(urth) 5hoc: carapace, the cemetery columns, Sandwalker's feet, predendritic

David Stockhoff dstockhoff at verizon.net
Sun Apr 7 14:21:53 PDT 2013


Sure. I suppose I was thinking as much of the reference to Gondwanaland, 
i.e., Gerry's suggestion that people of the novel's future simply know 
more than we do, or think on larger time scales, thus they coined the 
term. Our primate ancestors might have been living in trees around the 
time it broke up.

On 4/7/2013 4:51 PM, Marc Aramini wrote:
> And making them move around and reach out and mate, just using them as removable carapaces?  I think the subtextual presence of keeping the trees satisfied and expecting greetings from them and them saying that children are theirs is a bit more than that.
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Apr 7, 2013, at 1:22 PM, David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net> wrote:
>
>> What about "dendritic" as possibly meaning "living in trees"?
>>
>> Never mind living */as /*trees . . .
>>
>> On 4/7/2013 9:59 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:
>>> One more quick thought.  Everyone dreams of being surrounded by columns or trees.  In Number 5's dreams, eventually these columns are revealed to have words that are rubbed off (the same time he realizes it is like a mausoleum or cemetery that all carry his name and different dates).  the only word he can make out is "carapace".
>>> Later, the aborigines are confused with old wood, posts, etc.  Notice the post like/pillar nature of many of the demi-mondaine's legs.
>>> I am still trying to put together the aboriginal life cycle.  The term pre-dendritic is very interesting to me, as Marsch describes the aboriginal culture.  Since the columns in the first novella surround a graveyard, are the big circle of trees like a graveyard, too?  In VRT, that "temple" is cut down (402 trees in a big circle).
>>> Specifically, should we take pre-dendritic literally?  For a certain non-imitative aborigine who has not become "human", does death or maturity prompt a hard woody carapace that then makes them dendritic and rooted?
>>> The reason I ask this is that in the death scene of VRT, the river tree that reaches out for VRT to save him is mentioned with "feet" imagery.   Only one character always has foot imagery associated with him - he who drops from a higher place to a lower - Sandwalker. (and there, VRT drops down - and I do liken "Sandwalker's" fate to VRT - replaced by somebody who dreams that he is in fact the dead one (thus i juxtapose castrated ancestor Eastwind with the airborne Shadowchild))  Is this big tree in the river reaching out for VRT Sandwalker's carapace encased corpse?  How complicated are their life cycles?  I am assuming that of course one who imitates another species would leave this portion of the life cycle behind.
>>> The classification as predendritic got me thinking about that.
>>>
>>>
>>>
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