{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1106", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 1106, "subject": "Many Mansions", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "1998-09-22T01:30:01+00:00", "last": "1998-09-22T14:56:33+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Robert Borski", "address": "rborski at coredcs.com" }, "date": "1998-09-22T01:30:01+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Many Mansions", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Between its Biblically-resonant title and Baba Yaga hut-on-the-run ending,\nGene Wolfe's \"Many Mansions\" (found in GW's BOOK OF DAYS) has one other\nthing I feel recommends it for must reading: I believe it's possible to\nargue the story takes place in the same milieu as THE FIFTH HEAD OF\nCERBERUS and specifically on the world of Sainte Anne. At the very least I\nsee it as companion piece to FIFTH HEAD, in much the same way \"A Solar\nLabyrinth\" and \"Four Wolves\" can be read in regards to NEW SUN.\n\nHere's how I figure:\n\n1) The story is formatted in interview style, much like the entries in Dr.\nMarsch's journal. Taking turns speaking are Old Woman and Old Man, and all\nwe have are their transcribed oral testimonies. Could \"Many Mansions\" be a\nmissing folktale from Marsch's journal? Might it have been related by Dr.\nHagsmith?\n\n2) The Old Man's first name is Todd, which means \"fox,\" recalling the\nsimilarly-named Wolfes of Sainte Croix. There's also a Shadow Child named\nFoxfire (at least when his group configures five), as well as the Old Wise\nOne.\n\n3) As have the colonists of Sainte Anne, Todd-and-Nor's people have lost a\nwar to the Motherworld.\n\n4) In the War, \"Half the autochthons were killed, like most of us; those\nthat were left were happy enough to run off into the fens, or lie around\nthe towns waiting for someone to rob.\" This is *exactly* what happened to\nthe abos; some return to the meadowmeres, others steal whatever they can to\nget by.\n\n5) The Old Woman's account of settler life is very similar to Mary\nBlount's. Cf. the Old Woman's remark--\"She was such a pretty thing, just\nlike you\"--with similar words by Mrs. Blount: \"Weren't they [the local\nFrench girls] the cutest things?\"\n\n6) Nor's account of Lily the prostitute recalls the fate of many abo women:\ni.e., they're reduced to whoring for a livelihood.\n\n7) At least two of the names are French (Dode Beckette, Chackerville),\nwhile the rest seem mainly English--this is consistent with place and\ncharacter names in FIFTH HEAD. Nepo Pass, in turn, suggests the cloning\nconvolutions of the Wolfe clan (nepo = descendant).\n\n8) The Old Woman describes her house as consisting of \"Wood, or what looks\nlike it.\" The abos of Sainte Anne--recalling their pleiomorphic\nabilities--are also so described. (\"I asked him how the creature appeared,\nand he said sometimes like a man, but sometimes like the post of a\nfence...Or a dead tree, something of the sort.\") The abos also believe\ntrees may contain the spirits of their ancestors--so a house made of wood\nmight explain the Great Aunt Edna denouement.\n\n9) In \"Many Mansions,\" roses climb the front of the house. In FIFTH HEAD,\nat 666 Saltimbanque, it's the trumpet vine.\n\n10) Using native flora, the brewmeister's of \"Many Mansions\" are able to\ndecoct a beverage that makes you feel \"like you're young and going to live\nforever. Like nothing bad ever happened to you, and you're likely to meet\nyour mother and dad and everybody you ever liked that's dead now just\naround the next turn in the road.\" The Shadow Children of Sainte Anne have\na similar-acting drug.\n\n11) The offworlder who comes from the Reconstruction Center to the hut of\n\"Many Mansions\" may be a clone, or born in vitro--the same as Number Five.\n\n12) Memories of a Proustian sort (including the sharing of\ncake--madeleine?) play an important\nrole in the unfolding of \"Many Mansions.\"\n\n13) Wolfe tells us in the intro the story does not take place on Earth.\n\nOf course, though there's a baker's dozen of them, these may be more\nsuperficial similarities than true fidelities. And I do have problems with\nthe Amazonian-like nature of the unnamed visitor from the Reconstruction\nCenter--her people, who've won the War, seem more like the rocket-building\nfeminazis of \"In Looking Glass Castle\" than anyone else we meet in FIFTH\nHEAD. But all in all I still feel many of the comparisons are valid.\n\nAnyone else care to weigh in with opinions?\n\nRobert Borski" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Mark Millman", "address": "mark_millman at hmco.com" }, "date": "1998-09-22T14:56:33+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Many Mansions", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Tuesday 22 September 1998, Robert Borski wrote:\nAt the very least I see [\"Many Mansions\"]\nas companion piece to FIFTH HEAD, in\nmuch the same way \"A Solar Labyrinth\"\nand \"Four Wolves\" can be read in regards\nto NEW SUN." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm not familiar with \"Four Wolves\". Where\ncan I find it?\n\nThat's not the collective title for the \"Red-\nwood Coast Roamer\", \"In the Old Hotel\",\netc., short-shorts, is it?\n\nMark Millman" } ] } ] }