Subject: (urth) bluegreenandcerberus

From: walter read <wread77 at lycos.com>
Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2005 22:08:27 +0000

Have you read The Book oh the Short Sun?!?!?! have you read 5th head of cerberus?!?!?! well do you know the connection? I just fininshed cerberus and im shocked that noone has brought this up for speculation. I suppose i could be... no im sure of it! if anyone out there has read these please tell me you got it too? i dont wanna say anything (like spoilers) but anyone who has read book of the short sun should really get much (MUCH) more out of 5th head of cerberus than one who hasnt...  !  

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From: Chris <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2005 02:53:27 +0000

Just to scan the tip of the iceberg, that's a start.

While you're at it you might as well just go all the way and read 
http://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0212/2523.txt.shtml along with the 
several threads that followed it. If your head hasn't melted by the end of 
that, you will be well primed to pursue this investigation.

-- Civet

Walter Read said:
>Have you read The Book oh the Short Sun?!?!?! have you read 5th head of 
>cerberus?!?!?! well do you know the connection? I just fininshed cerberus 
>and im shocked that noone has brought this up for speculation. I suppose i 
>could be... no im sure of it! if anyone out there has read these please 
>tell me you got it too? i dont wanna say anything (like spoilers) but 
>anyone who has read book of the short sun should really get much (MUCH) 
>more out of 5th head of cerberus than one who hasnt...  !
>
>--
>Urth Mailing List
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>Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net

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From: Adrian Robert <arobert at cogsci.ucsd.edu>
Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2005 05:49:26 +0000

> Walter Read said:
>
>> Have you read The Book oh the Short Sun?!?!?! have you read 5th  
>> head of cerberus?!?!?! well do you know the connection? I just  
>> fininshed cerberus and im shocked..
...

On Aug 29, 2005, at 5:53 AM, Chris wrote:

> http://www.urth.net/whorl/archives/v0006/0473.shtml

[more archive URLs removed..]

I realize this topic has been discussed (to death?) by the list  
before and also that Wolfe's own answers have tended to quash the  
idea of a "reality" behind the parallel, but the coincidences are  
interesting enough in their own right to be worth listing out  
anyhow.  So here are the parallels I've noticed between Blue / Green  
and St. Croix / St. Anne.  (Earth/Lune and/or Ushas have also come  
into these discussions, but those parallels, to the extent they  
exist, are of a different order than these..)

+ Both systems are binary planets approximately the same distance
   from one another.  St. Croix and Blue are predominately water
   planets; St. Anne and Green predominately vegetated land.

- However, Green is portrayed as consisting largely of jungle,
   whereas St. Anne is lauded for its "meadowmeres", and 'A Story'
   describes a variety of different terrains, none of them jungle.

+ Green and St. Anne are both the home of a shape-shifting race with
   non-human characteristics.

- However the nonhuman aspects differ -- reptilian and blood-sucking
   in Green's case, while the St. Anne abos have their brains in
   their thoraxes and moreover they were said to be capable of
   assuming forms far more varied than the inhumi.

+ In addition, St. Green/Blue were home to a second race, more
   intelligent, or at least more socially adaptable or having a
   better affinity with humans than the first.  St. Anne (we don't
   know about St. Croix) was also home to a second race, also with a
   stronger connection to humans.  At one point in 'A Story' it is
   even said that they *were* human.

- The 'neighbors' are said to have 4-legged / 4-armed bodies,
   obviously different from the shrunken humanoid bodies of the
   shadow children.  They have mostly left Green/Blue where they were
   native, whereas the shadow children were said to be immigrants who
   came to St. Anne.

+ Both the neighbors and the shadow children used the distinctive term
   "starcrosser" to refer to spaceships.

Those are the ones I come up with.  Can anyone think of any I  
missed?  Granted, there are differences, but the parallels are so  
striking as to seem hardly incidental.  However, Green / Blue is in  
the incomprehensibly far future, while _Fifth Head_ seems to be mere  
centuries beyond the present day.  Can the histories be reconciled?   
Given such a span of time, almost anything could be proposed of  
course, but what about something minimal and plausible?

---

From: David Lebling <dlebling at hyraxes.com>
Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2005 06:19:03 +0000

Adrian Robert wrote "Given such a span of time, almost anything could be
proposed of
course, but what about something minimal and plausible?"

How about this?

"Gene Wolfe is extremely interested in the question of identity, what it
means to be human, and whether identity and humanity can be mimicked by
machines, aliens or other humans. These themes are present in many of his
works. A common way he explores these ideas is to create a duality between a
relatively mundane setting in which our conventional notions of identity
(etc.) apply, and another in which they do not."

I realize that this isn't what you are looking for, but I think it's more
likely than any convoluted scheme that ties Wolfe's novels and stories
together by plot.

-- Dave Lebling, aka vizcacha

---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2005 07:04:29 +0000

>before and also that Wolfe's own answers have tended to
>quash the idea of a "reality" behind the parallel, but the
>coincidences are interesting enough in their own right to be
>worth listing out anyhow. 

Has Wolfe emphatically denied that Bleen is Number Five's
system? I do remember him responding to Gevers' question
as to whether it "would be useful" to view the systems as a
the same and Wolfe said, "I really couldn't say."

I posted a quite extensive list on this once upon a time
but I don't see it in the archives so maybe it was posted
in the lost year.  Here is a partial list:

+ St. Anne is a green colored planet. Watery St Croix is blue.
Incidently, "Pandora, by Holly Hollander" also employs the
Green/Blue connection since the two protagonists' names are
Holly (an evergreen) and Alladin Blue.

+ Mr. Million is a walking sacred window. Chems could be
thought of being the same.

+ Spiral staircase in the library and The Eye in which
Sandwalker is held are both *whorls*.

The following are (apparently) debatable, although I don't
seriously doubt them:

+ Number Five and V.R.T are *somehow* twins, since they
share each other's dreams. Horn meets his twin, another "Horn"
among the Neighbors.

+ St. Anne has senient trees. In SS, the Neighbors *are*  in
some ways trees, and if one doubts that, there is no doubting
that Krait spoke of them that way:
"The trees are bigger up the river. Bigger and older, and not
so sleepy." 306 OBW

+ The annese were originally "long" as the Shadow Child told
Sandwalker. So I'm guessing they were originally in the form
of the "huge worms, luminous but of the livid color of a dead
man's lips, writhe underfoot at night" found by Dr. Marsch.
Of course, the inhumi are also frequently compared to snakes.
 
>- St. Anne abos...were said to be capable of

I'm not convinced we know the extent of the forms
inhumi can take. We know they can assume human disguise
because humans are the subject of the story. But they must
have assumed other forms before humans came, and I
strongly suggest you pay close attention to those lianas (and
the Rajan's staff which was made from a liana).

> native, whereas the shadow children were said to be immigrants who

There is a great deal of doubt about what the Shadow Child tells
Sandwalker as to their pasts. In fact, Wolfe has referred to Sandwalker
as "the Shadow Child".

Oh yeah. And there's another similarity between Number Five' family and
and Tussah's but for the life of me, I can't remember what it is.
;-)

J

---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2005 07:15:17 +0000

>[Dave Lebling, aka vizcacha identifies an extremely important thread
>in Wolfe's works, and then says...]

I agree.  I think is is obvious that Wolfe is riffing
off some unidentified themes and references, and that he
recycles some of his previously used ideas and motifs to
employ them in other stories.

To tie the stories together narratively does not seem to be
possible given the differences between the inhumi and the
annese that have already been noted.

J

---

From: Adrian Robert <arobert at cogsci.ucsd.edu>
Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2005 08:13:59 +0000

> likely than any convoluted scheme that ties Wolfe's novels and stories

Agreed.  But there's still a certain pleasure in imagining the more  
direct connection..

---

From: Chris <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2005 11:08:23 +0000

Well, it depends. From the links I posted, Borski in 1999 claims that Wolfe 
has emphatically denied that the worlds are the same, but does not say 
when/where. It's hearsay, but Borski is not the most unreliable source for 
something like that.

Then there is a Q & A session from 97, which was quoted but not directly 
linked in my last post. Link: 
http://www.urth.net/whorl/archives/v0007/0511.shtml - text:

25.  "Does Green/Blue have anything to do with THE FIFTH HEAD OF
CERBERUS?"  No.

I know that we can semantically wiggle around with this, but there doesn't 
seem to be much point.

I have taken the position that you can't consult the author for the "right" 
way to interpret his text - everything absolute that the author has to 
contribute to the meaning of the text is *in the text*. Others would like to 
rely on asking questions of the author and take the position that his word, 
even after the fact, is law - and this is a consistent enough position until 
you then start wrangling over how to interpret his answers to those 
questions. At that point you are no better off than you were before.

---

From: don doggett <kingwukong at yahoo.com>
Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2005 13:47:34 +0000

> likely than any convoluted scheme that ties Wolfe's

Except when they obviously take place in the same
universe, as NS LS and SS do.  I agree however that
the ties between 5HC and these works are largely
thematic.

don

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From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2005 14:41:02 +0000

>contribute to the meaning of the text is *in the text*. Others would like
>to rely on asking questions of the author and take the position that his
>word, even after the fact, is law - and this is a consistent enough
>position until you then start wrangling over how to interpret his
>answers to those questions. At that point you are no better off than
>you were before.

Well, there questions and there are questions. Same for answers. 

I would very much like it if people would stop using suppositional
language when asking Wolfe questions (such as "Could it be..." or
"Shouldn't one gather...") Wolfe clearly loooves to answer those with
a chipper "You bet!" or a thoughtful "Hmmm....I don't know", knowing
full well that within 24 hours he will realize he has no answer at all. 
I understand that you are nervous and you don't want to sound like a 
boar asking impertinent questions but just ask the question in the
most simple way possible and if you get an answer hooray and
if you don't you dont'.

And then there are the questions like the one above or:

27.  "Is Pike's ghost really Quetzal?"  No.

The asker really already suspected the answer, but decided to take a long shot.

My personal favorites are when Wolfe cleverly manages to only answer half
the question (or less). Like this one from the Q&A:
http://www.urth.net/whorl/archives/v0007/0511.shtml

22.  "Why did Auk . . . kidnap Hyacinth, and why . . . did he let her
go?"  Because Tartaros had told him to bring a woman.  He released
her as he recovered from his brain injury, was able to think more
clearly, and realized that Hyacinth was not the woman he should
bring.  (Putting it another way, he released her because Tartaros
told him to.  These answers are not as disparate as they may appear.)

Uh huh. What woman was he supposed to bring? Why was Hyacinth
unacceptable? And ***how the heck was anyone supposed to glean
even that much from the text????***

J