PEACE: One Devil

Dave Tallman · 27 Apr 2008, 02:37 · from 2008-April.txt.gz

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From: davetallman at msn.com (Dave Tallman)
Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2008 20:37:09 -0600
Subject: (urth) PEACE: One Devil
Message-ID: <4813E6D5.40302 at gmail.com>

Roy C. Lackey wrote:
> Quite right: During Vi's story she interjected:

> "Shut up, Jimmy. Just because it's your birthday you don't have the right to
> interrupt." (p. 111)

Yes, there's plenty of internal corroboration that the story was told at the birthday party. There's also a mention of Julius with a plate of crumbs from the birthday cake. I think Blaine is meant to be unreliable to the point of comedy. For example, why would Olivia be interested in an ostrich egg from India?

My main point was that a ghost story from a business associate fits the Scrooge theme. Even though Den only gets as far as "I know a story..." it still creates an association with the three-visitors day.

There's another link if in the end it's Mrs. Tilly's ghost (as Miss Hadow) who kills Weer. Marley warned that Scrooge would be doomed to his fate if he didn't change his ways. The curse of the vengeful ghost may have transferred from Tilly to Weer through Julius.

It's interesting that Miss Hadow's a woman of age forty to forty-five. (Is it a coincidence that this is the same age range we get for Weer when Van Ness hears about his predicted stroke at 60?) It's perhaps odd that a woman of this age would think of Carole Lombard when she sees the picture of Candy. If it was 1975, she would have been born in 1930 at the earliest and would have been too young to see Lombard in her heyday. (On the other hand, Mrs. Tilly may have died before Lombard made any movies -- I'm not certain of her death date.)

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