Subject: (urth) 5HC: Puss in Boots

From: adam louis stephanides <astephan at students.uiuc.edu>
Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 17:36:10 +0000

Here's my stab at the "Puss in Boots" passage.  I can't explain it
completely, but I have a few comments (which may strike everyone else as
obvious).

I'll quote the passage first, because it's short:

   _Later._ For a moment I thought I saw my cat flying like a shadow in
the dark, and I wondered if she were really dead, though I broke her neck.
The day before I found the burial cave for him, she brought me a little
animal and laid it at my feet.  I told her that she was a good cat and
could eat it herself, but she only said, "My master, the Marquis of
Carabas, sends you greetings."  And disappeared again.  The little animal
had a pointed snout and round ears, but its teeth were the even, biting
teeth of a human being, and it smiled in its agony.

1) I take it this is a dream or hallucination, since even if the cat is an
Annese, there's no reason for her to be quoting "Puss in Boots."

2) Note the similarity between the plot of "Puss in Boots" and V.R.T.'s
scheme.  In one, the miller's son assumes the identity of the Marquis of
Carabas and usurps an ogre's castle and lands after his servant Puss in
Boots kills the ogre.  In the other, V.R.T. assumes the identity of Marsch
and usurps his position after killing him.  Note, too, that the "little
animal" is mouse-like, but with a human characteristic: Puss killed the
ogre by tricking him into turning into a mouse.  So while the
correspondence is not exact, I submit that this dream or hallucination
symbolizes both Marsch's death and V.R.T.'s intended theft of his
identity.

3) From the way V.R.T. speaks of, and to, the cat here, it definitely
appears that he regards the cat as a cat, not as an Annese, whether his
girlfriend or not (and nowhere else does he speak of it differently).  Of
course, this could be a subtle bit of misdirection, but in that case it
would be much easier not to mention the cat at all.  And elsewhere in the
journal, he's a remarkably poor liar.

--Adam

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/

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From: William H. Ansley <wansley at warwick.net>
Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 11:06:55 +0000

>teeth of a human being, and it smiled in its agony.

To me, at least, the little animal is obviously Mickey Mouse (or possible
one of the other, similar cartoon mice with pointed snouts, round ears and
square human teeth). Wolfe definitely has Mickey on his mind from time to
time; witness the story "Three Fingers" in _The Island of Doctor Death and
Other Stories and Other Stories_.

So, I think this passage is, more or less completely, a joke. Wolfe has
been known to joke. In fact, in some essay I can't find right now he says
something to the effect that his sense of humor makes women faint and
strong men cry. And I think it's true--at least the last part.

William Ansley