S reencounters Pfeifer after years of believing that he was dead. But not only is Pfeifer alive, he is the Governor of The Territory and works for Vévoda himself.
Between pp356-367, S has a lengthy conversation with Pfeifer. And several things that Pfeifer says are outright lies…
- S calls Pfeifer by his original name, but Pfeifer corrects him and insists that his name is Nemec.
- Pfeifer insists that there is no Château – that it is a fiction – but this itself is a fiction, of course.
- On p360, Pfeifer insists that the guard by the road is old and shaky and has very little sense left. And on p365, Pfeifer explains that the executions that take place at 4pm are only for those involved directly in an attempted revolt – and those who failed to stop them. Yet we see later (p366) that the guard by the road stands, his hip cocked, perfectly steady as he fires three shots that manage to kill Anca, Waqar, and the baby from a great distance. And on p369 as S passes the Old Village he sees that it is entirely ablaze. This indicates that Pfeifer lied both about the guard and about who was being killed – every Old Villager was (apparently) killed.
So if Pfeifer obviously lied about these things, what else did he lie about? And what else can we conclude about Pfeifer?
- Is Pfeifer telling the truth about being married? Having four kids? About Molybdenum and her sisters? About what he knows about S’s ship (p361). And the substance?
- If Vevoda is leaving pages from The Archer’s Tales with the dead bodies of members of the S, how did he find out about S’s interest in that book at all? In fact, how did Vevoda know that S’s name was S? Vevoda referred to him as Agent X in Chapter 4. Only after Pfeifer survived the cave incident do we see Vevoda referring to him as S and using pages from The Archer’s Tales to intimidate him. The only way this could happen, it appears, is if Pfeifer told Vevoda about S.
- Is it possible that Vevoda’s “ancient pistol” (454) is the same ancient pistol that Stenfalk gave to Corbeau who gave it to Pfeifer to defend himself in the caves (192)?
- Is it possible that Pfeifer was a member of Vevoda’s team all along? Is he the reason that Vevoda’s men knew to track the fugitives through the hills? Was Pfeifer’s injury in the cave feigned in order to make enough noise for the hunters to find them?
Pfeifer is a liar. Is there anything else about Pfeifer that you see worth noting?
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Pfeifer is a german last name, AS well as a “title” for a person in a wind band.
Nemec is a Czech epithet for Germans. It literally means “mute” or “can’t speak,” alluding to German immigrants’ inability to speak Czech. Maybe here it refers to Pfeiffer’s inability to speak the truth.
the Pfeiffer character is a traitor to the S cause. his identity is an important sub-plot in the lives of the authors, throughout the early part of the book jen and eric assume rightly he is a literary stand-in for Reinhold Feuerbach. However, margin note on 356 reveals that Straka manuscript used the Spaniard Ostrero for the character of the turncoat and that FXC changed it to Pfeiffer. “So VMS definitely thought it was Garcia Tiago Ferrara who sold out.”
The code Jen develops on p. 236, “Mac was Judas not Tiago.” So FXC changes the book reference from the innocent Ferrara to Feuerbach. Jen asks the very important question, “How does she (FXC) have information that he (Straka) doesnt?”
To add a twist farther, Jen and Eric find that Feuerbach’s assistant Horace Wechsler most closely fits the actions of the Pfeiffer character by joining the Bouchard-Arp nazi organization. I am not sure if there is ever any evidence to indicate that Feuerbach deserved the Pfeiffer role.
Wechsler wrote a novel, on p. 358 margin note FXC says she received it as a Straka work. It was bad and she was asked to send it back. This indicates a possible S collaborative where the novels were written by more than one person.
There are more indications that novels were written collaboratively. Summersby confession states that Ekström helped with Braxenholm, Desjardins claimed in 1989 that S. was a writers collective, and many motifs in the 19 novels are generelly fitting to specific writers: i.e. Feuerbach the anarchist and writer of pamphlets fits perrfect with the Haymarket Story of “The Square” and “B19” re: background, ideals and age. Amritsar seems to fit Singh, Painted Cave Durand, WSOEA seems to be Filo’s letter of hope and love towards VMS.
In which edition is Wechsler’s Name Horace? Mine calls him Horst Wechsler. Maybe of interest, Wechsler means changer, as in currency exchanger, or even more as in changeling.
If Mac was Judas not Tiago, how does this implicate Feuerbach again? I understand that there are different traitors at different times, but Mac is Guthrie MacInnes, not Feuerbach. I think some betrayals were worse than others. Murder of Durand was the first, i think there was a betrayal concerning the group around Hemmingway, then one disrupting the S. Org. between 37 and 42, and another one with Ferrera’s death. What betrayal do you think Mac committed?
i mistyped horace. sorry. i said i saw no evidence on a read thru that feuerbach deserved the pfeiffer role. mac was macinnes, sure. there might be a little confusion in the book. fxc changed reference from ostrero to pfeiffer, but also jen says pfeiffer resembles wechsler not feuerbach (i just saw that), so what vms originally wrote, what fxc changed, a little confusing. wechsler ends up in arp, implicated in feuerbach death. macinnes suspected of turning over durand. macinnes looking for vms in ny in ’46.
Frfly, i just thought horace was a valid name because the chinese blog had to many strange and flowery names too. I don’t believe that role as well – 1930 ekstrom dies, 37 durand dies, 39 feuerbach dies, 40 wechsler is ejected from S., 45 FG dies, and in between Straka does not know whom he can trust in S. (if the constellations no longer hold true..). Therefore i think Straka himself might be the culprit too, with all the uncertainties if he is one of Vevodas Agents, if he led betrayed them by accident leaving the valise, and even later with the lines he thought he wrote and what he actually wrote (cursing at senators – he swam away from the ship, he had aspired to destroy it).
I did not believe Jen about the resemblance. When the 5 revolutionaries are introduced after the bombing of the leurda and zapadi demonstration, Pfeiffer is the oldest, and Wechsler seems too young. I am not sure about MacInnes, he fits the role of traitor well and writes the book about himself being a cowbird, but because this would also fit well with Strakas self doubt for formerly or presently aiding the enemy, this might have been to simple. What do you think he did in 46? Planned the ruse or killed Straka?
thats a good point about betraying by accident, the writing that betrays an alternate self. there is also that guy in the bar who shanghaied him who has a face like his own, but like a cruel cousin. its the first time i thought of it. generally i take things at face value. dorst said in an interview that his job was to write a 20th century classic, then layer a couple of reflections over the top of it. a movie would have a twist at the end where the good guys are bad guys and vice versa, but i assume there is enough information to figure out the backstory. i think a classic would have an idea at its core, there are a lot of ideas in this book. of the two endings, i prefer fxc’s. so maybe you are right, straka is not the hero here. erics theory though is that we are all just doing our best and no one is the perfect hero. maybe he is not the one you want, said eric and summersby both.
i covered both sides of that. 😉
in 46 the first thought is that macinnes scared straka and convinced him he needed a diversion. however if the bad guys are a network, and it was a fake death, they would have immediately known it wasnt them.
I quite agree, but i think that Straka is the hero in one interpretation, the villain in another, and 3 other things in the other 3 endings. But in all endings, he is the unifying principle, just as King Theseus was to the people of Attica. Theseus was responsible for the synoikismos (dwelling together), the political unification of Attica under Athens. I interpret it for now that he united all 19 members, birds, crewmen, maybe he was all of them, maybe he was only one.
If the bad guys are a network, they still might not have known if it was a ruse if their network was not as informed, or Straka’s plotting was superior because of the mysterious intel he got (always being able to be one step ahead, even ahead of the worlds most renowned intel agencies). I suspected once that he was (unkown to himself or the enemy) the Son of Bouchard and got the Intel by a Lifeline to Home – the monkey. Another speculation is that bad network and good S. are intertwined, and no one knows who the good or bad one is.
Anyway, thank you for the reminder of Straka’s evil Twin in the Taverne. That got me thinking about the Drifting Twin probelm and i think i have found out something surprising about that.
The epiphany kept going, and surprisingly i have a theory of who Sola/Filomela married at the end. Sth actually unexpected but fitting with our conversation. Surprising/odd.. 🙂
wrt the guy in the bar, i was at least intrigued by the scar on his forehead, and the note that summersby had shrapnel wounds in ww1.
That fits well with how i have assigned IDs right now.
Can you remember other characters with scars? Tupp (Rooster) has a faint scar, on one cheek, that looks deliberate. But not on the Forehead. His wife Rosalin’s bird name is Finch, and Summersby is the Finch aswell.
I was searching for Sola’s sister again because of the overwhelming Theseus similarities (Hippolyta, Ariadne, Phaedra). Maybe Rosalin could make a good Hippolyta.
floris has terrible burns, she follows and i think is inspired by erasmus in the text. “A world lit only by fire” by william manchester is a good read on erasmus.
Thanks, ill look into that. But i suppose Floris might be a scorned employee of cruel Firestarter Edvard 6. and supplient of info to S., in the function of the delphi oracle/mysterious source of info for S. to evade u.s. and russian intel agencies (apart from what they gather below ship).