(urth) 5HX

[Lee]

>Gerry Quinn: The diary has more than one function.  He is, in a sense, trying to 
>convince himself he is human, as Wolfe has noted.  But one does not trty 
>to convince oneself of something one believes to be true.


You recognize that Victor is trying to convince himself he is human but do not

recognize that Victor often succeeds in doing so.


When Marsch first meets Victor he notes Victor's dark hair, green eyes and pale

skill. Physical characteristics Marsch himself possesses. The imitation had 

started immediately.


Victor starts the adventure unable even to open a jar according to his father.

But he gets progressively better with tools, the longer he spends with Marsch.

His speech also becomes progressively better and Marsch eventually recognizes

his is copying Marsch's own speech patterns.


It is clear (to me and others) that during the course of the VRT story that 

the narrator is having an identity crisis. He truly doesn't know who he is.

In one entry he is speaking as Marsch, in another he is discussing his 

shape-shifting mother. This would not happen if Victor's actions were entirely

a conscious attempt to pretend he is Marsch.



>As for whether he killed Marsch or Marsch met with an accident, we are 
>not actually told.  Possibly there was an altercation initiated by 
>Marsch in which Marsch got killed.



We are not "actually told" much of anything. That's kind of the point of this

story. But since "the boy" (Marsch really) was killed right after Marsch

had shot the cat (which is implied to have been a shapeshifting lover to 

Victor), and because the boy was becoming proficient with a gun, we are given

both the means and motive for Victor to have killed Marsch.


>All we know is that Marsch did not return from the wilderness, while Victor did.


We do not "know" this, if knowledge is bestowed upon the reader only by what is

"actually told", then Victor replacing Marsch is merely a deduction which can be made. 

And, as I noted in a previous post, there are some very devoted and skeptical Wolfe

fans who DID find this replacement to be a false assumption until Wolfe revealed

it to be true in an interview.