall. When the prison releases Alvard, she serves as his\nwarden.\n\nMegan Cartensen: Megan also means “Pearl”, as does Margotte. Becoming\ninvolved with her is the death of Alvard — thus the association through a\npearl. (The story also argues that death is perhaps the agency which grants\nlife meaning — a pearl of infinite value). Her last name may imply that she\nis the descendent of a carton or container (a coffin?), unless the last\nname is a derivative of Carstensen.\n\nGreyhame: In addition to meaning a home, hame can imply a covering, which\nmatches the imagery of the grey sheet covering everything in this bleak\ndead but immortal future.\n\nLITERARY ALLUSIONS:\n\nThe most powerful and allusive Dickens reference occurs at the very end\nwhen the explosively tempered murderer Bill Sikes, from *Oliver Twist*, who\nbrutally kills his girlfriend Nancy when he thinks she has betrayed him in\none of the most graphic scenes in Dickens, is being pursued by the peddler\ncalling out, “mud-stains and blood-stains”. If this isn’t enough to let us\nknow Jessica has murder on her mind, the presence of death, Margotte,\ncertainly is.\n\nOtherwise, the Dickens references serve to set the tone for plot\nthroughout: when Alvard is first awakened to the future, he thinks of being\nMiss Havisham — he has great expectations of the future. Before that, when\nhe is dying of cancer, we see “A Christmas Carol” with its evocation of\nghosts, for he is something of the past about to be thrust into the future.\nAt the very start, the quote from *Oliver Twist* indicates that the covers\nare sometimes the best parts of books, and so it is in the future: the idea\nof eternal life so much better than its bleak reality. When Dr. Porter is\nlooking him over after Jessica sees him for the first time in the future,\nhe quotes *Martin Chuzzlewitt:* “What we’ve got to do, is to keep up our\nspirits, and be neighborly — We shall come out right in the end, never\nfear.” Unfortunately, he fails in this and seeks revenge on his neighbors\nfor stealing his patent, unleashing his hordes of Dickens upon them.\n\nThomas Wolfe’s *You Can’t go Home Again* is already invaded by Dickens when\nit begins speaking — from *Bleak House:* Mr. Bagnet says of Mrs. Bagnet\n“She’s color sergeant of the Nonpareil battalion, and there’s not such\nanother.” The titles of these two works of course illustrate what has\noccurred to Alvard — he has arrived at a place of unrelenting bleakness,\nwith no possible return to a living and vital world.\n\nAlvard associates Little Nell from *The Old Curiosity* Shop with his\nmother, since she died when he was very young. In the Dickens novel, Nell\nlives in poverty with her grandfather, who gambles to attempt to give her a\nbetter life but loses everything. During the course of the novel, Nell\ndies, and her grandfather refuses to recognize that she is gone forever,\nwaiting for her return until his own death.\n\nAfter Alvard awakens and begins to see the emptiness of immortal life, he\nthinks of his own mother's absence, something he has always associated with\nLittle Nell because of his father's love of Dickens. Perhaps the refusal to\nrecognize that the society is truly dead in its immortal holding pattern\nreflects this allusion to Nell — it merely believes, as the grandfather\ndoes, that there is some vitality left, when it fact it is long gone.\n\nJessica's clone Lisa's introduction and self-promotion have been invaded by\nMiss Snevellicci from *Nicholas Nickleby,* and this makes Alvard “feel like\nMephistopheles”, with his army of Dickens (another word for devils). He\nasks to speak to Miss Snevellicci (someone Nicholas Nickleby flirted with\nheavily, from which nothing materialized — just like Alvard's fateful\nflirting with Brenda Yarwood and the promise of meeting Lisa herself come\nto nothing). Instead, he gets “Will you go and see if Bob is on the lock”\nSend for Bob, which is from *Little Dorritt* — the dying hallucinations of\nWilliam Dorritt, who was sent to debtor's prison and then wound up\ninherited wealth to free himself from the prison, only to die while touring\nEurope. The plot of *Little Dorritt *intersects the Wolfe story quite\neffectively, as it involves imprisonment, a struggling inventor, and\nWilliam Dorritt's new found freedom curtailed by an early death. No\ncoincidence that his dying pleas accompany the presence of Lisa and\nJessica's letter, where she indicates she has heard he has been having an\naffair with a female prisoner and begs him not to tell her if it is true.\n\nThe second to last Dickens character mentioned is Augustus Minns from\nDickens' first published story. In that story, those seeking to ingratiate\nthemselves to Augustus so that he will write them into his will so\neffectively alienate them that he shuns them. In this scene, Alvard makes\nhis deal for freedom in agreeing to cure the world of the Dickens' plague,\nbut in reality he has only assured his destruction.\n\nUNANSWERED QUESTIONS:\n\nWhile it seems to be fairly straightforward SF, the ominous and ubiquitous\npresence of Dr. Margotte at the time of death invokes at least one\nfantastic and supernatural element. Is the novella in some ways a fantasy?\n\nBesides the hubris of both Alvard and his partner, is jealousy over Barry's\nold relationship with Jessica one of Alvard’s motives for committing\nmurder? That doesn't seem likely.\n\nWhy does Margotte have only three fingers on one hand? Does this resonate\nwith any story or myth? (Three heads of Cerberus, etc).\n\nCONNECTION WITH OTHER WORKS:\n\nFor all that this novella seems allusive and tricky, the third person\nnarration has not yet achieved a significant level of destabilization and\nuncertainty — we KNOW both Jessica is jealous and Alvard proud, and their\ncharacters as well as the implications of this immortality for mankind are\nabout as clear as we can get. The technical stylistic innovation in this\nnovella is the transition from present tense to past tense in each\nfragmented section. Isolation, mental sickness, and treatment are of course\nunder study here as they are in the other Archipelago stories, and for all\nthe pathos of Alvard’s affection for Dickens and Little Nell, this is\nperhaps the least sympathetic and kind of the Island stories — everyone\ndeserves what they get.\n\nWe also see, as I have mentioned, some of the strain between genders that a\nworld without children brings: the tension between blacks and whites is\nhere overtly stated as being replaced by that between men and women, with\ngangs of women abducting and bending men to their will. “In Looking Glass\nCastle”, “Many Mansions”, “A Criminal Proceeding” with its female\npresident, and the feminine authority figures in “The Eyeflash Miracles”\nall seem ideologically related to this gender gap, which flared up strongly\nbut actually quite briefly in Wolfe’s career. Before this point, the\nhobgoblin seemed to be socialized monetary distributions and unjust\ndeclassification in society leading to even more prejudice, but towards the\nlate 70s the redistribution of gender power is overtly explored (there is\neven a line in “The Woman the Unicorn Loved” where Julie stands to greet\nAnderson in his office, and the narrative states that it is as if the\ngender roles had reversed).\n\nWolfe was supposedly working on a novel, *In Greyhame Prison*, which became\nthis novella — in a strange inversion, another novella that he began sprung\nup into *The Shadow of the Torturer*, most fortuitously.\n\nRESOURCES\n\nBorski, Robert. ? ? Urth.net Mailing List.\n<*http://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0017/0056.shtml\n*>" } ] } ] }