uncut dogs

hartshorn having rather unprudishly pondered: "When Marsh remarks that the boy is "uncut" and therefore when he was with the girl, would "bind", or something like that (sorry I can't lay my hand on my copy of 5HC rigth now) , what the hell is he talking about?" Actually, I've written an entire essay on this and it can be found at: http://webpages.charter.net/rborski/marsch.html The same essay also contains several reasons why Victor might have killed his abo girlfriend. (Check it out, Tony.) What I fail to point out and would like to do now is this: Victor, it's noted by Dr. Marsch, is uncircumcised. If we assume that Marsch, however, has been circumcised, this means that Victor--after he's killed Marsch--must circumcise himself if he wishes to pass as Dr. Marsch. And that is the purpose of the brass instrument he buys, the "thing of clamps and toothed jaws and cruel little hooks." It's what an Victorian-era mohel would use to perform the necessary surgery. Robert Borski

----- Original Message -----

Yeah, I read that, and I got the reference to circumcision. What I don't get is what seems to be Marsch's assumption that these two get locked together like dogs. Either this is someting about Abo sex, and signals that VRT is writing, not Marsch: or I am misunderstanding completely. Still can't find my 5HC. Can anyone trace the passage for me? hartshorn hartshorn

For what it's worth... I've read somewhere that the primary sexual characteristic of the tom housecat is, uh, sort of barbed and tends to get stuck coming out. The evolutionary excuse for this is that it makes the queen unwilling to mate again for a while, so the first male's sperm have more time to find & fertilize the ova before any competitors come along. I can't verify that this is true, but if Wolfe read the same thing I did [and he seems to read just about everything 8*)], then this could explain the quote in question ... after all, she's a cat ...

Paging through my old messages, I came across the following year-old post by Andy Robertson:

I've just consulted my copy of 5HC, and there's nothing in that passage about "binding." The relevant parts of that entry are "I could climb down and catch them together (I know she is with him, I can almost hear them), except that I can smell the ghoul-bear somewhere near. They would die, the two of them -- when the boy was washing I noticed he wasn't circumcised. If they were like that when I came, I think I would shoot them both." (p. 251, Ace pb) So either there's a major discrepancy here between the Ace pb and other editions, or the whole "binding" theme is a non-issue (which, of course, makes Marsch's remark about Victor's non-circumcision even more irrelevant). --Adam

----- Original Message -----

If

251,

Whoops. The problem is my Quartet edition, which has this misprint "they would tie, the two of them" Problem solved, and apologies all round. hartshorn

No, hartshorn/Quartet are right (agreeing with Scribners hc), Ace is in error (add that one to the "Many Pink Butterflies" instead of "Mary Pink Butterflies" error). Scribners hc: "they would tie, the two of them" (227) =mantis= Sirius Fiction booklets on Gene Wolfe, John Crowley 31 copies of "Snake's-hands" until OP! http://www.siriusfiction.com/

----- Original Message -----

Well, back where we were then. Why "tie"? And how/why is this specifically linked to being uncircumcised? hartshorn

The OED gives as one meaning of "tie" for a dog and a bitch to be linked during copulation. But it's still strange. Marsch is an anthropologist; you'd expect him to have read about uncircumcised peoples, and to be aware that "tying" doesn't happen. And why does he anticipate being especially enraged by seeing Victor and his girl "tied," as opposed to just having sex? As for the significance of Victor's non-circumcision in itself, here's one theory. In anthropology, the Australian aborigines are known for rigorous male initiation rites at puberty, which generally involve circumcision. If the same is true of the Free People, then Victor's non-circumcision might be one reason he thinks of himself as a child. --Adam