Seawrack and the Mother

David Stockhoff · 18 Sep 2012, 19:07 · from 2012-September.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2012 15:07:27 -0400
Subject: (urth) Seawrack and the Mother
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I'm sorry, but how does a stump from a limb torn off by teeth look 
different from a stump from a limb torn off by a shot?

I think it would be more profitable, if we are to consider Lee's theory, 
to determine things like whether Horn's gun was capable of such a thing, 
and how Seawrack's physiology would respond to a shot in the first 
place, and what effects it would have had on Babbie. I think it unlikely 
that Horn was carrying a gun big enough to do this to a human arm.

But the larger point is that once again we have two parallel 
plausibilities and little help from the narrator. We also have a plain 
indeterminacy: if Seawrack was not the pirate girl, then why does Wolfe 
put them so close together? What happened to the girl and where did 
Seawrack come from? Wolfe does this all the time with his characters.

Furthermore, is it too complex to suggest that Babbie attacked Seawrack 
because he recognized her as the pirate girl Horn shot at? If he hit her 
in the arm, Babbie would have known who it was, smelled blood, and torn 
it off defending the boat. Her arm could have suffered both injuries 
without messing up anything [this last is in partial response to Sergei, 
whose perspective on this scene baffles me though I understand his 
reaction to Leeism]. A gunshot wound would explain why she wanted to get 
on the boat.

On 9/18/2012 2:10 PM, Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:
> Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote (18-09-2012 16:55):
>> Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:
>>> ? Wasn't Seawrack's arm bitten off by Babbie? It was missing, not shot.
>>
>> Well, that's what the Narrator believes. That doesn't make it true.
>
> ? If her arm has been torn off, it has been torn off. Torn off. Not 
> shot. Torn off. You might as well posit that she didn't lose her arm 
> at all and it's all in the narrator's head.
> That's of course not entering all the other bits (what would an 
> aquatic creature like Seawrack doing in a boat, etc).
>
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