more questions on Sorcerer's House (spoilers)

James Wynn · 12 Apr 2010, 04:03 · from 2010-April.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Sun, 11 Apr 2010 23:03:43 -0500
Subject: (urth) more questions on Sorcerer's House (spoilers)
In-Reply-To: <4BC1BF7A020000EF00047FD1 at azrael.olivet.edu>
References: <4BC1BF7A020000EF00047FD1 at azrael.olivet.edu>
Message-ID: <EEE2A2792B1245FBB45D900B759C0385@eMachinePC>

> -I think it?s pretty clear that Ted is Ambrosius and that the ring Doris
> gives Bax is Ambrosius? item of sorcery.  What?s not clear though is
> Doris?s intentions in giving Bax the ring.  I don?t buy the reasons she
> gives.

I think I did. She didn't know that Ted was a sorcerer. She didn?t realize 
the significance of the ring or that Ted would return to claim it. She was 
under the influence of Bax's numen heightened by Bax wearing an item of 
sorcery already.

> Plus, in the conversation in letter 5 in which she gives him the
> ring and explains why she wants him to wear it, she knows his first
> name.  Then almost immediately she acts like she doesn?t yet know it and
> refers to him again as Mr. Dunn.

Same thing. Under the influence of numen. She's holding his hand when she 
momentarily forgets his first name. I can't think of of reason otherwise for 
her admitting she forgot his first name.

> -Who is Mary King?  She?s mentioned twice (letters 21 and 25).

Good question. During my read I just pegged her as one of the women killed 
by the werewolf but now I see that's not so. Bax brings up her name out of 
nowhere to Shell in connection with Skotos/Zwart. Then later she is a 
phantom hitch-hiker.
>

> -What?s the deal with the dwarf?s name in letter 31?  He calls himself
> Quorn but Baxter says he knew him as Quilp.  A quick search on Wikipedia
> reveals that Daniel Quilp was a dwarf in Dickin?s The Old Curiosity
> Shop.

You know. One could get hopelessly lost taking this too far, but a name like 
Quilp for a Literature PhD with an announced fondness for Dickens certainly 
smells as though the character were fabricated or embellished. Of course The 
Quorn is a famous club for sponsoring fox hunts FWIW.

> -Finally, something still bothers me about the chronology regarding
> George?s activities once he?s in Medicine Man.  According to Baxter, he
> arrives, ends up in prison, makes bail, comes to Bax?s house and
> releases Nicholas, and then gets lost in the house.  Then he?s suddenly
> ?picked up? on the street.  Then he?s back in the house again
> and?along with his father, Doris, and Madame Orizia?gets Nicholas
> back in the trunk.  This just seems weird.  What would make George come
> back to the house and solve the problem of Nicholas being loose?

I found the news that he was searching the house  with Doris and Orizia 
peculiar on it's face. And George just didn't seem to be the kind of person 
would worry about a Nosferatu on the loose. That's among the reason I like 
Bax for impersonating George at the time. And why would he do that unless he 
were hiding that George was dead?

> -Maybe we shouldn't make too much out of this, but are we sure that Bax
> replacing George means that George is definitely dead?

No.

>We had Mrs.
> Naber saying that if one twin died, the other usually died soon after.
> Sure this isn't necessarily always the case, but it seems like it would
> be more likely for "magic" twins.  Maybe Bax duped me as well, but I
> figured George had been taken into Faerie at the end of the book to
> spend some time with his parents and maybe get straightened out.
> Something like this is hinted with the partial reconcilation between
> Emlyn and Ieuan at the end of the battle by the river, maybe.

I agree with Tallman that a reconciliation is fits better with the theme of 
Jacob & Esau, but find it hard to believe that Bax would do it. He HATES 
George. Nothing in the story seems likely to change those feelings. We don't 
know that George is definitely dead, but I'm increasingly inclined that he 
probably has died (which in a Wolfe novel is not the same thing as "is 
dead"). It certainly makes a better story than the reconciliation ending.

J.

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