(urth) The mystery of the image of an astronaut cleaned by Rudesind

[Ryan Dunn]

Lee, that is a very heartening quote from you.

It  seems most of the undercarriage of this mailing list (both as a long time reader and recent participant) seems to be built around digging under the surface story.

Maybe sometimes so much so that the forest is lost for the leaves on the trees.

All of that said, I think Tzadkiel's appearance in UotNS (a volume Gene vehemently felt did NOT need to be written to help us understand the tetralogy) as a shapeshifter, is most positively a clue to a character (characters) in the first four volumes.

What greater target for this than Inire? Who else? The other mask clues are revealed, but I think they serve as clues for the bigger mysteries, the ones Wolfe does not pander to us to answer, but uses clue-context (Agia/Agilus and the ribbons, chance encounters with Hildegrin, old Autarch making sneaky appearances, etc.).

Anyhow, thank you for that analogy below, it brightened my day.

...ryan


On Jul 7, 2010, at 9:04 AM, Lee Berman wrote:

> For me, BotNS is built (NOT coincidentally) like House Absolute. There is a main
> structure and a second, secret house which has been built co-extensively within it.
> As the Secret House was constructed by Father Inire, I find it appropriate to think
> the secret structure of BotNS is centered on that character. If you don't think there
> are undiscovered mysteries in the story or don't find the search enjoyable I can
> understand that. The main story is really great and I spent years enjoying it on that
> level alone. But I always felt there was more.