Miles & Jolenta

Tony Ellis · 30 Oct 1998, 09:58 · from urth-v0021.mbox · original

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From: "Tony Ellis" <tony.ellis at futurenet.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Re: (urth) Miles & Jolenta
Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 09:58:06 +0000
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Sceptical Bear wrote:
> Condensed, this goes:
>=20
>    "Seeing my own face, ..."
>=20
>    "Was this the face?" - holding a mirror in front of him.

Yup, that works for me.=20

Strictly speaking, I think the passage can be read either way: when
Miles says "Seeing my own face, multiplied again and again. A girl with
hair like red gold and enormous eyes", it -can- be interpreted as
"seeing my own face... [which was that of] a girl with hair like red
gold..." But it's a complicated interpretation, and I'm only too happy
to be wrong in favour of a simpler one.

It's interesting that Mantis and I made the same misreading, though (if
he'll accept that it -is- a misreading). There seem to be certain
ambiguous passages in Wolfe that you either interpret one way or another
the first time you read them, and that's how it gets hard-wired in your
brain: it never even occurs to you on further readings that it might be
read a different way. I'm thinking of the rats' "writing" on the walls
of Ultan's library, for example.

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/

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