PEACE: One Devil

StoneOx17 at aol.com · 26 Apr 2008, 16:38 · from 2008-April.txt.gz

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From: StoneOx17 at aol.com (StoneOx17 at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2008 12:38:40 EDT
Subject: (urth) PEACE: One Devil
Message-ID: <c1a.387e81fa.3544b490 at aol.com>

> In a message dated 4/26/2008 12:45:28 AM Eastern Daylight Time,  
davetallman at msn.com writes:
> Roy C. Lackey wrote:

> > Uh, I  hate to play Dickens with this theory, but . . .

> > The party took  place shortly after the July picnic. The occasion was
> > Macafee's  41st birthday on August 3 (p. 75) and, assuming that Den was 
born
> >  in 1914, the year was 1923. Olivia's birthday was in November. (ibid.)  
In
> > her jockeying with him for possession of the Egg, she had to  give it to 
him
> > before he could give it to her for her birthday, so  the party had to take
> > place before Christmas, and it  did.

> My impression was that Olivia didn't really want to buy it. She  wanted to 
get 
> Macafee to give it to her, but she was afraid that her November  birthday 
would 
> give him plenty of time to find some other, more  expensive gift.  He could 
tell 
> her that she would have to marry him to get the egg.

> Thus  she wanted to bid against him and lose, letting him know through 
> Eleanor that it was a gift for him. This would increase his obligation  to 
give it 
> to her. Because of Em Lorn's Sabbath rules Olivia ended up buying the  egg 
> herself and being obligated to give it to Macafee. (All the  complicated 
social 
> maneuvers in this chapter make me think of a novel of  manners).

As I have remarked before, I think that Em Lorn came up with these  specific
Sabbath rules specifically so as to let Olivia obtain the egg, as Olivia  did 
not 
bring quite enough cash to outbid Macafee.  It's clear that during the  
visit, 
Em Lorn likes Olivia better than Macafee. So she figures out how to  bend
the Sabbath rules so as to get the egg to Olivia.

> The purchase opportunity was the same for both (the visit to the  Lorns). 
> The gifting occasion was a separate issue, and I don't think the  relative 
dates 
> of the birthdays and Christmas matter. It's most likely that Blaine is  
completely 
> wrong about everything, but there's a way he could be right about the  
Christmas 
> detail. Suppose Olivia decided after the purchase to make Macafee wait  
until 
> Christmas for the egg. She might do this because she was annoyed with  him. 
> Weer might have muddled two parties in his memory.

Although I don't have time to look through the book now, I think there are  a 
number 
of internal references in the Alchemist chapter to the fact that this  
chapter (when 
Julius told the story about Mr. Tilly) happened at Macafee's birthday  party. 
And 
this chapter is introduced by Dr. Van Ness's TAT cards:

Weer: "There's a woman - at least I think it's a woman, it might be a boy,  
an 
adolescent.She's handing that other one something."

Dr. Van Ness: "Very good. Now you are to make up a little story  for me - a 
story
for which this picture is to be one of the illustrations."

It's Olivia giving Macafee the egg.

Peter

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