<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
http-equiv="Content-Type">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
:
<blockquote
cite="mid:AANLkTik6wXYHO13jrQLxtDgpOC4VT+pD=ZetTVNjopcB@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:
'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;">
<pre style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> </pre>
<pre style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
James Wynn - I think we should be looking for him elsewhere in the story, as well.
</blockquote><div>
</div><div>Dave Tallman - Yes, there may be other places, but given the way astral travel is portrayed I don't look for years-long roles (like the entire lifetime of Patera Pike during the time Silk knew him). It's not necessary for the known sighting -- Silk only got a glimpse of the face of his older self, shadowed by the culotte. If you insist on identical faces, then the Typhon clone theory can be brought in, but I don't think it's required.</div></pre>
</span></blockquote>
<br>
Oh no! In a Wolfe story I must insist that if a misidentification
occurs, it is accurate in some way. Yes, there is the clone theory
available. I used to like it a great deal. I still think it is
applicable in several instances. But the Rajan-as-Pike is appealing
too. I like it because it would answer what became of the Rajan --
to at least some degree. It turns a very strange ending to the Book
of the Short Sun into a very Wolfean ending. I mean it turns it into
an ending like that in "Peace" where you get to the end and say WTH?
And then you think about the story and realize that the answers you
were expecting at the end have already been answered. Knowing that
the Rajan can Time-travel causes me to think we also should expect
to find in these seven volumes, under other identities, Seawrack,
Nettle, and Marble who left with him for the Whorl.<br>
<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:AANLkTik6wXYHO13jrQLxtDgpOC4VT+pD=ZetTVNjopcB@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:
'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;">
<pre style="white-space: pre-wrap;">I'm not sure about the argument from silence for the lack of relatives for Hyacinth. She was probably estranged from them all, so they wouldn't be invited to her wedding. If some of them tried to reconnect and were rebuffed that might not be important enough to include in the story. She was bitter about her past: "Hyacinth had hated all men, had hated men in the aggregate, because of things that had been said to her and things she had been forced to do for money, humiliations worse than spoiled fish."
</pre>
</span></blockquote>
<br>
Yeah, spoiled fish. It's an Oreb reference that I don't get. But let
me move to your next point.<br>
<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:AANLkTik6wXYHO13jrQLxtDgpOC4VT+pD=ZetTVNjopcB@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:
'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;">
<pre style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>That seems to me the worst thing about this theory -- what it does to the Rajan's character. I could forgive Silk for killing Hyacinth in a fit of rage and despair, but to force a young woman into years of degradation merely to recreate the woman he loved is so morally repugnant that it would destroy the story for me. He's better than that.</div></pre>
</span></blockquote>
<br>
This argument I get. But it's based, I believe, on a
misapprehension. I do not believe that the Rajan = Silk or even
"=Silk primarily". The Rajan has all Horn's memories, and he has all
Silk's memories and Silk's body. But he is also the greenbuck
Neighbor who reanimated them both. Three quills in a used case, as
Stuart Hamm pointed out. The Rajan is not acting selfishly. He
views the situation more objectively. He knows that it must happen
such-and-such a way for a cause that is good. This is like the
argument whether Tzadkiel is good or evil. Abaia argues that the
plan is evil. He certainly has a point. And I do not believe that
Hy/Fava is an unwilling participant. Hy resents what she is forced
to do. <br>
<br>
Rather than degrading the Rajan, this theory uplifts Hy. She is, in
a way, a Christ-figure. I do agree that she hates men in the way the
Fire Aelf in The Wizard Knight hated humanity for their cruelty and
greed. But, I am arguing that she has agreed to play her part in
all this for the sake of the end--to be a wife to Silk. She could
bail out if she chose. The Rajan has never seemed to be inclined to
force anyone to do anything. <br>
<br>
u+16b9<br>
</body>
</html>