Wolfe's brilliance or my denseness?

Marc Aramini · 21 May 2011, 21:45 · from 2011-May.txt.gz

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From: marcaramini at yahoo.com (Marc Aramini)
Date: Sat, 21 May 2011 14:45:55 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: (urth) Wolfe's brilliance or my denseness?
In-Reply-To: <BANLkTikznBkQtjA5X7xkfGhngS0yON+9sQ at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <612069.51824.qm at web161816.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

not even the tip of the ice berg.? I think the first time I read these I was in the fourth or fifth grade and missed it until later, too, but that recognition makes the later little note in the Inn make complete sense.? but I don't think knowing what I do now its even touching the surface of how clever and cryptic he can be when he cares to.? there are far less obvious things like that I would swear up and down are true but Wolfe is a clever fellow, always.

--- On Sat, 5/21/11, Jason H <beet31425 at gmail.com> wrote:

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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