(urth) Recent human crash-landing on Sainte-Anne‏

[Lee Berman]

>Gerry Quinn: If you always lean towards the most fantastic view, and also get bent out of shape 
>whenever people disagree with you, you are apt to have a hard time.
 
I am not bent out of shape though you may be fooled into thinking so; I retain full elasticity, 
I assure you. Perhaps you are bent out of shape because I disagree with your method of disagreement?
It is all simply conversation, is it not?
 
 
>I would have thought that there is good evidence that for the Shadow Children, death is much the 
>same as it is for us.
 
That's because of the translated word "death" which is used. I think we have thesame problem with the 
word "mother" when shapeshifting abos use the word. What do these words mean when used by alien creatures 
who may not have sexual reproduction or death as we know it?
 
Gerry, you are willing to believe the words of Shadow Children when they say they are human even 
though those words are later called into question. You ignore the words of Shadow Children when
they say they are acorporeal and indeterminate in number, though that part is not called into 
question. 
 
The story takes on worlds of new meaning if you can shuck your own human experience a little and make 
an attempt to understand what it would be like to be an immortal, shapeshifting being who happens
to currently be in human form. 
 
You have to grasp this concept to fully understand BotNS also. Soldier series too, perhaps. That's why 
these stories are told in first person. It is an interesting way to disguise someone's identity by 
issuing the story from the mouth of a person who is confused about their identity.
 
Where would Gene Wolfe get such a crazy idea as this: A god-like being in human form? hm...where indeed. 
Pretty much all ancient literature, I'd say. He just switched it to first person.