Someday they'll want us.

Gerry Quinn · 24 Jun 2010, 23:42 · from 2010-June.txt.gz

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From: gerryq at indigo.ie (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Fri, 25 Jun 2010 00:42:08 +0100
Subject: (urth) Someday they'll want us.
References: <AANLkTiki3O75BT1ERifULsu-PUCu0JY-erPfzsyTGOvl at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <85B81403ED2C47A4AF3CAC40B164BF90@jill>

----- Original Message ----- 
> Gerry Quinn wrote:

>> "Someday they'll want us" is the last line of _The Fifth Head of
>> Cerberus_, written three years after the narrator's release from prison.
>> The subject, clearly, is Phaedria and her child. Who are the "us" of the
>> example?
>
> The subject is humanity. 'Us' is the family - for want of a better
> word - of which he is a part. Someday humanity will want us.

Indeed, I think this is correct.  I had thought that the child was 
Phaedria's by way of her failed marriage, which allowed another reading. 
But of course the failure of the 'family' had become their driving obsession 
and that must be what is meant.

My initial reading was more optimistic; I thought perhaps the narrator had 
broken the cycle.  But it does not seem tenable.

- Gerry Quinn

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