(urth) PEACE: One Devil
StoneOx17 at aol.com
StoneOx17 at aol.com
Sat Apr 26 09:38:40 PDT 2008
> In a message dated 4/26/2008 12:45:28 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
davetallman at msn.com writes:
> Roy C. Lackey wrote:
> > Uh, I hate to play Dickens with this theory, but . . .
> > The party took place shortly after the July picnic. The occasion was
> > Macafee's 41st birthday on August 3 (p. 75) and, assuming that Den was
born
> > in 1914, the year was 1923. Olivia's birthday was in November. (ibid.)
In
> > her jockeying with him for possession of the Egg, she had to give it to
him
> > before he could give it to her for her birthday, so the party had to take
> > place before Christmas, and it did.
> My impression was that Olivia didn't really want to buy it. She wanted to
get
> Macafee to give it to her, but she was afraid that her November birthday
would
> give him plenty of time to find some other, more expensive gift. He could
tell
> her that she would have to marry him to get the egg.
> Thus she wanted to bid against him and lose, letting him know through
> Eleanor that it was a gift for him. This would increase his obligation to
give it
> to her. Because of Em Lorn's Sabbath rules Olivia ended up buying the egg
> herself and being obligated to give it to Macafee. (All the complicated
social
> maneuvers in this chapter make me think of a novel of manners).
As I have remarked before, I think that Em Lorn came up with these specific
Sabbath rules specifically so as to let Olivia obtain the egg, as Olivia did
not
bring quite enough cash to outbid Macafee. It's clear that during the
visit,
Em Lorn likes Olivia better than Macafee. So she figures out how to bend
the Sabbath rules so as to get the egg to Olivia.
> The purchase opportunity was the same for both (the visit to the Lorns).
> The gifting occasion was a separate issue, and I don't think the relative
dates
> of the birthdays and Christmas matter. It's most likely that Blaine is
completely
> wrong about everything, but there's a way he could be right about the
Christmas
> detail. Suppose Olivia decided after the purchase to make Macafee wait
until
> Christmas for the egg. She might do this because she was annoyed with him.
> Weer might have muddled two parties in his memory.
Although I don't have time to look through the book now, I think there are a
number
of internal references in the Alchemist chapter to the fact that this
chapter (when
Julius told the story about Mr. Tilly) happened at Macafee's birthday party.
And
this chapter is introduced by Dr. Van Ness's TAT cards:
Weer: "There's a woman - at least I think it's a woman, it might be a boy,
an
adolescent.She's handing that other one something."
Dr. Van Ness: "Very good. Now you are to make up a little story for me - a
story
for which this picture is to be one of the illustrations."
It's Olivia giving Macafee the egg.
Peter
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