Wolfe's brilliance or my denseness?

Jeff Wilson · 22 May 2011, 00:20 · from 2011-May.txt.gz

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From: jwilson at io.com (Jeff Wilson)
Date: Sat, 21 May 2011 19:20:02 -0500
Subject: (urth) Wolfe's brilliance or my denseness?
In-Reply-To: <BANLkTi=TGWjAPocPc0i+nt3iMp7O9=UsQQ at mail.gmail.com>
References: <BANLkTikznBkQtjA5X7xkfGhngS0yON+9sQ at mail.gmail.com>	<612069.51824.qm at web161816.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
	<BANLkTi=TGWjAPocPc0i+nt3iMp7O9=UsQQ at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4DD856B2.2030102 at io.com>

On 5/21/2011 5:58 PM, Jack Smith wrote:
> I did not realize it and I think that's what Wolfe intended.  He wants
> her identify to be obscured.   Look at the mysterious note that Severian
> finds in the Inn of Lost Loves.  The mystery is not resolved until Book
> 4.  Severian and the reader don't know who Dorcas is until the end of
> the story

I read BOTNS with having read Wolfe before, but it was just after I had 
exhausted the last of the conventional Golden Age SF authors' works in 
the local library, including a lot of detective and mystery stories. 
This left me in the frame of mind to associate Cas with Dorcas on the 
first reading, but I figured it was too fantastic and kept on to see 
what the "real" explanation would be, like the Cathedral being a flying 
tent.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
Computational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana
< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >

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