(urth) FW: May 2014 Wolfe interview in _Technology Review_

[Marc Aramini]

It also seems to me that brides involve a method of propagation and
reproduction, you know?  like the life cycle involves them somehow.  But
like I said, I really don't want to argue too much about this because our
views on parallel symbolic associations in Fifth Head of Cerberus are
diametrically opposed.


On Tue, Aug 5, 2014 at 9:59 AM, Marc Aramini <marcaramini at gmail.com> wrote:

> they say the white creatures they chew and spit out are their "brides." -
> seems like an organism to me. As I said, the associations are symbolic
> rather than literal, so proving it is quite unlikely.  Sandwalker and
> Eastwind ARE switched by a bite.  Marsch is switched with a bite, too.  But
> you don't buy it, that's fine.
>
>
> On Tue, Aug 5, 2014 at 9:22 AM, Gerry Quinn <gerry at bindweed.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> On 05/08/2014 14:54, Marc Aramini wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Seeing as how I view Shadow Children as psychically gifted and
>>> "empathetic" and capable of rising up in the draft of currents from the
>>> ground and take seriously the idea that even though they are many when they
>>> are confronted  they fade into "one lonely" - (ie a parasitic community
>>> that infects a host so thoroughly that they are effectively only that one
>>> being, the small things living in the mouth that the large Shadow Child
>>> says might switch Eastwind and Sandwalker when he bites them at the end of
>>> "A Story" (because he is infected himself and is a "shadow child", though
>>> "A Story" is a myth and is not realistic in all details, being symbolic in
>>> some), I feel most of your discussion is probably moot - the Shadow
>>> Children are only human insofar as they can infect them. Also, I believe
>>> Shadow Child infection can alter the eyes, such as the doubled pupil that
>>> seems to be undergoing meiosis or something after Marsch shoots the wild
>>> animals near the back of beyond. I don't want to argue about any of that
>>> stuff, but I do want to point out "all this is stated quite clearly in the
>>> text" when you are talking about "A Story" in Fifth Head of Cerberus is
>>> simply not an accurate assessment of all the confusing stuff  and mystical
>>> mumbo jumbo going on, where both species are very confused about their
>>> origin.  One is imitative, one infectious, and both might have come from a
>>> single source of divergent evolution ... or not.
>>>
>>
>> There are no small creatures in the Shadow Child's mouth.  "That which
>> swam in my mouth swims in his veins now" is singular - it refers to the
>> drug plant they chew.  "And because I spoke to him and he believed me, in
>> his mind he is you" - drug-induced hypnosis.  And I ask again, where do we
>> find any reason to believe the original Marsch was infected in some way by
>> Victor?  He got a cat-bite that went septic, but nowhere is infection
>> linked to imitation.  The green eyes of the aborigines (such as Victor) are
>> not double-pupilled - what have they to do with the eyes of the hippo or
>> whatever?
>>
>> I don't believe there is any confusion - we are given a quite coherent,
>> if unlikely, story.  The Old Wise One is never confused about his origin
>> until a large part of him is generated from Sandwalker's mind.  Then, and
>> only then, does he become confused, and in a manner consistent with the
>> story so far.  Note that the actual story doesn't change anyway - he just
>> doesn't know which of the two peoples he is - the humans who crossed from
>> star to star, landing on Sainte Anne, or the shape-shifting tool-less
>> people - Sandwalker's ancestors - they found there.
>>
>>
>> - Gerry Quinn
>>
>>
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