In a flashback to explain why he never left Divney’s side for several years--the murder and Divney’s refusal to give the narrator the proceeds of the concomitant robbery. This is explained to have occurred “several years” before, but well after the Wrastler was introduced at the pub, when the narrator was about 24. So, the murder of Mathers would seem to have occurred when the author was probably 26 or 27.
At that time, the narrator explains that Divney started reading “or pretending to read” the narrator’s exhaustive, collated index on De Selby and his commentators. Divney effusively praises the book, saying that the narrator could make a fortune in royalties. He encourages him to “put it out.” The narrator demurs, explaining that an unknown like him would have to self-publish, at great personal expense. (That sounds familiar!)
Divney then again laments that the farm is losing money for lack of fertilizer, caused, according to Divney, by the “Jewmen and Freemasons.” The author knows this is not true, yet he says nothing.
Again, this is pretty hard to understand. Why wouldn’t the narrator just say, “You know what, Divney? You are full of shit. You have been lying to me for years. Where do you get the money for these suits? Also, you are robbing the customers! I want a full accounting of this farm’s and the pub’s expenses and your personal funds or I am going to charge you with embezzlement. Also, get the fuck out of here.” The only explanations offered are that he is physically afraid of Divney (though besides robbing passed out customers, Divney is never indicated to be physically violent, yet the author is missing a leg) and/or that the narrator is so obsessed with De Selby that he needs Divney to work the farm and pub so the narrator can spend all his time studying the great De Selby. Since Divney is probably the only person to be found who would do this job for free beer and food, it does put the author in a bind. But enough of a bind to agree to a murder? It’s hard to grasp.
Divney mentions that they should see about getting some money for the narrator to publish his book on De Selby, and also some for Divney so he can marry a woman named Pegeen Meers. Several days later (the long con) Divney, mentions Mathers, letting the narrator figure out that he doesn’t intend to borrow from Mathers or ask him for charity. This process takes another six months, but which point the robbery and murder of Mathers has slowly crept into the daily conversation of Divney and the narrator. You have to admire Divney’s deviousness and patience in carrying out this master plan of his. Indeed, I would have enjoyed reading more about Divney’s long con.
Three months more, and the narrator had agreed to the plan. Three months more again and he tells Divney he has put aside any misgivings. That is a full year that Divney works on the narrator to get him to carry out this plan, and this on top of the years of nagging about the finances of the farm and pub--all of which may have been laying the groundwork for the narrator’s involvement in the murder. In retrospect, it is terrifying how Divney convinces the narrator to carry out the crime with him so subtly and over such a long period of time.
I cannot recount the tricks and wiles he used to win me to his side. - p. 15
Fuckin’ A.
The main trick appears to be flattery.
It is sufficient to say that he read portions of my ‘De Selby Index’ (or pretended to) and discussed with me afterwards the serious responsibility of any person who declined by mere reason of personal whim to give the ‘Index’ to the world.
So Divney gets the narrator to commit murder by appealing to his pride. A deadly sin indeed.
Chapter 1.6 - The Two Best Christians in All of Ireland
The narrator fast-forwards some to when he is nearing 30. He explains that by that time an event had transpired resulting in his, quite literally, never leaving Divney’s side. Eventually, after walking with Divney is a cold, wet storm, they begin sharing the same bed--ostensibly to keep warm. The situation is described by the author as a “queer” one that neither of them liked, though they smiled at one another and had the reputation of being the best of friends, or, “the two best Christians in all of Ireland.” (p. 13) No mention is made of their being any sort of homosexual relationship between Divney and the narrator, nor would there likely be in a novel written in Ireland in 1939, even if not published until 1967. Nonetheless, you can’t help but wonder, given the narrator’s lack of any female interests. On the other hand, given the novel’s general weirdness, it may not be out of place for them to sleep together just to illustrate in the extreme how closely the narrator distrusts Divney. But why?
Oh, because after they murdered Mathers, Divney, that bastard, kept the cashbox. This reminds me of the “Hillbilly Heist,” where a bunch of yahoos stole over $17 million from an armored truck in Charlotte, North Carolina. The perpetrator was a trusted employee at the cash warehouse, but he was manipulated by a former female employee he pined for and her friend, who actually thought of the scheme and got him to do it with a ‘honey pot’ angle. Such a dupe was this guy that after stealing all that money, he went to Mexico with only $50,000 of the loot to wait until the heat was off, trusting that his coconspirators would split the money with him later. Needless to say, that did not happen. (Incidentally, this is the story behind the comedy film, Masterminds, with Zach Galifianakis, Owen Wilson, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, et al.)
Similarly, you can’t help but wonder why on Earth the narrator, portrayed as smarter than the average Joe (more on him later), would allow Divney to part with the loot. It could be guessed that Divney is much bigger than him and the narrator is missing a leg, so perhaps that is it. Or, perhaps the author has been put into a Stockholm Syndrome with Divney as his psychological captor. This has some basis as it is explained how Divney patronizes that narrator, telling him how great his De Selby writings are and that they need to be published. It also seems like he gaslights the narrator to some extent, psychologically manipulating him into ceding the farm in part to Divney and accepting Divney’s obvious lies about the insolvency of the tavern as motivation to kill Mathers. Perhaps, given Divney’s older and stronger, he has groomed the narrator into some sort of psycho-sexual codependency or abuser-victim relationship. Given that the narrator was 20 when he met Divney and that the lack of any explicit indication of such a relationship, this would be pure conjecture.
Whatever the reason in the author’s mind for the narrator’s utter apathy toward Divney’s dominance over him, here again you have to suspend your disbelief to accept that the narrator would for years let Divney withhold from him the proceeds of a crime that put them both in extreme legal jeopardy. I will return to this later, but first to the crime and the immediate motives therefor.
