Subject: (whorl) Re: Digest whorl.v008.n039

From: Alice Turner <al at interport.net>
Date: Sat, 09 May 1998 22:00:20 +0000

>P.S. Why does everyone only ever mention the *first* appearance of
>Patera Pike's ghost?

Ooh-whoo, whaddya got there, Spec?

-alga-

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.moonmilk.com/whorl/

---

From: Peter Westlake <peter at harlequin.co.uk>
Date: Sun, 10 May 1998 23:12:02 +0000

>Ooh-whoo, whaddya got there, Spec?

Mucor, talking to Silk when he climbs onto the top of the airship
gondola:

  "You were worried about me with so many people gone. My
  grandfather came to see if I was all right. The old man and the
  fat woman are taking care of me. He wanted to know where Grandmother
  and the little auger went, and I told him."

  _My grandfather_ was Hammerstone, clearly; Silk nodded and smiled.

Exodus, Ch 14, p305 in my copy. Silk makes an assumption, which is
always a bad sign. [I like the way Wolfe requires his characters to
think as hard as his readers if they want to follow the plot - a
kind of metaphysical equal opportunities!]  The alternative
explanation of "my grandfather" is so odd that he can be forgiven
for not thinking of it, though I think he knows who it could be:

   Maytera Marble paused to collect her thoughts; her rapid scan
   was back, and she revelled in it. "We were three sibyls, I was
   about to say. Maytera Mint was still young and pretty, but so
   shy that she ran from you whenever she could. When she couldn't,
   she would hardly speak. Maybe she guessed what had happened to
   me, long ago. I've sometimes thought that, and you were young
   and good-looking, as you still are."

   He began a question, but thought better of it.

   "I won't tell you who Bloody's father was, Patera."

- Calde, Ch 10, after Silk had *not* asked who Blood's father
was, or even mentioned him for a while.

What are the odds that the ghost is simply the unquiet spirit
of Patera Pike, a good man trying to make amends for past sins?

-- Spectacled Bear, stick ready to climb.

Peter Westlake, Harlequin Ltd, Barrington Hall, Barrington, Cambs CB2 5RG.