(urth) Mucor and Oreb in the manse

[James Wynn]

On 11/25/2011 11:13 PM, Roy C. Lackey wrote:
> Silk had just returned from the lake, on the day of Rose's funeral. He went
> into his manse bedroom to clean up and change clothes. Mucor appeared in his
> shaving mirror. The first thing she said was, "This isn't the first time
> I've seen you with no clothes on." (CALDE, ch. 2, 71) That got me wondering
> when she might have ever seen him naked, so I started backtracking. The next
> time Silk saw her after Blood's villa was briefly in the face of Teasel's
> dad. From there he went straight home and took a bath and went to bed naked.
>
> He had some weird dreams, then what seems to be a dream within a dream that
> incorporated real-world, real-time elements, such as hard dry rain coming in
> the window that was actually gravel tossed by Crane. Just before the "dry
> rain" it was: "A black-clad imp with a blood-red sword stood upon his chest
> to study him, its head cocked to one side. He stirred and it fled,
> fluttering like a little flag." (NIGHTSIDE, ch. 9, 220) That black-clad imp
> suggests Oreb with his red beak. Marble calling Silk's name finally woke
> him.

I really like this because it attempts to answer Mucor's comment about 
seeing Silk naked. Now, I'll keep my eye out for other references to 
Silk being naked.
As I sense is the case with you, I'm bothered by Mucor not actually 
making an appearance, but it could be argued (if there are no other 
scenes where Silk is said to be naked) that THIS is the evidence of her 
presence there. I agree that the black clad imp refers indirectly to 
Oreb, but I interpret the "imp" as evidence that Oreb is possessed by a 
"daemon" -- an independently running background computer process (eg 
"Pas").
I don't know if this has been mentioned before but the black clad imp on 
Silk's chest is a reference to Henry Fuseli's painting, Nightmare:
http://easthighschoolap.wikispaces.com/file/view/752px-John_Henry_Fuseli_-_The_Nightmare.JPG/145907447/752px-John_Henry_Fuseli_-_The_Nightmare.JPG

However, I'm not convinced that this means Oreb was physically in his 
room at the time. It /could/. I'm not sure it offers us any narrative 
value in saying that, however.

> Silk didn't know he had injured the bird's wing with the walking stick
> before he went to see Teasel. While Marble was watching Crane treat Silk's
> injuries, she saw Oreb hopping in what Silk specified was the stairwell
> (223). The bird made its way from the stairwell into the kitchen (229), then
> managed to fly back up to the top of the larder (230), dislocated wing and
> all, and had to be coaxed down so Crane could treat his wing.

Okay. This brings us to the PROBLEM with your theory that I hinted at in 
my last comment. There has never been any doubt that Oreb *could* make 
it into Silk's room.  And Silk is able to rationalize that Oreb *could* 
fly a bit out of the window.  Based on his reaction, it seems that he 
saw Oreb do more than flutter away. I'll follow this up in my next 
comment...

> My thinking is that Mucor possessed Oreb, got him to hop up the stairs and
> onto Silk's chest while he slept, and that is when she saw him naked. This
> blend of dream and reality also prefigures the later scene in the manse with
> Oreb, Mucor and Pike. I suggest that Mucor might have possessed Oreb that
> night at the manse, damaged wing and all, and that Oreb did not remember the
> possession, just as Remora didn't remember when Mucor possessed him. That
> Oreb could fly to the top of the larder with a dislocated wing proves that
> he could fly well enough to get up the stairs with a splinted wing, even if
> only by hopping up them.

You are right that Mucor *could* have possessed Oreb, but then

The tricky part has always been two-fold:

1) Silk's rationalization about how Oreb could have flown out the window 
is a classic Wolfean signal that that is NOT what happened.

2) This leaves open the big questions:
     a) What was Oreb doing there in the first place?
     b) Why did he lie?

The second question is a biggie. Silk made it clear that he wouldn't 
punish Oreb for being up there. An explanation that leaves that dangling 
is barely an explanation for me.
In tying Mucor's comment (although, not your favorite theory) to the 
night of Pike's appearance, You've made a gallant attempt explain the 
first question; however:

     a) Why would Mucor NEED to possess Oreb to keep tabs on Silk? We 
KNOW that she can astral travel. This seems to be a needless, 
unestablished complication just to tie up a loose end.

     b) Also unestablished is that Mucor can possess beings and then 
chain into astral presence. Why would she do that?

     c) Your assertion that the difference between Mucor's two astral 
disapperations at the Trivigaunte floater/in the tunnels and the one in 
Silk's room is...well...it is quite obviously untrue. It does match up 
almost perfectly with the disapperation of Pike's ghost.


> If you want to say that Mucor's "seen you with no clothes on" meant only
> that she had seen Silk when he was undressed but not totally naked, fine.
> Then you can dismiss the the black-clad imp Silk imagined while he was
> sleeping after getting back from Blood's villa and go straight to the next
> time Silk slept, which was the night of Oreb, Mucor and Pike, and chalk the
> black-clad imp up as just part of a crazy dream. It was just as hot that
> night and he had undressed for bed. This is known because he stopped to put
> his trousers on before he went downstairs to look for Oreb (LAKE, ch. 1,
> 32).

As I said before, the above isn't even YOUR favorite theory of when 
Mucor saw Silk naked. So--for you--it doesn't really tie Mucor to the 
night in question. To your reading, it means that Mucor should always be 
thought of as possibly there at any time, so why not then as well? Okay. 
That's tenuous, but defensible.

But if Wolfe had Mucor, Oreb, and Pike's ghost appear to Silk on the 
same night (like Dickensian ghosts of Christmas) --two at the same 
time--and each having little or nothing to do with each other, it would 
be the greatest red herring Wolfe has ever laid on his readers to my memory.

> Either way, Mucor had seen him without his clothes on in the few days
> between Silk's first sight of her at Blood's villa and her appearance in his
> shaving mirror. She had been keeping tabs on Silk the whole time, at
> Teasel's home, in the tunnels, at Orchid's and at the manse.

However, one reason I REALLY like this construct is because it openly in 
enrolls in you in the club of readers who weave background narrative 
out-of-page in order to tie events and statements together. And I'm 
standing at the door with open arms because your weavings are likely to 
be useful to me.

Next I'll address your timeline and your comment about the Rajan 
claiming to insert himself in Fava's tale.