Subject: (urth) FIFTH HEAD

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 00:28:14 +0000

Greetings,
    My name is Roy C. Lackey. I only recently stumbled upon this list,
downloaded the archives and spent nearly two weeks reading them. About 4.5
megs. I was delighted to find such a group, although I confess that the two
SUN series are not my favorites among Wolfe's work. I have been impressed by
the depth of some insights, amazed and sometimes amused by others and, taken
all together, generally enlightened. That said, a couple of points:
    The consensus seems to be that the name of the narrator of _Fifth_Head_
is "Gene Wolfe". I understand how this conclusion is arrived at, with
regards to the surname. What I don't understand is how the given name can be
reconciled with the "roll call" scene two pages after the definitive library
shelf scene among the Ws. The impromptu class is begun by calling roll. The
unnamed narrator is called first, then David. It's been a long time since I
was in school, but I distinctly remember "D" coming before "G". Have you
ever known of a roll call that wasn't alphabetical? The scene is silly,
anachronistic and irrelevant to the progress of the plot. Yet it is there.
Why? It must serve some purpose, in the Wolfean scheme of things.
    Secondly, the name of Lafferty has only come up four times in the
archives, three of those just in passing, and none in any depth. I find that
strange, given Wolfe's affinity for the man and his works, not to mention
their similar Weltanschauung. Is there a reason for this? Are those on the
list unfamiliar with Lafferty, or is his influence deemed irrelevant?
    Enough for now, but why so little activity of late? And where's Mr.
Borski?

Roy

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/

---

From: William H. Ansley <wansley at warwick.net>
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 23:17:31 +0000

>Why? It must serve some purpose, in the Wolfean scheme of things.

Yes, as a matter of fact, I do know of a roll call that is not
alphabetical. In my family, when my mother wanted to make sure that I and
all my brothers and sisters were present, she used to call our names in age
order, mine first, since I was the eldest.

Since the narrator is supposed to be older that David, this could explain
the order of the roll call. It could also be in order of social rank: the
narrator is the clone of Maitre and his heir, while David is a mere natural
son, really little more than an experimental control.

The scene may be silly, although that is not quite the word I would use to
describe it, but I don't see how you can call it anachronistic; surely we
don't know enough of the history and educational methods of Sainte Croix.

The roll call itself may be irrelevant to the plot, but the lesson that
follows is one of the major sources of information about the aborigines of
Sainte Anne. How reliable this information is, is quite another question,
of course. I don't agree that every detail Wolfe puts in his stories is of
equal significance. Perhaps the roll call was included just to add
verisimilitude. (Obviously it didn't do so for you.)

William Ansley

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 01:31:07 +0000

Point taken; but it was only a scratch. <g>

>From: "William H. Ansley" <wansley at warwick.net>Subject: Re: (urth) FIFTH
HEAD
>Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 23:17:31
>

    True, but at the time of the incident the narrator is only seven. It
isn't until several years later, at about the age of puberty, that he learns
he is the older brother. Also, he doesn't know he's a clone at that point.
>From the narrators point of view there would be no rationale for anything
other than a traditional, alphabetical roll call. Admittedly, it is a small
point. Perhaps it means nothing. A Wolfe by any other name is still a Wolfe.

>don't know enough of the history and educational methods of Sainte Croix.

    I only said silly because, unlike the case of your family, there are
just the two of them; and anachronistic because this is, minimally, several
centuries in our future. The likelihood of such a quaint custom surviving
that span of time seems, to me, improbable. But then, why what we see of St.
Croix should be on a par with 19th century Europe (gas lights, carriages,
etc.), rather than the hi-tech society it would take to get there, is no
less improbable. But I won't belabor the point.
    BTW, did anyone else think that "The Last Thrilling Wonder Story",
besides being a parody of pulp-genre SF, was a dig at Heinlein particularly?
That's what I thought when I first read it. My imagination, or is there a
story there?

Roy

---

From: Tony Ellis <tony.ellis at futurenet.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 11:39:21 +0000

Roy wrote:

> >William H. Ansley wrote
> he is the older brother.
Actually, we don't have any reason to believe that the narrator -is- older than
David. He -thinks- he's older because his father tells him that he's the heir.

>  The likelihood of such a quaint custom surviving
> less improbable.
Not so. One of the things I've always liked about The Fifth Head of Cerberus is
precisely this up-yours to the stereotypical SF colony where the buildings are
all new, the level of technology is high, and the dominant culture is American.
You need an awful lot of resources to establish and maintain a "hi-tech society",
and the only resource St. Croix seems to have in any abundance is slave labour.
Everything else has to be shipped from Earth, taking twenty years and costing a
fortune. Easier to pull your carts with oxen. Don't forget too that St Croix has
fought a war and lost. Whatever was achieved by the original French colonists has
been blown to pieces, while the new regime is corrupt, decadent and bureaucratic,
and governs a steadily declining population - hardly the circumstances under
which a new society is likely to flourish.

---

From: Mark Millman <mark_millman at hmco.com>
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 08:51:07 +0000

On Tuesday 16 February 1999 at 07:31am GMT, Roy C. Lackey wrote:

> > But then, why what we see of St. Croix
> > should be on a par with 19th century
> > Europe (gas lights, carriages, etc.),
> > rather than the hi-tech society it would
> > take to get there, is no less improbable.

And at 8:32 am, Tony Ellis replied:

> Not so. One of the things I've always liked about
> The Fifth Head of Cerberus is precisely this up-
> yours to the stereotypical SF colony where the
> buildings are all new, the level of technology is
> high, and the dominant culture is American.  You
> need an awful lot of resources to establish and
> maintain a "hi-tech society", and the only resource
> St. Croix seems to have in any abundance is slave
> labour.  Everything else has to be shipped from
> Earth, taking twenty years and costing a fortune.
> Easier to pull your carts with oxen. Don't forget too
> that St Croix has fought a war and lost. Whatever
> was achieved by the original French colonists has
> been blown to pieces, while the new regime is
> corrupt, decadent and bureaucratic, and governs
> a steadily declining population - hardly the circum-
> stances under which a new society is likely to flourish.

If I recall correctly, some of the "low-tech" features of Ste. Croix and
Ste. Anne are presented as secondary simplifications.  For example, I seem
to remember that Dr. Marsch recalls traveling by sailing ship--but that the
sailing ships are safe, efficient, and regularly scheduled because there's
a working system of weather control that makes the fuelless sailing ship a
workable and economical solution for water transport.  Of course, we also
know that Gene Wolfe just likes sail.

We also don't know whether one of the goals in settling Ste. Croix might
have been to go back to a simulacrum of an earlier, simpler way of life.  I
just read Cordwainer Smith's Instrumentality of Mankind stories (in the
excellent NEFSA collected edition, which I highly recommend), and one of
the devices Smith used was that of a return to earlier social patterns (or,
more accurately, to an approximation of them).  The lure of "the good old
days" is a persistent one.

Mark Millman

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From: Mark Millman <mark_millman at hmco.com>
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 08:56:46 +0000

On Monday 15 February 1999 at 6:28 am GMT, Roy C. Lackey wrote:

> And where's Mr. Borski?

He had been experiencing operating difficulties--his browser would crash
and bring down his computer every time he tried to do extensive research in
the archives--and I suppose he wasn't ever able to resolve the problem.  I
certainly tried to help and failed miserably.

If you're out there, Robert, send up a flag!

And, as I forgot to say in my last note (for which I hope you'll forgive
me), welcome to the list, Mr. Lackey.

Mark Millman

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From: William H. Ansley <wansley at warwick.net>
Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1999 00:17:02 +0000

>David. He -thinks- he's older because his father tells him that he's the heir.

I mostly agree. That is why I used the word "supposed" above, but it would
have been more accurate if I had said:
"Since the narrator supposes himself to be older that David..."
However, just because the narrator makes an unwarranted assumption doesn't
mean it's wrong.

In any case, I think it is going too far to say that "we don't have *any*
reason to believe that the narrator -is- older than David." [*Emphasis*
added.] It is fairly clear that producing Number Five was a difficult
process for Maitre whereas producing David would have been relatively
simple. Surely, if any part of David's reason for being was to be a control
for Number Five, Maitre would want them to be as close to the same age as
possible. And surely the easiest way to accomplish this would be for Maitre
to wait until he had a clone he was satisfied with and then cause David to
be conceived, making Number Five of necessity older than David.

William Ansley

---

From: William H. Ansley <wansley at warwick.net>
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 23:58:58 +0000

>point. Perhaps it means nothing. A Wolfe by any other name is still a Wolfe.

I really don't understand your argument here. How is what the narrator of
TFHoC knows about his and David's relative ages or social status
controlling the order of the roll?

Mr. Million is the one taking the roll and surely he would know (even if
the narrator didn't, at that point) that the narrator was older than David
(if he is) and that the narrator was a clone of Maitre and would inherit
_Maison du Chien_.

If you are saying that if the order of the roll wasn't alphabetical the
narrator would have noticed this and commented on it as an oddity, I
disagree. I think it is just as likely (in fact, more likely) that the
narrator would have just accepted the order in which Mr. Million called
their names, especially considering that he must have been quite young when
the lessons started. Also that fact that there were only two names to be
called makes the order of the names much less noticeable; after all there
are only two possibilities.

I think that the narrator, David and Mr. Million, in this scene, should be
considered at least as much a family group (albeit a very nontraditional
one) as a teacher and students who are tied together by no other
relationship. In my experience, family groups sometimes use
non-alphabetical orders for calling roll.

You seem to feel that the only way to interpret the roll call in TFHoC is
alphabetical. I think I have shown quite clearly an alternative roll call
order is at least equally plausible. It seems only reasonable to me that
you should now accept my arguments. But, the contentious history of debate
over TFHoC in this list leads me to expect that you won't.

Well, I suppose that's why they call this a "discussion" group.

William Ansley

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From: Tony Ellis <tony.ellis at futurenet.co.uk>
Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1999 10:28:23 +0000

> However, just because the narrator makes an unwarranted assumption doesn't

Of course, but on the other hand Wolfe does like to have his is characters make the
wrong assumption for the right reason (like Number Five mistaking the sepia tint of
an old photograph for a novelty artistic process, or Vodalus' disbelief that our word
for the present could be the same as our word for gift). This biases me a little
toward the David-is-older camp.

> be conceived, making Number Five of necessity older than David.

I like your reasoning. But is David a "control"? As  I recall, all Maitre says is "I
hoped to learn something from an outcrossing." It seems to me just as arguable that
whatever Maitre hoped to learn required him to have David on hand first.