5HX

Gerry Quinn · 24 Aug 2014, 18:28 · from 2014-August.txt.gz

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From: gerry at bindweed.com (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Sun, 24 Aug 2014 19:28:21 +0100
Subject: (urth) 5HX
In-Reply-To: <CAF1072xaHgWVoz8T9OPtwYze0NNz6fnfoAWrQk5JC8=pTs4ufw at mail.gmail.com>
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	<CAF1072xaHgWVoz8T9OPtwYze0NNz6fnfoAWrQk5JC8=pTs4ufw at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <53FA2EC5.8020108 at bindweed.com>

On 24/08/2014 17:52, Marc Aramini wrote:
> It takes about three days for Marsch to be reborn on Easter Sunday 
> from the bite as something different - his body undergoes a harrowing 
> over that period of time.  The existence of two alien races is simple: 
> it creates a means for "Other" to be persecuted -  abo incarcerated by 
> humans or shadow child incarcerated by abos who believe themselves to 
> be human. Abo incarcerated by abo makes no sense. The officer making a 
> slave open the document with a knife and then showering 
> prophylactically shows a strange unhandiness and a fear of saliva. 
> This multiplication of species must serve a narrative purpose.  The 
> switch of Sandwalker to Eastwind and the human landers suddenly not 
> knowing what open hands mean shows the climactic switch when humans 
> are replaced by abos who now believe themselves to be humans.  Why 
> bring up Liev's postulate at all if it isn't even a possibility?  It 
> is present in the text.  So are meta statements like "don't ask me how 
> big a child is".  The details of A Story honestly don't make much 
> sense unless they are pointing to a symbolic representation of 
> Marsch's fate to elucidate the two life cycles at work - larval, 
> adult, sessile carapace/tree and an infectious empathic one.
>

We *have* a means for 'Other' to be persecuted: abos persecuted by 
humans (and of course plenty of intra-human persecution, particularly on 
Sainte Croix).

Why can't the officer simply fear spirochaetes of the ordinary kind?  He 
shares the girl with the other officers.  If people on Sainte Croix are 
terrified of being infected by alien mind-controlling parasites (or by 
the wrong sort of alien mind-controlling parasites) why don't we hear 
more about it than a passing reference to an officer who likes to wash 
after sex?

The French landers hold up open hands - it is Sandwalker who doesn't 
understand the significance because his people don't use weapons.

The major advantage of the interpretation, boring as it might seem, in 
which nearly everyone in normal society  (now) is human apart from a few 
abos who slip under the radar, is that no character in any of the three 
novellas is required to be completely delusial about concrete matters.

- Gerry Quinn

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