the prime calcula/his citadel and other quotes

James Wynn · 19 Jan 2011, 19:20 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2011 13:20:19 -0600
Subject: (urth) the prime calcula/his citadel and other quotes
In-Reply-To: <2FFDA071957648EEA2167823C583327C@jill>
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	<2FFDA071957648EEA2167823C583327C@jill>
Message-ID: <4D373973.7080106 at gmail.com>

On 1/19/2011 12:46 PM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
> You do agree, though, that [if Wolfe wrote MotOE] even if there were 
> no detective, there would be clues to the cover-up?

Sure. But they wouldn't necessarily be the clues a particular reader 
would want. I consider it self-evident that Weer killed Lois and buried 
her in that pit they dug. I have always thought that Weer had put 
himself in peril by telling people she had left town. But it doesn't 
bother me at all that Weer didn't record people coming around asking 
what happened to her, or explain how he avoided the investigation. This 
is a first person narrative, fully naturalized. Some authors would have 
such a narrator answer every such open question. It is easy to do. But 
just because it is easy to do, Wolfe insists that his readers do that 
sort of literary janitorial work on their own -- because, obviously, he 
beat the rap.

If you don't find the evidence that directly associates Silk and 
Pas/Typhon compelling, fine.
In that case, who didn't say what is irrelevant.
But if the evidence is valid, then it is still irrelevant. The gods 
didn't mention ancestry for their own reasons.  Mamelta and Rigoglio 
didn't see Pas in Silk for several possible reasons. The sybils didn't 
mention Silk's similarity to Pas for whatever (but, heck, they mention 
his similarity to Pike either but that seems to me to be a given as 
well).   If you accept that multiple people are seeing it since the 
books were released, you're not going to change the evidence they are 
seeing by arguing that you want it in some other format.

u+16b9

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