(urth) Overthinking/Underthinking "The Fifth Head of Cerberus"

[Marc Aramini]

I think a part of this message was lost in draft form, sorry.

More charitably, perhaps wolfe wants to allow some freedom of
interpretation, so we can walk away at a certain point - he wants us to
know Marsch  is replaced, and if we are satisfied with the obvious
replacement as victor Trenchard, we need go no further, perhaps vaguely
bothered by the meaning of A Story and the strange almost dysfunctional
community extent on ste. Croix. But Wolfe knows if that is the real
solution or not, as Joyce knew if the mysterious man in the mcintosh had a
name and identity elsewhere in Ulysses, relevant or not.

On Tuesday, August 19, 2014, Marc Aramini <marcaramini at gmail.com
<javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','marcaramini at gmail.com');>> wrote:

> We could go back and forth, the three of us, for a million years.  We
> should just accept we get different things out of the text, and will never
> convince the other.  However, the real irony is that I think the majority
> of Wolfe's fiction actually works to prove that the implied and unstated is
> actually real and authoritative, that its meaning is iron hidden behind a
> soft shadowy maze.
>
> Thus, I stray to totalitarian interpretations that are I do not conceive
> as subjective (especially in matters of plot or theme, for example, in
> saying stories like "trip trap" show that subjectivity can be overcome by
> accessing a spiritual objectivity and communion with others - the whole
> story deconstructs its subjectivity by showing what is real is not that
> reality but something higher which only perceived by people in common).  In
> that way I think wolfe uses postmodern techniques of uncertainty to
> obliterate the very concept of postmodern relativism.
>
> Gerry and I are the totalitarians wolfe warned against in his introduction
> to endangered species. The difference is that I believe the one
> true solution is unstated and cryptically encoded but thematically and
> symbolically real as a discernible authorial intention. In answer to why
> the officer nods at the handwriting, I give an answer Gerry would never
> accept - wolfe wants the first, false solution to be one that seems
> reasonable, so that people might accept it as the officer does, without
> penetrating to the level behind it.  The officer does not fully understand
> what has happened and comes to the first reasonable conclusion (but he
> still knows enough to shower away the girl's Saliva prophylactically - what
> an odd way to describe it if it doesn't involve a life cycle).  Why?
> Because it is in his nature to do so.
>
> In that way, Wolfe's fiction is the maze in The Adopted Father and in A
> Solar Labyrinth, with a fake exit that still "works".
>
> I think there are many many wrong interpretations (like dialing in a solar
> labyrinth meaning anything but the math behind the construction of sundials
> and their shadows, like cues being about the bathroom, like sev's relatives
> having golden hair, like dr margotte showing up at the end of the doctor of
> death island being hopeful, like the navigator being Kennedy ... All not
> truly valid meanings or interpretations, some of them blatant misreadings)
> but Wolfe is not a surface level writer and does not believe in genre
> distinctions (his famous example being a comment about Free Live Free,
> where he is criticized for having a witch, a private detective, and time
> travel, and he says that hey, witches exist. This eclectic nature makes
> assignation of impossibilities in his text due to perceived genre
> limitations extremely spurious and artificial.)
>
> Much like the abortion debate, our starting premises are intrinsically
> different (it's alive and separate ... No, it is still ME, why can't you
> see that?) and no happy interpretive alliance can be reached, so we spin
> our wheels ad nauseum.
>
>
>> "Art means whatever you want it to mean", conversely, is a proposition
>> suited only to a club of one.
>>
>> - Gerry Quinn
>>
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