<html><body bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><div>It could also be an allusion to Finn MacCool, Irish mythological hero and lover of a woman from Faerie. <br><br>Sent from my iPhone</div><div><br>On Apr 9, 2010, at 4:20 PM, John Watkins <<a href="mailto:john.watkins04@gmail.com">john.watkins04@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><div></div><blockquote type="cite"><div>On "Finn," it has also occurred to me that it might be a bit of a joke on "elfin." <br><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 2:35 PM, James Wynn <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:crushtv@gmail.com"><a href="mailto:crushtv@gmail.com">crushtv@gmail.com</a></a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">1) The ring that Bax finds in the fish is a numen storage device or<br>becomes one when Bax touches it after he has aquired numen but dowsing<br>
the long-light. . One could argue that the ring came from Zwart but<br>I'm not sure about that. After all the fish were summoned by the<br>triannulus. The ring might well have been created simply by Bax's<br>stored numen. Opals were once believed to be magical--conferring both<br>
good and bad luck in various contexts. On reflection, the ring that<br>the Rajan receives in The Book of the Short Sun is probably an opal.<br>At first it is white and then when Oreb returns it, it is black IIRC.<br>Opals come in both these colors.A fire opal might be referred to as<br>
black.<br><br>2) The middle-aged man who brings the fish is merely called a<br>"neighbor". Bax does not record the name he was given. It is<br>reasonable that both he and Mrs. Nabor are citizens of Faeri.<br>"Neighbor" is a word for faeries which Wolfe has employed in both An<br>
Evil Guest and The Book of the Short Sun.<br><br>3) Question: Bax finds the ring in a catfish. On his finger, Doris<br>sees it as a cats-eye opal. What's the connection to cats? Later, the<br>pawn dealer sees it and identifies it as a fire opal which looks much<br>
different. I don't understand the logic of that either.<br><br>4) Question: Doris doesn't say what Ted was crying into when she sees<br>him at the end of the novel. I presume it is a handkerchief because it<br>has his initials on it. Why not say so?<br>
<br>5) But Wolfe has Doris spell out those initials, which strikes me as a<br>clue: "T.A.G." Ted is Ambrosius, as others have said. Theodore<br>Ambrosius Griffin--unless the G stands for Goldwurm which complicates<br>
the story terribly. The ring that Doris gave Bax is his numen storage<br>that Goldwurm could never find. The reason Doris finds him crying at<br>the end is because he discovers that Doris has given away his ring.<br>For a sorcerer, he has lost his entire fortune.<br>
<br>6) I agree that "Finn" and Griffin are pseudonyms for the same person.<br><br>7) At one point, Bax implies that Zwart was the werewolf he killed as<br>he and Doris were fleeing the restaurant. This makes all kinds of<br>
sense to me. But then Zwart makes an appearance at the end of the<br>novel. So...hmm.<br><br>8) Hypothesis: There's another possiblity as to the identity of the<br>werewolf, but I haven't done anything to investigate it. It could have<br>
been George. Martha Murray said she believed that Zwart wanted Bax or<br>George to kill the other. But Bax dismisses this theory because the<br>bullets were clearly intended to kill a werewolf. Sooo...George was<br>the werewolf. The note with the pistols was not meant for Bax but for<br>
Trelawney.Trelawney's questions were _not_ intended to prove that Bax<br>was not some other Baxter Dunn but to verify that he was not George<br>(impersonating Bax) who would become the werewolf (or was already).<br>Subsequent letters to Bax from George were invented. It was Bax who,<br>
in the company of Doris and the psychic, forced Nicholas/Nosferatu<br>back into the trunk. While impersonating his dead <a href="http://brother.It">brother.It</a> was clear<br>from Nicholaus's conversation with Bax that he had already been in the<br>
trunk a while; so this is possible. Doris felt confused about her<br>feelings for Bax when she thought she was running around with his<br>brother. This will need a re-read.<br><br>J.<br>_______________________________________________<br>
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