(urth) 5HX

[Marc Aramini]

Cool, you can believe whatever you want.  If you want to view the final
scenes as outright lies that's fine, but there are textual hints that
explain them as something beyond lies.  Certainly Wolfe wanted Victor's
replacement of Marsch to look like the solution, but I think it fails to
explain many things that are lurking in the background. I am convinced of
my reading; you are convinced of yours. Yes, abos imitate.  No, Marsch
isn't really Victor, nor an abo. The switching of personalities via a bite
IS postulated in the story via "A Story" when Sandwalker and Eastwind
become "confused" after a bite and the survivor's arm hurts, but you don't
read it that way so that's cool too.


On Sun, Aug 24, 2014 at 1:56 PM, Gerry Quinn <gerry at bindweed.com> wrote:

>
> On 24/08/2014 19:58, Marc Aramini wrote:
>
>> You have to explain away the death of the cat, the death of the boy, the
>> presence of two alien species, the presence of Veil's hypothesis, believe
>> that number five dreams of abos by coincidence the day after he meets his
>> aunt, the name of the city, the weird lack of new buildings in the last 140
>> years ... prophylactic has a nice double meaning, I admit, but the bite of
>> the abo that switches Eastwind and Sandwalker symbolizes all that confusion
>> of indentity as well - Easwind, Sandwalker, the abos, the shadow children,
>> the humans - they are all confused about who they are, and if that
>> confusion ISN'T in the text, you haven't been reading the same book.  The
>> main cast outside of a story are confused about who they are as well.  The
>> story is about being confused about who you are.  But if we know the life
>> cycle of the abos and their imitative properties, a street named after
>> larva and mention of at least one of the species being long and living
>> between the branches of trees actually resonates a bit.
>>
> My answers:
>
> Cat: unknown causes, though Victor said he broke its neck, maybe true
>
> Death of the boy: a lie, it was Marsch who died
>
> Presence of two alien species: not postulated by me (the Shadow Children
> are degenerate humans).
>
> Veil's Hypothesis: wrong (and in fact the aunt made another great point
> against it, which is that a species able to mimic well enough to lose the
> power of mimicry would have died out before humans landed).
>
> No. 5's dream: he had been talking to his aunt about abos
>
> Name of the city: of no significance
>
> Lack of new buildings: Port-Mimizon is a city and its population has been
> falling.  Conversely, though, Frenchman's Landing on Sainte Anne is
> described by Marsch as something like a newly-built shanty town. And
> weather control satellites have been installed on Sainte Anne only in the
> last decade or two, leading to the replacement of nuclear-powered ships by
> sailing ships like those used on Earth. Perhaps the Kafka-esque fascism of
> Sainte Croix is starting to hold it back, even if the officer thinks
> otherwise.
>
> Bite symbolism: I don't consider the bite symbolic
>
> Confusion of identity, both personal and racial: certainly it's a major
> theme, but in a much more realistic and naturalistic form than you
> propose.  Its naturalism, in my opinion, gives it stronger resonances with
> real-world issues of identity and colonisation than a more highly-coloured
> confection of parasites and pod people, all delusional regarding their true
> nature.
>
>
>  My life cycle schema makes the narrative you MUST dismiss as a lie and
>> fabrication (the murder of the cat, the death of Victor) literally true and
>> also gives it narrative reason (at least, the slaying of the cat).
>> Yes, we have one plausible means of persecution. I mentioned it already,
>> Gerry - humans on abo.  Do you see that below?  It's the same thing you
>> reiterated. see that there?  "abo incarcerated by humans OR" That OR
>> implies there are two plausible scenarios given the species we have been
>> introduced to. The first is the first logical conclusion we can come to
>> before we understand the life cycles at work.
>> But your advantage is not an advantage, because then Victor has to be
>> COMPLETELY DELUSIONAL about his own death and the murder of the cat, very
>> very concrete matters.  Either way, delusion ensues.
>>
>
> No, Victor is not delusional about his death; he is simply lying about
> it.  He is now pretending to be Marsch, so he must make his old self
> disappear lest he be caught and perhaps hanged for murder - at best he will
> be cast out of human society.  He invents a tale and writes it in Marsch's
> notebook, in case someone cares to look.  As for the cat, I simply don't
> know how she died; maybe he broke her neck as he wrote, maybe Marsch
> killled her and then he killed Marsch.  (Why would Victor break her neck?
> As a symbol of his attempt to leave behind his abo life and live henceforth
> as a human.  That is my pet theory regarding the death of the cat, but I
> accept that there is no particular evidence for it.)
>
> "I simply had to make my voice like his and look older".  Talking about
> his mother in the cell.  The writing in the school composition book and in
> the last part of Marsch's notebook.  Green eyes.  It is evidently Victor in
> the cell, and he has become Marsch by means of imitation and imposture, not
> by some sort of infection process mediated by the cat, a process which is
> never postulated in the story (while we are repeatedly informed that the
> abos are capable of imitation).
>
>
> - Gerry Quinn
>
>
>
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