Overthinking/Underthinking "The Fifth Head of Cerberus"

Marc Aramini · 16 Aug 2014, 23:54 · from 2014-August.txt.gz

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From: marcaramini at gmail.com (Marc Aramini)
Date: Sat, 16 Aug 2014 16:54:09 -0700
Subject: (urth) Overthinking/Underthinking "The Fifth Head of Cerberus"
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Okay, but Rue d'asticot, staff like and stork like legs on the girls on st
croix and a heron like walk to Abos, the name  port mimizon (sounds like
mimicry)
Which just happens to be organized after a hand with fingers and a
thumb, the talk of a bite possibly switching eastwind and Sandwalker in a
story by stuff swimming in their veins and Marsch also being bitten on the
last possible friday/rogation day before Easter Sunday when the journal
starts up again don't seem like coincidence to me.

On Saturday, August 16, 2014, Gerry Quinn <gerry at bindweed.com> wrote:

>
> On 16/08/2014 21:08, Marc Aramini wrote:
>
>> I should stop, but I just can't.
>> The story also tells us Victor falls to his death ... I actually believe
>> what the story tells me there.
>>  You see how you have to admit that some scenes are fabrications or
>> unreliable to proceed, and even you aren't immune from dismissing whole
>> scenes that are clearly depicted in the text?
>> You are likely to say that is the ONLY scene because it serves a
>> narrative purpose.  I believe that the tree reaching for Victor, the mites
>> that infect people, the shadow children riding up from the mud in currents,
>> the damaged legs of the young firl and the paralyzed legs of Aunt Jeanine,
>> the climactic bite in A Story, and the symbolism of shadow children riding
>> the shoulders of Marsh men all serve a narrative purpose too.
>>
>
> But we have clues right from the start.  The handwriting in the journal
> changes (the last line written by the real Marsch was "I think I would
> shoot them both").  The journal relates that Marsch was bitten by the cat.
> The officer compares the writing with Victor's school composition book
> right *before* this point.  A few enties later, Victor admits he has been
> lying about the dates, in the very same entry that he claims the boy is
> dead.
>
> Item: The green eyes of the Marsch who visits No. 5.  Marsch earlier
> claims in his journal that Victor has "startling green eyes" (and he
> doesn't say "greener than mine").  We see green eyes later as an abo
> signifier in "A Story" - the point is veritably hammered in.
>
> Item: "I needed only to make my voice like his and look older."
>
> Item: When (in prison) he writes of his bad handwriting, he says "my
> mother would take my trousers to the river, walking upstream for hours to
> get away from the sewers, leeaving me ashamed and afraid, with an old
> blanket or a torn piece of sail wrapped around me".  Who can be writing
> this other than the boy Victor?
>
> The thing is, these are all 'hard' clues that point towards a specific
> interpretation.  The clues you cite are heavily interpreted by you, and
> some of the leaps you make seem to be of questionable foundation.  Consider
> "the damaged legs of the young girl". Phaedria had a broken ankle, which
> was expected to heal in the normal way.  She played a cripple in the play
> the children put on, "[because her] ankle would not be mended in time four
> our performance".  Other girls - including Marydol - acted in the play, and
> presumably did not play cripples.  Subsequently, Phaedria was agile enough
> to participate in a burglary.
>
> You have to assume that Wolfe's characters are completely delusional even
> when conscious, and that the story is told, like that of Loyal To The Group
> Of Seventeen, in terms of symbology with no causal attachment to the overt
> meaning of the text.  The problem is, we can easily generate a storm of
> such symbolism from any text.
>
> I don't think such symbolism works if it contradicts the text.
>
> - Gerry Quinn
>
>
>
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