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

[John Watkins]

On "Finn," it has also occurred to me that it might be a bit of a joke on
"elfin."

On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 2:35 PM, James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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.
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