“The Alpine”
Book 1, chapter 25; Book 2, chapter 22
Characters
1.25 No individuals. The children of neglectful fathers.
2.22 A divorced father, his former wife, their child, the wife’s boyfriend (all unnamed).
General Subject/ Plot
1.25: Children neglected by fathers (who are themselves betrayed by their lovers.) Children expected to go to the movies and enjoy them in certain well worn ways and to love their father for taking them, but in the event the father’s more interested in meeting with his girlfriends than with his children.
2.22: A man argues with his ex-wife for taking their son on a special trip when it’s supposed to be the father’s day to have him — but in reality it is probably just as well.
Motifs
1.25 Saturday afternoons, Tarzan, daredevils of the red circle, Charms, movies, “expectation”
2.22 Saturday afternoons, Tarzan, alcohol, movies,
Notes
Another Saturday. What is supposed to happen is that the children are taken by their fathers to the movies, and frightened by what they see and then consoled by the fathers. What instead happens is that the fathers, chasing women, gradually disappear from their lives.
The titles of the chapters seem especially meaningful here: The Jungle and The Alpine stand out as being climactic zones: Rain is the precipitation of the Jungle, Snow is the precipitation of the mountains. The Alpine is a movie theater, a “cardboard jungle” is seen in a movie. (The fathers appear neither in the movies or in the theaters, first Alpine).
Both the “Alpines” seem to refer to the second Cold Supper. In that story the father won’t take the kid to the movies because, he claims, the child is afraid of the movies (whereas, in the first Alpine, the child is expected to be afraid at the movies.) In that story, too, the father blew off his weekly Saturday visit with his son to be with his girlfriend instead; whereas, in the second Alpines, he’s flown into a rage that her mother has made other arrangements this saturday, as a special occasion.
Tarzan, in the second Alpine, is, like in the first The Jungle, associated with drinking: alcohol recreates Tarzan’s world. The simple sexual and marital life of Tarzan and Jane is yearned for. The father’s dwelling on his ex-wife sex life is also cast in relief in this chapter, and the promiscuity of his former wives remains a theme in the “Wakes”.
“Bright, candid scarves” is an unusual formulation and reminds of the “dazzle of candor” of the second “Rain.”
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