{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/482", "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": 482, "subject": "5th Head Genealogies Red", "messages": 1, "voices": 1, "first": "1998-04-08T16:05:27+00:00", "last": "1998-04-08T16:05:27+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Tony Ellis", "address": "tony.ellis at futurenet.co.uk" }, "date": "1998-04-08T16:05:27+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: 5th Head Genealogies Red", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \n08/04/98\n 09:52\n RE>5th Head Genealogies Redux" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Robert Borski wrote:\nHooray! Some legitimate objections to my Fifth Head genealogy have been\nraised! Believing that a multiplicity of viewpoints is paramount to a list\nof this sort, and mindful that a friendly debate may inspire still other\nsubscribers to reread FIFTH HEAD (my truer goal), I happily accept the\nchallenge of defending my theories, all the while proclaiming they may be\nno more valid than anyone else's suppositions. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm glad you've taken my arguments in the friendly spirit which I\nintended. Here, if you can bear to wade through them, are my\nthoughts on your thoughts on my thoughts on your thoughts:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Tony Ellis writes: " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Having said that, do we know for sure that even Mr Million's \n\"father\", Number Five's great-great-grandfather, was the first of\nthe line? " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I believe you have one too many -greats here...." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, not by my reckoning! You're saying that the GW Mr\nMillion is simulating (Five's great-grandfather) was the first of the\nline, but I'm saying there has to be another one behind him if\nNumber Five is to be the fifth generation.\n\nOur difference centres around your counting Mr Million twice,\nas himself and as the GW he simulates:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I also reject the notion that Mr. Million and the Gene Wolfe he simulates\nare one and the same. Mr. Million is the most benign character in all of\nthe narrative, while the person he simulates is the mad scientist who\nclones a line of monstrous progeny..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Given that all the clones are effectively the same \"mad scientist\", \nsurely the fact that Mr Million is so passive is remarkable regardless\nof which GW he may be simulating? I would suggest that the \nexplanation lies at least partially in the poor ability of his simulation\nto feel emotion.\n\nBut notice that Maitre regards Mr Million as \"more sentimental\" than\nhe is. This suggests that there _are_ differences between the clones,\nand that the GW Mr Million is simulating was simply a milder\nperson. This again argues that he is _not_ simulating the original\nGW, your \"mad scientist\"." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "To liken each to the other therefore strikes me as specious and\ntautolgical, especially since all of the other cloned Wolfes are one and\nthe same." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "As you say, the _cloned_ Wolfes. Mr Million isn't the product of\ncloning, which merely reproduces the same DNA, but of a \nmechanical process which copies the very neurological patterns of\nthe brain. The whole idea is that the person simulated _lives on_. \nIf you want a new self, you make a clone, but if you want to extend\nyour own life you make a simulation. \n\nHere's how I interpret your pertinent quote, all brackets mine: \"We \nseek self-knowledge. You [#5] are here because I [#4] did and do,\nand I am here because the individual [#3] behind me did --who was\nhimself originated by the one [#2] whose mind is simulated in Mr.\nMillion.\" [#1] is a further figure, who stands behind all these." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "As for Dr. Marsch's remark, remember that cloning is illegal on Earth and\nthat Saint Croix has been inhabited \"less than two hundred years\" (p.37)\nand that the Maison du Chien (the structure, anyway) is\n140 years old (p.37). Five generations in 140 years, four of them cloned,\nseems acceptable to me." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well let's see: Dr Marsch thinks that Number Five is 18, Maitre nearly \nfifty. Lets say that Maitre's father was also 30ish when he created\nMaitre. It's a fair assumption: Number Five, after all, is also 30 when\nhe becomes a \"father\". Let's say that Maitre's father's father, the\nperson simulated by Mr Million, was 30ish too when he made \nMaitre's father. We've gone back 110 years. There's room for\nanother GW _before_ Mr Million, who orginates the line.\n\n\nOn to the Phaedria-as-sister theory!" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I submit Phaedria's parents would\nhave no idea she is Maitre's daughter " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I wasn't actually arguing that being Maitre's _daughter_ would stop\nPhaedria's parents attempting to marry her back into the family,\nrather that the fact she came from Maitre at all would make them\nthink of her as of little further value to him. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Aunt Jeannine is _not_ legless, but \"has legs no thicker than my wrists\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes, sorry, that was very careless of me, but my point still stands:\na broken ankle is very, very different. If Wolfe wanted to imply a link,\nwhy not give poor Phaedria an affliction, however mild, in both legs?\nOr a bone disease which, it is implied with Wolfean subtlety, might\none day prevent her from walking?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "or else why would Wolfe (the writer) give her a broken ankle? It advances\nno plot point--Number Five could just as easily have met a strolling, or\nseated, unencumbered Phaedria in the park." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, Number Five's poor health required him to be seated. It's\nsimply good writing to give a reason for an otherwise healthy girl to\nbe sitting there too." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "To think it is mere color or\ncoincidence does not do justice to Wolfe's masterly writing. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "One of the reason's I enjoy Wolfe's writing so much is precisely\nhis use of colour. I submit these 2 points from Wolfe's advice to\nwould-be writers:\n\n\"Main characters should be striking in some way, attractive or \ngrotesque or interesting in appearance. Spear-carriers should be\nmore or less ordinary for contrast. If you can't decide which a\ncharacter is, make him striking.\" \n\n\"Perfection is not sexy.\"\n\nI concede your point that Phaedria has had plastic surgery, but\nthat would make her the _only_ member of the family without\nsome resemblance to the original. David may have blonde hair\nbut even Number Five concedes that \"Maybe he looks a little\nlike me\". Wolfe goes out of his way to underline the family\nresemblance wherever we see a family member, from the \nfour-armed fighting slave to Aunt Jeannine, so this doesn't ring true." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I now have a question for Tony: if Phaedria is not Number Five's sister,\nwho do you think is? Surely, you don't believe Wolfe is toying with us when\nhe has Aunt Jeannine mention her..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No one is. Aunt Jeannine is arguing hypothetically.\n\nAs for Wolfe toying with us, in a sense he is. The significance of\nAunt Jeannine's question is that it reminds Number Five of Aunt\nBetsey Trotwood in \"David Copperfield\" - as well it might: not only\nwas Betsey another formidable little lady, but the whole theme of\nthat novel is the past, and the uncovering of buried experiences. Aunt\nBetsey sets her heart on David's mother giving birth to a girl, and\nis exasperated when the child turns out to be a boy. It becomes a \nrunning joke through the rest of the novel: Betsey is always \nobserving how David's angelic, non-existant sister would have\ndone this or wouldn't have done that. I think this is what Wolfe\nhad in mind - and all he had in mind - by making Aunt Jeannine\nsay \"Your father had a sister - why shouldn't you?\"." } ] } ] }