Subject: (urth) Re: Digest urth.v009.n002

From: Tony Ellis <tony.ellis at futurenet.co.uk>
Date: Fri, 03 Apr 1998 10:50:22 +0000

[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]

03/04/98
                                                                      10:12
 RE>Digest urth.v009.n002

Rostrum wrote:
>> >...Didn't
>> >someone report (somewhere in the archives) that Wolfe has said that no
>> >one was murdered by Alden Weer in _Peace_? 
>> 
>> In the online People interview, Wolfe was asked if Weer killed
>> many of the other characters in the book and responded "Let
>> me think about that... no. I don't think so, no."
>
>I'd always understood that quote to mean that, Weer did not kill "many" of
>the other characters of the book, not that he didn't kill anyone.  I doubt
>Wolfe would have had to think about it if Weer was entirely innocent, and
>it seems pretty plain that he at least (accidentally) killed the boy at
>the top of the stairs.

Absolutely, yes. I was offering that quote because it related to the
no-one-was-murdered-by-Weer question, not because I thought it
confirmed it! Sorry if that wasn't clear. I think it's beyond 
question that Weer kills the boy, but I've yet to be convinced
that he kills anyone else...

Pedro Jorge wrote:
>>...Then, the narrator is Jean-5?  and his brother is
>> Jean 6?  (I can't remember if the brother is younger or older).
>
>First time in here. Just to say that my idea was always that the brother
>was not a clone but rather a control in the experiment. But, who is
>Number 1?

There seem to have been several posts along these lines,
including Rostrum's ingenious "Jeannine =3D Jean 9", but surely
the narrator is number 5 because he is the 5th head of 
Cerberus, which is to say, of his family. As his father says,
if he was counting clones the narrator would be Number
Fifty, not five.

This is why Aunt Jeannine initially says "That number's
either far too low or too high." It's too low because there are
more like 50 clones, and it _seems_ too high to her
because she doesn't know about David. But if you count
her, the narrator, his "father", Mr Million and David you get
five.

As for who is Number One, I'm not sure that question applies,
but I suppose you could say it's the father, as he's the current
master of the brood.

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

---

From: Pedro Jorge Romero <bempjr at redkbs.com>
Date: Sat, 04 Apr 1998 22:10:51 +0000

> including Rostrum's ingenious "Jeannine = Jean 9", but surely

Aunt Jeannine is counting members of the family (that's why she says
"Living" after that). She does not seem to be aware of what is going on.
Actually I think that the number refers to the generation of clones. #5
is the fifth and his "father" is #4. Each previous one creating the next
one.

We know the numbers do not apply to members of the family, because when
David goes to the lab, he is plain David. And if the "father" is using
the number because he and #5 share the same name (Gene Wolfe, that is),
#2 would be a far more obvious choice.

David is not a clone, because he has blond hair while #5 is brown
haired.

> but I suppose you could say it's the father, as he's the current

Well Mr Million is the great-grandfather of #5, so that would make him
#2. The "father" is number #4 and the grandfather is mentioned in the
text and he would be #3. So, who is #1 is an open question.

Best

Pedro Jorge (who too wants to be a lurker again, but Fifth is too good a
book not to discuss about it)