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From: "Tony Ellis" <tony.ellis@futurenet.co.uk> Subject: Re: Re: (urth) Miles & Jolenta Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 09:58:06 +0000 Sceptical Bear wrote: > Condensed, this goes: > > "Seeing my own face, ..." > > "Was this the face?" - holding a mirror in front of him. Yup, that works for me. Strictly speaking, I think the passage can be read either way: when Miles says "Seeing my own face, multiplied again and again. A girl with hair like red gold and enormous eyes", it -can- be interpreted as "seeing my own face... [which was that of] a girl with hair like red gold..." But it's a complicated interpretation, and I'm only too happy to be wrong in favour of a simpler one. It's interesting that Mantis and I made the same misreading, though (if he'll accept that it -is- a misreading). There seem to be certain ambiguous passages in Wolfe that you either interpret one way or another the first time you read them, and that's how it gets hard-wired in your brain: it never even occurs to you on further readings that it might be read a different way. I'm thinking of the rats' "writing" on the walls of Ultan's library, for example. *More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/