(urth) Re: 5HC

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes danldo at gmail.com
Wed Jan 26 11:16:22 PST 2005


Jim - 

While I've found some of your postings, as you say, overexuberant
and sometimes way out in left field, I hope you haven't felt abuse
from me. I certainly intend none.

A few details.


> Gene also gives us Genetics and Genesis etc etc

Well, yes ... And number five is not only a Gene Wolfe, but 
a gene wolf, a genetic predator. And there is a very definite
"Genesis" aspect to 5HC, particularly in the matter of the 
Fall. 

(I also think the suggestion that a race that doesn't use 
tools may be unfFallen - emphasis on "may" - is spot on.)


> I think the murder scene is written (in all three
> novels) to allow any of the participants (named or
> implied) to be valid suspects.

I think we may also expect a Cain-and-Abel aspect to
each murder: that is, they are all to be perceived as
murders of close kin. Due perhaps to envy/jealousy?

> Aaaargh! But you are also right and I should have
> spotted this before. Anne in Green Gables is obsessed
> with why the roads there are all red... like her hair.
> A rougette is also a radish (reddish?)

Except that "radish" comes from _radix_, root - which
is also the root (or radical) of "radical." Still, in the 
'60s, and even more in the era of the Korean War, 
"radical" would be tied to "red," or rather "Red."


> Very well spotted. I keep missing the Christian
> references.

These seem to me (more or less importantly) present in 
all Wolfe's major work, even the ones on overtly pagan
themes like the Latro books, "There Are Doors" and "The
Wizard Knight." Keeping at least one eye on that aspect
seems to me key to understanding them.


> One thing I love about Gene Wolfe is that when you do
> spot a connection, you can then find he makes the same
> point over and over again.

Yep. It's almost as if he was begging for the use of 
"deconstructive" techniques - here, the discovry of the
"brisure," hinge, that so much of the work swings back
and forth on.

--Dan'l

-- 
"We're going to sit on Scorsese's head"
     -- The Goodfeathers



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