<div dir="ltr">
<p align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom:0in"><a name="_GoBack"></a><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"><b>Uncle
Sam'l “Free” Whitten as America and Its Dream and the Mad
Electro-Magnetic Darkness of the Modern World: Free Live Free</b></font></font></p>
<p align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">Marc
Aramini</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> In
between Gene Wolfe’s labyrinthine New Sun series and the equally
complicated Latro novels, settings so far removed from the present
that any critique or endorsement of modern society was at best second
hand or indirect, <i>Free Live Free</i> represents a marked
departure, at first depicting a world contemporaneous with its
composition. <i>Free Live Free, There Are Doors, Castleview, </i><span style="font-style:normal">and
</span><i>Pandora by Holly Hollander</i> are fairly unique in their
approach to realistic modern settings in Wolfe. The earlier <i>Peace</i>
avoided the seedy day to day qualities of the opening of <i>Free Live
Free</i> by granting its narrator the ultimate power of the memoir –
he was free to jump from time to time and suppress any memory or fact
with which he did not want to face. The characters in <i>Free Live
Free</i> are afforded no such luxury during the obstacles they face,
with the omnipresent third person narrator peering into all their
weaknesses and failures. Yet even in <i>Free Live Free</i>, an
unrelenting look at adult powerlessness in a hostile, cold city, it
is revealed that Ben Free, too, has jumped from time to time and
suppressed and eradicated past, imperfect versions of himself. Urban
fantasy isn’t even a great attempt to define exactly what <i>Free
Live Free </i>is – a naturalistic exploration of ordinary, low
mimesis characters in the first two thirds of the work almost echo
the story “Forlesen” in a much less fantastic set up. Urban
allegory is perhaps a better description. </font></font>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> While
it is a contemporary novel, with most of its action occurring over
four days at the end of January in 1983, the mission Free sets in
motion for his boarders reveals that the entire social system in the
novel is a natural outgrowth of several pivotal moments and shifts in
United States history when mankind, and America in particular,
finally achieved the power to destroy on a sufficiently grand scale
to threaten its own existence, forever and ironically rendering the
majority of humanity powerless, trapped, and completely
insignificant. Only in Whitten’s ability to transform himself from
“Uncle Sam” into Ben Free and eradicate past versions of himself
do we see the thrust of the novel: the American dream, and individual
desires in particular, may fail, but the mutable, ever changing
nature of that dream can, or should, embrace, empower, and liberate
that which has been cast out and scorned. </font></font>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> While
critics and reviewers have mentioned that both Severian and Latro
appear to be at times nothing but pawns working in a vast system they
cannot understand, their powers in combat, in cheating death, and in
altering the destiny of armies and nations place them somewhere near
mythic representations, and I have always felt naming them as
powerless was a basic misprision of their mythic status. The four
protagonists in <i>Free Live Free</i> do not enjoy these powers at
first: beset by debt, poverty, desperation, and disappointment, they
can expect to have no impact on their society or even make a mark on
the vast city in which they dwell. For the majority of the novel
this remains true. An obese prostitute, a short unlicensed private
detective, an arrogant and mystical gypsy, and a poor salesman have
all reached the bottom of society, but they are given an opportunity
to live their life long dreams over the course of the text. With
the exception of Madame Serpentina, our main cast is about as
ordinary and every day as one could expect in a work of realistic
fiction, with very real flaws. </font></font>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> The
very ordinary struggles they undergo all culminate in equally
appropriate scenes of “temptation” in which their dreams come
true: Stubb is actually wanted by an employer, and with his wits
easily solves this case, but a small distraction causes his failure;
the concupiscent Barnes gets his date with a lovely tall woman,
stands on stage for a comic introduction of a musical group, and has
his clothes torn off by lustful strippers before being apprehended in
his nudity; Candy gets her sweet john, who stuffs her with all the
candies and attention she could desire even though she is drugged;
and Madame Serpentina is lead by the Egyptian gods to a mystical
unveiling that turns into a mockery. </font></font>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> Before
these disappointments, each tries to save the house with their
ingenuity and the means they have, whether that involves calling up
salesman or politicians, using sneezing powder, greasing up a
corpulent body and refusing to move, proving that even these outcasts
can still be formidable, though they are doomed to failure. Perhaps
the most bizarre and thematically confusing portion of the text
involves the Belmont Asylum and the widespread darkness that results
in city riots on a frigid night – the realism of the text frays at
this point when just about every minor character introduced in the
text also converges there, picked up for insanity. Before we delve
into the symbolic nature of this mad darkness through which the
characters emerge (without ever speaking to Sergeant Proudy again –
the ostensible reason that they go to Belmont in the first place), we
should look at the other dominant symbol working in the text – that
of Uncle Sam and Ben Free.</font></font></p>
<p align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"><b>Uncle
Sam B. Whitten, Lewis & Clark, and the Manhattan Project</b></font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> As
an allegory, Free Live Free is much more understandable. While the
character Whitten grows up rich and serves his country patriotically
in World War II before defecting to an earlier ideal, his symbolic
identification as Uncle by his daughter Kip and his dialog clearly
indicate that he is the symbol of America itself, Uncle Sam.
Furthermore, his ability to jump backwards in time, eradicating the
present version of himself and becoming stronger, shows how the idea
of what America is completely changes over time. In a rather neat
trick, the older version of Whitten will hold the ideals of the older
frontier version of America, and the younger version treasure the
newer, repressive ideals, so that old Ben Free represents old America
and younger Whitten represents the new status quo of the nuclear age,
both ultimate hero and ultimate villain in the story, just as the
American Dream has both raised up many and crushed many under its
cogs. Beyond this, Whitten's name resonates with some of the words
Serpentina lectures about early in the novel: “<i>Wit</i> meant
knowledge once. To <i>wicken</i> was to enchant, only a thousand
years ago. To <i>wikken</i> was to prophecy. <i>Wih</i> meant holy.
… <i>Wikken </i>sounded much like <i>wicken</i>, <i>wit</i> like
<i>wih</i>.” (Wolfe Tor 30) These resonate with Whitten's name as
well (Of course, rather ironically his name means “a person from
White's town” - his maturation as a character leads him to expand
his idea about what an American should be). The dialog between the
four roomers and the man in the duffel coat (Whitten at his most
status quo) reveal this:</font></font></p>
<p style="text-indent:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0.5in">
“<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">Our country was
founded on the destruction of the wild by the civilized … Those
Indians represented civilization. The beavers felled trees and built
lodges, but the Indians killed beavers and skinned them.” </font></font>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> Barnes
said, “Then the whites came and skinned the Indians.”</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0.51in">“<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">Precisely.
But the frontiersmen who destroyed the Indians and their culture
were destroyed themselves, with their culture, by the settlers who
followed. Those settlers lost their farms to the bank, and the banks
sold them to companies who have brought the advantages of corporate
existence – immortality and amorality – to agriculture.” (Wolfe
Tor 353-4) </font></font>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> He
goes on to posit that the chain stores represent the chains of
slavery, and they discuss what it means to be an American:</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0.5in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">The
Indians used to be Americans - that's what an America was. Then the
trappers were Americans, the Americans of their day. Then the
farmers, with their buggies and low horses and white clapboard houses
Even today when you look at a picture of Uncle Sam, you're seeing
what those farmers were like dressed up to go to the county fair.
Only farmers aren't real Americans anymore. Neither are Indians. …
The trappers are gone, and pretty soon you'll be gone, too. … You
aren't Americans, either.” (355)</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> Of
course, Free will change his mind and realize that these four are
actually very much every day America. Indeed, knowing that his
attempt to save the building that he calls his house, they will
become his symbolic house: “hlp sv hs” - the name Stubb implies a
room, Garth a garden, Barnes a barn, etc. While at first some of the
statements Madame Serpentina makes seems to imply that symbolically
Free is the house (when the tile falls, for example), in a sense they
have become Free's house, which expands beyond the limit of a
building or a freeway. </font></font>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> Free
has planted inside his house the means of escape from the ordinary.
The well documented morning glories outside the back door of his
kitchen in chapter 6, while snow surrounds the front door, reveals
exactly where Free has concealed the gizmo, the singularity induction
coil, that has allowed him to transcend time – clearly the backyard
is in a different time. At one point it seems that the house is
actually Free, since he exerts some control over the environment by
making the tile fall from under Serpentina's feet. Serpentina
believes him to exert power over that environment, and when Stubbs
asks “You see the body?” Serpentina replies “I walk into it
now.” (74). Yet her understanding of Free's actual symbolic
resonance is incomplete. He is much more than the house. Barnes will
discover the “ticket” to freedom beneath the sign painted Free
Live Free. Free reveals to Stubb, “If we can keep the walls
standing, that's all the help I need.” (23). Since Whitten knows
that Barnes will choose to go back through the normal door instead of
the gizmo at the end of the novel to save his son Little Ozzie, the
frontier version of Free is replaced mid conversation in Chapter 7:
“In a Wall” to give Barnes more advice.</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> There
is a reason that Whitten is so impelled to explore with Lewis and
Clark – the first exploration to traverse to the West coast in the
United States, called the Corps of Discovery Exploration – this is
the establishment and exploration of America's physical borders
through the untamed wilderness and foreign territories. The
Manhattan Project is an equally pivotal moment in American history –
harnessing the power of the atom forever changed the global landscape
and to some degree fully catapulted humanity into the modern age. In
this age, poor decisions made by one nation or another could for the
first time in history result in absolute annihilation. For all its
necessity or justification, it is America that first uses this power.
This ultimate power proves mankind's powerlessness at the hands of
governmental decisions and whims. This then, is the young, angry
Whitten: a post nuclear repressed soldier who champions a very strict
idea of what “Americans” should be. Our four roomers have fallen
between the cracks of their rigidly socio-economic society and, to
that version of Whitten, are not even worth being considered
Americans because they don't fit in – the problem of the modern
world. </font></font>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> Yet
the novel shows that the American Dream is not dead even if it must
change. All of the characters get to reach towards their desires:
“The message I left for the general I used to be … said you
should get you greatest desires. I did it because I've learned we
all have to get them before we can have better ones” (398).</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> Serpentina
herself states the dramatic theme of the problem with America</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0.49in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">Wealth
and power we have already too much of--we suffocate. Longer life? We
outstay the lion and elephant. Hardly a day passes that we do not
meet some man or woman who should be dead, who has outlasted his own
time by decades...As for healing, it is not we who require it but the
world, which requires to be cured of us. Serenity would indeed be a
benefit, but we do not seek it; if we did we might find it required
us to abandon wealth and power, and we love them too much. No, what
we require from whatever Powers may be entitled to give it is some
indication of how far we may go...we do not know what is permitted to
us, and that ignorance paralyzes those who might otherwise refrain,
while the worst of us kill every living thing and ruin all they reach
(Wolfe Tor 317).</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">This
final sentence reinforces how powerful mankind has become – but
that power forever renders the vast majority of humanity helpless,
stuck in mind numbing and dispiriting situations from which there
seems no escape. </font></font>
</p>
<p align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"><b>The
Mad Darkness</b></font></font></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> At
the center of each character's arc, a strange scene occurs in the
Belmont. Almost every character in the text, from Phil Reeder, Nimo,
Proudy, the gypsies, Dr. Makee, to even the cops, converge at the
asylum. It strains credulity that Proudy, Reeder, and Nimo would all
be detained simultaneously, and for this reason the scene must be
looked at for its allegorical power. EVERYONE in the novel is living
in an insane environment, detained, and without true freedom. They
might as well be institutionalized. The Belmont shows that lack of
freedom – living in the modern world creates a paranoid suppression
that cannot be escaped. Some try to create alternative identities,
like Richard Chester, calling himself the clown Nimo (perhaps related
to Nemo – no one) and suppressing his name and identity. Stubb
notes the similar numbers between Proudy's room at the Belmont and at
the Consort: 717 and 771. While 7's proliferate throughout the text,
(and they resonate with rather large aircraft such as the 747's which
are noted as being able to land easily on a wing of the High Country)
this does create a direct relationship between the rooms of the hotel
and the rooms of the institutionalized. </font></font>
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> I
do not like to think of the novel as one large crazy hallucination –
it is too realistic in its efforts. Yet that scene where the lights
go out over the entire city shows a symbolic descent into madness –
stripped of the external perceptions and orders imposed by society,
what is left? A squawking madhouse. Riots ensue outside the city,
and the insanity contained and bottled up escapes rather easily.
Sandy Duck is reaching for an elevator when the power goes out, and
her hand does not encounter what it expects to find. </font></font>
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> The
most surreal scene of the novel involves everyone sitting in the
dark, the mad and sane alike, where even identity cannot be
established. Multiple people claim to be Candy Garth (though thanks
to the rules of the time folding, where the newcomer absorbs the
current person, we know that they cannot all be her). In this scene,
someone keeps calling out that they are the Page of Wands. In Tarot,
this character represents change and new beginnings as well as
desire. His creativity is nascent, and thus it is appropriate that
in this darkness the characters can begin to actually select what
they want to be, when modern civilization and its expectations are
stripped clean and no one can see them. It is in this way that Free
Live Free is intrinsically different than other naturalistic texts:
those crushed by society can actually chose to define themselves in
Wolfe, and become something larger, once their visible position in
society is finally robbed of its power to hold them in place. In the
culminating scene of the novel, they are even given the choice to
achieve a kind of personal apotheosis through the gizmo or return to
life as it was. Barnes is the only one who selects to return,
because his duty to his son has not been fulfilled. </font></font>
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> Interestingly
enough, given talk of the magnetic properties surrounding the High
Country, it is perhaps a similar magnetic property that causes the
large city wide blackout. This EMP like effect could resonate with
not only the “turning off” of civilization but that great nuclear
power that lurks in the background, ready to send mankind back to the
dark ages. </font></font>
</p>
<p align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"><b>Mysticism
and the Text</b></font></font></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-weight:normal;margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">Serpentina
strays to the mystical explanation for everything, and identifies
Free as an acarya, a guide or instructor in religious matters (or a
highly learned man). During her little chant in Chapter 8, which is
her attempt to defend the house, her little green screen proceeds
from nonsense letters to “AMRTET ALGAR ALGASTNA”, “ADAM ALCAR
DAGERAM,” matching her pastel inscriptions of ADAM TE DAERAM and
AMRTET, ALGAR ALGASTNA – these are actually from a Rembrandt
painting at first called “The Practicing Alchemist” and then
“Faust in his Study”. What is missing from Serpentina's
invocation is the center inscription: the cross and INRI. In many
ways all of these characters will re-enact Faust's story: getting
what they want at the cost of being betrayed by those they trust and
their own desires. The arrangement depicted in the picture was said
to be used on amulets for protection in battles. (McHenry)</font></font></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-weight:normal;margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">Her
chants beginning “Bagabi laca bachabe” is supposedly from a 13<sup>th</sup>
century story of the sorceror Salatin conjuring the devil and “Palas
aron ozimonas” from a miracle play in which a character named
Tervagans yields his soul to the devil. Interestingly enough, even
though these are from different sources, they both appear on page 109
of de Givry's <i>Witchcraft, Magic, & Alchemy</i>, as does the
mention of Rembrandt's painting. In other words, I believe that de
Givry's book was Wolfe's original source for this scene. These chants
are still extent in witchcraft and devilish incantations but they are
not truly translatable. </font></font>
</p>
<p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"><span style="font-weight:normal"> However,
later, when Serpentina curses her captors and escapes a straight
jacket like a serpent, her words “Marear enkranken tober malade
ammalarsi” (254) can be translated from various languages: to fall
sick or sicken. </span>In the original Ziesing addition, Free
mishears the word whores and answers, “No Horace here.” – I
normally don’t like sound connotations, but Horus happens to be the
god of vengeance, sky, protection, and war, and happens to resonate
with the renamed first chapter: Four Roomers of War, and the later
floating High Country. Horus' designation with the falcon and as
“The one who is above, over” is interesting. During her
divination with the mirror, “an airplane droned far overhead”
(106) presaging the High Country, so her magic does seem tied to the
flying fortress above. This divination results in her prophecy,
which will be discussed in further detail below. </font></font>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> Finally,
the poser Illingworth, who is over 70 in 1983 but claims to have been
with Aleister Crowley in both Smyrna and the Himalayas (making him
very, very young at that time) does mention a few figures whose
mystical philosophies resonate with the text. In addition to
Crowley, he mentions Dion Fortune, born Violet Mary Firth, and both
Crowley and Fortune believed in the Secret Chiefs – those with
transcendent cosmic authorities. Serpentina has prophesied of these
secret masters herself. Crowley's mystical history involves an aeon
of Isis, Osiris, and Horus which might also be mapped onto many of
Wolfe's texts. Isis involves primitive worship of the mother goddess,
Osiris the idea of a sacrificial and paternal dying god, and Horus a
time of the child's spiritual growth and development. Certainly the
transition from the aeon of Osiris to Horus can be traced in the
spiritual journey of the characters in <i>Free Live Free</i> as Free
sacrifices himself for their spiritual development. </font></font>
</p>
<p align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"><b>NAMES:</b></font></font></p>
<p align="LEFT" style="font-weight:normal;margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> Serpentina,
in discussing her prophecy, says that something would be lost in
translation such that someone named John Smith might be referred to
as the beloved disciple, son of the iron smiter, and for this reason
it is at least worthwhile to examine the patterns in the main
characters' names. This is the part of Wolfe analysis I usually find
the least worthwhile, but I feel at times it is necessary because
there are very real patterns in the meanings of this casts names
involving fields, houses, and properties.</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">James
(he who supplants/beloved disciple) Stubb – tree trunk, nickname
for a short stout, man, though Barnes indicates that he feels Stubbe
with an e means room.</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">Catherine
(Innocent) Margaret (Pearl) Garth -Keeper of the garden”</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">Marie/Serpentina
– her real name implies beloved, star of the sea. The serpent is
obvious, as is her later identification as the good witch, Glinda.</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">Cassius
Illingworth – Madame Serpentina’s breakdown of the name is
different than the official one, saying at one point that she
defrauded one who was named after someone with influence below
(Cassius is in Satan’s mouth after betraying Julius Caesar in
Dante's <i>Divine Comedy</i>), and his last name bodes the ill that
he is worth despite his boasts. However, Illingworth would actually
refer to a fenced area or “worth” fortified against a battle.</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">John
B. Sweet need scarcely be mentioned for its obvious connotations as
far as the prostitute Candy goes.</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">Phil
(loves horses) Reeder – someone who thatches cottages. I suppose
he is across from Barnes because … horses are kept in a barn? And
it is at this point that we must move on, for we have already
mentioned the relationship between Nimo and Nemo.</font></font></p>
<p align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"><b>REVISIONS</b></font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> Free
Live Free also gives us a look at revision in Wolfe, with the Zeising
version representing a penultimate draft. While the differences are
not extreme, there are a few noticeable ones beyond word choice which
have interpretive connotations that we will explore here. The
cumulative effect is to show Free folding backwards and becoming more
portentious and to change both the character of Stubb so that he is
less lecherous. The very first chapter is retitled from “Selling
Weather” to “Four Roomers of War”. This markedly different
chapter title shifts the theme from Barnes' optimistic view of the
sales situation even though he is destitute to one showing a conflict
in which these four are clearly to some degree victims. There are
two other significant changes in this chapter: the policeman who
comes to shake down Candy for money asks specifically for Candy here
and then strikes her, dissatisfied with the amount she gives him.
This is clearly a pay off so she is not arrested. This policeman,
Norris, is completely eradicated in the Tor version and is replaced
with Proudy, the Sergeant who will later suffer a head wound and be
institutionalized at the Belmont Psych Ward. Thus Proudy is a bit
more sympathetic in the Zeising version. In the Tor version, he
comes specifically looking for “Bernard” Free and shaking down
Candy for money is incidental when he recognizes her voice upstairs.
The scene where Norris goes upstairs has different dialog: “'You
let whores stay here, sir?' 'No Horace here,' the old man said.”
(Wolfe Ziesing 6) After some other slightly altered statements about
forgetting to collect rent or even giving the boarders the money,
Norris goes upstairs. The television is designated as merely having
sounds. In the Tor version this is replaced with a discussion about
time:</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0.51in">“<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">You
got to be out tomorrow, understand that's all the time you got.” </font></font>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0.51in">“<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">Used
to have a lot more. … All of it. I'm not going. Going to die
here.” The sounds of the television are described as
“rotary-engined fighters warmed up on the deck of a black and white
aircraft carrier.” (Wolfe Tor 7) </font></font>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">This
presages the High Country Plane much more effectively, where Reagan's
<i>Hellcats of the Navy</i>, on the TV here, will be referenced
again. The other movie mentioned during this introductory chapter is
of course <i>The Wizard of Oz.</i></font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> The
interaction between Stubb and Free in Chapter 4 is also significantly
altered, especially after Free mentions that he never sees rabbits,
bears, or dear. The scene ends like this:</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0.5in">“<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">People
don't know how poor they are.” He straightened up, squaring
shoulders that were still wide, and went out.</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0.5in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">Half
a minute later, Stubb heard the door of the master bedroom close and
the click of the bolt. He took off his glasses and produced an
almost clean handkerchief from his hip pocket. When he had wiped the
lenses thoroughly, he took a notebook and an automatic pencil from
his shirt pocket and, twisting his face in a laborious grimace, wrote
a note in his minute hand. (Wolfe Ziesing 31)</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">After
speaking of the animals in the Tor edition, Free declares:</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0.5in">“<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">You
people don't know how poor you are.” He straightened up, squaring
shoulders that were still wide. </font></font>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0.5in">“<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">The
creatures are all gone now, Mr. Stubb, as I soon shall be.
Murdered.' Stubb leaped up By the time he reached the door, the
parlor beyond it was empty. So was Free's bedroom. </font></font>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0.5in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">Returning
to the kitchen, he removed his glasses and produced an almost clean
handkerchief. When he had wiped the lenses thoroughly, he took a
notebook and an automatic pencil from his shirt pocket and, twisting
his face in a laborious grimace, wrote something in an almost
microscopic hand. (Wolfe Tor 25)</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">Free
declares precognition of his murder and vanishes in the Tor scene
here, making him much more mysterious. As Stubb walks to the cafe
later, an interplay with another cop of the seventeenth precinct is
taken out of the tor version, in which the cop asks Jim where he is
going and jokingly says that his Sergeant tells how Jim and the
Sergeant play bridge together, and then declines to give Stubb a
ride: “This ain't a cab.”</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> Chapter
7 represents the most important revision because a different Free
shows up to warn Barnes in the Tor version: </font></font>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0.5in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">The
candle went out. “You're wrong, Barnes.” The voice was Free's and
yet not Free's, as though a new and different Free had come suddenly
with the dark. …</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0.5in">“<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">Your
trying to ask me where I put my gizmo, and what it is. A way to make
me tell you what I hardly know myself about something you don't
understand. Well, I put it where I told you. In a wall. I could
have put it someplace else, but it was a wall I chose.” (Wolfe Tor
45) </font></font>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">In
the Ziesing edition, there is no talk of a different Free coming
here, and the dialog does not change from the informal frontier
style: </font></font>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0.5in">“<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">You're
tryin' to figure out how you can ask me where I put that thing I had.
What I call my treasure, and what it is. Some way that'll get me to
tell you what I hardly know myself about somethin' you're not even
close to understandin'” (Wolfe Ziesing 56-7). </font></font>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">This
revision indicates that a different Free has come back, possibly
immediately after the scene at the end of the novel, to give Barnes
the extra bit of information he needs to find the gizmo under the
Free Live Free sign in the epilogue. The Free dialog before this
point maintained the same informality of the original Ziesing text
throughout, indicating this narrative space as a conscious folding
point Wolfe added in the final draft, changing Free's voice as a clue
to this replacement. The candle presages the darkness of the asylum
as well and the loss of power throughout the city.</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> Several
scenes involving Candy are changed in the Tor version, eliminating
her mention of the cop who took her money once they arrive at the
Consort hotel and also getting rid of a bird like description to
describe her taking a drink. The scene in which the bell hops bicker
over the money due them by Joe Majewski, who has been cheated by
Madame Serpentina with her prestidigitation, is slightly extended.
In the elevator with Candy, the bellhop Fuentes offers to do whatever
Serpentina needs more cheaply than Joe, and warns Candy that Joe
cannot be trusted until he returns the seventy dollars he owes
Serpentina. This is excised from the Tor version.</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> In
the Ziesing edition, when Serpentina visits her gypsy family, Rose
says that she is her mother though she is not really her mother (ie -
stepmother), and the King ends the chapter by saying “Is this how a
daughter speaks to her father?” This relationship is brought up
again by Rose when she infiltrates the Belmont looking for Proudy.
The Tor edition merely hints that Serpentina is a princess of the
gypsies and is less overt in this implication. During the
interrogation at the Belmont, Barnes gives his age as 41 in the
Ziesing edition and 34 in the Tor edition, but in both versions his
age is given at 35 in the opening scenes when he responds to a lonely
hearts ad. Either way he lies about his age, slightly or extremely.</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> Chapter
29 also has a significantly different introduction. Rather than
passively look at the building and note an unidentified man's tracks
in the snow as in the Ziesing edition, Stubb mutters “In a wall”
and begins to actively demolish the walls with a hammer, noting that
the foot prints belonged to Barnes and Serpentina. </font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> After
Barnes gives his comedic introduction to Binko's band, the Tor
edition has an entirely new section in which Sandy Duck picks up
Osgood Barne's son (Wolfe Tor 325-6). The Ziesing edition completely
omits this section, ending with the words, “KILROY WAS HERE.”</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> In
addition, Chapter 43 of the Ziesing edition is completely excised,
entitled “Monkey Bars.” In this chapter Candy complains that
police would do little to defend a sandwich shop but that looters
dare not attack a bar, and that there are two types of businesses she
designates as regular and “monkey” businesses. Movies, TV, bars
– these are all monkey businesses meant to keep the majority of the
people entertained, drunk, and docile, fed on illusions. She tells
of a fellow prostitute who met a college film major since she always
went to romantic movies after her tricks. The film student and the
prostitue developed a relationship, but rather than elevate her to
respectability, when he found out he started pimping her out as well,
but would only let her see good movies. This chapter changes Stubb's
character quite a bit because in it he keeps thinking as he is
helping the inebriated Candy around that he should have taken
advantage of her when she was drunk in the opening scenes, helping
her up the door. Cutting out this chapter makes Stubb seem slightly
more chivalrous in the Tor version and avoids the condemnation of the
entertainment and bar industry for keeping the people as satisfied
sheep.</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> During
the chapter in which Serpentina meets Illingworth, he expresses
curiosity about her powers. </font></font>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0.5in">“<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">I'm
also a fairly good medium, particularly with unhuman spirits –
elementals, that sort of thing.”</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> “Demons?”</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> The
witch hesitated, then nodded slowly. “occasionally, yes.” (Wolfe
Zeising 362)</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> In
the Tor version, she replies:</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0.5in"> “<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">I
am also a fairly good medium, particularly with the nonhuman spirits
– elementals and so forth.”</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> “Demons,
Mademoiselle?”</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0.5in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">The
witch hesitated, then nodded guardedly. “They have other, and
better names; but occasionally, yes” (Wolfe Tor 288).</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0.5in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">This
somewhat alters the supernatural state of the novel.</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> Finally,
the chapters Murder Mystery (Chapter 50 in both versions) and Serving
the Country (49 in Tor Version and 51 in the Ziesing version) are
switched so that Stubb's dramatic “desire” chapter is last –
this shows us Free's death at the hands of his daughter Kip, so the
effect of having Candy drugged after this does not seem to have the
same rising urgency. The Tor placement is superior for dramatic
tension.</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> Outside
of word choice and connotation in a few other places, these represent
the major differences between the two versions. The Tor version
represents a final draft insofar as the folding back of Free and the
frequent mention of airplanes creates a slightly more complete
subtext, and the excised portions seem either unimportant, or, in
Stubb's case, a slight change to his character.</font></font></p>
<p align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> <b>Proudy,</b>
<b>Oz, God, and the Hotel Call </b></font></font>
</p>
<pre><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> In many ways, Proudy's madness hints that he has some understanding of what the future will hold for these four characters. Whether this is the result of “folding” backwards through the gizmo or simple insanity is elided from the text, but judging from Madame Serpentina's mirror divination and Proudy's statements. According to Serpentina:</font></font>
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> “The greatest event of the coming decade will be the quadrumvirate. Four leaders, unknown today, shall unite to take politial, financial, artistic, and judicial power. They shall create a revolution of thought. Many who are now rulers shall be imprisoned or exiled. Many who are now powerless shall rise to places of great authority. The rich shall be made poo, and the poor rich. Old crimes, long concealed shall be made public, and their perpetrators given to the people as to a pride of lions. The four shall be hated and idolized, but their rule will not end within the period specified by my prediction.” (Wolfe Tor 111).</font></font>
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">Proudy believes that the people he watches from his hotel room are those four:</font></font>
“<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">I know about you. … You don't think I do, but I do. You don't think anyone knows, do you. Well, I do. … I know more about you than you do about yourselves. … What could I say? Quit? Your boss wouldn't allow you to quit. … Confess and bargain with the Prosecutor's Office for police protection? They wouldn't believe you any more than they would me. Kill yourself? That wouldn't work either now would it? … We'll fight it out, you people and me. I got a hand tied behind me: I got to work inside the law, or pretty much. You can do as you damn please. There's four of you with God knows how many millions or billions behind you, and only one of me. … That's okay, too.” (139).</font></font>
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">While not extremely problematic given the ability of the gizmo to fold back time for Proudy to be somewhat aware of what will happen, it still seems to me that this scene follows the allegorical pattern established by Wolfe with Uncle Sam/Ben Free. Proudy's name, so close to pride, seems to be what the four must struggle with in order to overcome their limitations. Seeking for proud Proudy in the asylum, there is the sense that he is very important but their actual interaction with him is curtailed and limited. This is the strangest aspect of the narrative – Proudy's failure to return in the final scenes given his exaggerated importance early. It is quite clear, however, that he does NOT see clearly, mistaking a lighter for a gun and assuming that the bellhop who entered the room must have been killed by the four when he merely went a different way. The vision problems of Stubb and Barnes (one with a fake eye that pops out and the other with the glasses that dominate his face) might resonate with this prideful inability to see truly important things and distort their dreams to the lowest level.</font></font>
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> Putting aside pride for an instant, previous commentary on <i>Free Live Free</i> has made much of the Oz associations. These scenes usually involve Candy or her observations in one form or another, make me feel that it is Candy who is most obsessed with that dreamlike escape. However, there is one more disturbing elision that hangs over the character of Candy involving the phone call she receives at the start of Chapter 20 – a phone call whose entire dialog from her side is repeated again in the novel: “Hello … Yes, it's me … I'm staying with her … Okay. It was real nice hearing from you, you know? We thought something might have happened to you. (129) When questioned about it, she responds to “You didn't tell somebody from the hotel you were staying with Madam S.” with “Huh uh. It wasn't from the hotel … It was for me, all right? I answered it. I got the message. It was my business.” Later, Serpentina asks about it, and slightly misremembers the conversation as “It was real nice hearing from you again, you know? (147). Candy indicates that it is Joe Majewski who called her at this point, but this does not jive with her previous claim that it was no one from the hotel – and she has never actually met Joe in person, merely heard about him from the other bellhops. Both Stubb and Serpentina think that it might be Free calling, but why would Candy be reluctant to admit this? Stubb also believes that she was incarcerated by the police before returning to the Free House – is Candy working with Proudy or one of the other policemen? The male suspects for making the call are limited to Free, Dr. Makee, Proudy, another policeman, or Joe, but it is very difficult to discern who would actually have an interest in calling her at this point in the story with the knowledge of where she is. Is Candy lying here at her entrance into the pact?</font></font>
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> This is perhaps the least clear part of the text, so let us move back to our examination of Candy's infatuation with Oz. Of course in the very opening scene Candy indicates that she loves when the <i>Wizard of Oz</i> is on, and after escaping the Belmont, she thinks that the clown will begin singing the infamous movie song, which little Ozzie actually breaks into. In the opening chapters when Stubb makes a deduction, Barnes jokes that he has been taking lessons from the Wicked Witch of the West. By the epilogue, Serpentina is identified with Glinda the good, her opposite. Osgood's name is shortened to Ozzie, and in the scene on the High Country, when the lighting makes Serpentina flash different colors, Candy declares, “It's like that <i>Wizard of Oz</i> movie … whores of a different color, remember?” (Wolfe Tor 384) In the Ziesing edition this is at least the second pun on whores. Since it is mentioned at the beginning and at the end,many have tried to map the characters exactly with the Scarecrow, the Lion, the Tinman, Dorothy, and Toto,and I will here quote an old post on the Urth List by James Jordan:</font></font></pre>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0.5in">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0.5in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">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. “ (for his complete and comprehensive post, please
examine <a href="http://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0030/0313.shtml">http://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0030/0313.shtml</a>)</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">This
corroborates information from Wolfe's interview with Jordan himself:</font></font></p>
<p style="line-height:100%;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0.5in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">GW:
... One of the things that I was trying to say was that America is
not free and is becoming less so. And that we have to realize it and
we have to resolve within ourselves to be free and to oppose the
forces that are enslaving us. … I tried to give the four borders, I
tried to give each sort of a besetting sin. Madame Serpentina, it's
pride. Candy, it is gluttony. Stub, I forget now. Osgood Barnes,
sexuality of course ....Envy, envy I think is Stubbs. And I wasn't
trying to write allegory. I wasn't saying he was a personification of
envy. I wanted to show men and women who were actually beset by these
sins. Trying to, given an opportunity to become something bigger and
better than they had been by defeating the sin to some degree. Candy
of course gets what she wants. She stuffs herself to the point that
she can't stuff herself no more. And finds that this is not really
paradise, it is not heaven, even though she has achieved it. Osgood
Barnes comes to see sex as something more than the physical act. He
comes to see the possibilities of love and sacrifice and so on. That
is what I tried to do at least. (Jordan) </font></font>
</p>
<p style="line-height:100%;margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> Of
course, despite these words, while they are realistic characters
through the majority of the novel, they veer into strange and
idealized archetypal patterns by the end of their character arcs:
Serpentina becomes Glinda, Barnes becomes Popeye, Stubbs transforms
away from the furtive and shifty Elijah Cook Jr identification, and
Uncle Sam transforms into “Free” - these all have very obvious
allegorical connotations. Which leads me to identify Free Live Free
as a strange blend of low mimesis realism and mythic romanticism –
a naturalistic urban allegory.</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> This
realism transformed into allegory is further exacerbated by the
strange little patterns that develop around certain characters. Also
on the Urth List (accessible at
<a href="http://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0030/0321.shtml">http://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0030/0321.shtml</a>), William Ansley
noted several passages that seem to indicate the relatively minor Dr.
Makee is God-like:</font></font></p>
<pre><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> "Do I look like God?" the old doctor said. "I don't know." As a matter of fact he did look like God. He was a small, elderly man who sported a little white beard and an even whiter mustache; the collar of a tattersail shirt--an almost infallible sign of the presence of deity--peeped above the collar of his overcoat. (Wolfe Tor 69)</font></font>
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">This is echoed again later:</font></font>
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> </font></font>
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> Barnes shook his head.</font></font>
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> "She said, 'God, you gotta take care of Baby Phil because he won't never</font></font>
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> take care of himself.' I wasn't there, but Bubba was, and he told me. God</font></font>
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> has to get me out, and you're his chosen instrument."</font></font>
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> "Instrument, hell. I never even met Him!"</font></font>
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> Dr. Makee chuckled and nudged Barnes with an elbow. "Don't be too sure." (Wolfe Tor 241-2)</font></font>
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">Ansley concludes that Free becomes a symbolic son of this God like figure:</font></font>
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">The old doctor began to pump the blood pressure cuff. "He was my son, you know." Barnes stared at him, and he chuckled again. "Not my actual son--Tommy died a long while ago, and I think Ben was really a few years older than I am. But we used to pretend that way and we had a lot of fun. (Wolfe Tor 206)</font></font>
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">I think that this interplay here at least riffs on the idea that America , at least as far as the English colonization, was established on principles of religious freedom. The freedom to choose the highest possible dream in <i>Free Live Free</i> leads to a literal apotheosis, forever separating the novel from any naturalistic roots and creating that strange dichotomy between the day to day failures depicted through the novel and the ticket to transcendent freedom offered these four characters on the High Country.</font></font>
</pre><p align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom:0in">
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"><b>Works Consulted</b></font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">de
Givry, Grillot. <i>Witchcraft, Magic, & Alchemy</i>. Courier
Dover Publications, 1931.</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">Jordan,
James B. “Gene Wolfe Interview.” Paul Duggan. 1992. Web. 21 May
2014. <a href="http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze2tmhh/wolfejbj.html">http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze2tmhh/wolfejbj.html</a></font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0.5in">
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">McHenry, Deni.
“Rembrand'ts 'Faust in His Study' Reconsidered: A Record of Jewish
Patronage and Mysticism in Mid-Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam.” </font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"><i>Yale
University Art Gallery Bulletin</i></font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">
(Spring, 1989). 9-19.</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">Wolfe,
Gene. <i>Free Live Free</i>. New York: Tor Books, 1985.</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">Wolfe,
Gene. <i>Free Live Free</i>. Willimantic: Mark V. Ziesing, 1984.</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">The
Urth Mailing List Archive V 30. Urth.net. Moonmilk. </font></font>
</p>
</div>