(urth) 5HC

[Gerry Quinn]

On 21/08/2014 14:25, Andrew Bollen wrote:
> I prefer a reading on which the OWO becomes less rather than more 
> confused as the Shadow Children are killed off.
>
> The OWO subverts his star-traveller-origin story from the start: he 
> has no historical memory of when they were supposed to have arrived on 
> St Anne or where on Earth they were supposed to have come from. "We 
> either came recently or a long, long time ago ... Sometimes we try to 
> recall the name of our home ... But we hear also the mind-singing of 
> our brothers ... as they pass up and down between the stars .... but 
> these thoughts come into our songs. It is possible that our home was 
> named Atlantis or Mu - or Gondwanalnd, Africa, Poictesme, or The 
> Country of Friends. I, for five, remember all these names."
>
> The origin names come from listening in to the thoughts of 
> contemporary star-travelling humans, not from any historical memory; 
> listening to stories, with no capacity for judging fiction versus fact.
But why would contemporary human star travellers think about these 
places more?  In my opinion it's a shout-out to the debate between David 
and No. 5 at the start of 5HOC, in which Atlantis and Gondwanaland are 
mentioned.
>
> So the text establishes that whatever he's going to say about origins 
> has little if any credibility; likely enough his tale includes 
> elements pieced together from cheesy space-operas and so forth. It 
> certainly has that kind of tone: "But we walked among you in power and 
> majesty and might, hissing like a thousand serpents as we splashed 
> down in you sea, stepping like conquerors ... " etc etc.
And unlike in most SF stories, starcrossers in _5HOC_ really do splash 
down in the sea.  Presumably they were wielding hand-lasers and such-like.
>
> As he talks, he rocks back and forth and "his jaws moved vigorously as 
> though he were eating". Why? Because the group of which he is the 
> "norm" has serious substance issues and this story he's telling is 
> the fantasy of addled SC chewing away on their drug-leaves.
Also a good reason for some vagueness in detail, no?
>
> As the SC are killed off, Sandwalker's influence in the mix generating 
> the OWO becomes more important and the junkie-influence lessens. After 
> the first deaths, the OWO seems "fainter than ever, but taller", and 
> younger  - taller and younger, presumably because tall young 
> Sandwalker has relatively more influence now. And the OWO says: "We 
> had no names before men came out of the sky ... We were mostly long, 
> and lived in holes between the roots of trees ... I am confused ... 
> There are so many of you now and so few of us."
>
> His "confusion" is the confusion of a drug wearing off. Now there's a 
> "first" and a "second" race, but he's no longer sure which is which.
There were always two races in the story.  The *only* thing he's 
confused about is which is which.
>
> Finally there's only one SC left, and it seems to me that this SC's 
> drug-wad is all used up; at any rate, he is sharply focused and 
> rationally intent on saving his own life. Now the OWO says: "Since 
> they [ie the non-SC people] first came here. Now I know that we were 
> always here listening ... Or it may be that all are one stock ..."  So 
> the OWO's final, least-addled guess is it that SC and the hill folk 
> and the marsh folk all have the same origins.
He still has his drug - later on he bites Eastwind and injects it into 
his bloodstream.  The OWO is at his most addled because his mind is now 
an equal mixture of the two races..
>
> Anyway, that reading makes most sense to me. But I don't see the text 
> as presenting the OWO's word even at this point as authoritative: he 
> doesn't know anything more about origins than the folk who generate 
> him, and they don't know very much - a dim memory of having been 
> worms, and stories the SC concoct from listening to the thoughts of 
> contemporary space-faring humans.
>
> In the context of "Story", I think it's quite reasonable to guess that 
> no sentient being existed on St Anne before humans started travelling 
> between the stars ("we either came recently ..."), when the 
> ancestor-worms picked up on space-farers' "mind songs" and started to 
> produce copies. Some of these turned into drug-addled SC; some into 
> the hill folk and marsh folk. They've only been around for perhaps a 
> couple of hundred years or so at the time of first French landing.
If you want to assume the story is invented or incorrect, fine - but he 
does say straight out that humans are his race and that they landed.
>
> Of course, in the context of the novellas, "Story" is just a story and 
> doesn't necessarily reflect the "real" situation ...
>
Also perfectly true.  But to my mind there is no particular reason why 
Victor the anthropologist should come up with a story that is incorrect 
in its broad thrust - even though clearly it's a dramatisation based on 
olal history and myth.

I mean, what would actually be Wolfe's purpose in intending an alternate 
story?  In what way is a story of two rival aboriginal races, one of 
which clearly believes its ancestors are human but is incorrect despite 
its human memories, better than one in which there is one aboriginal 
race, and one that is of human ancestry just as they say?

- Gerry Quinn