Last post, if you made it through, thanks again.
Overall, I found writing this blog series much less satisfying than “Knight Notes.” I felt (rightly or wrongly) that I solved just about every major question in the WK. With the SH, I am still unsure about some of the major mysteries, and many of the minor ones. It’s a much shorter work, about 1/3 the length, so there is less evidence or clues to work with. It is also a less interesting subject. Evil and sin are, contrary to media, rather banal and not very glamorous. The WK has a happy ending, and there is a resolution of all the various plot threads in a hopeful direction.
In the post about SH and WK connections, I said I thought GW wanted to write a companion book where “evil won.” To expand on that, and perhaps to be more specific even, I think GW wrote the book to contrast the desperate situation of our forebears before the Incarnation, with the hope we now have after It. The Old Testament is a very grim series of books. There is a constant narrative of interfamily personal violence and sexual exploitation, including rape and incest. Outside the family, the tribes are fighting over land to the point of extermination. These themes appear in the SH.
First is the brother vs. brother conflict. Others have already commented that Bax and George are deliberate allusions to Jacob and Esau. Baxter means “baker’ and George means “farmer.” In the Bible, Esau worked the land, and his twin Jacob made him a meal in exchange for his birthright. Jacob then cheated his brother Esau out of his father’s blessing through fraud. Similarly, Bax deprives George of his birthright (the money from Aunt Carla), by staying in college for years and using up the estate on tuition. He later defrauded him further. Esau means “rough”, and George is physically rough with his brother. He threatens to kill him, and challenges him to a duel. Jacob and Esau reconciled in the Bible, but I don’t think that happened here. Their dad was Zwart, not Isaac. Bax and George are more like Cain and Abel, the two sons of Adam and Eve. Cain slew Abel.
(Speaking of Isaac, a Mr. Isaacs is the partner of the A&I real estate firm. I think this is supposed to be “Abraham and Isaacs.” So, with Jake Jacobs, all three Biblical Patriarchs of Israel appear.)
We then have sexual violence. Cathy Ruth is raped by Quorn, and Orizia is almost raped. Millie is likely beaten and maybe even subject to sexual violence in her marriage to George.
There is then the squabble over land. The Skotos Strip couldn’t help but remind me of the land feuds of the Bible between the tribes of Israel and their enemies. Nicholas the Butler is apparently trying to scare people off the land by attacking their children. I also wonder if the Strip was a reference to the Gaza strip or the West Bank of present day land disputes. Is the river supposed to the the River Jordan?
There doesn’t seem much hope for Medicine Man and its residents. Like The Knight, there is an estrangement between Men and Women, and no succesful marriages or relationships in the book. Everyone seems corrupt or slightly off: The police officers, reporters, lawyers, real estate agents, etc. There is no hope for escape from the cycles of violence, envy or greed. If Bax was supposed to be an agent of reconciliation, like Able in the WK, he failed. Men and women who likely were good: Ray Finn and Ted Griffin/Ambrosius, are dead. The murders of Star Paxton, Nina O’Brien and others go unpunished.
Something dramatic, something theo-dramatic, needs to happen.
version 1.0
The Duchy of Cumberbatch 