Overthinking/Underthinking "The Fifth Head of Cerberus"

Gerry Quinn · 17 Aug 2014, 14:36 · from 2014-August.txt.gz

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From: gerry at bindweed.com (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Sun, 17 Aug 2014 15:36:54 +0100
Subject: (urth) Overthinking/Underthinking "The Fifth Head of Cerberus"
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On 17/08/2014 00:54, Marc Aramini wrote:
> 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. 
Where do you get Easter Sunday from?  If the cat bit him on a Friday, 
according to the (fake) dates in the journal, not much happened on the 
Sunday.

If you accept connections that loose, you will find millions in every 
direction.

Wolfe is a somewhat psychologically realistic writer; his characters use 
metaphor and figurative imagery, and do not always speak literally.  In 
Science Fiction, this is arguably a dangerous game to play, because 
there is not the same grounding in the real world to instantly identify 
figures as such.  The reader is forced to make some added effort to keep 
the levels of explanation and causality in their appropriate places.

The clues I posted, they are 'hard' clues, as in a detective story. They 
have a single implication and they cannot be mistaken for metaphor.  I 
think the opposite is the case for what you are taking as clues.  And 
what is the status of the others, in your interpretation?  Why does the 
officer compare the handwriting of Marsch's journal just before the 
alleged cat bite with the school composition book, and nod to himself?  
That bit has no figurative meaning, it's a straightforward pointer to 
the fact that Victor started writing the journal at this point.  Why do 
you think Wolfe wrote this paragraph?

I noted several other such instances (and I forgot the woman, likely 
Victor's mother, in the adjacent cell, though this is less definitive 
anyway).

I don't see how one can ignore these and instead divine the truth of the 
story from the shape of a continent or the walk of a woman!

- Gerry Quinn

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