(urth) interview questions

[Lee Berman]

>Tony Ellis: With all due apologies to Robert Borski, I think even no explanation is better 
>than ‘it’s a circumciser’. Here’s what the device lookslike: ‘I imagine it in the open belly 
>of a great dray horse, pushingaway the liver, thrusting down the small intestine, and cramping 
>the spleen to the spine while it gnaws at a diseased pancreas.’A great. Dray. Horse. Any one of 
>those organs is going to be as big, or far bigger, than any human penis this side of mythology, 
>and yet this device is big enough to grapple all four of them *at once*. It’s not a circumciser.

Actually, a pancreas is a surprisingly small organ, sort of a membranous strip on the small 
intestine. But, I quibble. Tony, this objection would seem to be unassailable. Except....
 
...just before the description of the device, we have an inexplicable statement of "Dollo's Law"
which relates to...what else? Animals and the size of their organs. Its like Wolfe anticipated
Tony's objection some 40 years previous and obtusely, perversely, cast aspersion on Tony's
aspersion of Borski.
 
I myself will not argue that this IS a circumcizer but I can't rule it out. There is a lot of 
confusion in the text when it comes to animals and their size. I think this is based on the "fact"
that Ste. Anne natives are more extreme in their shape shifting than we will admit. They are larger
than adults, smaller than children, look like haystacks or trees etc. Might be cats or worms etc. 
Nothing is certain here, not the purpose (or lack of purpose) of a strange device, anyway. 
 
This whole discussion reminds me of an earlier section of VRT. Marsch shoots a "huge brute- not 
described in the Field Guide--similar to the carabao [a dray bovine] of Asian Earth". 
 
Why does this creature have double pupils, like a dolphin or other fish? Why does Marsh say the carcass 
of this huge beast must be around 15 pounds? Why was VRT almost in tears over the death of this animal?
 
I think my own interpretation of the hooked device was something like an expression of hatred and 
wish of torture for Dr. Marsh and his killing of the abo/carabao cousin of VRT or whatever. But if
the size of animal organs is called into question I don't think we can rule out a circumcizer.
 
Obviously my main point is that if an intelligent person who is familiar with WOlfe has an idea, we
should never be so quick to entirely rule it out. We end up missing a lot. That is if we are disposed to 
grasp the full range of ambiguity Wolfe throws at us. For those who despise ambiguity...hey.