age of forty." ²³⁴ The year Tom (and Will for that matter) turned forty was the year Chad was born.

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Ironically enough, Tom's presence in the house on Ash Tree Lane only served to help Will and Karen get along. As Whitten states: "Tom's desire to reacquire his lost parental figures transmuted Navidson into father and Karen into mother, thus offering one explanation why Tom frequently sought to reduce tension between both." ²³⁵

Of course as Nam Eurtton argued, "Why? Because Tom's a nice

g _U y. "236

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Esau's blessing was stolen with a mask. Tom wears no mask, Will wears a camera. But as Nietzsche wrote, "Every profound spirit needs a mask." ²³⁷

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And yet, despite the triumph of Jacob's ruse, he should have heeded this admonition: "Cursed be he that maketh the blind to wander out of the way" (Deuteronomy 27:18). And Jacob was indeed cursed,

²³⁴ LOSt.

²³⁵ Ibid„ 112.

²³⁶ Nam Eurtton's "All Accurate" p. 176. ²³⁷ 0f some note is the strange typo which appears in the Aaron Stern text: "But the blind Isaac repeated his question, 'Are you really my son Esau?' to which the chosen one replied 'Annie' meaning 'I am.'"

Aaron Stern's All God's Children: Genesis (New York: Hesed Press, 1964), p. 62.

forced to wrestle for the rest of his life with this question of self-worth. [106]

Navidson was no different. [107]

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"To me, Tom seemed an incredibly peaceful man. Plain, decent but most of all peaceful." [108]

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Here Ruccalla's analysis unexpectedly rereads the meaning of Esau's lost inheritance, sublimely uncovering an unspoken history, veiled in irony and blankness, yet still describing how one brother could not have succeeded without the other. Cain may not have been his brother's keeper but Esau certainly was [109]

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" . . . a cunning hunter" "of the field"