The Devil in a Forest

David Stockhoff · 17 May 2009, 13:37 · from 2009-May.txt.gz
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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Sun, 17 May 2009 09:37:43 -0400
Subject: (urth) The Devil in a Forest
In-Reply-To: <mailman.1.1242508095.11367.urth-urth.net at lists.urth.net>
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Message-ID: <4A101327.8010403 at verizon.net>

Brief responses below, because I think we are not necessarily in disagreement:
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Message: 2
Date: Sat, 16 May 2009 14:58:15 -0500
From: "James Wynn" <crushtv at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) The Devil in a Forest
To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
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> >David Stockhoff said: I don't recall the novel well, but I'm skeptical that 
> >one
> >can so confidently read direct criticism of socialism and bureaucratic
> >government in it. So I'd like to see more citations specifically supporting
> >that theory. Unless, of course, you meant it only in a general or indirect 
> >sense.
>   

I do think it's done in a more indirect sense. This novel is "about" many 
things, but the shadow of economic/social commentary lies long and dark over 
it. Wolfe starts with a hero of folklore known for "robbing the rich to give 
to the poor". But he starts the story from the perspective of "the rich". 
For starters, we get an old peddler, who is also a very clever salesman that 
manages to get housewives to spend more than they planned to. Wat shoots him 
dead with an arrow and robs him.  Later he justifies it (he quite good a 
justifying everything he does) saying:

"I put my second-best shaft in his neck. I don't like the breed--nasty, 
whining creatures that cry and say you're taking their last farthing when 
they've half a dozen of gold in one shoe and a thousand more, like as not, 
in the mattress at home."

Then we meet the Villagers--the rest of "the rich"--all of whom are 
tradesmen. They start with a plan to form a private militia to root out Wat, 
but Wat is a clever corrupter. Before things get far along, he has convinced 
a sizable chunk of the tradesmen to join him in a plot to rob a nobleman 
(someone who is rich from the tradesmen's POV).  But, actually, no nobleman 
will ever get skinned because Wat's real plan is to rob one of the 
tradesmen.

Only after we meet the rich, are we introduced to "the poor". The Poor are 
the charcoal burners in the forest. Wat's relationship with them is to buy 
them off. There is no time in the story when Wat's relationship with them is 
chummier than that. They can't go to the authorities even if they were 
inclined to because their own livelihood is technically illegal. But Wat 
knows that they might turn him in for a reward so he is never among them in 
trust.

There are no speeches about liberty or the rights of property, but Wolfe 
effectively demolishes  the whole philosophical structure of forcibly taking 
from "the rich" for purposes of benevolence.  It simply does not happen 
here.


My only objection is that there doesn't seem to be any philosophical structure to Wat's thieving. He's a psychopath.

> >...in what way does a feudal figure resemble modern big government?
>   

If this isn't a fable about the foolishness of depending on the beneficence 
of  the government, I can't imagine what would be. In order to protect 
themselves from thievery, members of the village seek the help of the 
government. But once they have let the camel's nose under the tent, they 
find that people actually performing those duties are not interested in 
"rescuing" them, but in following the letter of the law as it has been 
defined to them, and feathering their own well-being as much as they're 
permitted within the strict definition of their duties. In short, the Law 
(the government from the POV of the villagers), is a bigger marauder than 
Wat. They treat all the villagers as a potential law-breakers, and in deed 
Philip the Cobbler and Gloin the Weaver are defined technically as "Wat's 
men" even though they never robbed anyone, even though there was never 
anyone to rob.



Here, "government" = the people hired by the noblemen to keep order. No more. I don't see any pretense of benevolence. Also, I don't see that The Law is the problem, but rather the corruption of those who are supposed to execute it. In this, I guess I see a parallel to the Church, which Catholics generally accept as human and flawed below the level of the Pope.

The noblemen are, however, the only ones to come off more or less clean, except that they permit evil to be done in their names.


> > If anything, the story sets---if I can again put
> >it in the terms of past debates---'good' king vs 'bad' king. Bad kings tax 
> >and kill freely and destroy all that is not theirs; good kings try to 
> >improve things but also tax and kill with
> >restraint. Nobility should behave in a certain way, according
> >to a code, as a knight. Neither the sheriff nor Wat is a nobleman,
> >and thus cannot be either. Clearly Wat is misguided, but it
> >wouldn't be the first time a Wolfe protagonist is misguided.
>   

Wat is not presented as "misguided". He's a ruthless murderer and thief, and 
as clever a corrupter of those around him as the Devil himself. He's also 
not in his right mind. He's totally controlled by Mother Cloot.

There is no "good king" and no "bad king" in this story. Wat is both the 
highwayman AND the sheriff (there's a metaphor for you). There is a king at 
the end who provides information to tie up lose ends, but he doesn't punish 
the soldiers for what they did to Mark's village as a "good king" would. He 
doesn't attempt to arrive at a higher justice for Phillip and Gloin. Mark 
tells the king that the soldier's promised to release them if he led them to 
Wat, and the king just waved it away. The abbe' tells Mark they are sure to 
be hanged in a very short time. Nor is the king presented as a ravager. He's 
just an amiable old guy. It's not clear what he would have done if he'd 
known how often Mark went willingly through the forest with Wat.




I didn't mean to suggest that there was a good king in the story. By 'good' I meant "ideal." The king is not ideal but very real---he doesn't really give a shit.


> >First of all, by the time you've equated socialism with "robbing
>   
>from the rich and giving to the poor," you've already hanged

> >socialism without a trial, because that means you don't know
> >what it is. Though I will grant that it is commonly understood
> >in that way in the US, and that the requirement of ignorance
> >does not rule out Wolfe's understanding it that way too.
>   

I suspect Wolfe does not believe socialism deserves a trial. The reason 
socialism is understood "as robbing from the rich to give to the poor" in 
the US is because the country was founded on the ideals of private property. 
Excepting slavery and the treatment of the Indians, there was never a time 
of clearly defined "class" -- of a "place" in society that one is expected 
to know. Actually, "rob from the rich" is a nicer way to put it than Kipling 
did: "They promised abundance for all/By robbing proverbial Peter to pay 
proverbial Paul". In order to get from here to there (socialism/welfare 
state), the advocates of the shift have always framed it as taking from 
those who "don't need it" in order to fund "the community".


J. 



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