Fifth Head

William H. Ansley · 17 Feb 1999, 00:17 · from urth-v0023.mbox · original

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From: "William H. Ansley" <wansley at warwick.net>
Subject: Re: (urth) Re: Fifth Head
Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1999 00:17:02
Message-ID: <urth-v0023-0073 at digest.urth.net>
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>Roy wrote:
>
>> >William H. Ansley wrote
>> >
>> >Since the narrator is supposed to be older that David, this could expla=
in
>> >the order of the roll call. It could also be in order of social rank: t=
he
>> >narrator is the clone of Maitre and his heir, while David is a mere nat=
ural
>> >son, really little more than an experimental control.
>>
>>     True, but at the time of the incident the narrator is only seven. It
>> isn't until several years later, at about the age of puberty, that he le=
arns
>> he is the older brother.
>>
>Actually, we don't have any reason to believe that the narrator -is- older
>than
>David. He -thinks- he's older because his father tells him that he's the h=
eir.

I mostly agree. That is why I used the word "supposed" above, but it would
have been more accurate if I had said:
"Since the narrator supposes himself to be older that David..."
However, just because the narrator makes an unwarranted assumption doesn't
mean it's wrong.

In any case, I think it is going too far to say that "we don't have *any*
reason to believe that the narrator -is- older than David." [*Emphasis*
added.] It is fairly clear that producing Number Five was a difficult
process for Maitre whereas producing David would have been relatively
simple. Surely, if any part of David's reason for being was to be a control
for Number Five, Maitre would want them to be as close to the same age as
possible. And surely the easiest way to accomplish this would be for Maitre
to wait until he had a clone he was satisfied with and then cause David to
be conceived, making Number Five of necessity older than David.

William Ansley

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