{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/6634", "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": 6634, "subject": "5HC", "messages": 83, "voices": 10, "first": "2014-08-21T13:25:54+00:00", "last": "2014-09-06T07:18:34+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Andrew Bollen", "address": "jurisper at gmail.com" }, "date": "2014-08-21T13:25:54+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Gerry wrote:\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n*\"You can argue that the Old Wise One is confused at one point as to which\nof the two peoples in the story is which, but it can be explained in a\nstraightforward way. Or you can argue that he is lying or otherwise\nincorrect, or that neo-Marsch is a better SF writer than he is an\nanthropologist. But it is simply not the case that a variety of origin\nstories are presented in the text for the reader to choose between. The\ntext tells exactly one story, involving a landing by humans, who were\nimitated by the aborigines, and who devolved into the Shadow Children.\nRight or wrong, that's what we are told.\"*\n\nI prefer a reading on which the OWO becomes less rather than more confused\nas the Shadow Children are killed off.\n\nThe OWO subverts his star-traveller-origin story from the start: he has no\nhistorical memory of when they were supposed to have arrived on St Anne or\nwhere on Earth they were supposed to have come from. \"We either came\nrecently or a long, long time ago ... Sometimes we try to recall the name\nof our home ... But we hear also the mind-singing of our brothers ... as\nthey pass up and down between the stars .... but these thoughts come into\nour songs. It is possible that our home was named Atlantis or Mu - or\nGondwanalnd, Africa, Poictesme, or The Country of Friends. I, for five,\nremember all these names.\"\n\nThe origin names come from listening in to the thoughts of contemporary\nstar-travelling humans, not from any historical memory; listening to\nstories, with no capacity for judging fiction versus fact.\n\nSo the text establishes that whatever he's going to say about origins has\nlittle if any credibility; likely enough his tale includes elements pieced\ntogether from cheesy space-operas and so forth. It certainly has that kind\nof tone: \"But we walked among you in power and majesty and might, hissing\nlike a thousand serpents as we splashed down in you sea, stepping like\nconquerors ... \" etc etc.\n\nAs he talks, he rocks back and forth and \"his jaws moved vigorously as\nthough he were eating\". Why? Because the group of which he is the \"norm\"\nhas serious substance issues and this story he's telling is the fantasy of\naddled SC chewing away on their drug-leaves.\n\nAs the SC are killed off, Sandwalker's influence in the mix generating the\nOWO becomes more important and the junkie-influence lessens. After the\nfirst deaths, the OWO seems \"fainter than ever, but taller\", and younger -\ntaller and younger, presumably because tall young Sandwalker has\nrelatively more influence now. And the OWO says: \"We had no names before\nmen came out of the sky ... We were mostly long, and lived in holes between\nthe roots of trees ... I am confused ... There are so many of you now and\nso few of us.\"\n\nHis \"confusion\" is the confusion of a drug wearing off. Now there's a\n\"first\" and a \"second\" race, but he's no longer sure which is which.\n\nFinally there's only one SC left, and it seems to me that this SC's\ndrug-wad is all used up; at any rate, he is sharply focused and rationally\nintent on saving his own life. Now the OWO says: \"Since they [ie the non-SC\npeople] first came here. Now I know that we were always here listening ...\nOr it may be that all are one stock ...\" So the OWO's final, least-addled\nguess is it that SC and the hill folk and the marsh folk all have the same\norigins.\n\nAnyway, that reading makes most sense to me. But I don't see the text as\npresenting the OWO's word even at this point as authoritative: he doesn't\nknow anything more about origins than the folk who generate him, and they\ndon't know very much - a dim memory of having been worms, and stories the\nSC concoct from listening to the thoughts of contemporary space-faring\nhumans.\n\nIn the context of \"Story\", I think it's quite reasonable to guess that no\nsentient being existed on St Anne before humans started travelling between\nthe stars (\"we either came recently ...\"), when the ancestor-worms picked\nup on space-farers' \"mind songs\" and started to produce copies. Some of\nthese turned into drug-addled SC; some into the hill folk and marsh folk.\nThey've only been around for perhaps a couple of hundred years or so at the\ntime of first French landing.\n\nOf course, in the context of the novellas, \"Story\" is just a story and\ndoesn't necessarily reflect the \"real\" situation ..." } ] }, { "message_id": "<53F6075F.8000908@bindweed.com>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2014-08-21T14:51:11+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 21/08/2014 14:25, Andrew Bollen wrote:\nI prefer a reading on which the OWO becomes less rather than more \nconfused as the Shadow Children are killed off.\n\nThe OWO subverts his star-traveller-origin story from the start: he \nhas no historical memory of when they were supposed to have arrived on \nSt Anne or where on Earth they were supposed to have come from. \"We \neither came recently or a long, long time ago ... Sometimes we try to \nrecall the name of our home ... But we hear also the mind-singing of \nour brothers ... as they pass up and down between the stars .... but \nthese thoughts come into our songs. It is possible that our home was \nnamed Atlantis or Mu - or Gondwanalnd, Africa, Poictesme, or The \nCountry of Friends. I, for five, remember all these names.\"\n\nThe origin names come from listening in to the thoughts of \ncontemporary star-travelling humans, not from any historical memory; \nlistening to stories, with no capacity for judging fiction versus fact." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "But why would contemporary human star travellers think about these \nplaces more? In my opinion it's a shout-out to the debate between David \nand No. 5 at the start of 5HOC, in which Atlantis and Gondwanaland are \nmentioned." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "So the text establishes that whatever he's going to say about origins \nhas little if any credibility; likely enough his tale includes \nelements pieced together from cheesy space-operas and so forth. It \ncertainly has that kind of tone: \"But we walked among you in power and \nmajesty and might, hissing like a thousand serpents as we splashed \ndown in you sea, stepping like conquerors ... \" etc etc." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "And unlike in most SF stories, starcrossers in _5HOC_ really do splash \ndown in the sea. Presumably they were wielding hand-lasers and such-like." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "As he talks, he rocks back and forth and \"his jaws moved vigorously as \nthough he were eating\". Why? Because the group of which he is the \n\"norm\" has serious substance issues and this story he's telling is \nthe fantasy of addled SC chewing away on their drug-leaves." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Also a good reason for some vagueness in detail, no?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "As the SC are killed off, Sandwalker's influence in the mix generating \nthe OWO becomes more important and the junkie-influence lessens. After \nthe first deaths, the OWO seems \"fainter than ever, but taller\", and \nyounger - taller and younger, presumably because tall young \nSandwalker has relatively more influence now. And the OWO says: \"We \nhad no names before men came out of the sky ... We were mostly long, \nand lived in holes between the roots of trees ... I am confused ... \nThere are so many of you now and so few of us.\"\n\nHis \"confusion\" is the confusion of a drug wearing off. Now there's a \n\"first\" and a \"second\" race, but he's no longer sure which is which." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "There were always two races in the story. The *only* thing he's \nconfused about is which is which." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Finally there's only one SC left, and it seems to me that this SC's \ndrug-wad is all used up; at any rate, he is sharply focused and \nrationally intent on saving his own life. Now the OWO says: \"Since \nthey [ie the non-SC people] first came here. Now I know that we were \nalways here listening ... Or it may be that all are one stock ...\" So \nthe OWO's final, least-addled guess is it that SC and the hill folk \nand the marsh folk all have the same origins." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "He still has his drug - later on he bites Eastwind and injects it into \nhis bloodstream. The OWO is at his most addled because his mind is now \nan equal mixture of the two races.." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Anyway, that reading makes most sense to me. But I don't see the text \nas presenting the OWO's word even at this point as authoritative: he \ndoesn't know anything more about origins than the folk who generate \nhim, and they don't know very much - a dim memory of having been \nworms, and stories the SC concoct from listening to the thoughts of \ncontemporary space-faring humans.\n\nIn the context of \"Story\", I think it's quite reasonable to guess that \nno sentient being existed on St Anne before humans started travelling \nbetween the stars (\"we either came recently ...\"), when the \nancestor-worms picked up on space-farers' \"mind songs\" and started to \nproduce copies. Some of these turned into drug-addled SC; some into \nthe hill folk and marsh folk. They've only been around for perhaps a \ncouple of hundred years or so at the time of first French landing." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "If you want to assume the story is invented or incorrect, fine - but he \ndoes say straight out that humans are his race and that they landed." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Of course, in the context of the novellas, \"Story\" is just a story and \ndoesn't necessarily reflect the \"real\" situation ..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Also perfectly true. But to my mind there is no particular reason why \nVictor the anthropologist should come up with a story that is incorrect \nin its broad thrust - even though clearly it's a dramatisation based on \nolal history and myth.\n\nI mean, what would actually be Wolfe's purpose in intending an alternate \nstory? In what way is a story of two rival aboriginal races, one of \nwhich clearly believes its ancestors are human but is incorrect despite \nits human memories, better than one in which there is one aboriginal \nrace, and one that is of human ancestry just as they say?\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "<53F6215C.1090603@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Pedro Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2014-08-21T16:42:04+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "<53F6075F.8000908@bindweed.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Gerry Quinn wrote (21-08-2014 15:51):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I mean, what would actually be Wolfe's purpose in intending an alternate\nstory? In what way is a story of two rival aboriginal races, one of which\nclearly believes its ancestors are human but is incorrect despite its human\nmemories, better than one in which there is one aboriginal race, and one\nthat is of human ancestry just as they say?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Precisely in that the former can be made to look like the latter while \nremaining recoverable. And making the whole exploration of identity more \nprofound, regardless of whether one follows Marc's (which I like) or Lee's \nmodel (which I like better)." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2014-08-21T16:54:08+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "<53F6215C.1090603@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Andrew Bollen: His \"confusion\" is the confusion of a drug wearing off. Now " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "there's a\"first\" and a \"second\" race, but he's no longer sure which is which." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Finally there's only one SC left, and it seems to me that this SC's\ndrug-wad is all used up; at any rate, he is sharply focused and rationally\nintent on saving his own life. Now the OWO says: \"Since they [ie the non-SC\npeople] first came here. Now I know that we were always here listening ...\nOr it may be that all are one stock ...\" So the OWO's final, least-addled\nguess is it that SC and the hill folk and the marsh folk all have the same\norigins." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This is my view also. One shape-shifting species is present in various stages\n\nof imitative, Lamarckian evolution. Self-deception at each stage of their\n\nevolution toward perfect human mimickry is a crucial part of their\n\ndisguise." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"It is possible that our home was named Atlantis or Mu - or\nGondwanalnd, Africa, Poictesme, or The Country of Friends. I, for five,\nremember all these names.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The origin names come from listening in to the thoughts of contemporary\nstar-travelling humans, not from any historical memory; listening to\nstories, with no capacity for judging fiction versus fact." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes. Part of the Shadow Children's imitation of humans comes from their \n\ntelepathic powers which can reach to passing spaceships, not just their\n\ndirect contact with humans. I'd note that the Shadow Children mix human\n\ngeographical locations with geological and fictional locations, as\n\nGondwanaland was a real place on earth which existed before humans evolved\n\nthere. There are some interesting implications to that. Who might the\n\nShadow Children have picked up thoughts from before the evolution of humans\n\non earth?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Of course, in the context of the novellas, \"Story\" is just a story and\ndoesn't necessarily reflect the \"real\" situation ..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes, but the story was written and inserted into the middle of this novel\n\nby Gene Wolfe for a purpose. Wolfe, in interviews, has invoked the\n\nstory writing law of Chekhov's gun. He cannot insert Shadow Children into \n\nthis novel unless they directly impinge on the stories of Number Five and \n\nDr. Marsch. \n\n\nAnd I think they do. I don't think this novel is simply the story of one person \n\n(a somewhat unlikeable person we really don't know very well or care about) being \n\nkilled and replaced. There has to be more to tie it all together.\n\n\nAnd what ties it together for me are the two scientific principles Dr. Marsch\n\ndiscusses in the first section- 1. Veil's Hypothesis, suggesting the entire human\n\npopulation of the system has been replaced. And 2. the Relaxation Principle which\n\ndescribes a process of gradual approximations and adjustments which would allow\n\nshapeless, shadowy things to eventually take near-perfect human form. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<53F6352A.2050109@bindweed.com>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2014-08-21T18:06:34+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 21/08/2014 17:54, Lee wrote:\nYes, but the story was written and inserted into the middle of this novel\nby Gene Wolfe for a purpose. Wolfe, in interviews, has invoked the\nstory writing law of Chekhov's gun. He cannot insert Shadow Children into\nthis novel unless they directly impinge on the stories of Number Five and\nDr. Marsch." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The history of the planets - and thus the lives of all those living \nthere - is dramatically modified by their late discovery by the bulk of \nthe human race, when the Shadow Children drop the psychic barrier they \nhave erected to keep other humans away. It seems likely that the war \nbetween the French and English-speaking colonists is a consequence of \nthe planet popping up unexpectedly in a region behind the main wave of \ncolonisation. The French landed first, but perhaps they were in a \nregion of space largely controlled by opposing elements. But in any \ncase, the Shadow Children are part of the solution to the mysteries of \nthe twin planets and their indigenous race. There is no need to invoke \nChechov's Gun.\n\n[Incidentally, the fact that the humans landing at the end of 'A Story' \n- presumably representative of those most frequently passing by nowadays \n- speak a different language from the Abos and Shadow Children, seems \nfurther evidence that the Shadow Children are not some kind of bizarre \nalien race who have convinced themselves that they are the passers-by \n(in contrast to their brothers, recently derived from the same race, who \nfor some reason are completely unaware of the starcrossers). The \nlanguage spoken on the planet is that of the original group of colonists \n- we don't know what it is except it is not French.]" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "And I think they do. I don't think this novel is simply the story of one person\n(a somewhat unlikeable person we really don't know very well or care about) being\nkilled and replaced. There has to be more to tie it all together." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Of course it isn't the story of the original Marsch. VRT is the story \nof Victor, the abo who replaces him - and of course a chapter in solving \nthe mysteries of the planets." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "And what ties it together for me are the two scientific principles Dr. Marsch\ndiscusses in the first section- 1. Veil's Hypothesis, suggesting the entire human\npopulation of the system has been replaced. And 2. the Relaxation Principle which\ndescribes a process of gradual approximations and adjustments which would allow\nshapeless, shadowy things to eventually take near-perfect human form. \t\t" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The abo who replaced Marsch, and who would seem well equipped to know, \ndoes not believe in Veil's Hypothesis. (Indeed, Veil herself provided a \nreason to disbelieve it any, pointing out her motivations for wanting to \nbelieve it.)\n\nThe relaxation method (not principle) was invoked by Marsch to describe \nwhat has happened to the clone sequence whose end-product is currently \nNo. 5 - each is now nearly identical to the previous one, because each \ngrows in the environment created by the previous one; the series has \nconverged to a fixed point, which is not a copy of anything external (in \na real problem it would be a previously unknown solution to a system of \nequations). Even if one were to take it as merely referring to any \nseries of approximations (and I will note that series of approximations \nare rather common, but one rarely hears of the relaxation method), there \nseems no particular reason to invent multiple races of aborigines so it \nmight be applied in an unrelated story.\n\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2014-08-22T13:59:33+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "<53F6352A.2050109@bindweed.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Gerry Quinn: I mean, what would actually be Wolfe's purpose in intending" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "an alternate story? In what way is a story of two rival aboriginal races, " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "one of which clearly believes its ancestors are human but is incorrect " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "despite its human memories, better than one in which there is one aboriginal \nrace, and one that is of human ancestry just as they say?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Antonio Pedro Marques: ...making the whole exploration of identity more \nprofound." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I feel Antonio has the answer. One can take a minimalist approach to\n\ninterpreting the novel and assume it is just one person who is killed\n\nand replaced. (keeping in mind that before the corroboration of this in a\n\nWolfe interview, some skeptics felt doubt over whether Dr. Marsch was replaced).\n\n\nOr one can extrapolate the story to the fullest in which every character\n\nin the book is struggling with personal identity issues (including #5's\n\nfamily but for different reasons there).\n\n\nThe advantage to the expanded interpretation is that it allows this book to\n\nserve as a sort of Proustian allegory for the human race. It allows Wolfe\n\nto express the sentiment that if we humans think about ourselves deeply \n\nenough, none of us really knows who we really are or where we really came \n\nfrom.\n\n\nNot everyone enjoys thinking about themselves or the human race in this\n\nmanner but this level of interpretation of 5HC exists for those who do\n\nlet their thoughts drift in this direction." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The abo who replaced Marsch, and who would seem well equipped to know..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No. You seem to be assuming that the killing and replacement of humans is a \n\nconscious function of these creatures. I (and others) are seeing the opposite:\n\n\nThe drive for killing and imitation is an unconscious instinct. The reason for\n\nthis is that a conscious awareness that you have killed and replaced somebody\n\nwould hinder your ability to imitate them. So from Shadow Children to Abos to\n\nVictor/Dr. Marsch there is a strong self-delusion happening, driving each \n\nimitator to think they really are their victim and to invent whatever lie is\n\nneeded to perpetrate that delusion.\n\n\nThus Victor does not continue writing in Dr. Marsch's personal journal to trick \n\nother people into thinking he is Dr. Marsch. He does it primarily to trick\n\nhimself." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "....does not believe in Veil's Hypothesis. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Exactly. How could an Abo believe in a theory which would expose his deception?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "(Indeed, Veil herself provided a reason to disbelieve it any, pointing out her " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "motivations for wanting to believe it.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "So Dr. Veil both formulates and disbelieves her theory that humans on these planets\n\nhave been replaced. Once again, Wolfe gives us a choice. Which story do YOU believe?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The relaxation method (not principle) was invoked by Marsch to describe \nwhat has happened to the clone sequence whose end-product is currently \nNo. 5 - each is now nearly identical to the previous one." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No. Marsch is using this principle to explain to Number Five why his chain of clones\n\napproach is NOT working. There is no adjustment. No adaptation. This is meant as\n\nirony, coming from a being who is (unconsciously) a master of adjustment and adaptation.\n\n\nNumber Five and Maitre's burning frustration is illustrated in the dream sequence. In the\n\ndream, the captain will not untether the ship until he can figure out what is tying the \n\nship to the dock. They (Number 5/Maitre) consider themselves superior but don't understand \n\nwhy they can't even achieve mastery of this one backwater planet.\n\n\nNumber Five doesn't want to hear it, but the answer to his question is given by \"Victor\" in \n\nthe guise of Dr. Marsch. Adjustment and adaptation, the exact abilities which have allowed \n\nthe native, imitative species to take over both planets. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com" }, "date": "2014-08-22T14:42:10+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On Fri, Aug 22, 2014 at 6:59 AM, Lee wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " They (Number 5/Maitre) consider themselves superior but don't understand\n\nwhy they can't even achieve mastery of this one backwater planet.\n\n\nNumber Five doesn't want to hear it, but the answer to his question is\ngiven by \"Victor\" in\n\nthe guise of Dr. Marsch. Adjustment and adaptation, the exact abilities\nwhich have allowed\n\nthe native, imitative species to take over both planets.\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2014-08-22T18:12:44+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Marc Aramini: Unfortunately, with no one to imitate, they have become " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "increasingly poor at doing this, and one day a man takes out the garbage " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "and the next he serves as a judge or police officer. Port Mimizon is broken. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Adaptability and adjustment taken too far without innovation and true " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "understanding of function leads to decadence or a repetition of meaningless " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "patterns." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I do think there is validity to this aspect of the story Marc.\n\n\nStill the Abos are able to perform such diverse human activities as making egg\n\nrolls, having sex, driving a horse and carriage, selling slaves, maintaining a\n\nprison, etc. The society hasn't completely collapsed.\n\n\nWhat I am wondering is whether it is hinted that this disease of imitators will\n\neventually arrive on Earth. Surely the disguise is good enough that they might\n\neventually be able to stowaway on a space ship.\n\n\nOr was that part of the story, with the spreading of such nasty, imitative \n\ncreatures put off until the appearance of Inhumi in Long/Short Sun? \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<53F8A432.8000906@bindweed.com>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2014-08-23T14:24:50+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On 22/08/2014 14:59, Lee wrote:\nGerry Quinn:\nThe abo who replaced Marsch, and who would seem well equipped to know..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "No. You seem to be assuming that the killing and replacement of humans is a\nconscious function of these creatures. I (and others) are seeing the opposite:\n\nThe drive for killing and imitation is an unconscious instinct. The reason for\nthis is that a conscious awareness that you have killed and replaced somebody\nwould hinder your ability to imitate them. So from Shadow Children to Abos to\nVictor/Dr. Marsch there is a strong self-delusion happening, driving each\nimitator to think they really are their victim and to invent whatever lie is\nneeded to perpetrate that delusion.\n\nThus Victor does not continue writing in Dr. Marsch's personal journal to trick\nother people into thinking he is Dr. Marsch. He does it primarily to trick\nhimself." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "We know that Victor knows he is imitating the original Marsch: \"I only \nhad to make my voice like his,and look older\".\n\nAs for whether he killed Marsch or Marsch met with an accident, we are \nnot actually told. Possibly there was an altercation initiated by \nMarsch in which Marsch got killed. There are hints that Marsch was \ndeveloping some kind of erotic obsession with the boy. Or perhaps being \nalone for a long period with someone who was startuing to imitate him \nhad a strange effect on the un-self reflective Marsch. The matter is \nmoot, I suppose. All we know is that Marsch did not return from the \nwilderness, while Victor did, writing a diary which now includes a \nfabricated report of Victor's death.\n\nThe diary has more than one function. He is, in a sense, trying to \nconvince himself he is human, as Wolfe has noted. But one does not trty \nto convince oneself of something one believes to be true.\n\nNot giving details of the killing or whatever is the sort of thing that \nWolfe's semi-naturalistic unreliable narrators do actually leave out - \nwe see it elsewhere with Alden Weer and Lois. They don't dwell on such \nthings as murders they may have committed. Neither, however, do they \nexist in a fugue state completely out of touch with conventional \nreality, which is what some of the theories advanced regarding 5HC seem \nto require, not just of the major narrators with their unusual issues, \nbut of pretty much everyone on the two planets.\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2014-08-25T03:13:12+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "<53F8A432.8000906@bindweed.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Gerry Quinn: If you are thinking of Marsch's first visit to Saltimbanque Street, " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "that was Victor. The original Marsch never visited Sainte Croix." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I can see that interpretation coming from Number Five's observation that a ship\n\nfrom Ste. Anne had landed on St. Croix the day before Marsch's first visit to \n\n666 Satimbanque St. \n\n\nHowever, I notice that months pass between Marsch's first and second visit.\n\nAlso, I think in his first visit Marsch is too familiar with cloning and\n\nthe scanning process which created Mr. Million. Information from Earth Victor\n\nwould likely not be privy to. Moreover, I don't think there would be travel from \n\na major travel hub like Earth directly to a backwater like Ste. Anne. More likely, \n\nthe direct travel is from Earth to the urbanized and civilized St. Croix.\n\n\nThus I continue to interpret that the first visit of Dr. Marsch was the real guy\n\nnewly landed from Earth. After first meeting Dr. Veil, he then found passage to Ste. \n\nAnne for his anthropological studies for a few months, was replaced and then returned \n\nto St. Croix and 666 Saltimbanque St. later. Marsch's first visit was to meet Dr. Veil. \n\nI don't see why Victor would want to do that. I would expect him to put as much \n\ndistance between himself and Veil's Hypothesis as possible. Marsch's second visit was \n\nfor the purpose of whoring which I think Victor is likely more interested in." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "all we know is that Marsch died and Victor took his place." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Again, we do not \"know\" this (unless you count Wolfe's interview as evidence). Within\n\nthe text, we are told the story that the boy died. Apparently, you do not believe this story?\n\n\nBy the same principles of deduction, others have recognized that other stories within this\n\nstory, including the Shadow Children story, are also false." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Perhaps indicating that devotion and scepticism can be carried to excess" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Indeed. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<53FB0782.7060501@bindweed.com>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2014-08-25T09:53:06+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On 25/08/2014 04:13, Lee wrote:\nGerry Quinn: If you are thinking of Marsch's first visit to Saltimbanque Street,that was Victor. The original Marsch never visited Sainte Croix." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I can see that interpretation coming from Number Five's observation that a ship\nfrom Ste. Anne had landed on St. Croix the day before Marsch's first visit to\n666 Satimbanque St." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Actually no, that but had nothing to do with my interpretation, which \ncomes from the timeline clearly given during Marsch's interrogation \n(P205+ in my edition). After splashing down on Sainte Anne, Marsch \nspent some months interviewing locals, before taking to the hills with \nVictor, where he died and Victor replaced him. Victor subsequently spent \nthree years in the hills. Then he came down and spent a year at \nRonceveaux University, before departing for Sainte Croix, where he has \nbeen for over a year.\n\nWhen No. 5 first meets (neo)Marsch, it is more than four years since his \nreplacement by Victor." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "However, I notice that months pass between Marsch's first and second visit.\nAlso, I think in his first visit Marsch is too familiar with cloning and\nthe scanning process which created Mr. Million. Information from Earth Victor\nwould likely not be privy to. Moreover, I don't think there would be travel from\na major travel hub like Earth directly to a backwater like Ste. Anne. More likely,\nthe direct travel is from Earth to the urbanized and civilized St. Croix." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Sainte Anne is not particularly a backwater. Remember that Marsch's \ndescriptions of the place relate to a backwater town, whereas on Saint \nCroix we see only a city. In any case, Victor had two years in two \ndifferent universities to familiarise himself with science and technology." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Thus I continue to interpret that the first visit of Dr. Marsch was the real guy\nnewly landed from Earth. After first meeting Dr. Veil, he then found passage to Ste.\nAnne for his anthropological studies for a few months, was replaced and then returned\nto St. Croix and 666 Saltimbanque St. later. Marsch's first visit was to meet Dr. Veil." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Even if you ignore his green eyes (and since Marsch noted that the boy's \neyes were a startling green, without mentioning his own, we may infer \nthat his were not - I am assuming of course that in the interests of a \ngood story, Wolfe is no more inclined to invoke biometric passports than \nhe is to give his characters cellphones) there is a clear time-gap of \nover 4 years between Marsch's replacement by Victor and the time of his \narrest. While No. 5's first meeting with Marsch appears to have \nhappened about a year before his arrest." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "all we know is that Marsch died and Victor took his place." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Again, we do not \"know\" this (unless you count Wolfe's interview as evidence). Within\nthe text, we are told the story that the boy died. Apparently, you do not believe this story?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Text that is plainly written by the boy (we arre practically told so in \nso many words when Wolfe tells us of the officer looking at the text, \ncomparing it with Victor's school composition book, and nodding), who \nhad a clear reason to write it.\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2014-08-25T12:30:29+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "<53FB0782.7060501@bindweed.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Gerry Quinn: my interpretation, which comes from the timeline clearly" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "given during Marsch's interrogation." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Since I consider Number Five to be a much more reliable narrator than \n\nVRT, I tend to base my understanding of what happens more on the first\n\nsection of the novel than the final section. But I will check out VRT's\n\ntimeline for signs I am mistaken about Marsch's arrival." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Text that is plainly written by the boy (we arre practically told so in \nso many words when Wolfe tells us of the officer looking at the text, \ncomparing it with Victor's school composition book, and nodding), who \nhad a clear reason to write it." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Your interpretation of the \"nodding\" is just that- your interpretation.\n\nMarsch himself ostensibly explains the change in his handwriting as being\n\ndue to a cat bite. He explicitly explains that the handwriting change \n\nlasts long after the bite has healed, and appears to be permanent.\n\n\nYour assessment that the \"cat bite\" explanation is a lie and the \"Marsch is\n\nreally an Abo\" explanation is true is purely speculation and conjecture on\n\nyour part. Speculation, it has been noted, which others readers in the past\n\ndid not find convincing.\n\n\nPerhaps, as you note in your previous post, skepticism can be taken too far\n\nin interpreting Wolfe's work. But perhaps imaginative speculation can be taken\n\ntoo far in the other direction also.\n\n\nWhere does one draw the line on what is plausible? My point is and has always\n\nbeen that the placement of that line is arbitrary and individualized. Each \n\nperson draws that line where it feels most comfortable to them.\n\n\nSome think (or thought) Dr. Marsch was not replaced. Some think everyone was \n\nreplaced. Some think only Dr. Marsch was replaced. Others think everyone except \n\nNumber Five and his family were replaced. The book is written to allow for such \n\nlatitude in interpretation. Draw the line where you feel comfortable.\n\n\nGiven that a Wolfe interview changed some people's minds about Dr. Marsch not\n\nbeing replaced, there may be the suggestion that too much skepticism is the \n\ngraver error in reading Wolfe. This seem appropriate for a religious author \n\nwho finds himself writing for an ocean of atheistic readers. But that's just\n\nmy own view. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<53FB39A9.8070906@bindweed.com>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2014-08-25T13:27:05+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On 25/08/2014 13:30, Lee wrote:\nGerry Quinn: my interpretation, which comes from the timeline clearly given during Marsch's interrogation." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Since I consider Number Five to be a much more reliable narrator than \nVRT, I tend to base my understanding of what happens more on the first \nsection of the novel than the final section. But I will check out \nVRT's timeline for signs I am mistaken about Marsch's arrival. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "There's no contradiction between the two. The first section indicates \nthat the best part of a year passed between Marsch's first visit and the \nmurder of No. 5's father. In the third section it is indicated that \nMarsch has been on Sainte Croix for over a year." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Text that is plainly written by the boy (we arre practically told so in\nso many words when Wolfe tells us of the officer looking at the text,\ncomparing it with Victor's school composition book, and nodding), who\nhad a clear reason to write it." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Your interpretation of the \"nodding\" is just that- your interpretation.\nMarsch himself ostensibly explains the change in his handwriting as being\ndue to a cat bite. He explicitly explains that the handwriting change\nlasts long after the bite has healed, and appears to be permanent." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "He does not explain how his writing became similar to that of the boy \nwho supposedly died.\n\nNor does the above explain 'Marsch's' ruminations in his cell about his \nabo mother, and the hard time he had learning to write as a schoolboy." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Where does one draw the line on what is plausible? My point is and has always\nbeen that the placement of that line is arbitrary and individualized. Each\nperson draws that line where it feels most comfortable to them." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I would propose the following criterion: a plausible theory is one in \nwhich no character - at least if they are sane enough to function to \nsome degree in human society - is delusional regarding concrete matters.\n\nCharacters are permitted to speak figuratively, to dream, and to lie \nwith reason; and text relating to such sources need not and should not \nbe interpreted as embodying literal truths about events and characters \nin the story.\n\n\n - Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com" }, "date": "2014-08-25T14:21:18+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "<53FB39A9.8070906@bindweed.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Marsch had already been to St Anne and been replaced when he met Number\nFive. They look at each other and instantly recognize a few things -\nMarsch sees Number Five is a clone and Number Five sees that Marsch is not\na human with his green eyes, calling him an abo (or at least half\nabo). There isn't time between Marsch mentions in \"The Fifth Head of\nCerberus\" for him to have gone to St. Anne in between - the Marsch who\nshows up is the one who has lived through the events in \"VRT\".\n\n(The killed stag's eyes on VRT are also affected by something happening in\nthem which doubles the pupil, which seems to be undergoing meiosis or\nmitosis (I favor meiosis, of course), and the great pits Eye and Other Eye\nin A Story at first led me to think there was some kind of eye infection\ngoing on, but that didn't hold up - but it does show that the eyes on St.\nAnne can be affected by something. As I said, much as the Shadow Children\ncreate an empathetic identity based on who is around them, the cat had\ncreated a Victor empathy which was passed on to Marsch)\n\nRegardless of the above parenthesis, Marsch had been replaced by something\nby the time Number Five met him, and I thought it was funny how easily they\nrecognized the identity of the other, resonating with the theme of Trip,\nTrap - objective reality sometimes isn't that hard to spot by someone with\nno subjective bias. I no longer feel that way about Fifth Head, though." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Mon, Aug 25, 2014 at 6:27 AM, Gerry Quinn wrote:\n\nOn 25/08/2014 13:30, Lee wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Gerry Quinn: my interpretation, which comes from the timeline clearly\ngiven during Marsch's interrogation." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Since I consider Number Five to be a much more reliable narrator than\nVRT, I tend to base my understanding of what happens more on the first\nsection of the novel than the final section. But I will check out VRT's\ntimeline for signs I am mistaken about Marsch's arrival." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "There's no contradiction between the two. The first section indicates\nthat the best part of a year passed between Marsch's first visit and the\nmurder of No. 5's father. In the third section it is indicated that Marsch\nhas been on Sainte Croix for over a year.\n\n\n Text that is plainly written by the boy (we arre practically told so in\nso many words when Wolfe tells us of the officer looking at the text,\ncomparing it with Victor's school composition book, and nodding), who\nhad a clear reason to write it." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Your interpretation of the \"nodding\" is just that- your interpretation.\nMarsch himself ostensibly explains the change in his handwriting as being\ndue to a cat bite. He explicitly explains that the handwriting change\nlasts long after the bite has healed, and appears to be permanent.\n\n He does not explain how his writing became similar to that of the boy\nwho supposedly died." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Nor does the above explain 'Marsch's' ruminations in his cell about his\nabo mother, and the hard time he had learning to write as a schoolboy.\n\n\n Where does one draw the line on what is plausible? My point is and has\nalways\nbeen that the placement of that line is arbitrary and individualized. Each\nperson draws that line where it feels most comfortable to them." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I would propose the following criterion: a plausible theory is one in\nwhich no character - at least if they are sane enough to function to some\ndegree in human society - is delusional regarding concrete matters.\n\nCharacters are permitted to speak figuratively, to dream, and to lie with\nreason; and text relating to such sources need not and should not be\ninterpreted as embodying literal truths about events and characters in the\nstory.\n\n\n - Gerry Quinn\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2014-08-26T11:19:39+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Marc Aramini: Marsch had already been to St Anne and been" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "replaced when he met Number Five." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "You and Gerry are in agreement on that. The rarity of this\n\nis almost enough by itself to convince me. Moreover, I've\n\nnever been good at fictional timelines.\n\n\nIt still seems odd that a visiting anthropologist would not\n\nstop in to see the resident expert first, rather than diving\n\nright into field study and finding the expert later. Also, I\n\ndon't see why Victor would seek out the theorist who correctly\n\nhypothesized that he is a fake. Avoiding her would seem the \n\nmore logical deceptive strategy." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "He does not explain how his writing became similar to that of" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "the boy who supposedly died. Nor does the above explain 'Marsch's' " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "ruminations in his cell about his abo mother, and the hard time he " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "had learning to write as a schoolboy" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It remains conjecture rather than a part of the text that Victor\n\nhas replaced Dr. Marsch. Conjecture which was rejected by some\n\nreaders. \n\n\nNowhere in the text does it say \"Victor replaced Marsch\". Only \n\nwhen those words appeared in a Wolfe interview did the skeptics\n\nrelent in demanding to be shown where in the text it says that\n\nVictor replaced Marsch.\n\n\nThe point being that if Wolfe makes his point about Victor without\n\never putting it in the text, then surely Wolfe is making other points\n\nwithout putting it in the text in this and in his other works. There \n\nare no rules on how far to take speculation and conjecture except one's \n\nown feelings and emotions. \"This seems right to me\" is the best we \n\ncan each do.\n\n\nCurrently, you and Marc feel that Marsch was an abo when he first\n\nmet Dr. Veil. Currently that doesn't feel right to me. Currently,\n\nMarc and I feel that virtually all humans were replaced on St. Croix\n\nwhile, currently, that does not feel right to you.\n\n\nNaturally we each go by what feels right to us. We are dealing with\n\nfictional creations which do not exist except as insubstantial mental\n\nconstructs. 5HoC does not exist other than in the form of our own \n\nthoughts and feelings. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com" }, "date": "2014-08-26T13:52:11+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No lee, I think he was a shadow child, which is very different than an abo.\n I think Abos and shadow children have completely different life cycles.\n Thus he is persecuted. Everyone else is an abo, however, and the switch\nhappened as soon as they landed on ste Anne at the same time Sandwalker and\neastwind were switched (Trenchard later says his ancestor is the east wind\nwho met the Landers) when all of a \"they\" can't recognize what open hands\nmean. (Or is that a universal signal everywhere but in France? nope).\n Abos go from larva to adult imitative form to immobile carapace (the trees\nat the brothel disappear during certain seasons - we assume they have been\nuprooted) and the shadow children are many who become one - a group\nconsciousness formed by a colony of cells (as all living things are, save\nthat this one promulgates through infection). They took over ste croix\nabout 140 years ago and Marsch asks why all the buildings are so\nridiculously old - Abos don't build new things, they just imitate things\nalready in place." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On Tuesday, August 26, 2014, Lee wrote:\nMarc Aramini: Marsch had already been to St Anne and been" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "replaced when he met Number Five." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "You and Gerry are in agreement on that. The rarity of this\n\nis almost enough by itself to convince me. Moreover, I've\n\nnever been good at fictional timelines.\n\n\nIt still seems odd that a visiting anthropologist would not\n\nstop in to see the resident expert first, rather than diving\n\nright into field study and finding the expert later. Also, I\n\ndon't see why Victor would seek out the theorist who correctly\n\nhypothesized that he is a fake. Avoiding her would seem the\n\nmore logical deceptive strategy." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "He does not explain how his writing became similar to that of" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "the boy who supposedly died. Nor does the above explain 'Marsch's'" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "ruminations in his cell about his abo mother, and the hard time he" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "had learning to write as a schoolboy" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It remains conjecture rather than a part of the text that Victor\n\nhas replaced Dr. Marsch. Conjecture which was rejected by some\n\nreaders.\n\n\nNowhere in the text does it say \"Victor replaced Marsch\". Only\n\nwhen those words appeared in a Wolfe interview did the skeptics\n\nrelent in demanding to be shown where in the text it says that\n\nVictor replaced Marsch.\n\n\nThe point being that if Wolfe makes his point about Victor without\n\never putting it in the text, then surely Wolfe is making other points\n\nwithout putting it in the text in this and in his other works. There\n\nare no rules on how far to take speculation and conjecture except one's\n\nown feelings and emotions. \"This seems right to me\" is the best we\n\ncan each do.\n\n\nCurrently, you and Marc feel that Marsch was an abo when he first\n\nmet Dr. Veil. Currently that doesn't feel right to me. Currently,\n\nMarc and I feel that virtually all humans were replaced on St. Croix\n\nwhile, currently, that does not feel right to you.\n\n\nNaturally we each go by what feels right to us. We are dealing with\n\nfictional creations which do not exist except as insubstantial mental\n\nconstructs. 5HoC does not exist other than in the form of our own\n\nthoughts and feelings.\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<53FCB6AC.80600@bindweed.com>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2014-08-26T16:32:44+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 26/08/2014 12:19, Lee wrote:\nIt still seems odd that a visiting anthropologist would not stop in to \nsee the resident expert first, rather than diving right into field \nstudy and finding the expert later. Also, I don't see why Victor would \nseek out the theorist who correctly hypothesized that he is a fake. \nAvoiding her would seem the more logical deceptive strategy. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "She's an amateur. Probably barely heard of on Earth, if at all. And \nanyway, her theory is wrong and even a bit silly." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "He does not explain how his writing became similar to that of the boy who supposedly died. Nor does the above explain 'Marsch's' ruminations in his cell about his abo mother, and the hard time he had learning to write as a schoolboy\nIt remains conjecture rather than a part of the text that Victor\nhas replaced Dr. Marsch. Conjecture which was rejected by some\nreaders." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That readers have made incorrect interpretations is a poor argument for \naccepting interpretations uncritically." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Currently, you and Marc feel that Marsch was an abo when he first\nmet Dr. Veil. Currently that doesn't feel right to me. Currently,\nMarc and I feel that virtually all humans were replaced on St. Croix\nwhile, currently, that does not feel right to you.\n\nNaturally we each go by what feels right to us. We are dealing with\nfictional creations which do not exist except as insubstantial mental\nconstructs. 5HoC does not exist other than in the form of our own\nthoughts and feelings. \t\t \t \t\t\n___" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Actually it exists in the form of a text, which Wolfe doubtless intended \nto have some degree of consistency.\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2014-08-26T17:31:32+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "<53FCB6AC.80600@bindweed.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Marc Aramini: No lee, I think he was a shadow child, which is very different" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "than an abo." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Thanks Marc. I had forgotten that aspect of your view and I appreciate the\n\nreminder." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Gerry Quinn: She's (Dr. Veil) an amateur. Probably barely heard of on Earth." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Apparently somebody has heard of her and is aware of her work. And to assume only\n\none person in the universe is familiar with her seems rather unlikely. If Dr. \n\nMarsch was preparing for an anthropological trip to St. Croix/Ste. Anne it seems\n\nunlikely he would not have encountered her work. If I am going to study the\n\nYanomamo there is no way I am not going to be familiar with Chagnon's work." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "And anyway, her theory is wrong and even a bit silly." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "so you have decided that Dr. Marsch had not been replaced by an abo?\n\n\nBecause if he was, it renders Veil's hypothesis at least partially correct.\n\nAnd if something has happened once, why is it silly to consider that it has\n\nhappened more than once?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Actually it (5HoC) exists in the form of a text." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Text consists only of black on white markings. There is no meaning to them, except\n\nfor what exists in certain people's minds. There is no physical reality to any\n\nof the fictional elements of 5Hc. It's all in your head (and mine, and others). \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<53FDAF9D.8050509@bindweed.com>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2014-08-27T10:14:53+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On 26/08/2014 18:31, Lee wrote:\nGerry Quinn: She's (Dr. Veil) an amateur. Probably barely heard of on Earth." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Apparently somebody has heard of her and is aware of her work. And to assume only\none person in the universe is familiar with her seems rather unlikely. If Dr.\nMarsch was preparing for an anthropological trip to St. Croix/Ste. Anne it seems\nunlikely he would not have encountered her work. If I am going to study the\nYanomamo there is no way I am not going to be familiar with Chagnon's work." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Read his interrogation, about pp205-215. He goes into a fair amount of \ndetail (of course, for the period when he was Victor, he may have had \nulterior motives, but I think he is genuinely interested - even more \nthan the original Marsch - in teasing out the story of his people. I \nsee 'A Story' as possibly something he wrote much later, after being \nreleased.\n\nAnyway, he did visit the university at Ronceveaux on Sainte Anne after \nhe splashed down, and after three years in the hills he spent a year \nthere, and \"caught up on the literature of my profession\" (of course \nneo-Marsch needed this more than the original). But he was disappointed \nin the academic standards. \"I was anxious to taolk to anyone in this \nsystem who was interested in its archaeological puzzles. The situation \nthere [at Roncevaux] was hopeless, so I boarded the starcrosser.\"\n\nHowever, regardless of Veil's fame or otherwise, the simplest \nexplanation is that - as explained to No. 5 and his father - the twin \nplanets are twenty light years from Earth. Thus if the current year is \n2900, Marsch departed from Earth in 2880, and would have been familiar \nonly with scientific reports from the twin planets dating from 2860 and \nbefore. Travelling to Sainte Anne, he effectively travelled forty years \ninto the future." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "And anyway, her theory is wrong and even a bit silly." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "so you have decided that Dr. Marsch had not been replaced by an abo?\nBecause if he was, it renders Veil's hypothesis at least partially correct.\nAnd if something has happened once, why is it silly to consider that it has\nhappened more than once?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "He has been replaced, but he is aware of his nature, even if he \"tries \nto convince himself he is human\" as Wolfe puts it. Two planets full of \ncompletely insane creatures who think they are individual humans they \ncopied is silly. And Victor's imitation of Marsch did not happen in a \nflash, it took him some time. (Also it was three years before he came \ndown from the hills, suggesting he was not confident walking back into \nhuman society as Marsch after mere months. Anyone who knew Marsch would \nhave spotted him as an imposter straight away. The police on Sainte \nCroix knew there was something 'off' about him, as did No. 5. He \navoided Victor's father.)\n\nIt is the wholesale replacement invoked by Veil's Hypothesis that is silly.\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "<53FDBCDF.6000904@bindweed.com>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2014-08-27T11:11:27+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 26/08/2014 14:52, Marc Aramini wrote:\nNo lee, I think he was a shadow child, which is very different than an \nabo. I think Abos and shadow children have completely different life \ncycles. Thus he is persecuted. Everyone else is an abo, however, and \nthe switch happened as soon as they landed on ste Anne at the same \ntime Sandwalker and eastwind were switched (Trenchard later says his \nancestor is the east wind who met the Landers) when all of a \n\"they\" can't recognize what open hands mean. (Or is that a universal \nsignal everywhere but in France? nope). Abos go from larva to adult \nimitative form to immobile carapace (the trees at the brothel \ndisappear during certain seasons - we assume they have been uprooted) \nand the shadow children are many who become one - a group \nconsciousness formed by a colony of cells (as all living things are, \nsave that this one promulgates through infection). They took over ste \ncroix about 140 years ago and Marsch asks why all the buildings are so \nridiculously old - Abos don't build new things, they just imitate \nthings already in place. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Marc, I think I only realised this morning where you get the 'open \nhands' idea from. The text says:\n\n\"When he [Sandwalker] came close to them [the just-landed French] they \nextended their hands, open, and smiled; but he did not understand that \nopen hands meant (or had meant, once) that they held no weapons. His \npeople had never known weapons.\"\n\nYou seem to often read things hyper-literally and leap to hypotheses \nthat seem, frankly, pretty wild to me. For example, in the above, you \nare proposing some sort of instant wiping of the memory of the French \nlanders, unprecedented and unheralded anywhere else in the story - and \nnot even consistent with either imitation and parasite infection, which \nalready constitute one mechanism of substitution too many.\n\nHere is the non-hyper-literal interpretation. The French hold out open \nhands and smile to indicate they are friendly. Open hands are a \ntraditional gesture meaning \"I hold no weapons\". Sandwalker doesn't \nunderstand it because his people don't use weapons.\n\nWhat of the parenthesised \"(or had meant, once)\"? Simply this: in the \ntwenty-ninth century, or whatever, we may assume that weapons exist that \ndon't need to be held in the hands. Automated gun turrets that can be \nactivated with a thought, perhaps - very likely such devices are being \ntested right now in 2014. So the open hands gesture can't be taken \nliterally any more. It's just a minor digression by Wolfe. Not a \nsecret clue that disintegrates the remainder of the text by showing that \nthe minds of the French are wiped instantly for some reason.\n\nThis is far from the only such example. Do the trees at Saltimbanque \nStreet walk away at certain seasons? I'm not even going to look. But \nif they do, I'm going to assume it's simply the work of Maitre's \ngardener, unless substantially more is said about the matter!\n\nAs for the old buildings, both you and Lee have noted this. But \nPort-Mimizon is an urban area that has suffered a reduction in \npopulation. Marsch notes that Frenchman's Landing is newly-built, \nthough its architecture does not impress him. Sainte Anne has recently \ninstalled weather control satellites, and is replacing its shipping \ntechnology with \"modern sail-propelled vessels\" similar to those on \nEarth. They've got tech. [If Sainte Croix is all abo, Sainte Anne must \nobviously be too.]\n\nI've said it before, Wolfe is not trying to trick or trap readers. He's \nnot writing a load of nonsense and hiding the clues to the real story in \nisolated words or phrases or names. If he wants to tell us something, \nhe will tell it. Look at Long Sun, he didn't do the cheap trick that \nwould appeal to some authors of making the inhabitants of the Whorl \nliterally unaware they are in a spaceship. Their unawareness is \nnaturalistic - they just don't *think* about it. He doesn't write \nplanets of completely delusional lunatics. He writes madmen, but they \nwill usually stop mumbling when spoken to, and their delusions are \nsimilar to those of actual madmen. They do not think the sky is orange, \nfor example, or if they do at least they will have tried to come up with \nsome explanation for why it looks blue!\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com" }, "date": "2014-08-27T13:27:24+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "<53FDBCDF.6000904@bindweed.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "son of a gun what version of the text do you have?!!!! In the ACE paperback\nit says\n\"When he came close to them they extended hands, open, and smiled; but THEY\ndid not understand open hands meant (or had meant, once) that they held no\nweapons.\"\n\nI am so super pissed at copy editors right now. Mine is the version with\nMany Pink Butterflies instead of Mary Pink Butterflies as well." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 4:11 AM, Gerry Quinn wrote:\n\nOn 26/08/2014 14:52, Marc Aramini wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "No lee, I think he was a shadow child, which is very different than an\nabo. I think Abos and shadow children have completely different life\ncycles. Thus he is persecuted. Everyone else is an abo, however, and the\nswitch happened as soon as they landed on ste Anne at the same time\nSandwalker and eastwind were switched (Trenchard later says his ancestor is\nthe east wind who met the Landers) when all of a \"they\" can't recognize\nwhat open hands mean. (Or is that a universal signal everywhere but in\nFrance? nope). Abos go from larva to adult imitative form to immobile\ncarapace (the trees at the brothel disappear during certain seasons - we\nassume they have been uprooted) and the shadow children are many who become\none - a group consciousness formed by a colony of cells (as all living\nthings are, save that this one promulgates through infection). They took\nover ste croix about 140 years ago and Marsch asks why all the buildings\nare so ridiculously old - Abos don't build new things, they just imitate\nthings already in place." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Marc, I think I only realised this morning where you get the 'open hands'\nidea from. The text says:\n\n\"When he [Sandwalker] came close to them [the just-landed French] they\nextended their hands, open, and smiled; but he did not understand that open\nhands meant (or had meant, once) that they held no weapons. His people had\nnever known weapons.\"\n\nYou seem to often read things hyper-literally and leap to hypotheses that\nseem, frankly, pretty wild to me. For example, in the above, you are\nproposing some sort of instant wiping of the memory of the French landers,\nunprecedented and unheralded anywhere else in the story - and not even\nconsistent with either imitation and parasite infection, which already\nconstitute one mechanism of substitution too many.\n\nHere is the non-hyper-literal interpretation. The French hold out open\nhands and smile to indicate they are friendly. Open hands are a\ntraditional gesture meaning \"I hold no weapons\". Sandwalker doesn't\nunderstand it because his people don't use weapons.\n\nWhat of the parenthesised \"(or had meant, once)\"? Simply this: in the\ntwenty-ninth century, or whatever, we may assume that weapons exist that\ndon't need to be held in the hands. Automated gun turrets that can be\nactivated with a thought, perhaps - very likely such devices are being\ntested right now in 2014. So the open hands gesture can't be taken\nliterally any more. It's just a minor digression by Wolfe. Not a secret\nclue that disintegrates the remainder of the text by showing that the minds\nof the French are wiped instantly for some reason.\n\nThis is far from the only such example. Do the trees at Saltimbanque\nStreet walk away at certain seasons? I'm not even going to look. But if\nthey do, I'm going to assume it's simply the work of Maitre's gardener,\nunless substantially more is said about the matter!\n\nAs for the old buildings, both you and Lee have noted this. But\nPort-Mimizon is an urban area that has suffered a reduction in population.\nMarsch notes that Frenchman's Landing is newly-built, though its\narchitecture does not impress him. Sainte Anne has recently installed\nweather control satellites, and is replacing its shipping technology with\n\"modern sail-propelled vessels\" similar to those on Earth. They've got\ntech. [If Sainte Croix is all abo, Sainte Anne must obviously be too.]\n\nI've said it before, Wolfe is not trying to trick or trap readers. He's\nnot writing a load of nonsense and hiding the clues to the real story in\nisolated words or phrases or names. If he wants to tell us something, he\nwill tell it. Look at Long Sun, he didn't do the cheap trick that would\nappeal to some authors of making the inhabitants of the Whorl literally\nunaware they are in a spaceship. Their unawareness is naturalistic - they\njust don't *think* about it. He doesn't write planets of completely\ndelusional lunatics. He writes madmen, but they will usually stop mumbling\nwhen spoken to, and their delusions are similar to those of actual madmen.\nThey do not think the sky is orange, for example, or if they do at least\nthey will have tried to come up with some explanation for why it looks blue!\n\n- Gerry Quinn\n\n\n\n\n\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com" }, "date": "2014-08-27T13:29:45+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The editor who changed \"then I walked into the room\" to \"then Horn walked\ninto the room\" did it without Wolfe's knowledge and he is mad about it.\n\nI really think an editor changed that - scrofulous, unfortunate, lame,\nterrible, anger burning in my veins." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 6:27 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nson of a gun what version of the text do you have?!!!! In the ACE\npaperback it says\n\"When he came close to them they extended hands, open, and smiled; but\nTHEY did not understand open hands meant (or had meant, once) that they\nheld no weapons.\"\n\nI am so super pissed at copy editors right now. Mine is the version with\nMany Pink Butterflies instead of Mary Pink Butterflies as well.\n\n\n\n\nOn Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 4:11 AM, Gerry Quinn wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On 26/08/2014 14:52, Marc Aramini wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "No lee, I think he was a shadow child, which is very different than an\nabo. I think Abos and shadow children have completely different life\ncycles. Thus he is persecuted. Everyone else is an abo, however, and the\nswitch happened as soon as they landed on ste Anne at the same time\nSandwalker and eastwind were switched (Trenchard later says his ancestor is\nthe east wind who met the Landers) when all of a \"they\" can't recognize\nwhat open hands mean. (Or is that a universal signal everywhere but in\nFrance? nope). Abos go from larva to adult imitative form to immobile\ncarapace (the trees at the brothel disappear during certain seasons - we\nassume they have been uprooted) and the shadow children are many who become\none - a group consciousness formed by a colony of cells (as all living\nthings are, save that this one promulgates through infection). They took\nover ste croix about 140 years ago and Marsch asks why all the buildings\nare so ridiculously old - Abos don't build new things, they just imitate\nthings already in place." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Marc, I think I only realised this morning where you get the 'open hands'\nidea from. The text says:\n\n\"When he [Sandwalker] came close to them [the just-landed French] they\nextended their hands, open, and smiled; but he did not understand that open\nhands meant (or had meant, once) that they held no weapons. His people had\nnever known weapons.\"\n\nYou seem to often read things hyper-literally and leap to hypotheses that\nseem, frankly, pretty wild to me. For example, in the above, you are\nproposing some sort of instant wiping of the memory of the French landers,\nunprecedented and unheralded anywhere else in the story - and not even\nconsistent with either imitation and parasite infection, which already\nconstitute one mechanism of substitution too many.\n\nHere is the non-hyper-literal interpretation. The French hold out open\nhands and smile to indicate they are friendly. Open hands are a\ntraditional gesture meaning \"I hold no weapons\". Sandwalker doesn't\nunderstand it because his people don't use weapons.\n\nWhat of the parenthesised \"(or had meant, once)\"? Simply this: in the\ntwenty-ninth century, or whatever, we may assume that weapons exist that\ndon't need to be held in the hands. Automated gun turrets that can be\nactivated with a thought, perhaps - very likely such devices are being\ntested right now in 2014. So the open hands gesture can't be taken\nliterally any more. It's just a minor digression by Wolfe. Not a secret\nclue that disintegrates the remainder of the text by showing that the minds\nof the French are wiped instantly for some reason.\n\nThis is far from the only such example. Do the trees at Saltimbanque\nStreet walk away at certain seasons? I'm not even going to look. But if\nthey do, I'm going to assume it's simply the work of Maitre's gardener,\nunless substantially more is said about the matter!\n\nAs for the old buildings, both you and Lee have noted this. But\nPort-Mimizon is an urban area that has suffered a reduction in population.\nMarsch notes that Frenchman's Landing is newly-built, though its\narchitecture does not impress him. Sainte Anne has recently installed\nweather control satellites, and is replacing its shipping technology with\n\"modern sail-propelled vessels\" similar to those on Earth. They've got\ntech. [If Sainte Croix is all abo, Sainte Anne must obviously be too.]\n\nI've said it before, Wolfe is not trying to trick or trap readers. He's\nnot writing a load of nonsense and hiding the clues to the real story in\nisolated words or phrases or names. If he wants to tell us something, he\nwill tell it. Look at Long Sun, he didn't do the cheap trick that would\nappeal to some authors of making the inhabitants of the Whorl literally\nunaware they are in a spaceship. Their unawareness is naturalistic - they\njust don't *think* about it. He doesn't write planets of completely\ndelusional lunatics. He writes madmen, but they will usually stop mumbling\nwhen spoken to, and their delusions are similar to those of actual madmen.\nThey do not think the sky is orange, for example, or if they do at least\nthey will have tried to come up with some explanation for why it looks blue!\n\n- Gerry Quinn\n\n\n\n\n\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com" }, "date": "2014-08-27T13:32:28+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I am positing that \"they\" in the ace paperback shifted mid sentence. Now\nwe have to guess whether an editor who didn't get it or Gene changed it." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 6:29 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nThe editor who changed \"then I walked into the room\" to \"then Horn walked\ninto the room\" did it without Wolfe's knowledge and he is mad about it.\n\nI really think an editor changed that - scrofulous, unfortunate, lame,\nterrible, anger burning in my veins.\n\n\nOn Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 6:27 AM, Marc Aramini \nwrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "son of a gun what version of the text do you have?!!!! In the ACE\npaperback it says\n\"When he came close to them they extended hands, open, and smiled; but\nTHEY did not understand open hands meant (or had meant, once) that they\nheld no weapons.\"\n\nI am so super pissed at copy editors right now. Mine is the version with\nMany Pink Butterflies instead of Mary Pink Butterflies as well.\n\n\n\n\nOn Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 4:11 AM, Gerry Quinn wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "On 26/08/2014 14:52, Marc Aramini wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 4, "text": "No lee, I think he was a shadow child, which is very different than an\nabo. I think Abos and shadow children have completely different life\ncycles. Thus he is persecuted. Everyone else is an abo, however, and the\nswitch happened as soon as they landed on ste Anne at the same time\nSandwalker and eastwind were switched (Trenchard later says his ancestor is\nthe east wind who met the Landers) when all of a \"they\" can't recognize\nwhat open hands mean. (Or is that a universal signal everywhere but in\nFrance? nope). Abos go from larva to adult imitative form to immobile\ncarapace (the trees at the brothel disappear during certain seasons - we\nassume they have been uprooted) and the shadow children are many who become\none - a group consciousness formed by a colony of cells (as all living\nthings are, save that this one promulgates through infection). They took\nover ste croix about 140 years ago and Marsch asks why all the buildings\nare so ridiculously old - Abos don't build new things, they just imitate\nthings already in place." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Marc, I think I only realised this morning where you get the 'open\nhands' idea from. The text says:\n\n\"When he [Sandwalker] came close to them [the just-landed French] they\nextended their hands, open, and smiled; but he did not understand that open\nhands meant (or had meant, once) that they held no weapons. His people had\nnever known weapons.\"\n\nYou seem to often read things hyper-literally and leap to hypotheses\nthat seem, frankly, pretty wild to me. For example, in the above, you are\nproposing some sort of instant wiping of the memory of the French landers,\nunprecedented and unheralded anywhere else in the story - and not even\nconsistent with either imitation and parasite infection, which already\nconstitute one mechanism of substitution too many.\n\nHere is the non-hyper-literal interpretation. The French hold out open\nhands and smile to indicate they are friendly. Open hands are a\ntraditional gesture meaning \"I hold no weapons\". Sandwalker doesn't\nunderstand it because his people don't use weapons.\n\nWhat of the parenthesised \"(or had meant, once)\"? Simply this: in the\ntwenty-ninth century, or whatever, we may assume that weapons exist that\ndon't need to be held in the hands. Automated gun turrets that can be\nactivated with a thought, perhaps - very likely such devices are being\ntested right now in 2014. So the open hands gesture can't be taken\nliterally any more. It's just a minor digression by Wolfe. Not a secret\nclue that disintegrates the remainder of the text by showing that the minds\nof the French are wiped instantly for some reason.\n\nThis is far from the only such example. Do the trees at Saltimbanque\nStreet walk away at certain seasons? I'm not even going to look. But if\nthey do, I'm going to assume it's simply the work of Maitre's gardener,\nunless substantially more is said about the matter!\n\nAs for the old buildings, both you and Lee have noted this. But\nPort-Mimizon is an urban area that has suffered a reduction in population.\nMarsch notes that Frenchman's Landing is newly-built, though its\narchitecture does not impress him. Sainte Anne has recently installed\nweather control satellites, and is replacing its shipping technology with\n\"modern sail-propelled vessels\" similar to those on Earth. They've got\ntech. [If Sainte Croix is all abo, Sainte Anne must obviously be too.]\n\nI've said it before, Wolfe is not trying to trick or trap readers. He's\nnot writing a load of nonsense and hiding the clues to the real story in\nisolated words or phrases or names. If he wants to tell us something, he\nwill tell it. Look at Long Sun, he didn't do the cheap trick that would\nappeal to some authors of making the inhabitants of the Whorl literally\nunaware they are in a spaceship. Their unawareness is naturalistic - they\njust don't *think* about it. He doesn't write planets of completely\ndelusional lunatics. He writes madmen, but they will usually stop mumbling\nwhen spoken to, and their delusions are similar to those of actual madmen.\nThey do not think the sky is orange, for example, or if they do at least\nthey will have tried to come up with some explanation for why it looks blue!\n\n- Gerry Quinn\n\n\n\n\n\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com" }, "date": "2014-08-27T13:34:12+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Here's a New Wave SF trick to do: in half the texts have the landers\ninstantly replaced by imitative abos who believe themselves to be human, in\nthe other half have Veil's hypothesis be fake. And do it by changing two\nwords." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com" }, "date": "2014-08-27T13:42:10+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Luckily, we still have the description of the girls legs on Ste. Anne as\ngrotesquely long and like staffs which jives with the heronlike walk of\nabos in \"A Story\" and we still have the head scars on one of the men who\narrested Marsch who looked like the other two (scarring of the head which\nhas significance in Fifth Head for an abo man of reproductive age). We\nalso have the fact that the three men resemble each other so much as to be\nof a family (though of course the mundane explanation is the bottleneck\neffect of a genetically similar population, I know)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 6:34 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:\n\nHere's a New Wave SF trick to do: in half the texts have the landers\ninstantly replaced by imitative abos who believe themselves to be human, in\nthe other half have Veil's hypothesis be fake. And do it by changing two\nwords." } ] }, { "message_id": "<53FDE06A.2010700@bindweed.com>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2014-08-27T13:43:06+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 27/08/2014 14:27, Marc Aramini wrote:\nson of a gun what version of the text do you have?!!!! In the ACE \npaperback it says\n\"When he came close to them they extended hands, open, and smiled; but \nTHEY did not understand open hands meant (or had meant, once) that \nthey held no weapons.\"\n\nI am so super pissed at copy editors right now. Mine is the version \nwith Many Pink Butterflies instead of Mary Pink Butterflies as well." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Heh, maybe some of the difficulty interpreting Wolfe is down to Ace \ncopy-editors! [Mine is Gollancz SF Masterworks.]\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "<53FDE58E.1050506@bindweed.com>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2014-08-27T14:05:02+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 27/08/2014 14:42, Marc Aramini wrote:\nLuckily, we still have the description of the girls legs on Ste. Anne \nas grotesquely long and like staffs which jives with the heronlike \nwalk of abos in \"A Story\" and we still have the head scars on one of \nthe men who arrested Marsch who looked like the other two (scarring of \nthe head which has significance in Fifth Head for an abo man of \nreproductive age). We also have the fact that the three men resemble \neach other so much as to be of a family (though of course the mundane \nexplanation is the bottleneck effect of a genetically similar \npopulation, I know).\n\n\nOn Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 6:34 AM, Marc Aramini > wrote:\n\n\n Here's a New Wave SF trick to do: in half the texts have the\n landers instantly replaced by imitative abos who believe\n themselves to be human, in the other half have Veil's hypothesis\n be fake. And do it by changing two words." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Now that e-books have become common, we can be more ambitious. Circulate \na trojan that will, in any machine it has infected, make such \nalterations occasionally in books that have not been opened for some time...\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com" }, "date": "2014-08-27T14:11:14+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "<53FDE58E.1050506@bindweed.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It could be the Dickens virus of Doctor of Death Island if we were so\ninclined ... sounds like a plan." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 7:05 AM, Gerry Quinn wrote:\n\nOn 27/08/2014 14:42, Marc Aramini wrote:\n\nLuckily, we still have the description of the girls legs on Ste. Anne as\ngrotesquely long and like staffs which jives with the heronlike walk of\nabos in \"A Story\" and we still have the head scars on one of the men who\narrested Marsch who looked like the other two (scarring of the head which\nhas significance in Fifth Head for an abo man of reproductive age). We\nalso have the fact that the three men resemble each other so much as to be\nof a family (though of course the mundane explanation is the bottleneck\neffect of a genetically similar population, I know).\n\n\nOn Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 6:34 AM, Marc Aramini \nwrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Here's a New Wave SF trick to do: in half the texts have the landers\ninstantly replaced by imitative abos who believe themselves to be human, in\nthe other half have Veil's hypothesis be fake. And do it by changing two\nwords." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " Now that e-books have become common, we can be more ambitious. Circulate\na trojan that will, in any machine it has infected, make such alterations\noccasionally in books that have not been opened for some time...\n\n- Gerry Quinn\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1409458671.55064.YahooMailNeo@web171305.mail.ir2.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Richard Simon", "address": "gallebuck at yahoo.co.uk" }, "date": "2014-08-31T04:17:51+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 27/08/2014 14:42, Marc Aramini wrote:\n\n\nLuckily, we still have the description of the girls legs on Ste. Anne as grotesquely long and like staffs which jives with the heronlike walk of abos in \"A Story\" and we still have the head scars on one of the men who arrested Marsch who looked like the other two (scarring of the head which has significance in Fifth Head for an abo man of reproductive age). We also have the fact that the three men resemble each other so much as to be of a family (though of course the mundane explanation is the bottleneck effect of a genetically similar population, I know). " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I believe the human populations of both planets are the descendants of three separate waves of settlement.\n\nThe last wave comprises the newcomers from Earth who now form the dominant culture. They invaded and overcame the French settlers who, a few generations earlier, had formed the second wave.\n\nThe first wave came from Earth a very long time before these two, possibly before the evolution of modern Homo Sapiens, although they were able to interbreed with modern humans. On Ste. Croix, their bastard descendants live as an underclass — as slaves, among the 'demimondaines' of Saltimbanque Street ('Marsch's' companion of the house is described as having 'grotesquely long' legs) and so on — though it seems there has been some interbreeding with the settlers from the next two waves. On Ste. Anne, they were the Annese — the 'abos', Sandwalker's people and have also interbred with the succeeding settler populations. The 'abos' and 'new' Earthmen are well integrated, though few will admit to the taint of aboriginal ancestry, apart from an eccentric beggar who claims it falsely.\n\nThe Shadow Children are what is left of the serpentine, shapeshifting aborigines of Ste. Anne. When the first humans arrived on that planet, the aborigines imitated them and mingled with them — though, of course, there was no interbreeding; that would not have been possible. However, it seems that at least some of the original human settlers resisted this, and were able to see the SC for what they really were. Perhaps the others fell victim to the drug to which the SC are habituated. We know — from 'Marsch's' 'story' ? that the drug helps the SC construct their reality and makes it more convincing to those who are under its influence. Sandwalker's people have learned to shun the drug and resist inoculation with it.\n\nThe SC retain, dreamlike, fragments of human culture they absorbed from the settlers of the first wave. Thus they can speak of starcrossers and the legend of Atlantis, things Sandwalker's people (the original humans, whose original culture and technology have perished, and who live like — what's the word Wolfe uses? ? dendritic hunter-gatherers on Ste. Anne, have long forgotten.\n\nIt is the Shadow Children who have their brains in their thoraxes." } ] }, { "message_id": "<540344AB.2090904@bindweed.com>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2014-08-31T15:52:11+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "<1409458671.55064.YahooMailNeo@web171305.mail.ir2.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 31/08/2014 05:17, Richard Simon wrote:\n\nThe SC retain, dreamlike, fragments of human culture they absorbed \nfrom the settlers of the first wave. Thus they can speak of \nstarcrossers and the legend of Atlantis, things Sandwalker's people \n(the original humans, whose original culture and technology have \nperished, and who live like -- what's the word Wolfe uses? -- \ndendritic hunter-gatherers on Ste. Anne, have long forgotten.\n\nIt is the Shadow Children who have their brains in their thoraxes." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "But then who is Victor? He is apparently not a Shadow Child, and he \nimitates Marsch.\n\nI don't put any faith in business of a random girl being said to have \nlong legs or a random guy having head scars. Could be they arose in \nordinary ways, or perhaps one or both paid a visit to Maitre's operating \ntable. If the legs or scars were odd enough for No. 5 to notice as \nremarkable, they must be unusual.\n\nAnd starcrosser technology as understood by the Old Wise One seems to be \nidentical to that of modern-day Earthlings.\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1409550942.97793.YahooMailNeo@web171306.mail.ir2.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Richard Simon", "address": "gallebuck at yahoo.co.uk" }, "date": "2014-09-01T05:55:42+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "<540344AB.2090904@bindweed.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm not sure how this email appears to others on the list, so as an aid to comprehension I've put the comments I've replied to in quotes." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Sunday, 31 August 2014, 21:22, Gerry Quinn wrote:" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\"But then who is Victor? He is apparently not a Shadow Child, and he imitates Marsch.\"\n\nVictor is a Shadow Child imitating an Annese imitating Marsch. More correctly, he is a Shadow Child who believes he is Marsch. He is also, probably, his own mother; I wonder if old man Trenchard ever saw his wife and his son together at the same time.\n\n\"I don't put any faith in business of a random girl being said to have long legs or a random guy having head scars. Could be they arose in ordinary ways, or perhaps one or both paid a visit to Maitre's operating table. If the legs or scars were odd enough for No. 5 to notice as remarkable, they must be unusual.\"\nYou should put some faith in them. The explanations you suggest for them are possible, of course, but they lead us nowhere. This is a novel, not real life. Everything in it exists to serve the author's purpose. And Gene Wolfe is a very accomplished writer: there is very little (I would almost hazard 'nothing') in his works that is not there for a reason. I'm not talking about the kind of symbolic justifications favoured by other correspondents here, though Wolfe obviously deploys symbolism constantly; I'm talking about information, obliquely presented, concerning the plot, the characters and the subtext or back-story.\n\nThe girl's legs may certainly have been artificially lengthened; Cave Canem is a brothel in which genetic engineering and surgery are used to provide for the special tastes of some of its patrons. But if such was the case, they were lengthened because disproportionately long legs are a sign (in women, at least) of Annese ancestry, which appeals to some rich men on Ste. Croix. The Annese, remember, are not native to Ste. Croix; they were brought to the planet as slaves, though in modern Ste. Croix 'Annese' and 'slave' are not synonymous; there are human slaves, as well as free Annese or semi-Annese. The Annese on Ste. Croix still keep some of their old customs and rituals, like the head-scarred secret policemen who arrest 'Marsch'. By the way, what do you think was the real reason for his arrest? The justifications given by the secret police — both at the time of his arrest and in their internal correspondence about him — are obviously specious. I\n offer my own speculations toward the end of this mail.\n\nIf Number Five notes the unusual length of the demimondaine's legs, it's because, as a little rich boy who has lived a sheltered life, he hasn't seen many Annese (real or surgically faked) before. Though my own feeling, reading the text, is that he is both familiar with that kind of thing but aware that it is unusual.\n\n\"And starcrosser technology as understood by the Old Wise One seems to be identical to that of modern-day Earthlings.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Very likely. There are probably not many ways to skin that particular cat. Though, in my opinion, the tiny amount of information offered by the OWO really isn't enough to make a definite statement about it." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Now:\n\n\nThere are Shadow Children on Ste. Croix. I don't know about Marc Aramini's trees in the front courtyard of Cave Canem, but the animals that pester the officer looking through 'Marsch's' records are SC, as is the 'woman' with whom he has sex (if sex is really what he has with her). They probably came over from Ste. Anne in disguise, just like 'Marsch'. Here is an intriguing speculation: understanding the danger they pose to human society, the secret police may be operating against the Shadow Children. In that context it would make it logical that many of their operatives are Annese descendants or assimilates from Ste. Anne. It would also explain the officer's 'prophylactic' shower: drug-filled SC saliva that had 'streaked his body'. Perhaps it has mild, pleasurable and temporary hallucinogenic (or aphrodisiac) effects when absorbed through the skin, but severe and long-term or permanent ones when ingested or directly injected, for instance through a 'cat'\n bite. As I say, this is speculation, so don't expect me to defend it with any great fervour.\n\nThe condition of the 'abos' on Ste. Anne and Ste. Croix are respectively analogous to the condition of the victims of European colonization in, respectively, South and North America. In Latin America, there has been considerable interbreeding and assimilation between the native inhabitants and their Spanish and Portuguese conquerors, and while social distinctions in those countries still replicate ethnic ones, the latter are not so clearly drawn or insisted upon any more. In North America, there has probably been less interbreeding, and certainly less assimilation, between the European settlers and the slaves they imported to serve them. Ste. Croix is a slaveholding society like the United States was before the Civil War." } ] }, { "message_id": "<54045C4B.2080901@bindweed.com>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2014-09-01T11:45:15+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "<1409550942.97793.YahooMailNeo@web171306.mail.ir2.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 01/09/2014 06:55, Richard Simon wrote:\nI'm not sure how this email appears to others on the list, so as an \naid to comprehension I've put the comments I've replied to in quotes.\n\n\n On Sunday, 31 August 2014, 21:22, Gerry Quinn \n wrote:\n\n \"But then who is Victor? He is apparently not a Shadow Child, and\n he imitates Marsch.\"\n\n\nVictor is a Shadow Child imitating an Annese imitating Marsch. More \ncorrectly, he is a Shadow Child who believes he is Marsch. He is also, \nprobably, his own mother; I wonder if old man Trenchard ever saw his \nwife and his son together at the same time." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "So, basically, you are going to negate everything stated in the books, \nand every incidental happening or description in the books, on the basis \nof a hypothesis you have deduced from someone's observation that a \nrandom whore has long legs. (In a house in which the Master is known to \ncarry out body-modifications on his girls, from time to time, for that \nmatter.)\n\nVictor is described as human, albeit with unusual green eyes. The idea \nthat he is his own mother seems simply absurd, unless, again, both he \nand everyone else are completely delusional. She only left after he \nreached puberty.\n\nIf you want to deduce likely possibilities from odd sentences, consider \nthat Victor notes that on Sainte Anne he got some information suggesting \nthat his mother had gone to Sainte Croix, and consider the illiterate \nwoman in the cell beside him. *That* is plausibly Victor's mother; it \nis deduced from subtle clues, but unlike the global hypotheses that turn \neverything upside down, it does not destroy everything else in the story \nwhichever version you choose to believe and therefore it is a thing that \nactually *can* be left ambiguous." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " \"I don't put any faith in business of a random girl being said to\n have long legs or a random guy having head scars. Could be they\n arose in ordinary ways, or perhaps one or both paid a visit to\n Maitre's operating table. If the legs or scars were odd enough\n for No. 5 to notice as remarkable, they must be unusual.\"\n\nYou should put some faith in them. The explanations you suggest for \nthem are possible, of course, but they lead us nowhere." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The legs could point to Maitre, or they could just be an example of \nfemale artifice. It doesn't matter which, so it can be left ambiguous. \nIf it mattered, like in your theory, Wolfe would not have just left it \nthere. (Look how he hammers in the bit about abos having green eyes.)\n\nOne of the police has scars on his head, above which the hair is allowed \nto grow again so therefore... what? Why must this relate to the fact \nthat Marshmen castrate their shamans and burn their hair off? If he \neven had an unusually high-pitched voice... but no.\n\nMarsch hangs his coat on the hooks on the bedroom door, AS HE USUALLY \nDOES. Presumably this is of some cosmic significance too. And what of \nthe ankle straps of the man in the green uniform - clearly the idea that \nhe rides a bicycle is sheer misdirection. There must be at least one new \nalien species to be identified here - but of course - it's the bicycles, \nlike in The Third Policeman! One of the other men is a horse-cab \ndriver. People's cells mingle with vehicles - Aunt Jeannine is the most \nadvanced example. This explains the symbolism about identity and the \nAbos' fear of technology; THEY are the true humans, unwilling to merge \nwith the metallic overlords. The robots in the prison camps - fully \nconverted people? You get the point. I could add elements purportedly \nsupporting this hypothesis all day, or a hundred others like it. How \nfast I can add them depends on how much I allow myself to ignore \ncontradictions in the text, or assume characters to be preternaturally \ndelusional. But I would be going nowhere." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "This is a novel, not real life. Everything in it exists to serve the \nauthor's purpose. And Gene Wolfe is a very accomplished writer: there \nis very little (I would almost hazard 'nothing') in his works that is \nnot there for a reason. I'm not talking about the kind of symbolic \njustifications favoured by other correspondents here, though Wolfe \nobviously deploys symbolism constantly; I'm talking about information, \nobliquely presented, concerning the plot, the characters and the \nsubtext or back-story." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "But Wolfe does NOT write what the Turkey City Lexicon refers to as 'The \nJar of Tang'. He does not in general hold back and mislead on matters \nsignificant to the plot.\n\nAnd if everything exists to serve the author's purpose, then what of \neverything that you are throwing away? What of Victor's relationship \nwith his mother? All just a load of delusional nonsense, because \neverything is actually supposed to be deduced from one sentence \nmentioning that a guy has a scarred head?\n\nVictor's mother in the neighbouring cell, that is the sort of thing your \nargument above points to. Not a planet full of individuals who are \ncompletely delusional about concrete matters." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Now:\n\nThere are Shadow Children on Ste. Croix. I don't know about Marc \nAramini's trees in the front courtyard of Cave Canem, but the animals \nthat pester the officer looking through 'Marsch's' records are SC, as \nis the 'woman' with whom he has sex (if sex is really what he has with \nher). They probably came over from Ste. Anne in disguise, just like \n'Marsch'. Here is an intriguing speculation: understanding the danger \nthey pose to human society, the secret police may be operating against \nthe Shadow Children. In that context it would make it logical that \nmany of their operatives are Annese descendants or assimilates from \nSte. Anne. It would also explain the officer's 'prophylactic' shower: \ndrug-filled SC saliva that had 'streaked his body'. Perhaps it has \nmild, pleasurable and temporary hallucinogenic (or aphrodisiac) \neffects when absorbed through the skin, but severe and long-term or \npermanent ones when ingested or directly injected, for instance \nthrough a 'cat' bite. As I say, this is speculation, so don't expect \nme to defend it with any great fervour.\n\nThe condition of the 'abos' on Ste. Anne and Ste. Croix are \nrespectively analogous to the condition of the victims of European \ncolonization in, respectively, South and North America. In Latin \nAmerica, there has been considerable interbreeding and assimilation \nbetween the native inhabitants and their Spanish and Portuguese \nconquerors, and while social distinctions in those countries still \nreplicate ethnic ones, the latter are not so clearly drawn or insisted \nupon any more. In North America, there has probably been less \ninterbreeding, and certainly less assimilation, between the European \nsettlers and the slaves they imported to serve them. Ste. Croix is a \nslaveholding society like the United States was before the Civil War." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Here is my proposal: in any valid theory, no character - aside from \nthose intended to take the role of complete lunatics, and rarely those - \nis completely delusional about concrete matters. And nor does it depend \non information hidden by Wolfe in odd lines that are never reinforced \nwith pointers.\n\nAs for the abos, we are certainly intended to consider issues of \nidentity and colonisation; whether any specific case is referenced I \ndon't know. But we can consider these without unduly multiplying alien \nspecies in the SF plot.\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1409576154.90280.YahooMailNeo@web171304.mail.ir2.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Richard Simon", "address": "gallebuck at yahoo.co.uk" }, "date": "2014-09-01T12:55:54+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "<54045C4B.2080901@bindweed.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Gerry: I'll reply your whole post a little later. For the moment, allow me simply to address this:\n\n\"no character - aside from those intended to take the role of complete lunatics, and rarely those - is completely delusional about concrete matters. And nor does it depend on information hidden by Wolfe in odd lines that are never reinforced with pointers.\"\n\nInterviewer: In The Fifth Head of Cerberus, does John Marsch understand that he’s really V.R.T., a “shadow child, one of the aboriginal inhabitants of the colony planet, who is aping a man”\n\nGene Wolfe: Yes, he does. He knows he’s not a real Earthman, but he’s trying to talk himself into believing that he is. That’s what he wants to be.\n\nGene Wolfe, http://www.technologyreview.com/news/529431/a-qa-with-gene-wolfe/\n\nVictor is, as I said, a shadow child mimicking an Annese mimicking Marsch. Unlke my, Wolfe (who ought to know) suggests that he is on the fence, belief-wise, concerning this. Recall Marsch's mother-fantasies in jail. Also, note the 'not a real Earthman'; Marsch is a shadow-child, not an Annese. As for 'odd lines that are never reinforced with pointers', Wolfe has asserted in other interviews that he doesn't repeat clues because he 'doesn't want to insult the reader's intelligence.'\n\nMore later." } ] }, { "message_id": "<1409581516.48002.YahooMailNeo@web171301.mail.ir2.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Richard Simon", "address": "gallebuck at yahoo.co.uk" }, "date": "2014-09-01T14:25:16+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "<54045C4B.2080901@bindweed.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hello again, Mr Quinn." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "'So, basically, you are going to negate everything stated in the books, and every incidental happening or description in the books, on the basis of a hypothesis you have deduced from someone's observation that a random whore has long legs. (In a house in which the Master is known to carry out body-modifications on his girls, from time to time, for that matter.)'" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Actually, the bases of my 'hypothesis' are far more substantial than that. The matter has been discussed, and as you saw from my earlier post, Gene Wolfe himself confirms that Marsch is a Shadow Child.\n\n\nVictor is described as human, albeit with unusual green eyes. The idea that he is his own mother seems simply absurd, unless, again, both he and everyone else are completely delusional. She only left after he reached puberty.\n1. Nobody has to be delusional, except Victor, in Shadow-Child fashion. Who else has seen his mother? Old Trenchard? How reliable is his testimony? Could he not have reasons for lying about her? Does Victor, in fact, have a mother at all?\n\n2. Everyone on Ste. Anne is slightly delusional; the real Marsch notes the hallucinatory quality of the light and atmosphere there in his journal, and we know from his Shadow-Child testimony ('A Story') that the Children can alter the appearance of reality, even to the extent of hiding two planets and their parent star from human observation.\n\nHowever, I am not arguing that everyone on Ste. Anne, far less Ste. Croix, is a shapeshifted aboriginal. Most people on both planets are indubitably human, even though one population, the people known as 'abos', has forgotten its ancient roots. The Shadow Children, who are in no way human, preserved some knowledge of those roots and of human culture, but it was lost to the original settlers from Earth. In case you missed it earlier, I am proposing that the Annese (the 'abos') cannot shapeshift.\n\nIf you want to deduce likely possibilities from odd sentences, consider that Victor notes that on Sainte Anne he got some information suggesting that his mother had gone to Sainte Croix, and consider the illiterate woman in the cell beside him. *That* is plausibly Victor's mother; it is deduced from subtle clues, but unlike the global hypotheses that turn everything upside down, it does not destroy everything else in the story whichever version you choose to believe and therefore it is a thing that actually *can* be left ambiguous.\nWhat are the subtle clues that suggest this woman is Victor's mother? Pardon me if this has been discussed before. And if she is his mother, how does that help us understand anything, or move the story along?\n\nThe legs could point to Maitre, or they could just be an example of female artifice. It doesn't matter which, so it can be left ambiguous. If it mattered, like in your theory, Wolfe would not have just left it there. (Look how he hammers in the bit about abos having green eyes.)\nI dealt with this in my earlier reply. You're an experienced Wolfe reader, aren't you? You should know your man better. Everything in a Gene Wolfe story is relevant, and the more incidental it appears at first sight, the more critical it is likely to be to a full understanding of the story and Wolfe's intent.\n\nMarsch hangs his coat on the hooks on the bedroom door, AS HE USUALLY DOES. Presumably this is of some cosmic significance too. And what of the ankle straps of the man in the green uniform - clearly the idea that he rides a bicycle is sheer misdirection. There must be at least one new alien species to be identified here - but of course - it's the bicycles, like in The Third Policeman! One of the other men is a horse-cab driver. People's cells mingle with vehicles - Aunt Jeannine is the most advanced example. This explains the symbolism about identity and the Abos' fear of technology; THEY are the true humans, unwilling to merge with the metallic overlords. The robots in the prison camps - fully converted people? You get the point. I could add elements purportedly supporting this hypothesis all day, or a hundred others like it. How fast I can add them depends on how much I allow myself to ignore contradictions in the text, or assume characters\n to be preternaturally delusional. But I would be going nowhere.\nVery impressive, but I doubt that you can point me to one 'contradiction in the text' that negates my reading of it. Especially since it is hardly mine alone, and the author endorses elements of it, if not the whole.\n\n\nIf everything exists to serve the author's purpose, then what of everything that you are throwing away? What of Victor's relationship with his mother? All just a load of delusional nonsense, because everything is actually supposed to be deduced from one sentence mentioning that a guy has a scarred head?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "What have I thrown away? Are you certain that you have understood me correctly?" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com" }, "date": "2014-09-01T21:32:34+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "<1409581516.48002.YahooMailNeo@web171301.mail.ir2.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "One more quick point - when the barrier around ste Anne falls, Sandwalker\nasks his mother what color his eyes are \"now\". Of course she answers that\neyes are green, but this , coupled with the strange mitotic imagery in the\neyes of the creature Marsch shoots , and the pits known as the eye and the\nother eye, is at least enough to hint that one character in an allegorical\nstory is concerned that his eyes have actually changed color from something\nhappening on Ste. Anne. ( and the shadow children grabbing the marsh men by\nthe eyes to ride them ........)" } ] }, { "message_id": "<5405E564.4040602@bindweed.com>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2014-09-02T15:42:28+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 01/09/2014 22:32, Marc Aramini wrote:\nOne more quick point - when the barrier around ste Anne falls, \nSandwalker asks his mother what color his eyes are \"now\". Of course \nshe answers that eyes are green, but this , coupled with the strange \nmitotic imagery in the eyes of the creature Marsch shoots , and the \npits known as the eye and the other eye, is at least enough to hint \nthat one character in an allegorical story is concerned that his eyes \nhave actually changed color from something happening on Ste. Anne. ( \nand the shadow children grabbing the marsh men by the eyes to ride \nthem ........)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The piece about green eyes is a bit clunky; I interpret it simply as \nWolfe hammering home the point that green eyes are a characteristic by \nwhich we may identify abos. As for the water buffalo-like creature that \nMarsch shoots, I find Marsch's explanation reasonable. Incidentally, \nthe Shadow Children are indicated to grab the Marshmen by the hair, \na;though they do gouge out the eyes of one of them.\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2014-09-02T15:50:11+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "<5405E564.4040602@bindweed.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Has nobody before made the connection between Marsch and Marshmen? I'm sure\nsomebody must have (it's an obvious sort of Wolfean wordplay), but I can't\nrecall anyone doing so." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 8:42 AM, Gerry Quinn wrote:\n\nOn 01/09/2014 22:32, Marc Aramini wrote:\n\nOne more quick point - when the barrier around ste Anne falls, Sandwalker\nasks his mother what color his eyes are \"now\". Of course she answers that\neyes are green, but this , coupled with the strange mitotic imagery in the\neyes of the creature Marsch shoots , and the pits known as the eye and the\nother eye, is at least enough to hint that one character in an allegorical\nstory is concerned that his eyes have actually changed color from something\nhappening on Ste. Anne. ( and the shadow children grabbing the marsh men by\nthe eyes to ride them ........)\n\n The piece about green eyes is a bit clunky; I interpret it simply as\nWolfe hammering home the point that green eyes are a characteristic by\nwhich we may identify abos. As for the water buffalo-like creature that\nMarsch shoots, I find Marsch's explanation reasonable. Incidentally, the\nShadow Children are indicated to grab the Marshmen by the hair, a;though\nthey do gouge out the eyes of one of them.\n\n- Gerry Quinn\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<5405ECB6.8010204@bindweed.com>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2014-09-02T16:13:42+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "<1409576154.90280.YahooMailNeo@web171304.mail.ir2.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 01/09/2014 13:55, Richard Simon wrote:\nGerry: I'll reply your whole post a little later. For the moment, \nallow me simply to address this:\n\n\"no character - aside from those intended to take the role of complete \nlunatics, and rarely those - is completely delusional about concrete \nmatters. And nor does it depend on information hidden by Wolfe in odd \nlines that are never reinforced with pointers.\"\n\nInterviewer: In The Fifth Head of Cerberus, does John Marsch \nunderstand that he's really V.R.T., a \"shadow child,\" one of the \naboriginal inhabitants of the colony planet, who is aping a man?\n\nGene Wolfe: Yes, he does. He knows he's not a real Earthman, but he's \ntrying to talk himself into believing that he is. That's what he wants \nto be.\n\nGene Wolfe, \nhttp://www.technologyreview.com/news/529431/a-qa-with-gene-wolfe/\n\nVictor is, as I said, a shadow child mimicking an Annese mimicking \nMarsch. Unlke my, Wolfe (who ought to know) suggests that he is on the \nfence, belief-wise, concerning this. Recall Marsch's mother-fantasies \nin jail. Also, note the 'not a real Earthman'; Marsch is a \nshadow-child, not an Annese. As for 'odd lines that are never \nreinforced with pointers', Wolfe has asserted in other interviews that \nhe doesn't repeat clues because he 'doesn't want to insult the \nreader's intelligence.'" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Wolfe doesn't contradict the interviewer's reference to a Shadow Child, \nin a book written forty years previously. I think this was simply a \nmistake by Wolfe, or he didn't think it worth contradicting the \ninterviewer, who said \"aboriginal inhabitant\" anyway.\n\nThe more important point is that Wolfe doesn't write the sort of \ncompletely delusional lunatics that some of the more exotic theories \ndepend on characters, or occasionally entire planets, having to be. \"He \nknows he's not a real Earthman, but he's trying to talk himself into \nbelieving that he is. That's what he wants to be.\" This is a \nnaturalistic sort of unreliability. He isn't mistaken about whether his \nmother existed, and such-like. Of course she existed.\n\n\nHere's another interview, from 1988, and some points I think are worth \nnoting:\nhttp://www.depauw.edu/sfs/interviews/wolfe46interview.htm\n\n/Wolfe/: \"No, because I didn't want to show what John Marsch had been \nresearching---the material that make up his \"story\" in the second \nnovella--- until I had actually introduced John Marsch the researcher in \n\"The Fifth Head.\" I decided to present the Sandwalker story as a legend \nor story that Marsch had uncovered, rather than as straight reportage, \nbecause I wanted to keep all three stories set in roughly the same time \nframe---the \"present\" of the opening novella. Since the period in which \nthe Sandwalker scene was---in terms of the \"present\" found in the rest \nof the book---taking place in the distant past of the planet, it made \nmore sense to say, \"Here's a legend that has survived from that period\" \nrather than simply jumping into the past and presenting it directly. In \nthe last piece, \"V.R.T.,\" I finish up by showing what had become of \nSandwalker's world (this is only hinted at in \"The Fifth Head\") and by \nshowing what eventually happened to Marsch.\"\n\nConclusion: \"A Story\" is meant to be true, not Marsch's fantasy. Wolfe \ndecided to present it as written by (neo)Marsch, but he could have \nwritten it in straight third person. 'A Story' tells us that the Shadow \nChildren are degenerate humans, and they look different from the abos, \nwho clearly do look pretty much like normal humans.\n\n/Wolfe/: \"In the end, of course, it's important that the reader not be \nconfused about this, although part of the fun is supposed to be figuring \nout what's happened. I leave a number of clues as to who the narrator \nactually is. For example, both V.R.T. and the narrator are shown to be \nvery poor shots, whereas Marsch is a very good shot, and there's other \nhints like that. If you hire a shape changer as a guide, there's a \ndefinite possibility that he's going to change into your shape at some \npoint. Which is what happens.\"\n\nConclusion: Victor replaced Marsch. Also, Wolfe puts in multiple hints \nfor things the reader is supposed to 'get'.\n\nHe may not repeat a single clue, but he puts multiple clues pointing to \nthe thing he wants to tell us.\n\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "<5405F158.3080007@bindweed.com>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2014-09-02T16:33:28+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "<1409581516.48002.YahooMailNeo@web171301.mail.ir2.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 01/09/2014 15:25, Richard Simon wrote:\n\n Victor is described as human, albeit with unusual green eyes. The\n idea that he is his own mother seems simply absurd, unless, again,\n both he and everyone else are completely delusional. She only\n left after he reached puberty.\n\n1. Nobody has to be delusional, except Victor, in Shadow-Child \nfashion. Who else has seen his mother? Old Trenchard? How reliable is \nhis testimony? Could he not have reasons for lying about her? Does \nVictor, in fact, have a mother at all?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "So you are saying Victor AND all the Shadow Children are delusional? \nWhy? Their story makes sense as told. Nobody needs to be delusional at \nall. M. d'F notes that she is \"a poor wretched woman one hardly ever \nsees\" but presumably se is seen sometimes, or was before she left. And \nOld Trenchard claims he and she were married by the priest." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "2. Everyone on Ste. Anne is slightly delusional; the real Marsch notes \nthe hallucinatory quality of the light and atmosphere there in his \njournal, and we know from his Shadow-Child testimony ('A Story') that \nthe Children can alter the appearance of reality, even to the extent \nof hiding two planets and their parent star from human observation.\n\nHowever, I am not arguing that everyone on Ste. Anne, far less Ste. \nCroix, is a shapeshifted aboriginal. Most people on both planets are \nindubitably human, even though one population, the people known as \n'abos', has forgotten its ancient roots. The Shadow Children, who are \nin no way human, preserved some knowledge of those roots and of human \nculture, but it was lost to the original settlers from Earth. In case \nyou missed it earlier, I am proposing that the Annese (the 'abos') \ncannot shapeshift." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Victor's mother could shapeshift too, this is indicated when Old \nTrenchard notes: \"She could talk to a man and he would believe her a \ngirl, a virgin, hardly out of school. But then if she did not like him \nshe would become an old woman - a matter of the voice, the muscles of \nher face, the way she moved...\" Of course he thinks sge is just a good \nactress.\n\nOf course, if Victor and his mother were Shadow Children this would \ncontradict your theory. But what of thhe green eyes? In 'A Story' \nthese are clearly associated with the human-looking abos." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " If you want to deduce likely possibilities from odd sentences,\n consider that Victor notes that on Sainte Anne he got some\n information suggesting that his mother had gone to Sainte Croix,\n and consider the illiterate woman in the cell beside him. *That*\n is plausibly Victor's mother; it is deduced from subtle clues, but\n unlike the global hypotheses that turn everything upside down, it\n does not destroy everything else in the story whichever version\n you choose to believe and therefore it is a thing that actually\n *can* be left ambiguous.\n\nWhat are the subtle clues that suggest this woman is Victor's mother? \nPardon me if this has been discussed before. And if she is his mother, \nhow does that help us understand anything, or move the story along?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Those are the clues. And it's NOT essential to the story, which is why \nWolfe doesn't bother rubbing it in with lots of clues. It simple adds a \nbit of colour and pathos." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " The legs could point to Maitre, or they could just be an example\n of female artifice. It doesn't matter which, so it can be left\n ambiguous. If it mattered, like in your theory, Wolfe would not\n have just left it there. (Look how he hammers in the bit about\n abos having green eyes.)\n\nI dealt with this in my earlier reply. You're an experienced Wolfe \nreader, aren't you? You should know your man better. Everything in a \nGene Wolfe story is relevant, and the more incidental it appears at \nfirst sight, the more critical it is likely to be to a full \nunderstanding of the story and Wolfe's intent." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I disagree. To make everything crucial to an understanding of the story \nwould result in books that are abstract puzzle pieces, not novels." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " Marsch hangs his coat on the hooks on the bedroom door, AS HE\n USUALLY DOES. Presumably this is of some cosmic significance\n too. And what of the ankle straps of the man in the green uniform\n - clearly the idea that he rides a bicycle is sheer misdirection. \n There must be at least one new alien species to be identified here\n - but of course - it's the bicycles, like in The Third Policeman! \n One of the other men is a horse-cab driver. People's cells mingle\n with vehicles - Aunt Jeannine is the most advanced example. This\n explains the symbolism about identity and the Abos' fear of\n technology; THEY are the true humans, unwilling to merge with the\n metallic overlords. The robots in the prison camps - fully\n converted people? You get the point. I could add elements\n purportedly supporting this hypothesis all day, or a hundred\n others like it. How fast I can add them depends on how much I\n allow myself to ignore contradictions in the text, or assume\n characters to be preternaturally delusional. But I would be going\n nowhere.\n\nVery impressive, but I doubt that you can point me to one \n'contradiction in the text' that negates my reading of it. Especially \nsince it is hardly mine alone, and the author endorses elements of it, \nif not the whole." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "According to your theory the hooks and ankle straps should be especially \nrelevant, as they are so inconsequential? So what do they mean? Or can \nthings be irrelevant after all?\n\nThe contradiction is that Victor and the Shadow Children must be \ncompletely and utterly insane. And the 'abos' too, if they have \ncompletely forgotten they were human. Also, humans did not in fact \ndevelop space flight in prehistory." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " If everything exists to serve the author's purpose, then what of\n everything that you are throwing away? What of Victor's\n relationship with his mother? All just a load of delusional\n nonsense, because everything is actually supposed to be deduced\n from one sentence mentioning that a guy has a scarred head?\n\nWhat have I thrown away? Are you certain that you have understood me \ncorrectly?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Your theory throws away everything we are told of the origin of Shadow \nChildren and abos in 'A Story'.\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "<5405F25E.10203@bindweed.com>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2014-09-02T16:37:50+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 02/09/2014 16:50, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:\nHas nobody before made the connection between Marsch and Marshmen? I'm \nsure somebody must have (it's an obvious sort of Wolfean wordplay), \nbut I can't recall anyone doing so." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm pretty sure someone did (possibly Marc) but I can't remember for sure.\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "<5405F34C.8070406@bindweed.com>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2014-09-02T16:41:48+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "<5405F158.3080007@bindweed.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 02/09/2014 17:33, Gerry Quinn wrote:\n\nOf course, if Victor and his mother were Shadow Children this would \ncontradict your theory. But what of thhe green eyes? In 'A Story' \nthese are clearly associated with the human-looking abos." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I meant to say, of course \"would *not* contradict your theory\".\n\nBut surely the green eyes - a point Wolfe practically hammers in - tell \nus clearly who Victor's ancestors are?\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "<7A417E4E-02C9-4503-A875-4ED2C7D78420@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "entonio at gmail.com", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2014-09-02T16:53:50+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "<5405ECB6.8010204@bindweed.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No dia 02/09/2014, ?s 17:13, Gerry Quinn escreveu:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Conclusion: \"A Story\" is meant to be true, not Marsch's fantasy. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It may be, but that doesn't follow from the interview." } ] }, { "message_id": "<1409681938.51057.YahooMailNeo@web171303.mail.ir2.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Richard Simon", "address": "gallebuck at yahoo.co.uk" }, "date": "2014-09-02T18:18:58+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "<5405F158.3080007@bindweed.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I said I wasn't going to defend this very hard. One thing we can all agree upon is that the text supports multiple readings. Most texts do; the ones that are designed specifically to do so are only a subset of a much larger corpus. Still, just so far as this: yes, Victor replaces Marsch. But Victor is a Shadow Child who is adept at mimicking humans. The 'aboriginal inhabitants' of Ste. Anne are the Shadow Children, not the Annese, who in my reading are merely humans who have experienced cultural drift since being stranded on the planet aeons ago.\n\n\nOn Tuesday, 2 September 2014, 22:03, Gerry Quinn wrote:\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 01/09/2014 15:25, Richard Simon wrote:\n\nVictor is described as human, albeit with unusual green eyes. The idea that he is his own mother seems simply absurd, unless, again, both he and everyone else are completely delusional. She only left after he reached puberty.\n1. Nobody has to be delusional, except Victor, in Shadow-Child fashion. Who else has seen his mother? Old Trenchard? How reliable is his testimony? Could he not have reasons for lying about her? Does Victor, in fact, have a mother at all?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "So you are saying Victor AND all the Shadow Children are\n delusional? Why? Their story makes sense as told. Nobody needs to\n be delusional at all. M. d'F notes that she is \"a poor wretched\n woman one hardly ever sees\" but presumably se is seen sometimes, or\n was before she left. And Old Trenchard claims he and she were\n married by the priest." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "2. Everyone on Ste. Anne is slightly delusional; the real Marsch notes the hallucinatory quality of the light and atmosphere there in his journal, and we know from his Shadow-Child testimony ('A Story') that the Children can alter the appearance of reality, even to the extent of hiding two planets and their parent star from human observation.\n\n\nHowever, I am not arguing that everyone on Ste. Anne, far less Ste. Croix, is a shapeshifted aboriginal. Most people on both planets are indubitably human, even though one population, the people known as 'abos', has forgotten its ancient roots. The Shadow Children, who are in no way human, preserved some knowledge of those roots and of human culture, but it was lost to the original settlers from Earth. In case you missed it earlier, I am proposing that the Annese (the 'abos') cannot shapeshift." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Victor's mother could shapeshift too, this is indicated when Old Trenchard notes: \"She could talk to a man and he would believe her a girl, a virgin, hardly out of school. But then if she did not like him she would become an old woman - a matter of the voice, the muscles of her face, the way she moved...\" Of course he thinks sge is just a good actress.\n\nOf course, if Victor and his mother were Shadow Children this would\n contradict your theory. But what of thhe green eyes? In 'A Story'\n these are clearly associated with the human-looking abos.\n\n\nIf you want to deduce likely possibilities from odd sentences, consider that Victor notes that on Sainte Anne he got some information suggesting that his mother had gone to Sainte Croix, and consider the illiterate woman in the cell beside him. *That* is plausibly Victor's mother; it is deduced from subtle clues, but unlike the global hypotheses that turn everything upside down, it does not destroy everything else in the story whichever version you choose to believe and therefore it is a thing that actually *can* be left ambiguous." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "What are the subtle clues that suggest this woman is Victor's mother? Pardon me if this has been discussed before. And if she is his mother, how does that help us understand anything, or move the story along?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Those are the clues. And it's NOT essential to the story, which is\n why Wolfe doesn't bother rubbing it in with lots of clues. It\n simple adds a bit of colour and pathos. \n\n\nThe legs could point to Maitre, or they could just be an example of female artifice. It doesn't matter which, so it can be left ambiguous. If it mattered, like in your theory, Wolfe would not have just left it there. (Look how he hammers in the bit about abos having green eyes.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I dealt with this in my earlier reply. You're an experienced Wolfe reader, aren't you? You should know your man better. Everything in a Gene Wolfe story is relevant, and the more incidental it appears at first sight, the more critical it is likely to be to a full understanding of the story and Wolfe's intent." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I disagree. To make everything crucial to an understanding of the\n story would result in books that are abstract puzzle pieces, not\n novels." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Marsch hangs his coat on the hooks on the bedroom door, AS HE USUALLY DOES. Presumably this is of some cosmic significance too. And what of the ankle straps of the man in the green uniform - clearly the idea that he rides a bicycle is sheer misdirection. There must be at least one new alien species to be identified here - but of course - it's the bicycles, like in The Third Policeman! One of the other men is a horse-cab driver. People's cells mingle with vehicles - Aunt Jeannine is the most advanced example. This explains the symbolism about identity and the Abos' fear of technology; THEY are the true humans, unwilling to merge with the metallic overlords. The robots in the prison camps - fully converted people? You get the point. I could add elements purportedly supporting this hypothesis all day, or a hundred others like it. How fast I can add them depends on how much I allow myself to ignore contradictions in the text, or assume characters\n to be preternaturally delusional. But I would be going nowhere.\nVery impressive, but I doubt that you can point me to one 'contradiction in the text' that negates my reading of it. Especially since it is hardly mine alone, and the author endorses elements of it, if not the whole." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "According to your theory the hooks and ankle straps should be especially relevant, as they are so inconsequential? So what do they mean? Or can things be irrelevant after all?\n\nThe contradiction is that Victor and the Shadow Children must be\n completely and utterly insane. And the 'abos' too, if they have\n completely forgotten they were human. Also, humans did not in fact\n develop space flight in prehistory.\n\n\nIf everything exists to serve the author's purpose, then what of everything that you are throwing away? What of Victor's relationship with his mother? All just a load of delusional nonsense, because everything is actually supposed to be deduced from one sentence mentioning that a guy has a scarred head?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "What have I thrown away? Are you certain that you have understood me correctly?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Your theory throws away everything we are told of the origin of Shadow Children and abos in 'A Story'.\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "<54063705.6060003@bindweed.com>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2014-09-02T21:30:45+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "<1409681938.51057.YahooMailNeo@web171303.mail.ir2.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 02/09/2014 19:18, Richard Simon wrote:\nI said I wasn't going to defend this very hard. One thing we can all \nagree upon is that the text supports multiple readings. Most texts do; \nthe ones that are designed specifically to do so are only a subset of \na much larger corpus. Still, just so far as this: yes, Victor replaces \nMarsch. But Victor is a Shadow Child who is adept at mimicking humans. \nThe 'aboriginal inhabitants' of Ste. Anne are the Shadow Children, not \nthe Annese, who in my reading are merely humans who have experienced \ncultural drift since being stranded on the planet aeons ago." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Let's look at just one thing: Why does Wolfe harp on the fact that \nMarsch's eyes are an unusual green. That the boy Victor's eyes are an \nunusual green. And - even at the cost of some clunkiness - make sure we \nknow that for Sandwalker's people, \"Green is the colour of eyes\"?\n\nI believe there are indeed clues, deliberately inserted by Wolfe to lead \nus to the soliution, and that they point in a single direction.\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "<8D19512095DD253-DC0-6453@webmail-m208.sysops.aol.com>", "from": { "name": "jbarach at aol.com", "address": "jbarach at aol.com" }, "date": "2014-09-02T22:11:53+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC - Maison du Chien", "in_reply_to": "<1409681938.51057.YahooMailNeo@web171303.mail.ir2.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Number 5 says that the house in which he lives is nicknamed \"Maison du Chien,\" partly due to the statue of Cerberus outside and partly as an allusion to the family's last name -- which is, if you put all the data together, Wolfe.\n\nThe house is a brothel, and that may be significant in this connection too. I'm part of an online group that's reading through Augustine's City of God in a year, and today I came to Book 18, chapter 21, in which Augustine discusses the story of Romulus and Remus. The two brothers were raised by a wolf, the legend says. Augustine mentions that story, but then adds:\n\n\nThere is, however, no lack of people who say that, when the exposed infants lay wailing, they were first taken in by some unknown whore, and that hers were the first breasts they sucked -- for \"she-wolves\" (lupae) was the name given to whores, which is why houses of ill repute are even now called \"wolf-houses\" (lupanaria).\n\n\nHow could I read that and not think of Fifth Head? I have no way of knowing if Wolfe had read City of God by the time he wrote Fifth Head or if there might have been some other classical source that pointed him in this direction, but it sure seems to fit nicely, doesn't it?\n\nAnd then that raises the question: Are Number Five (Gene) and his brother David in some way parallel to Romulus and Remus?\n\nJohn\n\n\n " } ] }, { "message_id": "<54064388.7030407@bindweed.com>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2014-09-02T22:24:08+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "<7A417E4E-02C9-4503-A875-4ED2C7D78420@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 02/09/2014 17:53, entonio at gmail.com wrote:\nNo dia 02/09/2014, ?s 17:13, Gerry Quinn escreveu:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Conclusion: \"A Story\" is meant to be true, not Marsch's fantasy." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It may be, but that doesn't follow from the interview." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Doesn't it?\n\n\"I decided to present the Sandwalker story as a legend or story that \nMarsch had uncovered, rather than as straight reportage\"\n\nBut if he had presented it in third person, then it would have to be \ntaken as fact, no? So it must be the case that it can be taken as fact \nanyway, if presenting it that way would have made no real difference,\n\nLike in a detective story, if someone says \"I watched TV all night the \nnight of the murder\" that could be a lie. But if the author notes that \nhe might just as well have written \"X watched TV all night\" - it would \nhave made no difference, but he wanted to present everything as dialogue \n- that would mean X did in fact watch TV all night.\n\nThat is my argument, maybe not 100% proof, but it seems reasonably \nlogical to me.\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "<8D195153C8C83D3-DC0-66CA@webmail-m208.sysops.aol.com>", "from": { "name": "jbarach at aol.com", "address": "jbarach at aol.com" }, "date": "2014-09-02T22:34:48+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Is there a play on V and Five? John V. Marsch? V.R.T.\n\nJohn\n\n \n\n \n\n \n\n-----Original Message-----\nFrom: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes \nTo: The Urth Mailing List \nSent: Tue, Sep 2, 2014 10:50 am\nSubject: Re: (urth) 5HC\n\n\nHas nobody before made the connection between Marsch and Marshmen? I'm sure somebody must have (it's an obvious sort of Wolfean wordplay), but I can't recall anyone doing so.\n\n\n\nOn Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 8:42 AM, Gerry Quinn wrote:\n\n \n \n \nOn 01/09/2014 22:32, Marc Aramini wrote:\n \n \nOne more quick point - when the barrier around ste Anne falls, Sandwalker asks his mother what color his eyes are \"now\". Of course she answers that eyes are green, but this , coupled with the strange mitotic imagery in the eyes of the creature Marsch shoots , and the pits known as the eye and the other eye, is at least enough to hint that one character in an allegorical story is concerned that his eyes have actually changed color from something happening on Ste. Anne. ( and the shadow children grabbing the marsh men by the eyes to ride them ........) \n \n \n \n The piece about green eyes is a bit clunky; I interpret it simply as Wolfe hammering home the point that green eyes are a characteristic by which we may identify abos. As for the water buffalo-like creature that Marsch shoots, I find Marsch's explanation reasonable. Incidentally, the Shadow Children are indicated to grab the Marshmen by the hair, a;though they do gouge out the eyes of one of them. \n \n - Gerry Quinn\n " }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "entonio at gmail.com", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2014-09-03T02:13:03+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "<54064388.7030407@bindweed.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No dia 02/09/2014, ?s 23:24, Gerry Quinn escreveu:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 02/09/2014 17:53, entonio at gmail.com wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "No dia 02/09/2014, ?s 17:13, Gerry Quinn escreveu:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Conclusion: \"A Story\" is meant to be true, not Marsch's fantasy." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "It may be, but that doesn't follow from the interview." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Doesn't it?\n\n\"I decided to present the Sandwalker story as a legend or story that Marsch had uncovered, rather than as straight reportage\"\n\nBut if he had presented it in third person, then it would have to be taken as fact, no?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "You're assuming that it's a matter of exchanging titles. But if presented as straight reportage, it would be written as a straight reportage. As it is, it's written as a tale. " } ] }, { "message_id": "<1409716184.81215.YahooMailNeo@web171302.mail.ir2.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Richard Simon", "address": "gallebuck at yahoo.co.uk" }, "date": "2014-09-03T03:49:44+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC - Maison du Chien", "in_reply_to": "<8D19512095DD253-DC0-6453@webmail-m208.sysops.aol.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "On Wednesday, 3 September 2014, 3:41, \"jbarach at aol.com\" wrote:\n \n\nAre Number Five (Gene) and his brother David in some way parallel to Romulus and Remus?\n\n\nFounders of a nation? Of an empire? Rapists of the Sabine women?\n\nMaybe Maitre intended to repopulate Ste. Croix and Ste. Anne with pure-human clones..." } ] }, { "message_id": "<1409716185.16070.YahooMailNeo@web171301.mail.ir2.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Richard Simon", "address": "gallebuck at yahoo.co.uk" }, "date": "2014-09-03T03:49:45+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC - Maison du Chien", "in_reply_to": "<8D19512095DD253-DC0-6453@webmail-m208.sysops.aol.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "On Wednesday, 3 September 2014, 3:41, \"jbarach at aol.com\" wrote:\n \n\nAre Number Five (Gene) and his brother David in some way parallel to Romulus and Remus?\n\n\nFounders of a nation? Of an empire? Rapists of the Sabine women?\n\nMaybe Maitre intended to repopulate Ste. Croix and Ste. Anne with pure-human clones..." } ] }, { "message_id": "<1409716383.75676.YahooMailNeo@web171305.mail.ir2.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Richard Simon", "address": "gallebuck at yahoo.co.uk" }, "date": "2014-09-03T03:53:03+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "<54063705.6060003@bindweed.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "On Wednesday, 3 September 2014, 8:58, Gerry Quinn wrote:\n\n\n\n\n\nLet's look at just one thing: Why does Wolfe harp on the fact that Marsch's eyes are an unusual green. That the boy Victor's eyes are an unusual green. And - even at the cost of some clunkiness - make sure we know that for Sandwalker's people, \"Green is the colour of eyes\"?\n\nI believe there are indeed clues, deliberately inserted by Wolfe to\n lead us to the soliution, and that they point in a single direction.\n\nIf 'green is the colour' of Annese eyes, then a Shadow Child imitating an Annese would take very good care to have green eyes, no?" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1409717339.91118.YahooMailNeo@web171303.mail.ir2.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Richard Simon", "address": "gallebuck at yahoo.co.uk" }, "date": "2014-09-03T04:08:59+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "On Tuesday, 26 August 2014, 23:01, Marc Aramini wrote:\n\n\n\n\n\nNo lee, I think he was a shadow child, which is very different than an abo.\n\nI agree.\n\nthe switch happened as soon as they landed on ste Anne at the same time Sandwalker and eastwind were switched (Trenchard later says his ancestor is the east wind who met the Landers) when all of a [sudden] \"they\" can't recognize what open hands mean.\n\nDo you mean that all the 'Annese' descendants of Sandwalker are SC/Annese hybrids? That would mean that two species, evolved on planets twenty light-years apart, are capable of interbreeding. I find this a little far-fetched. I admit that the ability of humans to live by hunting and eating Annese animals suggests a certain amount of microbiological compatibility — similar molecular chirality, for instance — but it's a long way from being able to eat something to being able to interbreed with it, especially in the wild.\n\nMy own reading is that when Eastwind is killed, the Shadow Child takes on his form, and it is the (apparent) twin brothers Eastwind and Sandwalker who greet the arriving French. By the way, it is the Annese, not the French, who have forgotten what the open-hands gesture means; my copy of 5HoC, an Arrow paperback published in the UK, reads as follows:\nWhen (Sandwalker) came close to them they extended their hands, open, and smiled; but he did not understand that open hands meant (or had meant, once)...I find it more credible that Sandwalker and his descendants tolerated transmogrified Shadow Children amongst their communities than that they actually interbred with them. Other Annese tribes probably would not have followed suit. " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2014-09-03T12:01:39+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "<1409717339.91118.YahooMailNeo@web171303.mail.ir2.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Gerry Quinn: I've said it before, Wolfe is not trying to" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "trick or trap readers. He's not writing a load of nonsense " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "and hiding the clues to the real story in isolated words or " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "phrases or names. If he wants to tell us something, he will " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "tell it." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\"Trip\" and \"trap\" are rather loaded words regarding the intentions\n\nof the author. Instead of saying it that way, I find it clear that \n\nWolfe sometimes expects more from his readers than they are able to \n\nproduce and/or sometimes inserts mysteries in his stories that are\n\nnot intended to be solved by many (or perhaps by any) of his readers.\n\n\nOne example is from UotNS which features a flood of Urth. Wolfe never\n\noriginally planned to write this book. So is the flood an add-on to\n\nthe story he hadn't originally intended?\n\n\nA re-perusal of the first four books of the story finds a number of\n\nhints that Severian's salvation and re-creation of Urth into Ushas\n\ninvolved a flood. It's just that nobody was able to figure it out\n\nfrom those clues originally provided.\n\n\nAnother example is the Dionysian aspect to the deity of the Briatic\n\nuniverse. In Short Sun we are rather explicitly given the \"son of \n\nSemele\" clue which is a pretty easy clue to figure out. But if\n\nwe go back to BotNS, we can find other veiled hints to Dionysus \n\nwhich nobody (that I know of) was able to get.\n\n\nThere is the example of Dr. Marsch being replaced by Victor Trenchard\n\nto consider. As previously discussed, many highly intelligent and\n\ninsightful members of this board were unconvinced this replacement had\n\ntaken place until Gene Wolfe openly revealed it in an interview." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From these examples I find a pattern which clearly suggests Gene Wolfe" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "includes mysteries within his stories that many readers don't get, some\n\nmysteries that most readers don't get and some mysteries that nobody has\n\ngotten, even to this day.\n\n\nOne of the reasons this board continues on. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2014-09-03T12:10:19+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Richard Simon: The condition of the 'abos' on Ste. Anne and " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Ste. Croix are respectively analogous to the condition of the" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "victims of European colonization in, respectively, South and " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "North America. In Latin America, there has been considerable " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "interbreeding and assimilation between the native inhabitants " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "and their Spanish and Portuguese conquerors, and while social " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "distinctions in those countries still replicate ethnic ones, " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "the latter are not so clearly drawn or insisted upon any more. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "In North America, there has probably been less interbreeding, " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "and certainly less assimilation, between the European settlers " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "and the slaves they imported to serve them. Ste. Croix is a " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "slaveholding society like the United States was before the Civil " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "War." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Excellent analysis Richard. This had been hovering at the edge of\n\nmy awareness for a while but you brought it to focus and nailed it \n\nperfectly." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Gerry Quinn: I don't put any faith in......" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Perfect word choice. Much of the debate here boils down to the\n\nquestion of whether Gene Wolfe asks his readers to take leaps\n\nof faith. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2014-09-03T12:48:17+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "paleolithic, Caucasoid Pygmies who came to be called the Good People \n(and who survived, as was eventually shown, in Scandinavia and Erie*(Eire?)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Barry Ragin: When i first read 5HoC in my twenties, i thought it was a \nfantasy, and assumed he was making a leprechaun analogy. That's \npretty clearly not the case." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Actually I still think you were on the right track. In \"Gondwanaland\",\n\n\"Atlantis\" and \"Mu\" I find hints that some version of Shadow Children\n\nwere on Earth even before the evolution of Homo sapiens.\n\n\nIn a discussion here a few years ago on the same topic, David Stockhoff\n\ninvoked the concept of \"Faerie\" folk as a way of understanding some \n\nunderlying themes in Wolfe's work.\n\n\nAs with leprechauns, kelpies, brownies, fairies, elves, trolls, mermaids,\n\nsirens, etc. from mythology, there are categories of Wolfean characters\n\nwho are not science and technology based like humans but rely more on \n\ncleverness, trickery and \"magic\" in accomplishing their goals. Thus, in\n\nWolfe's work we have Shadow Children, Inhumi, Aelf, Undines, Neighbors and \n\nperhaps the hiero-types.\n\n\nConsider the concept of \"changeling\" found so commonly in our tales of faerie \n\nfolk. I think it adds focus to the idea of Shadow Children, Abos, Inhumi, Hieros\n\nand others in Wolfe stories imitating human form and even, for Shadow Children/Abos \n\nreplacing specific human beings.\n\n\n(I sometimes wonder if Wizard/Knight might ultimately be based on the \"Changeling\"\n\nconcept. If an earth boy finds himself in a Faerie world, might there be a \n\nreplacement version of him living on Earth?) \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<540710CB.4040501@bindweed.com>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2014-09-03T12:59:55+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "<1409716383.75676.YahooMailNeo@web171305.mail.ir2.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 03/09/2014 04:53, Richard Simon wrote:\nOn Wednesday, 3 September 2014, 8:58, Gerry Quinn \nwrote:\n\n\n\n Let's look at just one thing: Why does Wolfe harp on the fact that \nMarsch's eyes are an unusual > green. That the boy Victor's eyes are \nan unusual green. And - even at the cost of some clunkiness - make \nsure we know that for Sandwalker's people, \"Green is the colour of eyes\"?\n\nI believe there are indeed clues, deliberately inserted by Wolfe to \nlead us to the soliution, and that they point in a single direction." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Richard:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "If 'green is the colour' of Annese eyes, then a Shadow Child imitating \nan Annese would take very good care to have green eyes, no?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "For millenia, apparently this didn't occue to them, while they were \nimitating Sandwalker's people who you argue were an ancient race of \nhumans, who for some reason all have green eyes.\n\nThen suddenly, as soon as the French land, the Shadow Children put away \ntheir drugs, and become perfect imitators of, not the new humans, but of \nSandwalker's people. If the landing is the proximate cause, why do they \nnot imitate the French instead?\n\nSandwalker's people (the vast majority of the pre-Landing population: we \nare told \"there are so many of you now and so few of us\") just disappear \ninto the human population. The Shadow Children, now suddenly successful \nin looking like Sandwalker's people, become persecuted abos.\n\nIt still doesn't explain why green eyes are a signifier - if the ancient \nhumans vastly outnumber the Shadow Children, why is the signifier \nanything special? If a race of ancient green-eyed humans merged with \nthe colonists, you'd expect green eyes everywhere among the ordinary \nfolk of Sainte Anne.\n\nAnd why on Earth would there be two levels of imitation anyway? Why \ndoes a Shadow Child have to imitate and ancient human before he imitates \nMarsch. Why is he unable to change his eye colour to that of a \nmodern-day human (after taking such care to have green eyes when \nimitating - for some reason - a poor downtrodden 'abo')? How did the \nShadow Children kick their drug habit? Why does Victor know he is type \n2 alien imitating a human, but has no idea he was previously type 1 \nalien imitating type 2? Why does the imitation take time to master \nsometimes, and at others is completely immediate?\n\nSwitching the origin of the Shadow Children and the abos just creates an \nexpanding wave of inconsistency!\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2014-09-03T13:03:04+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "<540710CB.4040501@bindweed.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "J Barach: There is, however, no lack of people who say that, " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "when the exposed infants lay wailing, they were first taken in " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "by some unknown whore, and that hers were the first breasts they " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "sucked -- for \"she-wolves\" (lupae) was the name given to whores, " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "which is why houses of ill repute are even now called \"wolf-houses\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "(lupanaria)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "How could I read that and not think of Fifth Head? I have no way of " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "knowing if Wolfe had read City of God by the time he wrote Fifth Head " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "or if there might have been some other classical source that pointed " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "him in this direction, but it sure seems to fit nicely, doesn't it?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes. Be it City of God or some other source, I think it is no accident \n\nthat Wolfe combined these concepts. Over and over in his work, he reveals \n\nthat he is familiar with much minutiae from classical mythology." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "And then that raises the question: Are Number Five (Gene) and his brother " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "David in some way parallel to Romulus and Remus?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think perhaps so. Romulus killed Remus. Given his actions toward his father\n\nit would not be a shock if Number Five killed David at some point, in his\n\nmonomania for dominating the planet. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2014-09-03T13:15:43+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC - Maison du Chien", "in_reply_to": "<1409716185.16070.YahooMailNeo@web171301.mail.ir2.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Richard Simon: Maybe Maitre intended to repopulate Ste. Croix and " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Ste. Anne with pure-human clones..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "There might be something to this. There are hints at the preferability\n\nof a pure human race, uncontaminated by alien interbreeding to be found\n\nin BotNS.\n\n\nThe inspiration might well be the Bible. The reason given for the Flood was \n\nthe vague explanation of \"the wickedness of men\". But the Genesis passage \n\njust before the Flood verses shed more light on that \"wickedness\" in the \n\nminds of some theological scholars.\n\n\nThe previous passage (Genesis 6:4) discusses the Nephilim, a race of giants, \n\nostensibly created from the sexual congress between human women and fallen \n\nangels (demons). This half-breed race is surely cognate to the Greek heroes\n\nwho were usually the product of human women and Olympian gods.\n\n\nThere are textual hints that such things have happened, in parallel, on Urth, \n\nhence the otherwise unexplained reason that a Flood was necessary for the\n\ncleansing of Urth and need for a re-population from pure human stock. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com" }, "date": "2014-09-03T13:28:56+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Harkening back to Gerry's comment here ... Wolfe's very nature is so\ncryptic sometimes the final structural layer really is a trick. Face to\nface at the 2013 Nebulas Kim Stanley Robinson told me Damon Knight loved\n\"The Changeling\" but could never get to the bottom of it after I explained\nsome of the stuff going on in the story to him and the externally\nverifiable 1931 birthday, etymology of the word oaf as an elfin changeling,\netc. He said he wished I could have explained it to Damon before he died,\nwho knew he hadn't figured it out.\n\nOnce you notice the unaging boy shows up when Maria is little it's just a\nlogical step, but there are so many other possibilities no one noticed that\ndetail for more than 40 years. And Wolfe wouldn't even explain it to his\nfriend and editor, the one responsible for his exposure to a wide reading\npublic.\n\nWolfe is quite simply an entertainer who is not quite forthright with all\nthe stuff in his stories." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On Wed, Sep 3, 2014 at 5:01 AM, Lee wrote:\nGerry Quinn: I've said it before, Wolfe is not trying to" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "trick or trap readers. He's not writing a load of nonsense" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "and hiding the clues to the real story in isolated words or" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "phrases or names. If he wants to tell us something, he will" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "tell it." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"Trip\" and \"trap\" are rather loaded words regarding the intentions\n\nof the author. Instead of saying it that way, I find it clear that\n\nWolfe sometimes expects more from his readers than they are able to\n\nproduce and/or sometimes inserts mysteries in his stories that are\n\nnot intended to be solved by many (or perhaps by any) of his readers.\n\n\nOne example is from UotNS which features a flood of Urth. Wolfe never\n\noriginally planned to write this book. So is the flood an add-on to\n\nthe story he hadn't originally intended?\n\n\nA re-perusal of the first four books of the story finds a number of\n\nhints that Severian's salvation and re-creation of Urth into Ushas\n\ninvolved a flood. It's just that nobody was able to figure it out\n\nfrom those clues originally provided.\n\n\nAnother example is the Dionysian aspect to the deity of the Briatic\n\nuniverse. In Short Sun we are rather explicitly given the \"son of\n\nSemele\" clue which is a pretty easy clue to figure out. But if\n\nwe go back to BotNS, we can find other veiled hints to Dionysus\n\nwhich nobody (that I know of) was able to get.\n\n\nThere is the example of Dr. Marsch being replaced by Victor Trenchard\n\nto consider. As previously discussed, many highly intelligent and\n\ninsightful members of this board were unconvinced this replacement had\n\ntaken place until Gene Wolfe openly revealed it in an interview.\n\n\nFrom these examples I find a pattern which clearly suggests Gene Wolfe\n\nincludes mysteries within his stories that many readers don't get, some\n\nmysteries that most readers don't get and some mysteries that nobody has\n\ngotten, even to this day.\n\n\nOne of the reasons this board continues on.\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<54071B67.3020204@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Pedro Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2014-09-03T13:45:11+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Marc Aramini wrote (03-09-2014 14:28):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Harkening back to Gerry's comment here ... Wolfe's very nature is so cryptic\nsometimes the final structural layer really is a trick. Face to face at the\n2013 Nebulas Kim Stanley Robinson told me Damon Knight loved \"The\nChangeling\" but could never get to the bottom of it after I explained some\nof the stuff going on in the story to him and the externally verifiable 1931\nbirthday, etymology of the word oaf as an elfin changeling, etc. He said he\nwished I could have explained it to Damon before he died, who knew he hadn't\nfigured it out.\n\nOnce you notice the unaging boy shows up when Maria is little it's just a\nlogical step, but there are so many other possibilities no one noticed that\ndetail for more than 40 years. And Wolfe wouldn't even explain it to his\nfriend and editor, the one responsible for his exposure to a wide reading\npublic.\n\nWolfe is quite simply an entertainer who is not quite forthright with all\nthe stuff in his stories." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "He's said he doesn't expect everyone to get to the bottom of everything. \nMaybe that's right. Why do we need to? It's great to know that there's still \nstuff there, unnoticed by us. He's also said sometimes his puzzles (I don't \nlike to call them that, but...) are harder to crack than he expected. It \ndoesn't mean he expects everything to be crackable, just that he thought \nsome were easier than they then turned out to be.\n\nAnd he's not the kind of writer, either, to put on some random stuff in his \nbooks about, say, colonialism, and leave it at that. It's the fad these days \nto obliquely touch on some subject and have the public take that as a \nstatement (like when a painter puts some tree trunk on a corner, which is \nactually like a machine gun, and we're supposed to take that as itselkf as a \nstatement about war, as if statements had only topics and needed no actual \npredicate). So I can't accept that FHC simply 'broaches' the thematic of \ncolonialism, rather I expect it to make some concrete statements about it. \nJust what those are, is subject to debate, but the idea that they're not \nthere and it's all just scenery, like the idea that Suzanne Delage doesn't \nactually say anything much, is, in my view, noxious." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com" }, "date": "2014-09-03T13:46:48+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Having said that, I think Wolfe has \"preferred\" party line readings that\npierce the first level - Victor replacing Marsch is obviously, with the\nmemories Marsch has of abo life, supposed to be our first conclusion after\na careful reading of The Fifth Head of Cerberus. It isn't \"wrong\" - Wolfe\nwants everyone to come to that conclusion, but he also wants to underlay a\nsecond switch that allows Veil's hypothesis to be true that explains even\nmore details in the text - a Story is as much about what happened to Marsch\nas it is about the Landing through the layering of metaphor. (He wants us\nto conclude a shape changing event has taken place and to be bothered by\nthe question of whether everyone is an abo - but mechanistically underneath\nthat is a second switch in which we can see the gun on the wall fire, and\nboth species are used - the empathic mental multiplicity of the Shadow\nChildren is something that will never grant them a true separate identity)\n\nWolfe wants us to come to the first level ... but it looks like no one will\never come to a consensus beyond his first \"party line\" reading in this\ncase, because all of us see different things beyond that. Victor was an\nabo, his cat wasn't - the cat was the empathic shadow child, as were the\nbeasts that Marsch hunted, and this was why Victor cried when they were\nshot - he is in empathic union with his cat and therefore with the other\nShadow children infections, too. Who bites in \"A Story\"? It isn't an abo.\nWho bites in Fifth Head? the cat. When the abos and Shadow children are\nconfused about who is long and lived in roots, one saying, \"I thought that\nwas us\" - the abos are not influenced by empathic mental powers, that is\nthe shadow children simply assuming their memories and losing their\nidentity in abo communion, since they are confused by those around them.\nOne mimics physically (but perhaps only once, after its larval stage, the\nother constantly adapts itself mentally to whoever is around it).\n\nWhen Marsch says he had difficulty writing because of the bite, we look\npast it and say yeah right that's pure BS it's because an abo replaced\nyou. Then Wolfe switches it around on us ... it WAS because of the bite,\nbut for a different reason entirely.\n\nWhen Crane says Silk's enlightenment was because of a brain event we all\nlaugh ... yeah right. we say, that was enlightenment. But it probably was\nbecause of a Pas planted brain event time released message for his heir." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Wed, Sep 3, 2014 at 6:28 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nHarkening back to Gerry's comment here ... Wolfe's very nature is so\ncryptic sometimes the final structural layer really is a trick. Face to\nface at the 2013 Nebulas Kim Stanley Robinson told me Damon Knight loved\n\"The Changeling\" but could never get to the bottom of it after I explained\nsome of the stuff going on in the story to him and the externally\nverifiable 1931 birthday, etymology of the word oaf as an elfin changeling,\netc. He said he wished I could have explained it to Damon before he died,\nwho knew he hadn't figured it out.\n\nOnce you notice the unaging boy shows up when Maria is little it's just a\nlogical step, but there are so many other possibilities no one noticed that\ndetail for more than 40 years. And Wolfe wouldn't even explain it to his\nfriend and editor, the one responsible for his exposure to a wide reading\npublic.\n\nWolfe is quite simply an entertainer who is not quite forthright with all\nthe stuff in his stories.\n\n\nOn Wed, Sep 3, 2014 at 5:01 AM, Lee wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Gerry Quinn: I've said it before, Wolfe is not trying to" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "trick or trap readers. He's not writing a load of nonsense" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "and hiding the clues to the real story in isolated words or" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "phrases or names. If he wants to tell us something, he will" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "tell it." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "\"Trip\" and \"trap\" are rather loaded words regarding the intentions\n\nof the author. Instead of saying it that way, I find it clear that\n\nWolfe sometimes expects more from his readers than they are able to\n\nproduce and/or sometimes inserts mysteries in his stories that are\n\nnot intended to be solved by many (or perhaps by any) of his readers.\n\n\nOne example is from UotNS which features a flood of Urth. Wolfe never\n\noriginally planned to write this book. So is the flood an add-on to\n\nthe story he hadn't originally intended?\n\n\nA re-perusal of the first four books of the story finds a number of\n\nhints that Severian's salvation and re-creation of Urth into Ushas\n\ninvolved a flood. It's just that nobody was able to figure it out\n\nfrom those clues originally provided.\n\n\nAnother example is the Dionysian aspect to the deity of the Briatic\n\nuniverse. In Short Sun we are rather explicitly given the \"son of\n\nSemele\" clue which is a pretty easy clue to figure out. But if\n\nwe go back to BotNS, we can find other veiled hints to Dionysus\n\nwhich nobody (that I know of) was able to get.\n\n\nThere is the example of Dr. Marsch being replaced by Victor Trenchard\n\nto consider. As previously discussed, many highly intelligent and\n\ninsightful members of this board were unconvinced this replacement had\n\ntaken place until Gene Wolfe openly revealed it in an interview.\n\n\nFrom these examples I find a pattern which clearly suggests Gene Wolfe\n\nincludes mysteries within his stories that many readers don't get, some\n\nmysteries that most readers don't get and some mysteries that nobody has\n\ngotten, even to this day.\n\n\nOne of the reasons this board continues on.\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<8D195A55A923B68-C98-CEB2@webmail-vm029.sysops.aol.com>", "from": { "name": "jbarach at aol.com", "address": "jbarach at aol.com" }, "date": "2014-09-03T15:46:25+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC - Maison du Chien", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I should have added this:\n\n\nJust a couple chapters before this passage about \"wolf-houses\" in The City of God, Augustine also talks about werewolves: \n\n\n\nFinally, he [Varro] mentions by name a certain Demaenetus, who tasted the sacrifice of a child which the Arcadians customarily made to the god Lycaeus. Demaenetus was changed into a wolf; but, ten years later, he was restored to his proper nature, trained as a boxer and won a victory at the Olympic Games. And the same historian also considers that the surname given in Arcadia to Pan Lycaeus and Jupiter Lycaeus can be due to no other reason than this transformation of men into wolves, which, it is supposed, can only be brought about by divine power. For the Greek word for \"wolf\" is lykos, and the name 'Lycaeus' is clearly derived from this word. Varro also says that the Roman Luperci originated from these mysteries, which were, so to speak, the seed from which they grew (City of God 18.17). \n\n\n\nA passage about werewolves, followed a few chapters later by a reference to whorehouses being called \"wolf-houses.\" If Wolfe didn't devour these passages and use them, he should have! Is there any way of asking him or finding out if City of God influenced him? \n\n\nJohn\n \n\n\n\n-----Original Message-----" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: Lee \nTo: urth \nSent: Wed, Sep 3, 2014 8:16 am\nSubject: (urth) 5HC - Maison du Chien\nRichard Simon: Maybe Maitre intended to repopulate Ste. Croix and " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Ste. Anne with pure-human clones..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "There might be something to this. There are hints at the preferability\n\nof a pure human race, uncontaminated by alien interbreeding to be found\n\nin BotNS.\n\n\nThe inspiration might well be the Bible. The reason given for the Flood was \n\nthe vague explanation of \"the wickedness of men\". But the Genesis passage \n\njust before the Flood verses shed more light on that \"wickedness\" in the \n\nminds of some theological scholars.\n\n\nThe previous passage (Genesis 6:4) discusses the Nephilim, a race of giants, \n\nostensibly created from the sexual congress between human women and fallen \n\nangels (demons). This half-breed race is surely cognate to the Greek heroes\n\nwho were usually the product of human women and Olympian gods.\n\n\nThere are textual hints that such things have happened, in parallel, on Urth, \n\nhence the otherwise unexplained reason that a Flood was necessary for the\n\ncleansing of Urth and need for a re-population from pure human stock. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<5407537E.7060102@clueland.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeffery Wilson clueland.com", "address": "jwilson at clueland.com" }, "date": "2014-09-03T17:44:30+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 9/3/2014 7:48 AM, Lee wrote:\nAs with leprechauns, kelpies, brownies, fairies, elves, trolls, mermaids,\n\nsirens, etc. from mythology, there are categories of Wolfean characters\n\nwho are not science and technology based like humans but rely more on\n\ncleverness, trickery and \"magic\" in accomplishing their goals. Thus, in\n\nWolfe's work we have Shadow Children, Inhumi, Aelf, Undines, Neighbors and\n\nperhaps the hiero-types.\n\n\nConsider the concept of \"changeling\" found so commonly in our tales of faerie\n\nfolk. I think it adds focus to the idea of Shadow Children, Abos, Inhumi, Hieros\n\nand others in Wolfe stories imitating human form and even, for Shadow Children/Abos\n\nreplacing specific human beings." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Could it be that some other spacefaring race brings imitators from St \nAnne to Earth during the time of the Homeric Greeks, where they \ninfiltrate as feys and elfs then are assimilated? The other spacers \ncould return to St Anne with humans who are imitated and assimilated, \nsetting the stage for the French explorers to land 4 000 years later?\n\nIn reading about the middle eastern strife, I see that there is indeed a \ncolonial pattern of using multiple races to dominate one another, even \nimporting a elite minority when necessary; thus the Rwandan civil war \nafter the Belgians stopped supporting the Tutsi as their exploiters of \nthe Hutus and the the Twa pygmies." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - < jwilson at clueland.com >\nA&M Texarkana Computational Intelligence Lab\n< http://www.tamut.edu/cil >" } ] }, { "message_id": "<54075835.40701@clueland.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeffery Wilson clueland.com", "address": "jwilson at clueland.com" }, "date": "2014-09-03T18:04:37+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 9/3/2014 8:28 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nOnce you notice the unaging boy shows up when Maria is little it's just\na logical step, but there are so many other possibilities no one noticed\nthat detail for more than 40 years. And Wolfe wouldn't even explain it\nto his friend and editor, the one responsible for his exposure to a wide\nreading public." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Didn't they have something of an estrangement? I used to chat with \nDamon on the old GEnie network, and he seemed like they would have been \nprone to political disagreement." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - < jwilson at clueland.com >\nA&M Texarkana Computational Intelligence Lab\n< http://www.tamut.edu/cil >" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1409811548.37237.YahooMailNeo@web171303.mail.ir2.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Richard Simon", "address": "gallebuck at yahoo.co.uk" }, "date": "2014-09-04T06:19:08+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "<540710CB.4040501@bindweed.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I begin to weary of this..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Wednesday, 3 September 2014, 18:38, Gerry Quinn wrote:\n\n\n\n\n\nFor millenia, apparently this didn't occue to them, while they were imitating Sandwalker's people who you argue were an ancient race of humans, who for some reason all have green eyes. \n\nIt didn't occur to them, they just imitated the eyes. Why do they all have green eyes? Why not? Perhaps they were all lactose-tolerant, too. Evolution and genetic drift in a small population make such things extremely likely." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Then suddenly, as soon as the French land, the Shadow Children put away their drugs, and become perfect imitators of, not the new humans, but of Sandwalker's people. If the landing is the proximate cause, why do they not imitate the French instead?\n\nThey were always imitators of Sandwalker's people, as is made very clear in 'A Story'. There just weren't that many French, compared to Annese, so they continued to imitate the Annese. The French on Ste. Anne interbred with the native population (like the Portuguese and Spanish in South America) on Ste. Anne. The fact is that most if not all of the Ste. Anne population has Annese blood, the same way most 'white' Americans have Indio or African blood, but don't acknowledge it." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Sandwalker's people (the vast majority of the pre-Landing population: we are told \"there are so many of you now and so few of us\") just disappear into the human population. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Other way round." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The Shadow Children, now suddenly successful in looking like Sandwalker's people, become persecuted abos.\n\nWith that comment — apart from the 'suddenly' ? you answer your own question." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It still doesn't explain why green eyes are a signifier - if the ancient humans vastly outnumber the Shadow Children, why is the signifier anything special? If a race of ancient green-eyed humans merged with the colonists, you'd expect green eyes everywhere among the ordinary folk of Sainte Anne." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Green eyes are a genetic rarity even on Earth." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "And why on Earth would there be two levels of imitation anyway? Why does a Shadow Child have to imitate and ancient human before he imitates Marsch. \n\nReally, this is silly. He lived for many years as Trenchard's son, perhaps before that as his father. He may even — it is hinted in the text — have been all those other people Marsch interviewed and wrote about in his journal. Just before he imitated Marsch, he was imitating Victor, supposedly a half-Annese boy. That's all I meant." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Why is he unable to change his eye colour to that of a modern-day human (after taking such care to have green eyes when imitating - for some reason - a poor downtrodden 'abo')?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "There are plenty of people on both Ste. Anne and Ste. Croix that have green eyes. As there are on Earth. Why need Marsch not have had green eyes himself?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "How did the Shadow Children kick their drug habit? " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Did they? How do you know?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Why does Victor know he is type 2 alien imitating a human, but has no idea he was previously type 1 alien imitating type 2?\n\nType 1 alien? Type 2 alien? There is only one alien species in the book, known as the Shadow Children." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Why does the imitation take time to master sometimes, and at others is completely immediate?\n\nWhen and where is it immediate? A person can make herself look older or younger, more or less attractive, in moments, but a complete transformation always takes a long time in the book." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Switching the origin of the Shadow Children and the abos just creates an expanding wave of inconsistency!\n\nNot as I see it. And this, if you will forgive me, is my last word to you on the subject. You may reply or not, as you see fit." } ] }, { "message_id": "<5405C7D0003B588A@rgout05.bt.lon5.cpcloud.co.uk>", "from": { "name": "Mo Holkar", "address": "lists at ukg.co.uk" }, "date": "2014-09-04T09:02:08+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC - Maison du Chien", "in_reply_to": "<8D195A55A923B68-C98-CEB2@webmail-vm029.sysops.aol.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 16:46 03/09/2014, John wrote:\nA passage about werewolves, followed a few chapters later by a \nreference to whorehouses being called \"wolf-houses.\" If Wolfe \ndidn't devour these passages and use them, he should have! Is there \nany way of asking him or finding out if City of God influenced him?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It seems to me very unlikely that, as a bookish Catholic, he wouldn't \nhave read it. It's one of the key texts of the early Church.\n\nMo\n\n\n# ~ # ~ #\n\nWolfeWiki -- a wiki about Gene Wolfe\nhttp://www.wolfewiki.com/pmwiki/ " } ] }, { "message_id": "<54085EA9.3030300@bindweed.com>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2014-09-04T12:44:25+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "<1409811548.37237.YahooMailNeo@web171303.mail.ir2.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 04/09/2014 07:19, Richard Simon wrote:\nI begin to weary of this...\n\n\n Then suddenly, as soon as the French land, the Shadow Children put\n away their drugs, and become perfect imitators of, not the new\n humans, but of Sandwalker's people. If the landing is the\n proximate cause, why do they not imitate the French instead?\n\nThey were always imitators of Sandwalker's people, as is made very \nclear in 'A Story'." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It is made very clear that they were BAD imitators, who looked \nsignificantly different." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " Why is he unable to change his eye colour to that of a modern-day\n human (after taking such care to have green eyes when imitating -\n for some reason - a poor downtrodden 'abo')?\n\nThere are plenty of people on both Ste. Anne and Ste. Croix that have \ngreen eyes. As there are on Earth. Why need Marsch not have had green \neyes himself?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Because if he did, he would hardly have noted that Victor's eyes were 'a \nstartling green'. [And besides, if green eyes are just random, what's \nthe whole point in Wolfe's stressing it over and over?]" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " Switching the origin of the Shadow Children and the abos just\n creates an expanding wave of inconsistency!\n\nNot as I see it. And this, if you will forgive me, is my last word to \nyou on the subject. You may reply or not, as you see fit." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " Of course I cannot force you to examine whether these \nrationalisations fit into a coherent whole.\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com" }, "date": "2014-09-04T13:47:11+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "<54075835.40701@clueland.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm trying to remember if it was Knight or Avram Davidson who wrote a\nnegative review of Castleview." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Wed, Sep 3, 2014 at 11:04 AM, Jeffery Wilson clueland.com <\njwilson at clueland.com> wrote:\nOn 9/3/2014 8:28 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Once you notice the unaging boy shows up when Maria is little it's just\na logical step, but there are so many other possibilities no one noticed\nthat detail for more than 40 years. And Wolfe wouldn't even explain it\nto his friend and editor, the one responsible for his exposure to a wide\nreading public." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Didn't they have something of an estrangement? I used to chat with Damon\non the old GEnie network, and he seemed like they would have been prone to\npolitical disagreement.\n\n\n--\nJeff Wilson - < jwilson at clueland.com >\nA&M Texarkana Computational Intelligence Lab\n< http://www.tamut.edu/cil >\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2014-09-04T14:39:46+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Jeff Wilson: Could it be that some other spacefaring race brings " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "imitators from St Anne to Earth during the time of the Homeric Greeks, " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "where they infiltrate as feys and elfs then are assimilated? The other " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "spacers could return to St Anne with humans who are imitated and " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "assimilated, setting the stage for the French explorers to land 4 000 years " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "later?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes, I very much think a scenario like this is hinted at. Partly because we\n\nsee a similar scenario described in BotNS with human (instead of Shadows)\n\nspreading out across the galaxy, evolving then returning to the home planet\n\nas aliens.\n\n\nAlso because it adds the final level of horror to the story I think Wolfe \n\nintended. When I first read 5HoC it was the novella only and I, like Gerry,\n\nconsidered Veil's Hypothesis to be a silliness which served only as an \n\noblique plot device, allowing Number Five to chase Dr. Marsch away.\n\n\nLater, in reading the full novel, as it dawned on me in reading V.R.T. that\n\nvictor had replaced Marsch, the greater level of horror became apparent as\n\nI remembered back to Veil's Hypothesis and realized it wasn't just a one\n\nperson replacement that was being hinted at.\n\n\nThen, on re-reading, an even deeper horror is revealed in the talk of the \n\nShadow Children; the idea that we on earth have long been infected/corrupted\n\ncompromised by this extra-terrestrial presence. \n\n\nThat's how I see it, anyway and I even see this sort of alien corruption as the \n\ncriterion for Urth's need to be cleansed in BotNS (in parallel to the Biblical \n\ncleansing of earth in Noah's time).\n\n\nJeff, a while back you asked me if I saw the Inhumi as a commentary on the sort\n\nof people here on earth who become a part of families and/or communities and \n\nparasitically suck them dry as a part of their infiltration. I emphatically \n\nanswered affirmatively. I find pretty much all of Wolfe's work to be social\n\ncommentary. Even a book full of futuristic torturers, giants, monsters and \n\nwizardry ends up as a commentary on our own religious/mythological past." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Antonio Pedro Marques: And he's not the kind of writer, either, to put on some " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "random stuff in his books about, say, colonialism, and leave it at that....I can't " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "accept that FHC simply 'broaches' the thematic of colonialism, rather I expect it " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "to make some concrete statements about it." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I also agree with Antonio. I find Gene Wolfe to be more of a portrait artist who\n\nfocuses on his subject without a large amount of attention to non-plot/character\n\nrelated landscape elements. I also find him to be a person of strong opinions on \n\ntopics such as society, religion, culture, etc. who is loathe to slap his readers \n\nacross the face with those opinions. I don't always agree with those opinions but \n\nI absolutely love and admire the way he manages to blend those opinions in between \n\nthe lines of his stories. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2014-09-04T14:46:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Richard Simon: I begin to weary of this..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "There are various tactics and strategies to win a debate. One is\n\nto wear down your opponent with stubbornness and win by attrition. \n\nLast word wins?\n\n\nHere in America, such a principle is actually a part of our\n\ngovernance. If a Congressman can continually speak for a couple\n\ndays in a \"filibuster\" he can outlast his opponents and stymie\n\nan opposed bill being passed simply by using up all the allotted\n\ntime. Sigh, such is the god-forsaken land that I love so dearly.\n\n\nActually I don't know if filibusters are allowed in the parliaments\n\nof other nations. Any insight or knowledge on this would be\n\nappreciated. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<53F20E7B01F94B30@rgout01.bt.lon5.cpcloud.co.uk>", "from": { "name": "Mo Holkar", "address": "lists at ukg.co.uk" }, "date": "2014-09-04T15:00:47+00:00", "subject": "(urth) OT: filibusters", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 15:46 04/09/2014, Lee wrote:\nActually I don't know if filibusters are allowed in the parliaments\nof other nations. Any insight or knowledge on this would be\nappreciated." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "They exist in the UK parliament, although they're pretty unusual. \nMost recently I think a few years ago a motion to put us onto the \nsame time zone as neighbouring countries was filibustered out. There \nis a rule that the matter of the speech must be relevant: they can't \njust recite any old drivel.\n\nMo\n\n\n\n\n# ~ # ~ #\n\nWolfeWiki -- a wiki about Gene Wolfe\nhttp://www.wolfewiki.com/pmwiki/ " } ] }, { "message_id": "<5b0f7e4c49c7d9ee7d5ea0bd8387fd82.squirrel@webmail.prismnet.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at clueland.com" }, "date": "2014-09-04T18:43:56+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Thu, September 4, 2014 09:46, Lee wrote:\nHere in America, such a principle is actually a part of our\ngovernance. If a Congressman can continually speak for a couple\ndays in a \"filibuster\" he can outlast his opponents and stymie\nan opposed bill being passed simply by using up all the allotted\ntime. Sigh, such is the god-forsaken land that I love so dearly." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That is out-dated; the parliamentary procedure has been modified so that\ncontinuous speaking is no longer necessary." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - < jwilson at clueland.com >\nA&M Texarkana Computational Intelligence Lab\n< http://www.tamut.edu/cil >" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2014-09-04T19:42:30+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "<5b0f7e4c49c7d9ee7d5ea0bd8387fd82.squirrel@webmail.prismnet.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Jeff Wilson: That is out-dated; the parliamentary procedure " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "has been modified so that continuous speaking is no longer " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "necessary." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, I'm not a political expert. But didn't Senator Ted Cruz\n\nfrom the great state of Texas do a 21 hour filibuster last\n\nyear, including readings from Dr. Seuss and citing Star wars,\n\nDuck Dynasty and other crazy stuff in an attempt to snuff \n\nthe Affordable Health Care Act?\n\n\n(apologies for drifting so far off topic) \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<54092CB9.4060403@clueland.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeffery Wilson clueland.com", "address": "jwilson at clueland.com" }, "date": "2014-09-05T03:23:37+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On 9/4/2014 2:42 PM, Lee wrote:\nJeff Wilson: That is out-dated; the parliamentary procedure" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "has been modified so that continuous speaking is no longer" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "necessary." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Well, I'm not a political expert. But didn't Senator Ted Cruz\n\nfrom the great state of Texas do a 21 hour filibuster last\n\nyear, including readings from Dr. Seuss and citing Star wars,\n\nDuck Dynasty and other crazy stuff in an attempt to snuff\n\nthe Affordable Health Care Act?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Publicity stunt; he later voted with the rest of the Senators to let it \nadvance." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - < jwilson at clueland.com >\nA&M Texarkana Computational Intelligence Lab\n< http://www.tamut.edu/cil >" } ] }, { "message_id": "<54098E55.4010901@bindweed.com>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2014-09-05T10:20:05+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On 04/09/2014 15:46, Lee wrote:\nRichard Simon: I begin to weary of this..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "There are various tactics and strategies to win a debate. One is\nto wear down your opponent with stubbornness and win by attrition.\nLast word wins?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Perhaps there should be a rule in debate that logical objections to a \nthesis become invalid when the proponent tires of having them pointed \nout, I fear it is unlikely to catch on in any circles still foolishly \nclinging to the concept that any given proposition may have greater or \nlesser truth value in its sphere of reference than any another, though.\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2014-09-05T11:18:04+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "<54098E55.4010901@bindweed.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Jeff Wilson: Publicity stunt; he later voted with the rest of " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "the Senators to let it advance." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Interesting. Didn't know that. Thanks!" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Gerry Quinn: \nPerhaps there should be a rule in debate that logical objections to a \nthesis become invalid when the proponent tires of having them pointed \nout, I fear it is unlikely to catch on in any circles still foolishly \nclinging to the concept that any given proposition may have greater or \nlesser truth value in its sphere of reference than any another, though." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "When engaging in a discussion of ideas with others, having the final \n\nword on issues of \"logic\" and \"truth\" seems too onerous a burden for\n\nany one person to claim. If a person really did have access to such ultimate\n\nrightness, I would hope they would use this gift in the service of all \n\nhumanity rather than just in a Gene Wolfe discussion board. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<5409AF26.30006@bindweed.com>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2014-09-05T12:40:06+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On 05/09/2014 12:18, Lee wrote:\nGerry Quinn:\nPerhaps there should be a rule in debate that logical objections to a\nthesis become invalid when the proponent tires of having them pointed\nout, I fear it is unlikely to catch on in any circles still foolishly\nclinging to the concept that any given proposition may have greater or\nlesser truth value in its sphere of reference than any another, though." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "When engaging in a discussion of ideas with others, having the final\nword on issues of \"logic\" and \"truth\" seems too onerous a burden for\nany one person to claim. If a person really did have access to such ultimate\nrightness, I would hope they would use this gift in the service of all\nhumanity rather than just in a Gene Wolfe discussion board. \t\t \t \t\t\n_" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Few would claim to have the final word on issues of logic or truth. \nForthunately, the identification of logical inconsistencies requires no \nsuch power.\n\nAnd the placement of scare quotes about the concept of logic is never a \nhappy sight,\n\n- Gerry Quinn\n." } ] }, { "message_id": "<5409B785.8090101@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Pedro Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2014-09-05T13:15:49+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "<54098E55.4010901@bindweed.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Gerry Quinn wrote (05-09-2014 11:20):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 04/09/2014 15:46, Lee wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Richard Simon: I begin to weary of this..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "There are various tactics and strategies to win a debate. One is\nto wear down your opponent with stubbornness and win by attrition.\nLast word wins?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Perhaps there should be a rule in debate that logical objections to a thesis\nbecome invalid when the proponent tires of having them pointed out" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Logival objections take the form \"That leads to contradiction\" or \"Allowing \nthat allows anything (so in what way is *that* better than the \nalternatives)\", not \"I find that contrived\".\nMore to the point, any proposition worth discussing offers material for a \nbarrage of objections. It's part of the social contract not to abuse that \npotential, but not all seem to realise that unless they're on the receiving \nend. I blame the socialists." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2014-09-05T13:49:57+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "<5409B785.8090101@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Gerry Quinn: Few would claim to have the final word on issues of" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "logic or truth. Forthunately, the identification of logical " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "inconsistencies requires no such power." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I am not understanding. If a person reads a work of fiction and comes\n\nto what they feel is a \"logical\" interpretation and someone else feels\n\nthat interpretation contains \"logical inconsistencies\", I think there\n\nare only two ways to proceed. Either there is agreement to disagree with\n\nan acknowledgement of equality or one person (or both) claims the \n\nsuperiority of their logical prowess over the other." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "And the placement of scare quotes about the concept of logic is never a \nhappy sight," }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm uncertain as to the nature of what \"scare quotes\" might be. In this\n\ncase I use quotes to indicate the wording someone else had previously used\n\nas well as to indicate that I question the validity of \"logic\" and \"truth\"\n\nin understanding artwork.\n\n\nWhat logical equation can explain why watches have a liquid quality in a\n\nDali painting? What truth can be found in the appearance of a blue haired\n\nwoman in the balcony of a David Lynch film?\n\n\nSurely there are human ways of perceiving the world and understanding art \n\nother than logic? Surely the word \"intuition\" is not completely bereft of\n\nall meaning? \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<5409D612.9000200@clueland.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeffery Wilson clueland.com", "address": "jwilson at clueland.com" }, "date": "2014-09-05T15:26:10+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 9/5/2014 6:18 AM, Lee wrote:\nWhen engaging in a discussion of ideas with others, having the final\n\nword on issues of \"logic\" and \"truth\" seems too onerous a burden for\n\nany one person to claim. If a person really did have access to such ultimate\n\nrightness, I would hope they would use this gift in the service of all\n\nhumanity rather than just in a Gene Wolfe discussion board. \t\t \t \t\t" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Negative, Captain. Rigorously correct logical reasoning is easily within \nthe grasp of a typical person if they wish to seek it out. While logic \nalone cannot confirm the truth of a premise, it can however reach a \ncontradiction that disproves the truth of a flawed premise, and it can \nestablish relationships between a premise and a proposed truth." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - < jwilson at clueland.com >\nA&M Texarkana Computational Intelligence Lab\n< http://www.tamut.edu/cil >" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2014-09-05T17:24:58+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "<5409D612.9000200@clueland.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Antonio Pedro Marques: More to the point, any proposition " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "worth discussing offers material for a barrage of objections. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It's part of the social contract not to abuse that potential, " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "but not all seem to realise that unless they're on the receiving " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "end. I blame the socialists." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Heh. Insightful and funny. Funny, since we don't have any real\n\nsocialists in the USA. But as a non-American, perhaps you were not \n\nkidding about that?\n\n\nThe \"social contract\" is an interesting concept to invoke. Perhaps\n\nsome people are socialized to feel it is their civic and social duty \n\nto correct all instances of wrongful thinking and to keep correcting \n\nuntil a change to rightful thinking has been achieved. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<5409F7E5.6070805@bindweed.com>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2014-09-05T17:50:29+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "<5409B785.8090101@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 05/09/2014 14:15, Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:\nGerry Quinn wrote (05-09-2014 11:20):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On 04/09/2014 15:46, Lee wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 4, "text": "Richard Simon: I begin to weary of this..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "There are various tactics and strategies to win a debate. One is\nto wear down your opponent with stubbornness and win by attrition.\nLast word wins?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Perhaps there should be a rule in debate that logical objections to a \nthesis\nbecome invalid when the proponent tires of having them pointed out" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Logival objections take the form \"That leads to contradiction\" or \n\"Allowing that allows anything (so in what way is *that* better than \nthe alternatives)\", not \"I find that contrived\"." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I do not disagree" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "More to the point, any proposition worth discussing offers material \nfor a barrage of objections. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Here I do disagree. On the contrary, the existence of a host of obvious \nobjections suggests, surely, that a proposition is highly questionable? \nIt indicates that the proposition is poorly aligned to the contents of \nthe text, or that Wolfe has blundered and allowed his text to contain \nnumerous elements that contradict an intended interpretation. (In the \nlatter case, one would only be able to reasonably assert such an \ninterpretation by pointing to substantial specific indications that the \nproposition is nevertheless, what he intended.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It's part of the social contract not to abuse that potential, but not \nall seem to realise that unless they're on the receiving end. I blame \nthe socialists." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Even to note the objections is problematic?\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1409987914.27556.YahooMailNeo@web171303.mail.ir2.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Richard Simon", "address": "gallebuck at yahoo.co.uk" }, "date": "2014-09-06T07:18:34+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I explained how I interpret the text of The Fifth Head of Cerberus.\n\nMr Quinn prefers a different interpretation, one I regard as untenable because if that interpretation is accepted as correct the entire subtext of the story vanishes into thin air.\n\nI shall argue no farther, but neither Mr Quinn nor anyone else should assume that means I cannot, should I wish to do so, carry the argument further. I visit urth.net to pick up clues, hints and suggestions to eke out my own understanding of Gene Wolfe's works, not to promote an interpretation of my own. I offered my reading of 5HoC to see whether there were any reasonable objections to it. There are none, so I shall keep it." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Saturday, 6 September 2014, 3:38, Lee wrote:\nGerry Quinn: Few would claim to have the final word on issues of" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "logic or truth. Forthunately, the identification of logical " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "inconsistencies requires no such power." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I am not understanding. If a person reads a work of fiction and comes\n\nto what they feel is a \"logical\" interpretation and someone else feels\n\nthat interpretation contains \"logical inconsistencies\", I think there\n\nare only two ways to proceed. Either there is agreement to disagree with\n\nan acknowledgement of equality or one person (or both) claims the \n\nsuperiority of their logical prowess over the other." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "And the placement of scare quotes about the concept of logic is never a \nhappy sight," }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm uncertain as to the nature of what \"scare quotes\" might be. In this\n\ncase I use quotes to indicate the wording someone else had previously used\n\nas well as to indicate that I question the validity of \"logic\" and \"truth\"\n\nin understanding artwork.\n\n\nWhat logical equation can explain why watches have a liquid quality in a\n\nDali painting? What truth can be found in the appearance of a blue haired\n\nwoman in the balcony of a David Lynch film?\n\n\nSurely there are human ways of perceiving the world and understanding art \n\nother than logic? Surely the word \"intuition\" is not completely bereft of\n\nall meaning? " } ] } ] }