{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/687",
    "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": 687,
    "subject": "5HC",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1998-05-31T17:36:00+00:00",
    "last": "1998-05-31T17:36:00+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0012-0024@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "m.driussi",
        "address": "m.driussi at genie.com"
      },
      "date": "1998-05-31T17:36:00+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) 5HC",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Last night I finished reading THE FIFTH HEAD OF CERBERUS.  I think it\nwas the third or fourth time, the previous time being some years ago.\n\nWhat a great book.\n\nThis time I am struck by the unexamined twins, Number Five and\nMarsh/V.R.T.; probably unduly influenced by my own Gilgamesh/Enkidu\nnote from before.\n\nBoth are in quasi-Oedipal conflicts (\"quasi-\" because the father\nfigure isn't their father and because there is no mother involved as\ngoal/reward/reason).  Both are murderers.  Both plan to use beards as\na disguise (Number Five to mimic Number Four; V.R.T. to signal to\nother abos that he is now a man).  They are apprehended and\nimprisoned at the same time for the same crime (murder of Number\nFour).  They are in the same prison for a while, but then the urban\none is sent into the wilderness and the wild one is put into a\ncramped cell.\n\nThese two have very little contact with each other.  Yet information\n=seems= on occassion to flow from Number Five to Marsh/V.R.T. in the\nE.S.P. way that twins are fabled to have; in the way depicted between\nthe twins-separated-at-birth in the \"fiction\" of \"A Story.\"\n\nThis is very faint.\n\nNumber Five's dream of court fenced with Corinthian pillars is echoed\nin the abo dream of the obvervatory on Sainte Anne (where one brother\nis a priest dreamwatching his hillman twin), which is then traced to\nthe anthropological notes regarding the cedar-stump ruins of the\nobservatory.\n\nFainter still: the awakening from sleep of Number Five, \"He wants\nyou\"; the awakening from sleep of Marsh/V.R.T. \"You are wanted.\"\n\nWhich leads me to another appreciation of the \"V\"; granted this is\nmantic, but disregarding the \"five\" aspect of the symbol, we see two\n\"I\"s (ones; selves) which converge into one at the end.\n\nThen, at the end of the book, just as things are taking on more solid\nform, suddenly it seems like the planet is crawling with abos.  The\nofficer with his scarred head (V.R.T.) links to the head-scarring\npractices of the marshmen (A Story).\n\nOkay, granted that \"A Story\" is (probably) generated by Marsh/V.R.T.\nwhile in prison, after he has been arrested by the scarred officer.\nBut there are other things that Marsh/V.R.T. doesn't see: the same\nofficer washing himself post-coitus links to the fictitious abo doing\nthe same in \"A Story\" and to the boy V.R.T. doing the same in the\nApril 12 entry. (Again: that \"A Story\" links to the anthro journal in\n\"V.R.T.\" is to be expected; it is the other linkage that causes some\nwonderment.)\n\nIn addition, Cassilla seems like an abo, from what we know about abo\nfemale prostitutes (shape shifting, make themselves ugly when they\naren't in the mood, green eyes?  [Is this an echo of their world\ncolor, the green of Sainte Anne?  If so, gee, blue eyes might be for\nSainte Croix.].\n\nThen there is the Edgar Allen Poe sequence: the officer is distracted\nby a one-eyed black cat; then by a mysterious black bird that flies\nin and perches on the picture frame--one almost expects the bird to\ncroak, \"Nevermore.\"  Both creatures in Poe's work signal missing\nwomen: the first a murdered wife, the second a wife lost to disease.\nRegardless of that, animal messengers are a part of the abo world\nrather than that of the colonist.\n\nAnyway, if the place is overrun with abos (i.e., Veil's Theory), then\none side of the conflict between the two worlds could be the same old\nancient hill versus marsh battle depicted in the fiction of \"A Story.\"\nAnd Cassilla might be the presumed dead cat-girl, working out her\nrevenge upon the traitor-to-his-race-and-girlfriend Marsh/V.R.T.\nWith Number Five the doomed heir of the only \"pure\" humans left.\n\n=mantis="
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}