AEG clones

Roy C. Lackey · 21 Dec 2008, 21:19 · from 2008-December.txt.gz

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From: rclackey at stic.net (Roy C. Lackey)
Date: Sun, 21 Dec 2008 15:19:49 -0600
Subject: (urth) AEG clones
References: <011201c961a7$9d3811e0$4dcf4a0c@rclackey><494B94D4.4060605 at gmail.com><004e01c96232$2a0dbcc0$5fd24a0c@rclackey><797FEFBC5B9A41EF806452907A621060@GATEWAY><005901c96333$8bcb2cc0$e3d04a0c@rclackey>
	<7242FF1341944DC0AD1DA6BEC9B792DD@GATEWAY>
Message-ID: <003901c963b1$e0a15340$afcf4a0c@rclackey>

James Wynn quoted and wrote:
> > The text-based solution I meant, as the remainder of my original
paragraph
> > makes clear, is the solution to the question of what green dress Cassie
> > wore
> > before the play that Reis could have seen her wearing.
>
> Didn't carry. And it's not text based either, which is probably why it
> didn't.

Buckshot. The loden dress is in the text, like it or not. In the Rusterman
conversation, Wolfe went out of his way to give the reader pause to wonder
why and how there could be any confusion over the seemingly minor issue of
when Reis first saw Cassie. Do you really think that Wolfe gave an inventory
of Cassie's closet that inclued an obscured mention of a green dress,
clearly identifiable as the dress she wore on the mountain, for no good
reason?

> Reis never said AFAIK that he saw Cassie in the dress *before* the
> play.

Of course not.

> He said he saw Cassie wearing the dress at the party. Quote: "I was
> thinking of the party. I took you home, remember?"

He saw her wearing *a* dress at the party, and it may well have been a green
one--redheads are known for wearing green. But no woman is going to wear the
same dress she wore the night before to a party, particularly when that
dress was worn while hiking up a mountain and it reeks of incense and wood
smoke. Cassie didn't like the smell of Gid's ritual concoction, and even
said she wouldn't want to wear that smell. (42)

> Maybe he lied. But then
> the whole conversation is a lie without any mixture of truth. So, maybe
he's
> lying about her being in a green dress the first time he saw her as well?
> Maybe he's lying about loving her?

And we get to pick what is a lie and what is true according to how well it
fits a particular theory?

> Maybe Gid had him take her home from the
> mountain.

Doubtful, othrwise the pictures with the notes on them would not have been
in her purse when she woke up.

> > Inelegantly? Oh, dear. As for the mysteries, they come with the
territory.
>
> Roy, you discarded (perhaps only temporarily) an explanation **for this
> scene** that tied up a bunch of loose ends in a single sweep and devised
one
> instead that generates out of thin air

Not out of thin air.

> an entire novel's worth of mysteries.
> "Comes with the territory"? You're leveraging the Lousiana Purchase with
> pocket change. It doesn't mean its not true, but it certainly isn't based
on
> a more *literal* reading.

Huh. I can't help it if the loden dress doesn't help the clone theory. But
it's there.

> >Only if there really are clones of Reis in the story. No smoking gun has
> >yet
> >been found. The loden dress doesn't kill the clone theory.
>
> But it *is* an alternate theory.

It isn't a global theory. The loden dress just serves to explain how Reis
could have been telling the truth about when he first saw Cassie.

[snip]
> The answer isn't going to come as a smoking gun.

With that I will agree.

-Roy

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