(urth) The Sorcerer's House Questions (*Major Spoilers*)
Dave Tallman
davetallman at msn.com
Tue Mar 30 21:14:12 PDT 2010
Thomas Bitterman wrote:
> As mentioned in another post, the circumstances of George's note and its
> contents make forgery probable, IMHO. Madame Orizia is an accomplice (and
> somewhat out of
> the loop - how could she cover his home "quite thoroughly", given the
> warping it's always doing?). Doris was not emotionally stable when she
> wrote the second latter and should not be considered a reliable witness.
> FWIW, the Compiler (whom I maintain is Bax) is upfront about "extensive"
> editing.
>
I don't allow Bax as the Compiler in any theories because it makes
complete fraud much too easy. But temporal rearrangement of letters is
allowed. For example, if the second Doris letter was written when she
was drunk and/or crazy, then Bax is allowed to spin a story around the
crazy things she said (and maybe even forge the postscript).
Moving the Skotos inquiry letter (155-157) earlier would help, because
it helps eliminate the coincidence of Bax moving to Medicine Man and
moving into the Black House. Suppose eccentric millionaire Skotos
decided to leave property to Bax for whatever reason (he admired his Phd
research?) Per the Shell letter of 197-198, Skotos was making inquiries
about Bax while he was in prison, and probably got in touch with Lou (p.
9). Deeding the Black House to him, and making a will leaving the
river-front property would give Bax a reason to move there.
Unfortunately, that doesn't quite work. The inquiry letter mentions
George being held at gunpoint, which wouldn't happen unless George came
there after receiving other strange letters. Early letters from Bax to
Shell (9-10, 23-24) indicate him moving to Medicine Man for other
reasons and having no great expectations at all.
So we are left with Bax coincidentally moving to Medicine Man, and
coincidentally moving into a house that would be his. Such a coincidence
amounts to him being unconsciously being drawn there by his magical
heritage. So it's magic, and the whole story stems from that.
Why the complete rejection of the fantastic, anyway. You wouldn't read
"Pirate Freedom" with the attitude: "Time travel is impossible, so
whatever the narrator says about going to the past must be lies." This
is a Wolfe story, and he often writes of the fantastic. So why not
accept it?
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