Urth Net
Free Live Free
I just re-read Free Live Free, and since this list is dormant, thought I'd toss this out to see if anyone wants to discuss it a bit. Here are some of my thoughts, to start us out:
I do think that the Wonderful Wizard of Oz plays a major role in the book. It's alluded to a number of times. But the narrative is greatly transmogrified. FLF is Wolfe's book about America, and to spring off of this quintessentially American fantasy is very apropos. I've not (yet) re-read WWOz so I'm going by memory here; but:
1. We begin by arriving at a house presided over by a wizard (not a witch, and not a bad person), Ben Free. That house is torn down, and the characters scatter. Compare the beginning of WWOz.
2. At the end we find the Good Witch of the South (Glinda; formerly Madame Serpentina).
3. The movement is from the house, to a hotel (Emerald City), to an insane asylum (abode of the wicked witch of the west), back to the hotel (Emerald City), and then on to High Country (the journey south, where the characters in WWOz are tested), and finally back to the original house (now corresponding to the city of the south).
4. The destruction of the psychiatric witchery of the insane asylum corresponds to the defeat of the wicked witch of the west and her horde of monkeys.
5. Notice that it is while in the hotel the first time (in the Emerald City), that the four receive a communication from the moon via Serpentina about their destinies (compare the wizard's promise in WWOz).
Thus, in a general way the movement of the novel seems to track WWOz. But there are some more general allusions, it seems. For instance, the field of poppies seems to link with the drugging of patients in the asylum, though it is not in the same narrative order as WWOz. Does the encounter with the queen of the mice link with Serpentina's return to the gypsy king just before going to the asylum? I suspect that a re-read of WWOz will show many more parallels.
Second, the characters: I suspect that many of the minor characters come from later Oz books, since Wolfe is familiar with them. I'm not interested in reading these to see if this might be the case, however.
The four main characters each have a besetting sin. These seem to link with four of the Seven Deadly Sins (Pride, Greed, Envy, Anger, Lust, Gluttony, Sloth).
Fat Candy - gluttony. That's a no-brainer. (Her name links to this also, of course.)
Ozzie (Osgood = Oz-Good) Barnes (the salesman) - lust. I think his marriage broke up because of unfaithfulness, though this is not stated.
Stubb (the detective) - pride. He thinks he can handle everything, and has a "little man complex" or "Napoleon complex." As a short man consumed by being short, he's a "stub."
Madame Serpentina - witchcraft, perhaps greed as lust for power (the sin of the Serpent, Satan). Also, as a gypsy pickpocket she's "greedy." (Note that her name originally was Marie, Mary, but that she has fallen from this "Christian" name into serving Satan as Madame Serpentina.)
Each is trapped by his/her sin just before being offered a new life. This corresponds to the tests that the characters in WWOz undergo in their journey south in the second half of the book:
Candy by her lust for food and drink by Sweet (note the name: sweet guy and sweet food);
Barnes by his lust for sex at the Flying Carpet cabaret;
Stubb by his pride in thinking he can handle the situation with Cliff (Stubb "falls over the cliff" because he's not careful enough);
Madame Serpentina by her lust for forbidden knowledge and power (symbolized by Egypt, the ancient enemy).
Now, in WWOz the three Oz characters are animal, vegetable, and mineral. I don't know how Wolfe might be playing with this. But they are also mind, emotion, and will.
Stubb - very smart; mind (Scarecrow; vegetable?)
Candy - very loving; emotion (Tin Woodman; mineral?)
Serpentina - very determined; will (Lion; animal?)
Which leaves Barnes as Dorothy, and Little Ozzie as Toto.
And of course Ben Free as the Wizard. Free is not a humbug, but I think he is trapped in "Oz" (see below), and only escapes through death. Free does move upwards (compare the wizard's balloon).
Now, overlaid on this fully American fantasy (WWOz) is Wolfe's reflections on America. America used to be free, but it isn't any longer. (Ben Free = been free). America has lost her vision, the vision of a free nation, symbolized by the abandonment of High Country (the high ground, the ideal). America is full of people living in destructive sins (the four characters) and presided over by psychiatrists, who are themselves as insane as the America-Asylum they guard. America is a fallen and perverted Land of Oz. Ben Free escapes this Oz by going back to early America, and so never leaves Oz until he dies. The others are given the opportunity to transform this fallen Oz into a good Oz, not by killing back witches, but by killing the bad parts of themselves.
Free-Whitten goes back to the days of Lewis and Clark, when America was free, and when Americans still were explorers with vision. That's his personal escape, but it's not an answer to the problem. The answer is for Americans to go back to being moral and spiritual people. The four characters are given the chance to change their lives and to become such people. As such, perhaps they as the Quadrivium can lead America forward (and back) to what America should be (and once was). The moral part of their transformation is clear, but the need for Serpentina to see through the fakeries and dangers of witchcraft points to a need for religious/spiritual transformation also.
Thus, in a very broad sense, Ben Free is partly a kind of Christ figure, providing an opportunity to have a "new birth."
A final thought. I don't know where the gizmo was hidden in the "wall" of Ben Free's house, but I'm betting that it was behind the sign that read Free Live Free. That seems to be hinted at in the last chapter. Little Ozzie says "there's a sign," and "sign" can have two meanings. The physical sign is Free Live Free. Barnes seems to link this with the gizmo. But I'm not sure about this.
JBJordan (Nutria)