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

[Gerry Quinn]

On 07/08/2014 21:26, Lee wrote:
>> Gerry Quinn: Where, *precisely*, are we given that story?

> Gerry Quinn: > Where, *precisely*, are we given that story?


> Find the passage in which The Old Wise One admits he can't remember
> which origin story is true.

The Old Wise One - for reasons that are explained, so I don't think it's important - becomes unclear, not about what happened on Sainte Anne, but about which of the two races was originally human and which was aboriginal.  At no time is a scenario proposed in the text in which both the Shadow Children and the Hillmen/Marshmen are originally aborigines.

He becomes increasingly confused concurrently with the deaths of most of the Shadow Children whose minds, along with Sandwalker's, are constructing his.  It's not even surprising.  Before this, he sets out the history clearly, repeatedly indicating that his ancestors were the humans and Sandwalker's the native shapeshifters.  He explains why they no longer use tools.


> At risk of being insulting, I am getting the sense that there is a
> certain literary level often found in WOlfe's writing to which you are
> not sensitive.

I would say, rather, that I read the writing with care, and do not tend to construct elaborate scenarios based on words found here and there.

> You are trying to solve a Wolfe mystery as though it were Sherlock Holmes
> or a labexperiment where you are supposed to observe the evidence,
> scientifically sort, weigh, and otherwise quantify it and the correct
> answer is thusly calculated. Preponderance of evidence represents the
> "right" answer.

Indeed, if my failing is reading and interpreting every part of the text with regard to what it means and how it corresponds to the rest of the text, I will plead guilty.


> In my opinion, Wolfe often writes in a manner in which almost everything
> which is written is a lie in some fashion. He takes "unreliable narrator"
> to an extreme inso many of his works, to the point that almost nothing
> written is trustworthy. I think

Even if that is so (I think it is a great exaggeration) I believe it is generally to be assumed that the text has some intended meaning which can be identified by a careful reader, and that this meaning will be of some significance in terms of the greater themes he is exploring.

> that description is apt for Fifth Head of Cerberus. In this type of story,
> other methods of determining the "truth" must be found other than just
> quantifying the repetition of lies and false evidence.

Certainly a mere quantification of the number of repetitions seems a limited approach.  If by 'quantification', however, you mean placing detailed storylines occupying multiple pages ahead of extrapolations from occasional ambiguous statements and even single words, again I will plead guilty.


> Consider the example of the Inhumi discussed a few years back. In the
> beginning of the discussion, the flight of Inhumi between Green and Blue
>  was considered reasonable and true by most of the discussion participants.
> And why not? The process is discussed a number of times in various
> direct and indirect ways by Inhumi.

> By the end of the discussion, it was generally agreed that such flight
> would violate so many laws of physics, chemistry and biology that Wolfe
>  could not have accidentally forgotten them. The flight of Inhumi through
>  the void between planets must be a lie, despite all the textual evidence
>  for it. It becomes clear that every bit of this "textual evidence" has
> come from the mouths of a race of liars.

I do not recall any such general agreement.  That unpowered flight between nearby planets is unrealistic is, of course, a given.  Unpowered interplanetary and even interstellar travel by telepathic or mystical means also appears to occur repeatedly - do you consider that too to be a lie?

  > We know the Inhuman do travel between planets. So how do they do it? The
> obvious answer is given to us, hidden in plain sight- From our first
> introduction to them, we know- The Inhumi travel planet to planet by being
> master imitators and stowaways on the spaceships of other species. We are
> shown them doing this several times. It doesn't require violating the
> laws of the universe and it also explains the lies about flying through the
> void. Disguisers and stowaways must rely on lies to accomplish their
> deceit and concealment, and thus be experts at it.

Even if correct, this secret space program is simply not *interesting* enough to be the 'secret of the Inhumi'.

> Back to Shadow Children. I wouldn't expect you to change your mind but
> if you have an explanation for why the supposedly human Shadow Children
>  are even worse with tools than Abos, I'd be interested.

We never see them try to use tools.  They explain themselves that they have put them away in order to enjoy their drugged-up paradise "Long ago, before a fool struck fire, we were so - roaming without whatever may be named save the sun, the night, and eachj other.  Now we aew so again, for we are gods, and things made by hands do not concern us."  They do of course still show at various times an understanding of spacecraft, general relativity and such.

>  Also, as previously explained, the Shadow Children as proto-Abos does
> not require more than one shape changing species. It requires one.
> One evolving species, which evolves in pseudo-Lamarckian
> fashion by adopting the features of their victims rather than
> developing their own. Shadow Children are a first attempt at the local
> imitative parasites at copying humans. A poor one. Abos represent
> a second attempt. Better but imperfect. Marsch and the rest of the population
> of Ste Anne and St. Croix (except #5 who is self-cloned) are a third, even better
> attempt. 		 	   		

You also require another species, the humans, to have died out.  And for 
the first, and if you like the third, to actually believe they are human 
and believe they remember places and events on Earth. Contrary to your 
original argument, the scenario described is never proposed in the text.

The idea is, in any case, almost inconceivable when examined in its own 
right.  Marsch, the Earthman, comes to Sainte Anne and notices nothing.  
He interviews Mrs. Blount, who describes her mother's passage from 
Earth, and the abos she played with duiring her childhood ("who are then 
the Free People" - as neo-Marsch reasonably asks - "conservatives who 
would not desert the old ways?")  There's an interplanetary war, an 
infection of a second planet..  And NOBODY NOTICES, not even Mr. 
Million, who would presumably be immune to all of this.

And then there is the question of Marsch himself.  Why is he - the only 
character we know (he tells us himself that he had to look older and 
change his voice) to be an imitation - special in a system entirely 
composed of unknowing imitators?  Why is it only he who cannot hold a 
pen correctly, when others of this new wave of imitators can now, 
seemingly, use cloning technology and operate spaceships?  How come his 
efforts to pass as human failed and made him obviously suspect when he 
became the temporary focus of a murder investigation?  Is he a throwback 
to the near-human second-generation Abos, lost amongst the 
third-generation super-Abos?  What happens when ships visiting the 
system return to Earth?

Most of all - what's the point of all this supposed to be?  Why would 
Wolfe write such a loose-end dripping farrago?

- Gerry Quinn