{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/848", "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": 848, "subject": "5th Head", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "1998-06-22T12:59:04+00:00", "last": "1998-06-23T15:40:40+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Ranjit Bhatnagar", "address": "ranjit at moonmilk.com" }, "date": "1998-06-22T12:59:04+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5th Head", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "After skimming over months of discussion, I finally got\naround to reading my copy of _Fifth Head_ -- the receipt,\nstill stuck in the book, is dated May 1988. \n\nI had a year ago read \"A Story\" by itself -- it was\nreprinted in the anthology _Future Primitive: The New\nEcotopias_ (ed. Kim Stanley Robinson). Just as _Quixote_ by\nMenard is a very different work than _Quixote_ by Cervantes\n[gratuitous Borges reference], a story by Gene Wolfe (in\n_Future Primitive_) isn't like \"A Story\" by John Marsch (in\n_Fifth Head_).\n\nWhen I read \"A Story\" on its own, in a book celebrating\n\"primitive\" ways of life, I took it as a reasonably accurate\ndescription of life and culture at a particular time and\nplace. In _Fifth Head_, though, I could trace how Marsh\ncreated the fable around little scraps of dubious\ninformation he got from R.T. and V.R.T. -- or how\nV.R.T. assembled it from the tidbits he got from his mother.\n\n\nAnyway, here are some tidbits of my own.\n\nIs Marsch homosexual? Well, he does say (I believe this is\nfrom a taped prison interview)\n\n\t\"A scientist has needs like other men.\"\n --------------\n\nHeh heh.\n\n\nBesides his green eyes, #5 several times comments on Marsch's\ndisturbingly pale skin. Makes me think of a clammy swamp\ncreature, but I can't find any significance to it. \n\n\nIs there any hint in \"V.R.T.\" of the folklore behind the\nShadow Children in \"A Story?\" I can't think of anyone in\nMarsch's interviews distinguishing more than two kinds of\nabos (Hill and Meadowmere) -- nor any mention of telepathic\nabilities, addiction to a particular plant, etc. Maybe the\nauthor made 'em up entirely, inspired by the constellation.\n\n\nWhy was V.R.T. so sloppy in writing down memories of his own\nchildhood on St. Anne in what was supposed to be Marsch's\njournal? (Unless, as Peter Cash just suggested, it's all a\ncover story for Marsch. I disagree, though, that Marsch may\nhave killed Maitre. It seems clear that #5 got rid of\nMarsch -- by offending him with bizarre accusations -- in\norder to have some quality time alone with his \"father\". Of\ncourse, if it seems clear, it's probably false.)\n\n\nHmm. We're trying to tell the difference between real\nfiction and fictional fiction. I need to lie down now.\n\n\n\tRanjit" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Tony Ellis", "address": "tony.ellis at futurenet.co.uk" }, "date": "1998-06-23T09:59:30+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: 5th Head", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Ranjit wrote:\nIs there any hint in \"V.R.T.\" of the folklore behind the\nShadow Children in \"A Story?\" I can't think of anyone in\nMarsch's interviews distinguishing more than two kinds of\nabos (Hill and Meadowmere)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The Shadow Children are secretive even by Annese standards, and the\ncolonists have a very shakey idea of who the Annese were, so you can't\nexpect too much. But Mrs Blount does say \"I used to play with the\nchildren, the little ones, you know.\" Now, is she thinking about Free\nPeople children, or another kind of Child? \"Ma said they'd eat me...\nAnything to eat, they were always hungry.\"\n\nM. Culot's grandfather's description of the Annese is also suggestive:\n\"sometimes like a man, sometimes like old wood.\" \n\nVRT also mentions seeing them when living in the outback with his\nmother, and their telepathic abilities \"...and the Shadow Children of\ncourse came to steal by evening... there are never as many of them as\nthey think, because some are only in the minds of the others\"" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "adam louis stephanides", "address": "astephan at students.uiuc.edu" }, "date": "1998-06-23T15:40:40+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5th Head", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Tue, 23 Jun 1998 Ranjit Bhatnagar wrote:\nIs there any hint in \"V.R.T.\" of the folklore behind the\nShadow Children in \"A Story?\" I can't think of anyone in\nMarsch's interviews distinguishing more than two kinds of\nabos (Hill and Meadowmere) -- nor any mention of telepathic\nabilities, addiction to a particular plant, etc. Maybe the\nauthor made 'em up entirely, inspired by the constellation." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "But then where did the constellation's name come from? " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Why was V.R.T. so sloppy in writing down memories of his own\nchildhood on St. Anne in what was supposed to be Marsch's\njournal?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "On p. 230 (Ace edition) V.R.T. says he now thinks nobody may be reading\nhis prison writings after all. It's only after this that he writes about\nhis childhood on St. Anne.\n\n--Adam" } ] } ] }