Babbiehorn?: Was: a sincere question mostly for roy

James Wynn · 16 Nov 2011, 19:22 · from 2011-November.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2011 13:22:33 -0600
Subject: (urth) Babbiehorn?: Was: a sincere question mostly for roy
In-Reply-To: <8B62A70E4701459087B6534260A0D361@Rover>
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>
> *From:* James Wynn <mailto:crushtv at gmail.com>
> Why is she hanging out with her own "Oreb"?
> Gerry Quinn wrote:
> Is she?  Mucor, Pike and Oreb appear at roughly the same time and 
> place, but no one of them is actually "with" any other. Silk wakes up 
> and sees Oreb hop out the window.  Then he sees Mucor by his bed.  
> Mucor vanishes.

Just a big coincidence?

>  He goes down and interrogates Oreb, who denies being there, although 
> Silk doesn't believe him.  [Silk thinks Oreb was frightened by Mucor 
> and jumped out the windows, dropping down to the kitchen window 
> below.  We aren't told whether this is what happened or not, but it's 
> at least possible.]

This is Silk's rationalization since...what else could it be? In 
literature, this is called irony. The reader is expected to arrive at 
meaning that the character cannot. But this is a Wolfe novel. The 
meaning is unavailable to the reader until after he has read all 7 
volumes. Even before SS was published, readers recognized that the Oreb 
in the window was problem.

This post demonstrates how unuseful your pose is toward Wolfe's works. 
It is one thing to say "I want to use only overt statements of fact in 
the books to resolve puzzles" (good luck to you). It is another thing to 
say, "I have not succeeded in resolving a puzzle using my method, 
therefore no puzzle exists".

> Silk hears noises upstairs again and goes up.  This time he sees 
> Pike's ghost.  He recognises "the aged augur" as Pike.  No staves or 
> missing eyes are mentioned.  No bird is present.Pike is wearing a 
> blue-trimmed calot hat -- does the Rajan wear such a thing?

Um...(as soothingly as possible) no. This is *Pike's* callotte that Silk 
wore in his robbery.  The Rajan leaves it behind when he leaves. Why 
would you even ask such a question?

> I don't know where Pike's ghost comes from.  But I am unconvinced that 
> he is Silk from the future.  Does Pike look like Silk?  He should look 
> like Blood, if anyone.

One very obvious conclusion is that Pike looks as Silk will look when he 
is old.
Alternately, an obvious conclusion following from that is that Pike and 
Master Malrubius look strikingly similar.
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