Pike's ghost

Andrew Mason · 23 Nov 2011, 23:11 · from 2011-November.txt.gz

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From: andrew.mason53 at googlemail.com (Andrew Mason)
Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2011 23:11:43 +0000
Subject: (urth) Pike's ghost
Message-ID: <CAM3O41L4H7hv1w40onc4R=bf=+HbACAvEDM2kBbEfYdO-1Wofw at mail.gmail.com>

Gerry Quinn wrote:

>
> My feeling, though, is that it?s not so much a ghost as a vision sent by the Outsider telling Silk he?s on the right track. ?But of course, this is something that can be both.

Well, the Outsider can certainly send spirits of the dead. If it were
just a vision, though, and not a spirit, one would have to find soem
other explanation for Wolfe's remarks about putting a ghost in one of
his works.
>
=>
> I don?t see Mucor?s appearance as a real problem. ?She is fascinated by Silk and is clearly following him since the exorcism. ?Next day she appears twice in the tunnels. ?She appears when Echidna possesses Marble, and nobody is saying that?s too much of a coincidence and Echidna must have brought her along. ?Even if Echidna likes her (didn?t she say that sometime?)

Mucor's appearance is indeed not a problem. I'm treating  that as the
basic fact which needs no special explanation, and the other two as
consequences of it. The problem is three ghostly appearances at the
same time. it seems unlikely they have three separate explanations. To
be sure, coincidences do happen in the solar universe, and that's not
too surprising in a world which has a providential God, but in this
case Silk actually theorises about a connection between Mucor and
Pike, which would be an oddly misleading clue if it was just an
acident that they were both there at once. (Silk's theory might be
wrong, but in the absence of something very clear which confounds it,
it seems reasonable to think he's right.)
>
>
> Oreb is the tricky one. ?Silk comes up with an explanation that is at least rational but nobody believes (maybe that?s a hint from Wolfe that the ghost is real). ?I?m not convinced by your idea that Mucor gives others special powers ? I don?t remember any instances of it.

Well, you might say 'except this one' - which, given Wolfe's known
tendency to think things are obvious when they aren't, can't be ruled
out. But it doesn't seem too surprising to me - if she can summon
spirits of the dead, why might she not also summon spirits of the
living - given that the living have spirits which can leave their
bodies, as her own case implies?

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