AEG: Margaret

Dave Tallman · 21 Jan 2009, 10:54 · from 2009-January.txt.gz

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From: davetallman at msn.com (Dave Tallman)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2009 03:54:13 -0700
Subject: (urth) AEG: Margaret
In-Reply-To: <003f01c97b96$a0259c20$26d34a0c@rclackey>
References: <003f01c97b96$a0259c20$26d34a0c@rclackey>
Message-ID: <4976FED5.6080508 at gmail.com>

Roy C. Lackey quoted and wrote:
> >/ I never saw the distinction you made, with Bill and Wally as separate
> />/ people in Cassie's mind. Wally is like a pet name she choses after she
> />/ has come to love him. Cassie explains this on p. 288: "My husband's name
> />/ wasn't Wally. Not really. It was Bill. I called him Wally a-- a lot. It
> />/ was a little private joke we had."
> /
> Otoh, that whole account of how she came to be stranded is a tissue of
> half-truths and evasions, a fine example of Gid's lecture about how best to
> mislead people.
There are half-truths and evasions, but no outright inventions I can 
see. It' s interesting how she hesitates, though. Did she start to say 
something else, like, "I called him Wally as..."?

> Cassie was told contradictory versions of the gold bracelet's origins. There
> is the green-dress business and Wally being/not being in the audience. In
> the beach conversation, she called him a wizard (making gold, vanishing),
> just after he had told her that a wizard (meaning Chase) could never be
> trusted. (269-270)
>   
The contradictory versions of the gold bracelet show that Reis was 
lying, IMHO, not that there were two of him. During the stroll on the 
beach he finally admitted it was radioactive gold:
   Reis:"The gold made you think of that first bracelet...",
   Casssie: "...We've already talked a little about the gold. 
Radioactive gold."
   Reis: "We have."
Giving her the bracelet was a criminal assault; it was natural for him 
to lie during the presentation. He changed his story at Rusterman's 
(121) because he wanted to explain why he took the bracelet back without 
giving the real reason. He thought she might be flattered and mollified 
if he told her he made it especially for her.

The green/brown dress and the being/not being in the audience I do take 
as evidence of clones. My favorite theory right now is that Reis doubled 
back in time to see the play he missed that night, after he became 
attracted to Cassie.

> She reminded him that he had once told her he (Reis) could be trusted and
> his word was always good. He reacted as if he didn't remember saying that.
> (270) He hadn't had that many conversations with her. How could he have
> forgotten something like that, particularly when his original point in
> saying it was to gain her trust? Three pages later, it comes out how he
> deceived her (and Kanoa) about using depth charges on the Storm King.
>   
I took the "You said your word was always good?"..."Did I? I probably 
did." to be a sign that Cassie made such a generalization of what he 
said that he hardly recognized it. What he really said was: "...in 
business matters I can be trusted absolutely. I do not cheat. Most 
particularly, I do not cheat my partners." He didn't say he never lied 
in matters of love.

Reis was vehement that he told no actual lie to Kanoa (273), and I think 
he was technically but not morally correct. He said, "I will not attack 
the Storm King, or his city, with depth charges. Or attack them at all 
without telling you what I plan" (254). He put a concentration of gold 
around the city, leading to Navy attack; he chose to consider that a 
gypsy trick rather than an attack in itself.

> I don't think so. She told the Vince-figure that he wasn't really Vince and
> that she had never liked Vince anyway. But she liked this entity, "whoever
> you are." Yet earlier, when noting the correspondences between real-life
> people in the islands with characters in the play, she told herself, "I only
> hope I never meet Vince.", meaning, of course, the Volcano God. Too bad we
> don't know how Wally's play ended; it might shed some light.
>   
I think you're right that Vince was just an actor. But symbolically he 
was a representative of Reis in the play. Here are some things I deduce 
about the play:

1) The Volcano God was a dangerous villain in the play -- "I only hope I 
never meet Vince" (249).

2) "Remember the show? The banquet you made for me? The way you danced 
with Gil and me?" (285). It seems he was wooing Mariah in a love 
triangle with Mr. Sharpy. He offered her a banquet. This is a very close 
match to the Cassie/Gideon/Wally triangle, including dining out. The 
dance might have been a dream sequence, like the Laurey/Curly/Judd dance 
in "Oklahoma."

3) Vince had a speech about coconuts (107). This may relate to the 
banquet, but I suspect it was a double-entendre about Mariah's breasts.

4) Aunt Jane loved the Volcano God: "And how I love his boiling lava..." 
(138), suggesting she will betray Mariah in the play, and foreshadowing 
Norma's possible betrayal of Cassie. She has an unhappy role. since she 
is only supposed to smile once (131).

5) Like the gold bracelet, the play was designed for Cassie's 
destruction. I suggest there was a scene where she was thrown down a 
stage volcano; that would be a fine way to arrange an "accidental" death.

6) Cassie on Zelda trying to get her to sign up for the play: "She's 
sold me down the volcano..." (83).

7) As a musical, the play would normally have a happy ending of some 
sort. But there could be a twist. One would expect Mariah to end up with 
the sailor, but Reis named him "Mr. Sharpy" (a sharper, a confidence 
trickster). He was the parallel to Chase. Since the play was intended to 
send a message to Chase, Mariah probably ended up with the Volcano God.

> I think W.R. was too alpha to be that passive, unless the life to come means
> something other than what it means for most people. I have no idea
> whatsoever what it means for a human to be in any sense a volcano god.
>   
The island of Takanga Ha'i seems to have two mountains, one for the 
palace and one an active volcano. Probably the King's mountain was also 
a volcano, now inactive. That gaves Reis a strong association with the 
Volcano God. Perhaps he joined with the Volcano God's spirit after 
death. His appearance as Vince Palma rather than Wally suggests the 
being Cassie saw was not simply the ghost of Reis.

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