(urth) Pike/Oreb

[David Stockhoff]

On 11/3/2011 5:44 PM, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> I'd think it more accurate to say that he thing that Silk tries to explain to
> himself is why he said "sir", not why he said "my son".  In fact, he seems to
> have been trained or to have worked out ways to address older or higher-status
> men more respectfully than "my son".  The reason he comes up with for his
> switch makes sense.  If we think he's hiding another reason from himself, one
> possibility is that he switched from "sir" to "my son" after he went from begging
> to doing an augur's job of explaining something about the Outsider to a layperson.
> He might hide this from himself because it might feel like sinful pride to him.  I
> don't see any hint that he unconsciously sees Blood as something like his son
> in a physical sense or that Wolfe is inventing this to give us such a clue.

If I understand the theory, the idea is simply that Wolfe deliberately 
highlights the meaning and usage of "son" in Silk's thoughts regarding 
Blood, spending 2 pages on it, to wave a small flag. The reason for 
Silk's thoughts don't much matter---they may make perfect sense and tell 
us much about him.

Silk himself has no reason to think Blood is "his" son because he lacks 
Pike's memories. But Silk is not signalling, Wolfe is. The clue (if it 
is) remains readable: Blood = Silk's son. In what sense? In a purely 
genetic sense (if Silk = Pike), as well as the other sense Silk ponders.

Naturally this alone is not enough to build a case on, just a pointer if 
one is already looking, i.e., if one is looking for confirmation of an 
already-observed pattern.