Kevin Malone

Allan Lloyd · 02 Apr 1999, 08:52 · from urth-v0024.mbox · original

This is the message as the crawl holds it, before anything here touched it. What the conversation shows has been through ingest: transfer encodings decoded, attachments dropped, quote markers repaired, and the archiver’s ? resolved into quotation marks and dashes. Those repairs are judgements and some of them are wrong, which is what this page is for. Email addresses are obscured here as they are everywhere else on the site, so it is before our repairs rather than byte for byte.

From: Allan Lloyd <lloyd at sundial.kc3ltd.co.uk>
Subject: (urth) Kevin Malone
Date: Fri, 02 Apr 1999 09:52:38 +0100
Message-ID: <urth-v0024-0132 at digest.urth.net>
X-Urthmirror-Source: http://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0024/0132.shtml
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Hello, this is my first posting to the Urth list so be gentle with me. I
was tempted out of lurker status by the discussion of Kevin Malone. It
was entertaining to watch two
opposing views of the story being debated, but I couldn=E2=80=99t help feel=
ing
that both had been  distracted by a typical Wolfeian red herring.
This story is to me one of Gene=E2=80=99s more obvious Christian parables. =
The
clues in the text
are almost too many to mention, the most blatant being the butler=E2=80=99s
name, Priest. The
house is compared to a Renaissance palace which should have a =E2=80=9Cred =
robed
cardinal
descending the steps.=E2=80=9D
The =E2=80=9Cbeautiful=E2=80=9D couple=E2=80=99s first meal is lamb in aspi=
c, the breakfast is
eggs Benedict. The garden is full of roses, and the first time we see
Kevin Malone, he is weeding the garden (removing plants that fail the
test?).
The couple are being tested for their suitability to join the ranks of
the family (of God), hence all of the servants who have already
undergone the test have the same name,
Malone.
After a summer of paradise, the strain in their relationship exposes
their lack of love, and they react in different ways. The wife offers
her body to the butler and is gently refused, but the narrator threatens
Priest with being thrown into the fire, a particularly Biblical bit of
violence, and thus fails the test, leading to his expulsion from the
garden.
When Kevin Malone appears he bursts through the window in a gust of
wind, with a
mention of spirits and ghosts. When telling his story he mentions being
brought up in a
room over a stable, and makes reference to =E2=80=9Csupper at a long table=
=E2=80=9D not
being for him.
When he talks of the murder of Betty Malone he mentions bloody rags and
a hammer,
with all the links with the crucifixion, and although they don=E2=80=99t kn=
ow
where she is buried, she is with them in the garden (resurrection).
I think that the talk who committed the murder is not relevant, there
are few clues in the text as to how or why she died, but the important
thing is that both she and her murderer have been forgiven(she for
having been a "tramp").
Kevin Malone himself is portrayed as a character with faults, especially
misogyny, but he has given up his wealth to serve others, as have the
other servants who have obviously been previously tested in the same way
as the current couple. (There are 24 of them, perhaps two sets of twelve
disciples.)
The wife sits at the feet of Malone, and symbolically dies when she
passes out at his feet. She is reborn with a hangover next day, and
joins the family, while the husband leaves the house and is last seen
searching for meaning but failing to find enlightenment.
The final sentence, with its repetition of the phrase =E2=80=9Crich man=E2=
=80=9D refers
to the parable=20
concerning camels and eyes of needles, and seems to be saying that a
rich man can be
possessed by the spirit of God and earn himself a place in the Kingdom
of God by serving
others.
The final argument lies in the names. Malone is an old Irish name
meaning =E2=80=9Cfollower of
Saint John=E2=80=9D, so all the servants have the same name. Marcella is the
female form of Mark, another apostle, and Kevin means =E2=80=9Cbeautiful on=
e=E2=80=9D.
I hope this makes some kind of sense, and is worthy of inclusion here.
Could I say that reading the archives has brought a wealth of new
meanings and appreciation for me to the works of Wolfe, and please keep
up the good work,
                      Allan Lloyd

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

An unofficial mirror of a public mailing list · about & removal requests · download the archive · before the list · original archive at urth.net