(urth) 5HC

[Gerry Quinn]

On 01/09/2014 06:55, Richard Simon wrote:
> I'm not sure how this email appears to others on the list, so as an 
> aid to comprehension I've put the comments I've replied to in quotes.
>
>
>     On Sunday, 31 August 2014, 21:22, Gerry Quinn <gerry at bindweed.com>
>     wrote:
>
>     "But then who is Victor?  He is apparently not a Shadow Child, and
>     he imitates Marsch."
>
>
> Victor is a Shadow Child imitating an Annese imitating Marsch. More 
> correctly, he is a Shadow Child who believes he is Marsch. He is also, 
> probably, his own mother; I wonder if old man Trenchard ever saw his 
> wife and his son together at the same time.

So, basically, you are going to negate everything stated in the books, 
and every incidental happening or description in the books, on the basis 
of a hypothesis you have deduced from someone's observation that a 
random whore has long legs.  (In a house in which the Master is known to 
carry out body-modifications on his girls, from time to time, for that 
matter.)

Victor is described as human, albeit with unusual green eyes.  The idea 
that he is his own mother seems simply absurd, unless, again, both he 
and everyone else are completely delusional.  She only left after he 
reached puberty.

If you want to deduce likely possibilities from odd sentences, consider 
that Victor notes that on Sainte Anne he got some information suggesting 
that his mother had gone to Sainte Croix, and consider the illiterate 
woman in the cell beside him.  *That* is plausibly Victor's mother; it 
is deduced from subtle clues, but unlike the global hypotheses that turn 
everything upside down, it does not destroy everything else in the story 
whichever version you choose to believe and therefore it is a thing that 
actually *can* be left ambiguous.


>
>     "I don't put any faith in business of a random girl being said to
>     have long legs or a random guy having head scars. Could be they
>     arose in ordinary ways, or perhaps one or both paid a visit to
>     Maitre's operating table.  If the legs or scars were odd enough
>     for No. 5 to notice as remarkable, they must be unusual."
>
> You should put some faith in them. The explanations you suggest for 
> them are possible, of course, but they lead us nowhere.

The legs could point to Maitre, or they could just be an example of 
female artifice.  It doesn't matter which, so it can be left ambiguous.  
If it mattered, like in your theory, Wolfe would not have just left it 
there.  (Look how he hammers in the bit about abos having green eyes.)

One of the police has scars on his head, above which the hair is allowed 
to grow again so therefore... what?  Why must this relate to the fact 
that Marshmen castrate their shamans and burn their hair off?  If he 
even had an unusually high-pitched voice... but no.

Marsch hangs his coat on the hooks on the bedroom door, AS HE USUALLY 
DOES.  Presumably this is of some cosmic significance too. And what of 
the ankle straps of the man in the green uniform - clearly the idea that 
he rides a bicycle is sheer misdirection. There must be at least one new 
alien species to be identified here - but of course - it's the bicycles, 
like in The Third Policeman!  One of the other men is a horse-cab 
driver.  People's cells mingle with vehicles - Aunt Jeannine is the most 
advanced example.  This explains the symbolism about identity and the 
Abos' fear of technology; THEY are the true humans, unwilling to merge 
with the metallic overlords.  The robots in the prison camps - fully 
converted people?  You get the point.  I could add elements purportedly 
supporting this hypothesis all day, or a hundred others like it.  How 
fast I can add them depends on how much I allow myself to ignore 
contradictions in the text, or assume characters to be preternaturally 
delusional.  But I would be going nowhere.


> This is a novel, not real life. Everything in it exists to serve the 
> author's purpose. And Gene Wolfe is a very accomplished writer: there 
> is very little (I would almost hazard 'nothing') in his works that is 
> not there for a reason. I'm not talking about the kind of symbolic 
> justifications favoured by other correspondents here, though Wolfe 
> obviously deploys symbolism constantly; I'm talking about information, 
> obliquely presented, concerning the plot, the characters and the 
> subtext or back-story.

But Wolfe does NOT write what the Turkey City Lexicon refers to as 'The 
Jar of Tang'.  He does not in general hold back and mislead on matters 
significant to the plot.

And if everything exists to serve the author's purpose, then what of 
everything that you are throwing away?  What of Victor's relationship 
with his mother?  All just a load of delusional nonsense, because 
everything is actually supposed to be deduced from one sentence 
mentioning that a guy has a scarred head?

Victor's mother in the neighbouring cell, that is the sort of thing your 
argument above points to.  Not a planet full of individuals who are 
completely delusional about concrete matters.


> Now:
>
> There are Shadow Children on Ste. Croix. I don't know about Marc 
> Aramini's trees in the front courtyard of Cave Canem, but the animals 
> that pester the officer looking through 'Marsch's' records are SC, as 
> is the 'woman' with whom he has sex (if sex is really what he has with 
> her). They probably came over from Ste. Anne in disguise, just like 
> 'Marsch'. Here is an intriguing speculation: understanding the danger 
> they pose to human society, the secret police may be operating against 
> the Shadow Children. In that context it would make it logical that 
> many of their operatives are Annese descendants or assimilates from 
> Ste. Anne. It would also explain the officer's 'prophylactic' shower: 
> drug-filled SC saliva that had 'streaked his body'. Perhaps it has 
> mild, pleasurable and temporary hallucinogenic (or aphrodisiac) 
> effects when absorbed through the skin, but severe and long-term or 
> permanent ones when ingested or directly injected, for instance 
> through a 'cat' bite. As I say, this is speculation, so don't expect 
> me to defend it with any great fervour.
>
> The condition of the 'abos' on Ste. Anne and Ste. Croix are 
> respectively analogous to the condition of the victims of European 
> colonization in, respectively, South and North America. In Latin 
> America, there has been considerable interbreeding and assimilation 
> between the native inhabitants and their Spanish and Portuguese 
> conquerors, and while social distinctions in those countries still 
> replicate ethnic ones, the latter are not so clearly drawn or insisted 
> upon any more. In North America, there has probably been less 
> interbreeding, and certainly less assimilation, between the European 
> settlers and the slaves they imported to serve them. Ste. Croix is a 
> slaveholding society like the United States was before the Civil War.
>
Here is my proposal: in any valid theory, no character - aside from 
those intended to take the role of complete lunatics, and rarely those - 
is completely delusional about concrete matters.  And nor does it depend 
on information hidden by Wolfe in odd lines that are never reinforced 
with pointers.

As for the abos, we are certainly intended to consider issues of 
identity and colonisation; whether any specific case is referenced I 
don't know.  But we can consider these without unduly multiplying alien 
species in the SF plot.

- Gerry Quinn



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