Wolfe's brilliance or my denseness?

Jason H · 21 May 2011, 21:36 · from 2011-May.txt.gz

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From: beet31425 at gmail.com (Jason H)
Date: Sat, 21 May 2011 14:36:02 -0700
Subject: (urth) Wolfe's brilliance or my denseness?
Message-ID: <BANLkTikznBkQtjA5X7xkfGhngS0yON+9sQ at mail.gmail.com>

Did you know "Cas" was Dorcas right away?

I didn't. When I read these books the first time, I didn't realize that
Dorcas had been one of the lake's dead until it was spelled out in the third
book, and didn't realize she was the sought-after Cas until the fourth book.
I read these books pretty carefully-- I knew the towers were rockets right
away, I picked up on little inconsistencies in the narrative... but I missed
this connection completely.

In retrospect, it's totally obvious! The chapter in Shadow is called
"Dorcas", for heaven's sake, and we're told someone is looking for a "Cas",
and then a mysterious Dorcas appears. How can I not have immediately
realized who she was? Of course, the first time through, we don't even know
he has the Claw on him (let alone what it can do), and it's perhaps
unintuitive to mentally pair the old man with the young Dorcas.

So I'm really curious to know whether I was just being dense, or whether
Wolfe was being particularly brilliant-- and audacious-- by setting up a
connection which he somehow knew people wouldn't make right away, despite
its obviousness later on.

I'm therefore curious to know: Was this obvious to you back in Shadow as
soon as Dorcas appeared?

-Jason
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