(urth) bluegreenandcerberus

[James Wynn]

25.  "Does Green/Blue have anything to do with THE FIFTH HEAD OF
CERBERUS?"  No.

>I have taken the position that you can't consult the author for the "right" 
>way to interpret his text - everything absolute that the author has to 
>contribute to the meaning of the text is *in the text*. Others would like
>to rely on asking questions of the author and take the position that his
>word, even after the fact, is law - and this is a consistent enough
>position until you then start wrangling over how to interpret his
>answers to those questions. At that point you are no better off than
>you were before.

Well, there questions and there are questions. Same for answers. 

I would very much like it if people would stop using suppositional
language when asking Wolfe questions (such as "Could it be..." or
"Shouldn't one gather...") Wolfe clearly loooves to answer those with
a chipper "You bet!" or a thoughtful "Hmmm....I don't know", knowing
full well that within 24 hours he will realize he has no answer at all. 
I understand that you are nervous and you don't want to sound like a 
boar asking impertinent questions but just ask the question in the
most simple way possible and if you get an answer hooray and
if you don't you dont'.

And then there are the questions like the one above or:

27.  "Is Pike's ghost really Quetzal?"  No.

The asker really already suspected the answer, but decided to take a long shot.

My personal favorites are when Wolfe cleverly manages to only answer half
the question (or less). Like this one from the Q&A:
http://www.urth.net/whorl/archives/v0007/0511.shtml

22.  "Why did Auk . . . kidnap Hyacinth, and why . . . did he let her
go?"  Because Tartaros had told him to bring a woman.  He released
her as he recovered from his brain injury, was able to think more
clearly, and realized that Hyacinth was not the woman he should
bring.  (Putting it another way, he released her because Tartaros
told him to.  These answers are not as disparate as they may appear.)

Uh huh. What woman was he supposed to bring? Why was Hyacinth
unacceptable? And ***how the heck was anyone supposed to glean
even that much from the text????***

J