(urth) The eyes of a clone

[mournings glory]

Crush writes:

>a) Only one man (it seems) speaks. He has "the carved brown face from
>[Silk's ] mother's closet." He is also tall and blue-eyed. >

I don't agree with your parenthesis above. Or maybe I should say I 
understand why you believe it to be so. But there's also at least one other 
valid interpretation that can be made since Wolfe quite shrewdly fails to 
attribute all the dialogue in the passage you cite.

You're assuming, I gather, that the following line is said by Silk's 
mother--who's pretty much overcome by joy and is crying her eyes out:

"You must go back, Silk. He sends us to tell you."

But isn't it equally possible that this could have been said by the tall, 
blue-eyed man? Because otherwise the next two paragraphs, it seems to me, 
are artifically broken and should actually read as one, at least if all the 
dialogue is spoken by the same person--as you contend. I.e:

"You must, my lad." A man's voice, the voice of which Lemur's had been a 
species of mockery. Looking up he saw the carved brown face from his 
mother's closet. "We're your parents." He was tall and blue-eyed. "Your 
fathers and your mothers."

I've neither copy editing nor grammarian bona fides, but I just don't see 
why you would separate the two halves of Tussah's little speech here and not 
retain the single paragraph.

So here's how I see everybody saying what:

"Oh, Silk! My son! Oh, son!" She was in his arms and he in hers,
melting in tears of joy. [Silk's Foster Mother]

"Mother!" [Silk]

"Silk, my son!" [SFM]

"You must go back, Silk. He sends us to tell you." [Tall, blue-eyed man.]

"You must, my lad." A man's voice, the voice of which Lemur's had been
a species of mockery. Looking up he saw the carved brown face from his
mother's closet. [Tussah]

"We're your parents." He was tall and blue-eyed. "Your fathers and your
mothers." [TBEM]

One last followup question: do we ever learn (or can we figure out) what 
Silk's foster mother's name is? I can't recall if it's ever mentioned and 
she seems too important a character to go deliberately nameless.

msg (who has no dog in this fight, but still wants to point out that South 
Korea today announced it had successfully cloned a dog--after only 1000 
failed attempts, all of which might be had for the cheap somewhere on the 
streets of Port Mimizon.)