LPPM MMV "Zeit the Doctor"

[cwleise at buffalo.edu]

"Dave Monroe wrote:
     "... he still remembered Miriam's husband cursing
     Zeit the Doctor ..." (MMV, p. 1)

     Zeit the Doctor = time heals all wounds?

     See VL page 208"

Cute, yes, but I suspect quite the opposite: Zeit's inability to 
successfully intervene with the progress of Miriam's cancer is just 
the first clue that the story suggests time has a far lesser ability 
to effectuate the process of healing than the above platitude would 
have us believe.  

However, I think there is something interesting going on with the 
conflation of time with 'doctoring' that is not necessarily 'healing': 
the narrator states earlier on that Siegel has spent time "wondering 
why, in his first days with the Commission, he should have ever 
regarded himself as any kind of healer when he had always known that 
for a healer -- a prophet actually, because if you cared about it at 
all you had to be both -- there is no question of balance sheets or 
legal complexity, and the minute you become involved with anything 
like that you are something less; a doctor, or a fortune-teller."

After you pointed that out, I noticed that time/times/Zeit makes 
nineteen appearances in the text, often in close proximity to one 
another.  In addition, the sense in which it is used changes 
frequently -- notably, when referring to the Siegel, it generally 
refers to individual circumstances: "There had been times -- during 
the past year, in the Avenue Kleber or the Viale delle Terme di 
Caracalla -- where there had been a brief case where the fifth was 
now, clutched under the same tweed-clad arm against rain or a deadline 
or some bureaucratic necessity. And most of these times...", whereas 
when referring to the Ojibway, 'times' delineates 
collective/social/cultural designations: "such paranoid tendencies are 
further intensified bv the highly competitive life of the summer 
villages at ricing and berry-picking time..."  Further, in the action 
of the story, Siegel is somewhat lost to time: he's unsure when to 
show up, exactly; his early arrival creates the circumstances that 
allow him to gather enough information to avoid the carnage; when he 
realizes what time is (eleven o'clock) he abandons his role of 
father/confessor and walks outside, a form of "deliverance" that 
Lupescu told Siegel would come, that it was "just a matter of time" 
(though I think Lupescu is somewhat wrong: he's more telling fortune 
than being prophetic)...

Finally, in a great big stretch of critical license, I noted that time 
is actually at the center of the word sentiment, quite literally: 
another word of great import to the tale.

Sorry about the length, but I get bored at work.  Anyhow, I was 
interested in what you all thought about this: I have a crackpot 
theory of my own, sort of, but would love some input.

Cheers,
Chris