May 2014 Wolfe interview in _Technology Review_

Gerry Quinn · 06 Aug 2014, 12:33 · from 2014-August.txt.gz

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From: gerry at bindweed.com (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Wed, 06 Aug 2014 13:33:18 +0100
Subject: (urth) FW: May 2014 Wolfe interview in _Technology Review_
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On 05/08/2014 18:28, Marc Aramini wrote:
> are these leaves the Shadow Children chew from the carapace corpse 
> trees of the aborigines in the final stage of their life cycle? If 
> that is the case, perhaps the aboriginal cells have two means of 
> surviving: through standard macrocosmic sexual recombination and then 
> through cellular mimicry when they are consumed and chewed, mimicking 
> the host cells and allowing cellular reproduction to occur in this 
> fashion with undifferentiated cells.  Would be an interesting case of 
> crazy converging AND diverging evolution.

No, they are from a herb with warty grey leaves and yellow flowers.

> On Tue, Aug 5, 2014 at 10:25 AM, Marc Aramini <marcaramini at gmail.com 
> <mailto:marcaramini at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     eastwind has no testicles but survives - the life cycle of the
>     shadow children does not involve sexual reproduction.  I also know
>     Eastwind is an abo, but he SYMBOLIZES the shadow children's
>     propagation cycle in the story's conclusion, while Sandwalker
>     symbolizes the aboriginal one.
>

He survives, but the ill-named Sweetmouth laughs at him because as a 
eunuch he has not developed secondary sexual characteristics. Sandwalker 
is better equipped in that regard - he has sex with Seven Girls Waiting.

>
>     On Tue, Aug 5, 2014 at 10:23 AM, Marc Aramini
>     <marcaramini at gmail.com <mailto:marcaramini at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>         my mistake, replaced, supplanted.  I KNOW he was bitten by the
>         cat, Gerry.  Why even say that?  Victor is only a part of the
>         equation because the cat had a kind of affinity for Victor
>         like the Shadow Children do for whoever with their psychic
>         empathy, but it is the bite that brings the fragment of that
>         psychic connection into Marsch and "replaces" him.  If there
>         is any of Victor in Marsch, it is through the psychic
>         resonance the cat had with Victor.
>

>         I think of Victor and Marsch as two distinct entities, and
>         Victor DIES in a scene you believe to be a fabrication, a
>         fall.  But Wolfe wants us to believe Victor takes Marsch's
>         place and assumes his shape, because that is the first false
>         solution to the mystery without touching on the life cycle of
>         the Shadow Children that underlies the point of "A Story".  It
>         seems Sandwalker the abo lives, as it seems Victor replaces
>         Marsch, but Marsch is actually but a vector for an infection
>         which can rise up on air currents and float in the wind
>         (Eastwind).
>
Two men enter the wilds, one man leaves.  The other body is not to be 
found.  I think it's reasonable to doubt the recorded details of death.

Victor: "I only had to make my voice like his, and look older".  (He had 
already learned to speak like him: the original Marsch remarks on it, in 
his notebook.)  How do you explain this, if Victor did not replace Marsche?

- Gerry Quinn

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