(urth) Sorcerer's House--First Read--Some Thoughts/Questions

[James Wynn]

1) The ring that Bax finds in the fish is a numen storage device or
becomes one when Bax touches it after he has aquired numen but dowsing
the long-light. . One could argue that the ring came from Zwart but
I'm not sure about that. After all the fish were summoned by the
triannulus. The ring might well have been created simply by Bax's
stored numen. Opals were once believed to be magical--conferring both
good and bad luck in various contexts. On reflection, the ring that
the Rajan receives in The Book of the Short Sun is probably an opal.
At first it is white and then when Oreb returns it, it is black IIRC.
Opals come in both these colors.A fire opal might be referred to as
black.

2) The middle-aged man who brings the fish is merely called a
"neighbor". Bax does not record the name he was given. It is
reasonable that both he and Mrs. Nabor are citizens of Faeri.
"Neighbor" is a word for faeries which Wolfe has employed in both An
Evil Guest and The Book of the Short Sun.

3) Question: Bax finds the ring in a catfish. On his finger, Doris
sees it as a cats-eye opal. What's the connection to cats? Later, the
pawn dealer sees it and identifies it as a fire opal which looks much
different. I don't understand the logic of that either.

4) Question: Doris doesn't say what Ted was crying into when she sees
him at the end of the novel. I presume it is a handkerchief because it
has his initials on it. Why not say so?

5) But Wolfe has Doris spell out those initials, which strikes me as a
clue: "T.A.G." Ted is Ambrosius, as others have said. Theodore
Ambrosius Griffin--unless the G stands for Goldwurm which complicates
the story terribly. The ring that Doris gave Bax is his numen storage
that Goldwurm could never find. The reason Doris finds him crying at
the end is because he discovers that Doris has given away his ring.
For a sorcerer, he has lost his entire fortune.

6) I agree that "Finn" and Griffin are pseudonyms for the same person.

7) At one point, Bax implies that Zwart was the werewolf he killed as
he and Doris were fleeing the restaurant. This makes all kinds of
sense to me. But then Zwart makes an appearance at the end of the
novel. So...hmm.

8) Hypothesis: There's another possiblity as to the identity of the
werewolf, but I haven't done anything to investigate it. It could have
been George. Martha Murray said she believed that Zwart wanted Bax or
George to kill the other. But Bax dismisses this theory because the
bullets were clearly intended to kill a werewolf. Sooo...George was
the werewolf. The note with the pistols was not meant for Bax but for
Trelawney.Trelawney's questions were _not_ intended to prove that Bax
was not some other Baxter Dunn but to verify that he was not George
(impersonating Bax) who would become the werewolf (or was already).
Subsequent letters to Bax from George were invented. It was Bax who,
in the company of Doris and the psychic, forced Nicholas/Nosferatu
back into the trunk. While impersonating his dead brother.It was clear
from Nicholaus's conversation with Bax that he had already been in the
trunk a while; so this is possible. Doris felt confused about her
feelings for Bax when she thought she was running around with his
brother.  This will need a re-read.

J.