Subject: Review: Wolfe's _The Fifth Head of Cerberus_

From: Paul S Jenkins <pj at willowsoft.compulink.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1998 19:43:20 +0000

_The Fifth Head of Cerberus_ by Gene Wolfe
		 Review Copyright (c) 1998 Paul S. Jenkins

Maybe I'm not a sophisticated reader. I enjoy books that operate on several
levels, and in my opinion that's what can make a novel great - something
for everyone: a good story, tackling important issues, with subtle nuances
to delight those readers who catch them, and plenty of interest at the
surface for those who don't. Any book whose deeper subtleties leave little
to engage the less sophisticated reader goes down a notch or two on my
scale.

Such a book, I'm sorry to say, is _The Fifth Head of Cerberus_. Gene Wolfe
is often cited as a stylist of literary SF. Seeing a secondhand British
paperback edition in a street market I therefore snapped it up.

_The Fifth Head of Cerberus_ is the first Wolfe I've read, and though I'd
have to agree about the use of the term 'stylist'; the three linked
novellas that make up this book are superbly written - I had a hard time
with the novel as a whole. There are obvious parallels with colonialism,
slavery, subjugation of indigenous races, etc, but the direction of the
three narratives remains unclear.

The first, eponymous novella, "The Fifth Head of Cerberus" is the first-
person narrative of a boy on the human-colony planet Sainte Croix. He and
his brother live with their father, a brothel-keeper, who performs repeated
'narco-therapeutic' experiments on the boy, evidently trying to force
knowledge into him for some purpose. The brothers are looked after by a
sentient robot known as Mr. Million, who, it turns out, is an expert-
system based on their grandfather.  Eventually the boy discovers why so
many of the Sainte Croix inhabitants have similar facial features, and he
decides to take matters into his own hands.

The novella is written in a mildly archaic, Victorian narrative style:
nothing jars, and it's plainly the work of a master. The plot is simple and
intriguing, but the use of a naive narrator means we never get a clear
picture of what's happening.

The second novella is entitled "'A STORY,' by John V. Marsch." Dr.  Marsch
has already appeared in the first novella, but that's almost the only link
with this piece of 'fiction' set on the sisterworld of Sainte Anne, where
the shadow children or 'aboriginals' dwell.

Sandwalker dreams he is his twin brother Eastwind, from whom he was
separated at birth. He sets out to see a priest, and while searching for a
wild animal to hunt as a gift for the holy man he chances upon the shadow
children, a strange tribe of old-but-young people. Drawn by their
mind-songs, Sandwalker joins them but they are soon captured by
marshmen. The shadow children tell Sandwalker of the origins of human life
on the planet. The story ends in an unsatisfactory _deus ex machina_
denouement. Obscure, though stylishly written, this story draws parallels
with the Australian aborigines and their songlines.

The third and last novella, entitled "V.R.T.," is a curiously framed story,
told by Dr. Marsch of his fieldwork in the company of a youth (V.R.T.),
interspersed with his journal of incarceration. The frame device is the
narrative of the prison governor who is holding Marsch on suspicion of
being an abo - a native of Sainte Anne. The governor is reading Marsch's
journal, but the pages have become muddled, and we get wild and random
jumps between the doctor's explorations of Sainte Anne and his subsequent
imprisonment. It seems that the authorities of Sainte Croix cannot decide
whether Marsch is a human from Earth as he claims, or a renegade native of
Sainte Anne. It's an interesting but direction-less story, which remains
unresolved. At the end we're not really any the wiser.

I've an unread copy of _Nightside the Long Sun_. Having finished _Cerberus_
I find I'm reluctant to read more of Wolfe. The many-layered obscurity of
_Cerberus_ is fascinating, but nonetheless frustrating, and though I feel
the novel may well repay a second reading, I'm fighting shy of it.

Author:     Wolfe, Gene
Title:      The Fifth Head of Cerberus
Publisher:  Quartet
City:       London
Date:       1975 (copyright 1972)
Order Info: ISBN 0 704 31176 3
Pages:      192 pp.
Comments:   paperback (price of reviewed edition unknown, but Amazon.com
Comments:   lists the US edition as available)

Paul S. Jenkins