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

[Lee]

>Marc Aramini: 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.


Agreed.


>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.


Again, agreed, completely. I find this to be a very plausible interpretation

given that Mr. Wolfe may often have found himself the lone devout believer in 

worlds (engineering and SF) mostly populated by non-believers. He felt compelled 

to write at multiple, veiled levels, each to be understood by different "levels"

of his readership.


What is the "proof" of God? Wolfe's message is that all the evidence for God is

"implied and unstated", yet still, at a certain level,  more real and more 

authoritative than scientific evidence for the material world. Marc, you probably

already know this, but I urge you to be understanding and even sympathetic to the

fact that there are some things that atheists are going to have a very, very 

difficult time understanding.



Gerry Quinn:> "Art means whatever you want it to mean", conversely, is a 

>proposition suited only to a club of one.



Not always. Sometimes people's individual interpretations of art can be in 

congruence. In fact, I think most of the time, most people's interpretation

of a work of art are mostly in congruence. It's the differences that make 

things interesting.