{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/6578", "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": 6578, "subject": "Short Story 68: Many Mansions", "messages": 4, "voices": 1, "first": "2014-07-24T02:11:07+00:00", "last": "2014-07-24T17:43:03+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com" }, "date": "2014-07-24T02:11:07+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Story 68: Many Mansions", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Many Mansions\n\nFirst published in 1977 in Orbit 19,?Many Mansions? is reprinted in *Castle\nof Days* for Halloween.\n\nSUMMARY:\n\nThe story begins with an old woman speaking to a young female visitor, “the\nnew woman from the Motherworld”, searching for her friend. It seems that\nhumanity has split into a group of females grown in vitro and more\ntraditional male and female colonist group who have settled a foreign\nplanet. The elderly woman speaks of the war in her own parent’s time\nbetween the grandmother of her visitor’s generation and her people, which\nresulted in the retreat to the fens and the death of half the autochthonous\npopulation as well as most of the traditional human settlers. She begins to\ndiscuss the houses and technology of those settlers. The old woman, Nor,\nsays that her husband Todd built their house thirty years ago.\n\nNor claims that the young missing woman must have been taken but pretends\nto sympathize with her visitor for the hostility she must have faced: “They\nknow that you’re supposed to help them, to make up for [the war]; and\nyou’re not doing it now, are you” Just going about looking for your friend.\n\nThe old woman admits that her side was defeated, but that they had more\npower over machines than the women from the Motherworld. She speaks of\nhouses with human minds to run them and repair themselves, perhaps with the\nhuman bodies turning to dust within them or disembodied brains: “If there\nwere people’s brains in them (and I’ve never been sure that was true) then\nthey must have been women’s brains mostly.”\n\nNor talks of the moving houses, and how they hid underwater and other\nplaces to avoid being burned by the female soldiers during the war — even\nmentioning St. Syntletica’s church ringing from the bottom of Lake Kell.\nThe houses put up roads, even above the trees, and she says that Todd once\nsaw an old house at the end of one path that she believes was her own\nfather’s.\n\nShe tells the story of Lily, a young prostitute who sees one of the houses\none night while out after having drunken a little bit. The house has a\nyellow light that becomes red and she is tempted to enter it, but flees and\nis later found dead with a broken neck near Pierced Rock.\n\nAt this point Todd returns and begins speaking. He pours her a drink and\nwith Todd present the house begins making noises which he tries to explain\naway as creaking. He tells the story of the heavy drinking Pim Pintey, who\nconsumed beverages culled from local herbs and the worms under the “aruum”\ntrees. Todd digresses about the buildings Pim believes he sees on Nepo Pass\nand whether they were of autochthonous or some otherworldly source, all\nruined. Rather interestingly, Todd mentions the roads of the Firstcomers as\nbeing paved over by humanity, but that underneath “you can see the bones of\nthe old through it. Anyway, that was where Pim was walking, on those big\nlava blocks. One up, one down, one sidewise — that's the way the slant of\nthem always seem to me to run. There's them that will tell you every\nseventh one is cracked.” The sight reminded Pim of the Biblical parable of\nthe man who built his house on rock, and he wanted to go inside and rest\nnear the fire with his bottle.\n\nPim didn't go, “but he said he always felt like there was some part of him\nthat had. That he split into two, some way, coming through the pass, and\nthe other half was in that house still — wherever it was, for it ain't up\nthere now or more people would have told about seeing it — doing he didn't\nknow what.” He watched the lights blink out as he passed. At this point the\nhouse jerks and Todd catches his visitor. Todd remarks that “a lot of [his]\nfurniture has those little spindly legs on it, just like that table. They\ncan be tricksy.”\n\nTodd relates that a man named Wolter saw Pim laying inside another house\nwith someone else beside him, and “he couldn't be certain if either of them\nwas dead or not. But Wolter ain't to be believed.” Here Todd admits that he\n“helped build this place — and it's solid as a rock.”\n\nThe visitor pulls a gun and Todd takes it. He says, “I doubt that you'll\nremember; and if you was to, you couldn't find us.” The visitor from\nMotherworld must have seen the body of old Aunt Enid, whose mind runs the\nhouse and communicates with Todd and Nor through the “mouths — in various\nplaces.”\n\nHere Nor speaks again, saying “That's the last of her — at least for now”.\nShe knows the visitor is disappointed Todd did not try to stop her, and Nor\nhopes she doesn't hit a tree on the way out on her vehicle. Then she says,\n“We'll move on now, Enid. You're right, she's not ready yet; but someday —\nI suppose it might be possible. Look at that other one. Someday this one\nwill be ready to seek her peace. Come into a woman. I've said it before and\nI'll say it again — that's why we're all so comfortable here: we've been\nhere before. Feel the motion of her Todd. How easy she goes!”\n\nDISCUSSION:\n\nJust as in “The Fifth Head of Cerberus” where the planets of St. Croix and\nSt. Anne showed extreme stagnation and extreme adaptability (neither\nseeming to function ideally), “Many Mansions” shows humanity splitting into\ntwo ideological factions that ultimately resemble modern humans very little\n— indeed, while the dominant group from Motherworld appears to be entirely\nfemale and grown artificially, they are still obviously human. The group\ncomprised of “natural” breeding with males and females seems to have become\nsomething almost monstrous — mobile crypts powered by the minds of their\nvictims (of course, this is a very negative surface level interpretation).\nThe houses are usually categorized as female minds as well, and clearly the\nhouse that is the setting of the story is Nor's Great-Aunt Enid. However,\nthere is something confusing about the final lines: “Come into a woman. —\nwe've been here before.” Is Nor talking about the house, referring to it as\na woman, or is the house somehow invading human perceptions? Where have\n“we” been before?\n\nThe biblical resonance, explored more fully below, involves the idea that\nthese humans can gain a kind of immortality in conjunction with their\nspecial houses or mansions, echoing the heaven promised to his disciples by\nJesus. In light of the alien presence on the settler?s planet, it is\npossible that the humans who consume so many of the indigenous herbs and\nworms of the planets are altered in turn and serve as hosts for those — for\nit is at least hinted by Todd that Pim’s consumption of local liquor has\nattracted the attention of the houses — and Lily, too, is said to have been\ndrinking before her experience:\n\n“She was carrying a load, if you know what I mean; she told me so herself.\nThe air was chill, possibly, and it’s likely someone had left a bottle with\nher the night before. — Hunted things grow strange sometimes, though I\ndon’t suppose you’ve noticed.”\n\n The victorious women of Motherworld are trying to reconstruct and help the\nsurviving settlers, but there is a kind of ominous possibility that these\nsettlers have either changed significantly or are long gone.\n\nIt is also interesting that the shape of the Motherworld houses are\ndescribed as “eggs, or else like nails stood on end” in light of all the\nNew Testament references throughout and the death of Lily at Pierced Rock,\nand to the fact that Nor's father was the carpenter for the house in which\nhis own aunt lives on, we begin to have a lot of Christ references.\n\nThere is some confusion as to whether Todd or his wife Nor’s father built\nthe house that Aunt Enid animates First Nor says, “Todd built this thirty\nyears ago.” Later Todd says, “This one was carpentered by Nor’s dad just\nafter the War. It’s the cooling off when the sun sets,” but this confusion\nis somewhat allayed when he admits that he helped build the house.\n\nIs it possible that running into Nor's father's tall house in the\nwilderness somehow conjoined Todd and his father in law, almost like the\npossession in the Long Sun books? Probably not.\n\nThe eggs and nails that are the homes of the women from motherworld and the\nalmost womblike homes of the settlers, as well as the feeling Pim gets\npassing through Nepo pass (implying descendents) of being split in half (as\ncells would during meiosis to form sex cells) gives a rather gravid feel to\nthe houses when they seek humans, almost like eggs calling to sperm — and I\nthink it is perhaps this symbol of fertilization, slightly absent from the\ntext and definitely pulled out of “Motherworld” entirely (what an ironic\nname!!!) that gives the final words of Nor some sense: “Come into a woman —\nwe've been here before” (the womb that brought us to live naturally, writ\nin large metaphor).\n\nSETTING:\n\nThe in vitro girls clearly operate under a liberated scheme where they\nserve no one and no longer have concepts of titles such as “lady”: “It’s\nour courtesy, you see, to host strangers. I know you don’t do it, but this\nis my house. Now, don’t get angry; I’m a headstrong old lady, and I’m used\nto having my own way. Don’t you use [the word lady] anymore” It just means\nwoman now.\n\nNor also says, “I don’t know how you feel about morality — with your people\nit’s so hard to tell. Todd says we ought to forgive women like [the\nprostitute Lily], but then men always do.”\n\nThe text says of the authochthons that ?Half ... were killed, like most of\nus; those that were left were happy enough to run off into the fens, or lie\naround the towns waiting for somebody to rob. We would have civilized them\nif you’d given us another century.\n\nThe strange roads are also almost magical, and seem to be controlled by the\nhouses, or even perhaps by the civilization that preceded the autochthons:\n“Your patrols used the roads mostly, so we let a lot of them grow up in\ntrees again. The houses make false ones though, slipping through the\nthickets.”\n\nBIBLICAL ALLUSIONS:\n\nThere are several obvious and perhaps one or two implied biblical\nallusions. The girl Lily, who sells her body, is found dead at Pierced Rock\n(and while there is a rock of that designation in Quebec involved in a\nstory of ill fated love, suicide, and haunting, I feel the more immediate\nallusion is probably to the piercing of Christ at the crucifixion,\nespecially in light of all the other explicit reference to the gospels in\nthis story). In addition, the house that Great Aunt Enid lives on in was\nsaid to be “carpentered” by Nor's father — certainly not an accidental\ndescription of the action.\n\nThe title comes from the gospel of John 14:2 — “In my Father's house are\nmany mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a\nplace for you.” This takes place at the last supper right after Jesus\ndeclares that Peter will deny him three times — this act of comfort for the\ndisciples concerning a place for them in heaven takes a much more sinister\nconnotation in the story, but it does seem to be a kind of immortality.\n\nBecause of its mention of wolves and fruit, I am going to include Matthew 7\nhere in its entirety, though the most pertinent reference, when Pim is\nreminded of the wise man who built his house on rock, is Matthew 7:24-27 -\n\n7?Judge not, that you be not judged. 2For with what judgment you judge, you\nwill be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to\nyou. 3And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not\nconsider the plank in your own eye? 4Or how can you say to your brother,\n“Let me remove the speck from your eye”; and look, a plank *is* in your own\neye? 5Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you\nwill see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.\n\n6?Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine,\nlest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces.\n\n7?Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it\nwill be opened to you. 8For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks\nfinds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 9Or what man is there among\nyou who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10Or if he asks\nfor a fish, will he give him a serpent? 11If you then, being evil, know how\nto give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is\nin heaven give good things to those who ask Him! 12Therefore, whatever you\nwant men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the\nProphets.\n\n13?Enter by the narrow gate; for wide *is* the gate and broad *is* the way\nthat leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. 14Because\nnarrow *is* the gate and difficult *is* the way which leads to life, and\nthere are few who find it.\n\n15?Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but\ninwardly they are ravenous wolves. 16You will know them by their fruits. Do\nmen gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? 17Even so, every\ngood tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18A good tree\ncannot bear bad fruit, nor *can* a bad tree bear good fruit. 19Every tree\nthat does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20Therefore\nby their fruits you will know them.\n\n21?Not everyone who says to Me, “Lord, Lord,” shall enter the kingdom of\nheaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22Many will say to\nMe in that day, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out\ndemons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?” 23And then I will\ndeclare to them, “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice\nlawlessness!”\n\n24?Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will\nliken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: 25and the rain\ndescended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and\nit did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.\n\n26?But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will\nbe like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: 27and the rain\ndescended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and\nit fell. And great was its fall.\n\n28And so it was, when Jesus had ended these sayings, that the people were\nastonished at His teaching, 29for He taught them as one having authority,\nand not as the scribes.\n\nInterestingly enough, the stone of Nepo Pass (Pass of Descendents) is said\nto have “Buildings and walls that run along the crests of the mountains for\nas far as a man can see to either side (all tumbledown now, some of that\nstone will run like sand if you rub it between your fingers)? and caves\ninhabited by ?whippers”. Both rock and sand are invoked in \"Many Mansions\"\nin this scene. Animal remains will be found where sometimes none were\nbefore, and “Some say the autochthons cut the stone and built the buildings\nand the walls; some say they only killed the ones who did.” This confusion\nalso echoes the confusion of the origin of the aborigines and Shadow\nChildren in ?The Fifth Head of Cerberus, which will be discussed more below.\n\nAlso interesting is the claim that every seventh stone in Nepo pass is\ncracked — whether this is a biblical reference or not, the book of\nRevelations certainly has a lot of sevens. (The next paragraph might be\ntaking a throwaway line too far, but ...)\n\nAmong the numerous sevens, including seals, trumpets, and plagues, the\nfirst resurrection of the dead takes place at the seventh trumpet, and the\nark of the covenant is seen, fulfilling Christ's promise of salvation — and\nresonating with the idea of the many mansions He has set aside for those\nwho follow Him. (In Catholic and Orthodox faiths, the ark of the covenant\nis sometimes allegorically used to describe Mary gravid with Christ). The\nark was buried on Mt. Nebo at one point, which resembles Nepo Pass, but\nthis is in the book of 2 Maccabees and would be a very “Catholic” kind of\nassociation. This would tie together the themes of parthenogenetic\nreproduction, the salvation inherent in the term “Many Mansions”, and the\nstrange reference to every seventh stone being cracked, though there are\nsome real leaps in that series of religious relationships.\n\nFOLIAGE ON THE SETTLER'S WORLD AND *FIFTH HEAD OF CERBERUS* PARALLELS:\n\nSince the yeasts were different than they were accustomed to, the settlers\n?put other things in them to raise it up, and we use them yet. There’s —\noh, maybe twenty or thirty different herbs and roots and whatnot we favor,\nand a little whitey-greeny worm we get out of the mud around aruum trees\nthat’s particularly good if there’s a den in the roots, and then a fungus\nthat grows in the mountain caves and has a picture like an autochthon?s\nhand in the middle sometimes and smells like haying. Those are poison when\nthey’re old, but if you get a young one and cut it up and soak it in salt\nwater for a week before you drop it in the crock, it’ll give you a drink\nthat makes you feel — well, I don’t know how to put it. Like you’re young\nand going to live forever. Like nothing bad ever happened to you, and\nyou’re likely to meet your mother and dad and everybody you ever liked\nthat’s dead now just around the next turn in the road. What I’m trying to\ntell you is that Pim, when his head was full — which it was most of the\ntime — was not entirely like anybody you’re likely to have known before.\nNow you may say, as a lot did, that it was the drinking that made him see\nthe houses; but suppose it worked the other way, and it was the drinking\nthat made them see him?\n\nIt is this section of “Many Mansions” that most echoes *The **Fifth Head of\nCerberus*, where trees seem somehow related to the larvae that lives in\ntheir roots, and the pale white maggots chewed by the Shadow Children have\na similar affect on them in “A Story” — that the chewer becomes “God”. The\nfinal analysis of the life cycle of the aboriginals and the Shadow Children\nthat I found to be probable was a larval stage followed by a metamorphosis,\nthen an adult sessile stage in which a tree carapace was formed for the\naboriginals, and an infectious blood life cycle for the Shadow Children,\ninfecting their hosts and vectors but still maintaining a group\nconsciousness.\n\nIt seems that in “Many Mansions” Pim is affected by the worm and herbs he\nconsumes, and this draws attention to him and “changes” him. Notice the\nconjunction of fungus and autochthon?s hands — which, in “Fifth Head of\nCerberus”, were different from human hands. This is not the only parallel\nwith “The Fifth Head of Cerberus”, as our female visitor is an artificially\nproduced zygote much as Number Five was. In addition, the format of the\nstory, with merely three long dialogues with no recorded response from the\nvisitor, mirrors some sections of the interview transcripts from the\nnovella “VRT”.\n\nHowever, there seems to be very few other details for us to draw from here\n— do these things involve a similar life cycle, or is it completely\ndifferent, involving the caves and the houses somehow? The mobile houses of\nthe settlers being superimposed on the ancient dwellings of the autochthons\nor some other space faring species complicates the issue just as the idea\nthat the aboriginals or Shadow Children might not originally be from St.\nAnne also complicated T*he Fifth Head of Cerberus*.\n\nAruum trees are mentioned in the text, and a little research on that proved\nquite astonishing. In addition to being associated with a type of faux\nlily, the arum lily (remember the girl’s name who died), they are all\npoisonous (We are assuming that the extra u in the name Aruum is either a\ntypo or something to draw attention to the name). They are flowers and not\ntrees, and the largest one has some extremely interesting qualities. The\nfollowing subjective report is still fascinating:\n\n“The titan arum flower (*amorphallus titanum* in Latin, or just ?corpse\nflower” if you’re feeling dramatic), sounds like a hack writer’s attempt at\nscience fiction: it’s a massive red flower that can reach 3 meters in\nheight, but it blooms only once every decade, and when it does, it reeks\nlike rotting meat. Because it’s so large, and because it blooms so rarely,\nit’s become an object of pride for botanical gardens around the world. —\nWhere most flowers use a sweet scent to attract honey bees, the titan arum\nuses the stench of death to attract beetles and flies. It even heats its\nspadix — the pollen-covered shaft in the middle of the pitcher — to human\nbody temperature to simulate a fresh corpse.\n\nSpeaking of the spadix, the plant only got the name “titan arum” because\nBBC documentarian David Attenborough felt awkward repeatedly calling it by\nits Latin *amorphallus titanum*, which translates to “giant misshapen\npenis.”\n\nThe blooming titan arum may look like a freakishly large lily, but\ntechnically, it’s not even a single flower. A titan arum doesn’t have a\nflowering, it has an inflorescence.\n\nThe above description was from:\nhttp://thepopcultist.com/2012/10/12/the-titan-arum-a-rare-slow-blooming-and-stinky-flower/\n\nBy imitating corpses, the arum draws flies to continue its lifecycle. Is a\nsimilar mimicry occurring with the “houses”, luring people to “pollinate”\nthem?\n\nNAMES:\n\nPlace Names:\n\nBreaker: Probably named after a heavy sea wave that breaks, though it is\nconceivable there is a technological basis for the name of this location —\nthis is where Todd’s family had a house.\n\nChackerville: a neighboring community, but I can’t make much sense of the\nname.\n\nLake Kell: Kell simply means a Lake or Ravine\n\nNepo: meansGrandchild or descendent, from the latin nepos. Nepo Pass is\nwhere Pim Pintey sees the house on top of the slanted stone tops.\n\nHUMAN NAMES:\n\nSt. Syntletica: born of wealthy parents in Alexandria, this 4th century\nsaint lived a life of poverty in the desert and resided in a crypt, and\nmany female supplicants sought her out, but her supposed gifts of\ndiscernment allowed her to see that many were not ready for poverty yet.\nThis story seems to parallel the call of the houses and those who are “not\nready” for them yet, like Lily, Pim, and the second girl from Motherworld.\n\nPim Pyntey: Pim is a form of William, and can mean helmut or desire and\nprotection. I could not find anything on Pyntey but I am assuming it might\nhave something to do with his drinking habits.\n\nLily: implies purity\n\nEnid: also means purity, or soul\n\nTodd: The spouse of the old woman’s name is Todd, which means Fox, but the\nword Tod can mean Death in German but also has a strange relationship with\nthe opening quotation of The Fifth Head of Cerberus: “When the Ivy-tod is\nheavy with snow, and the owlet whoops to the wolf below, That eats the\nshe-wolf’s young.”\n\nNor: depending on its origin it can have several meanings: honored or\nhonorable from latin, mercy or pity from old Greek. Since it does not have\nthe last syllable of Nora, even an Arabic root is possible — God is my\nlight.\n\nSettles: probably just what it seems to be\n\nDode Beckette: Beckett means bee cottage. This resonates a bit with the\nidea of people as pollinators of the houses. Dode means the deceased or\nvictim of a fatality in Dutch. (Dode is also the name of a village in\nEngland wiped out completely by the Black Death)\n\nWolter: the name means to rule, army\n\nCONNECTION TO OTHER WORKS:\n\nWolfe has a tendency to invert and play with themes as he did in his Island\nstories, stories which explored isolation in several different ways. This\nstory, as Borski and others have noted, actually does seem a thematic\ninversion of “Fifth Head of Cerberus” where Number Five’s parthenogenesis\nis transformed into a world of female control, and, instead of convergence\nof alien species into humanity and one another, we get a complete\nsegregation of old style and new style humans. The strange alien species\nare present, but they have been pushed back instead of subjugating and\nreplacing their colonizers, as in Fifth Head. This future all female world\nresonates with several of the stories written by James Tiptree Jr,\nespecially “Houston, Houston, Do you Read?” with its all female future,\nthough this story and that 1976 one are more or less contemporary. Wolfe\nwill play with a dominant female future in “In Looking Glass Castle” and\nmaybe there are hints of it in “The Eyeflash Miracles” as well. *There Are\nDoors* will have a different, more fantastic basis for a female ruled Earth.\n\nFor this reason, I call “Many Mansions” the female version of *The Fifth\nHead of Cerberus*, and I think it is fruitful to see how Michael Swanwick\ndoes the same thing in *Shadows of the New Sun* in his “The She-Wolf’s\nHidden Grin”. The inversions are quite obvious to those who have recently\nread “Fifth Head of Cerberus” (the novella). The story begins “When I was a\ngirl, my sister Susanna and I had to get up early whether we were rested or\nnot.” — reversing both gender and the situation of Number Five and David\ngoing to sleep early whether they were tired or not. In his story, the\nfemale Maitresse has no relation to the girls, and is a step-mother and\nthey are located on 999 rue D?Astarte, and rather than a brothel, it is a\nchemist?s perfumery and shop (his truffle concoctions are used in a\nsniffing recreational drug). The narrator begins with her dream of the\nbas-relief of Romulus and Remus suckling at the she-wolf, casting two\ninfant girls in their stead, with a giant she wolf breathing down her neck\nsaying, “You are anxious for me to come out of hiding — Aren't you,\ndaughter?” At the end of the dream, it is revealed that it is still not\ntime.\n\nWork is still performed by slaves, and their tutor is one such, though she\ncan have a bank account (exhibiting much more freedom than the slaves in *Fifth\nHead Of Cerberus* seemed to). The planets are still St. Croix and St. Anne,\nbut this time the tutor, rather than being robotic or unchanging like M.\nMillion, is Tante Amelie, last in a string of female tutors from St. Anne.\nSwanwick does use the heron metaphor for this tutor that Wolfe himself\nemployed in his description of the abos in the central novella “A Story”.\nAubrey Veil exists in this narrative, and Veil’s hypothesis and the story\nof the Frenchman’s Landing on St. Anne is related.\n\nThe innovation Swanwick makes to the story involves the nature of the\naborigines (the narrator’s position in the faux debate prompted by the\ntutor) that the abos had a space faring origin, descended to Stone Level\ntechnology, and interbred with the human settlers, “producing human\noffspring with latent aboriginal genes.” In this story, it is the sister,\nSusana, who becomes sullen and moody rather than Number 5 in his responses\nto Maitre’s experiments. Her studies on aboriginal traits conclude ?This\nimplies a congeries of recessive sex-linked genes; they, being dependent on\nthe x-chromosome, will necessarily appear only in women. — They also posit\nthat the two species were a case of divergence from a single species, named\nH. sidereus (starmen). Susana develops a love for the theater much like the\nplay that David and Number 5 put on, but hers are stories of empowered or\nrepressed women protagonists or even early feminist writings. She plays a\npart in *The Children’s Hour*, in which a female at an all girl’s school\nbegins a rumor that two of the teachers are lesbians, which destroys their\nreputation. One of the teachers does admit to having feelings for the\nother, but winds up hanging herself in the ensuing mess. (Several of the\ndramas mentioned deal with suicide of the main female characters: *Madame\nButterfly, The Children’s Hour, Hedda Gabbler, Antony and Cleopatra *all\ninvolve suicide, but even more prevalent are the strong female characters\n(both malevolently manipulative and heroically innocent) who have prominent\nroles. The plot of *Mrs. Warren’s Profession*, in which the mother runs\nbrothels while her daughter is an educated modern woman, resonates with *Fifth\nHead of Cerberus* itself. In Swanwick’s story, women are far more numerous\nthan men, and the decrease of males is a problem for the worlds.\n\nThe woman in pink is split in twain: first into a woman in black who flirts\nwith Susanna at mass, and they hold hands, and then Maitresse herself wears\na pink dress. During the final scenes of the story, Tante Amelie takes them\nto see an entertainment: combat between two female slaves, who are treated\nwith the hallucinatory perfume drugs that the girls? father creates, which\nare capable of maintaining all sorts of illusions. The narrator is shocked\nto find that one of the slaves bears her own face, an echo of the four\narmed slave in “The Fifth Head of Cerberus” who bears such a close\nresemblance to Number Five. The lesbian relationship blossoming between her\nsister and the woman in black comes out in the open, and the resulting\ndissatisfaction seems to shake up the household. It is revealed that the\nnarrator is a failed clone, made in an attempt to produce a male heir. The\nother clones were sold. The story ends with the narrator in a dream in\nwhich the she-wolf finally says it is time, and “not so much awakening as\ntaking [her] dream state with [her] into the waking world,” the narrator\nleaves behind her husband and twin sons and casts off the guise of humanity\nand roam wild without her human skin, naked and prowling in Port-Mimizon.\nShe asserts that the time has come for all like her to cast off their\nhumanity and return to aboriginal existence, though the world seems to\nsmell always of canvas and bitter truffle.\n\nThis ending is meant to invoke the same indeterminacy of “The Fifth Head of\nCerberus” involving who was an aborigine and if there was any way to tell,\nbut in this case the uncertainty is extended to whether the ending, with\nthe liberation from human flesh, involves the drugs the narrator’s father\nproduces which smell of truffles or not — are the narrator’s perceptions of\nthat aboriginal awakening drug induced?\n\nI lean toward the interpretation that in fact the ending of Swanwick’s\nsupports the self-destructive abuse of drugs as a coping mechanism, an\nescape into fantasy — primarily because of the dramatic works mentioned\nearlier in the text. Most of them are tragedies of self-destruction. Even\nthough this is perhaps historically a larger representative sample from\nhistorical dramas highlighting early feminist obstacles, there are still\nstories of empowered and successful women that don’t end in tragedy and\nself destruction (ie — stories like *Vanity Fair*, even though they involve\na manipulative woman, still end with her “getting away with it” more or\nless). The overall impression of the dramas selected as well as the\nrelevant plot of *The Children’s Hour *and the damage that occurs after a\nhidden relationship comes out leads me to believe the ending is one of\nself-destruction rather than release and transformation, though of course\nit is quite intentionally ambiguous.\n\nWhile both Swanwick’s story and “Many Mansions” (probably) are female\ninversions of “The Fifth Head of Cerberus”, obviously Swanwick’s is much\nmore literally derivative of the events and situations, and posits an\nentirely different life cycle than that implied in the original novel.\nWolfe’s subtle treatment make it doubtful that the planet in question in\n“Many Mansions” is even in the same fictional “solar system” as his earlier\nnovellas, but there are enough details to show that the autochthonous\nrepressed population and the augmented humans of his story are at the very\nleast thematically and symbolically related to his earlier novella, if not\nin the same fictional universe as St. Anne and St. Croix.\n\n\n\n UNANSWERED QUESTIONS: Is the transfer from humans to their mansions one\nway or is it a two way street, such that perhaps these houses can come to\npossess humans again? There seems to be some strange motility to all of the\ntables as well as the houses themselves. I remain convinced that somehow\nthese houses are luring humans to pollinate them just as the arum does, and\nthe name Beckette with its “bee cottage” resonance kind of solidifies this\nidea in my mind. The sterile women from Motherworld can still be used to\n“come into a woman”.\n\nIs there really a connection between the worms and vegetation in this story\nand “The Fifth Head of Cerberus” or does the alien environment involve a\ncompletely different life cycle? It seems that the themes are the same but\nthe actual authocthons, perhaps never seen, might not be identical to the\naborigines.\n\nHow are the caves of the original inhabitants of the planet related to the\nhouses that come later? Do they manifest as whatever the ideal inhabitant\nwould naturally live in as a form of mimicry? Are the houses human\ntechnology or alien? Because of the caves and the hint that eating the\nherbs and worms of the planet attract the houses? attention, I incline\ntoward the belief that they are alien and perhaps even organisms that\ninvite humans into themselves to live symbiotically (as it is possible that\nthe worms and herbs symbiotically invade the humans, as the Shadow Children\nalmost assuredly did on St. Croix in “The Fifth Head of Cerberus”, making\nhouses and humans alike the many mansions that support life and become one\nwith their host).\n\nThe cryptic ending, while it is clear that the house is animated by Nor’s\nAunt Enid, remains confusing.\n\nWhy are both Enid and Lily named after purity? Is there a relationship\nbetween them?\n\nIn the final analysis I believe that “Many Mansions” involves a race of\nmimicking almost flower like houses that lure humans in to pollinate them,\nespecially after they have eaten the natural pollinators, the white/green\nworms and attract the attention of these “houses”. They might very well\nprovide immortality to their human symbiotes, however, and fulfill all\nthese religious promises that the biblical allusions in the text produce." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com" }, "date": "2014-07-24T02:13:45+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Story 68: Many Mansions", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That one was a bit more involved than I planned it to be ... oh man. Hope\nyou guys enjoy it. There was almost no commentary on it." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com" }, "date": "2014-07-24T16:51:11+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Story 68: Many Mansions", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Two more little things that I think are kind of neat.\n\nWhy Halloween? The \"things\" are dressing up as comfortable houses to\nattract their pollinators: to Lily the house is a safe, fun brothel; to Pim\nit is a fireplace to rest, etc. Their mimicry is a kind of costume.\n\nAlso, I can't help but wonder about the concept of original sin in a\ncompletely in vitro birth. Nor speculates that even if the girl is grown\nshe must still surely have a mother, and I am wondering about the\npollination of the mimic houses as a kind of asexual union as well. Note\nthat Nor says she really doesn't believe that human minds are running the\nhouses, though supposedly she is living in one: \"If there were people's\nbrains in them (and I've never been sure that was true) then they must have\nbeen women's brains mostly.\" I also feel that the road in Nepo Pass which\nhas been built over the original road on the planet is symbolic of the\nhouses that the settler's construct: they have, in a way, provided a\ncovering, shape, and form to the houses they built, but perhaps they have\nsimply built over and through something much older and more foreign -\nsomething using mimicry and disguise to attract humans and lure them in." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com" }, "date": "2014-07-24T17:43:03+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Story 68: Many Mansions", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Also note that the House of Enid does not start to creak and rumble until\nTodd gives the visitor a drink of the harder spirits, which are probably\nseasoned with the white/green worms - this consumption might catch the\nhouse's attention to some degree, as Todd speculates that his drinking\nbrought Pim to the attention of the houses in Nepo Pass.\n\nEnid and Lily can signify purity, and both Todd (Tod) and Dode can mean\ndeath - interesting resonances." } ] } ] }