(urth) Agilus and Agia

[Sergei SOLOVIEV]

And don't forget that cloning is progressing very quickly. What was 
known when the books we discuss were written?

Sergei

Marc Aramini wrote:
> The unhatched chick between Jolenta's legs.  Anyway, we know something of number five's first cloning efforts.  He takes unfertilized frog sex cells and doubles the chromosomes, producing a viable 2n cell to then differentiate and split naturally. Could be a similar technique for Maitre, or perhaps more advanced parthenogenesis
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On May 6, 2013, at 5:25 AM, Lee Berman <severiansola at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>   
>>> David Stockhoff: Who knows how much Inire has to do with the seraglio and 
>>> the women held there, but if he does, there's a parallel to Doctor Crane, who 
>>> presumably would have used a vaginal speculum quite a bit.
>>>       
>> True. Anyone know of other gynecological references in Wolfe's work?
>>
>>     
>>> So, hmm. We have no details on the methods of cloning (or half-cloning, 
>>> as Thomas suggests?) used by the Commonwealth.
>>>       
>> I find this similar to 5HoC. All we have is a closed door lab and some
>> circumstantial evidence of the results. Naturally Number Five doesn't 
>> remember the details of his own birth (or whatever). I think this aspect of
>> his narrator unreliability is the primary reason Wolfe chose to use him
>> as first person narrator instead of Maitre. He might have told us how human 
>> cloning is done. Number Five can't (yet). 
>>
>> I think this is in parallel to our own normal birthing experience Which is pretty 
>> messy and not something we think about much when we think of ourselves. And if we 
>> read stories from older time periods (or even our own), we are not likely to get 
>> graphic descriptions of how birth happens. We are more likely to get passing references 
>> which assume the reader will fill in the missing details with their own level of knowledge.
>> Thus do clones feel about their own genesis. 
>>
>> I think cloning in BotNS is like Typhon's science chamber with its mysterious machines, 
>> Baldander's lab, with its gruesome results, the Witches tower with its hairless, crippled 
>> creatures and wherever Inire produces his dog men and cat women. Blood sharing also. We
>> don't know how khaibits and their mistresses do it and Severian is maddeningly vague in
>> telling us about the old Leech linking his bloodstream to Mamas'. Not giving us the
>> scientific/clinical details helps add to the sense of horror Wolfe always seems to want 
>> to maintain at a certain level.                         
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