(urth) Short Sun Notes: Silk's father

[Andrew Mason]

Antonio Pedro Marquez wrote:
>
> Andrew Mason wrote (25-11-2012 23:17):
>> I think I_may_  have spotted Silk?s father. (Not Typhon. And I don?t
>> just mean Tussah.)
>
> C'mon, ya can't say that and then leave us hangin, dyin to tear yer
> hypothessus to bits.

Ah, I thought that would get a response. OK then;

Here is the relevant passage (OBW 15)
:
‘When our roads crossed again before Hari Mau and his friends carried
me off to Gaon, I did not even recognize him. Then Quadrifons
whispered “Those are the years you see. Look past them”. And I knew
him at once. I wanted to say “Where you were, I have been, Father”,
but I knew he would reply “Where I am, you will quickly be, Son”.
Knowing it, I lacked the courage to speak.’

On the face of it, ‘he’, who would have replied, is Smoothbone, Horn’s
father: and that must be what the Rajan consciously means, since he
thinks of himself as Horn, and has certainly been talking about
Smoothbone up to this point. But grammatically, ‘he’ could be
Quadrifons. Since Quadrifons is a form of the Outsider, it’s perhaps
significant that ‘his’ words recall a saying attributed to Jesus
(‘where I am, there will my servant be’).

Later (RTTW 11) the Rajan writes ‘Perhaps I shall never pen an account
of my return to Old Viron, of meeting my father there, and the rest of
it. Perhaps it is better so.’ Of course he never does – Daisy does
instead – but it’s striking that he picks out his meeting with his
father as a specific thing that he will not write. And while Daisy
does record his meeting with Smoothbone, she says nothing about
Quadrifons.

So: I think it’s possible that Quadrifons is his (i.e. Silk’s) father.
It’s notable that Quadrifons is a figure whom Wolfe is especially
cryptic about – when asked if the Rajan met him he said ‘I don’t
recall’ – and he has also been rather notably cryptic about Silk’s
parentage.