Subject: "The Fifth Head of Cerberus" (SPOILERS)

From: Zorn of Zorna <hartman at cs.swarthmore.edu>
Date: Wed, 13 Jun 1990 21:40:15 +0000

(I almost wrote "The Fifth Head of Cerebus" up there...)

   I finally read Gene Wolfe's "The Fifth Head of Cerberus" a week or so
ago.  I vaguely remember there being a full-length novel version, but
this was a shorter version, in one of the Year's Best anthologies.  And
I just don't get it.  Or rather, I followed the surface story without
too much trouble, but when I got to the end I had a strong feeling that
there was a lot going on that I was missing.  The story seemed to be
very straightforward in plot; as far as I could tell, it was mostly a
mood piece.  It did a good job of characterization and depiction of this
future alien society, but I couldn't help feeling that that wasn't all
there was to it.  Can anyone help me out?
   I couldn't even figure out if Veil's Hypothesis (I think that was
what it was called) was supposed to be true, or exactly why the
protagonist was imprisoned (there's an obvious reason for him to have
been imprisoned (killing his father), but I thought there were
implications that it WASN'T for the obvious reason).
   Hm.  Just realized that that story was what I was reminded of by the
Prologue to _Stars in my Pocket Like Grains of Sand_ (which I'm reading
now).  Interesting similarities.
   Anyway, I tend to have that feeling about most of Wolfe's stuff that
I've read.  Haven't started on the Book of the New Sun (?) books yet,
but the stories of his that I've read (and _Free Live Free_) have often
left me wondering what I'm missing...
--jed, out of his depth

---

From: Mike Godwin <mnemonic at walt.cc.utexas.edu>
Date: Thu, 14 Jun 1990 04:21:27 +0000

>implications that it WASN'T for the obvious reason).

Well, since Wolfe was trying to create a certain amount of ambiguity
in his story, you should be warned that there's no real "answer" to
many of your questions. Nevertheless, you'd probably enjoy 
the "novel" FIFTH HEAD OF CERBERUS, which is actually the story you
read followed by two related stories. The book will give you a lot
of background on the Hypothesis and other questions you may have
about Wolfe's fictional society.

Wolfe can be troubling to those who read more traditional SF, since
he feels no great need to wrap up his works with tidy solutions.
Of course, this is part of his strength as a writer, since life
itself has no great fondness for neat solutions.

--Mike

Mike Godwin, UT Law School  |"No interest is good unless it must vest,
Just another bar-exam nerd  | if it all, not later than 21 years after