(urth) 5HC

[Richard Simon]

I said I wasn't going to defend this very hard. One thing we can all agree upon is that the text supports multiple readings. Most texts do; the ones that are designed specifically to do so are only a subset of a much larger corpus. Still, just so far as this: yes, Victor replaces Marsch. But Victor is a Shadow Child who is adept at mimicking humans. The 'aboriginal inhabitants' of Ste. Anne are the Shadow Children, not the Annese, who in my reading are merely humans who have experienced cultural drift since being stranded on the planet aeons ago.


On Tuesday, 2 September 2014, 22:03, Gerry Quinn <gerry at bindweed.com> wrote:
 




On 01/09/2014 15:25, Richard Simon wrote:



>
>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.
>1. Nobody has to be delusional, except Victor, in Shadow-Child fashion. Who else has seen his mother? Old Trenchard? How reliable is his testimony? Could he not have reasons for lying about her? Does Victor, in fact, have a mother at all?
So you are saying Victor AND all the Shadow Children are
    delusional?  Why?  Their story makes sense as told.  Nobody needs to
    be delusional at all.  M. d'F notes that she is "a poor wretched
    woman one hardly ever sees" but presumably se is seen sometimes, or
    was before she left.  And Old Trenchard claims he and she were
    married by the priest.



>
>2. Everyone on Ste. Anne is slightly delusional; the real Marsch notes the hallucinatory quality of the light and atmosphere there in his journal, and we know from his Shadow-Child testimony ('A Story') that the Children can alter the appearance of reality, even to the extent of hiding two planets and their parent star from human observation.
>
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>However, I am not arguing that everyone on Ste. Anne, far less Ste. Croix, is a shapeshifted aboriginal. Most people on both planets are indubitably human, even though one population, the people known as 'abos', has forgotten its ancient roots. The Shadow Children, who are in no way human, preserved some knowledge of those roots and of human culture, but it was lost to the original settlers from Earth. In case you missed it earlier, I am proposing that the Annese (the 'abos') cannot shapeshift.
>
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Victor's mother could shapeshift too, this is indicated when Old Trenchard notes: "She could talk to a man and he would believe her a girl, a virgin, hardly out of school.  But then if she did not like him she would become an old woman - a matter of the voice, the muscles of her face, the way she moved..."  Of course he thinks sge is just a good actress.

Of course, if Victor and his mother were Shadow Children this would
    contradict your theory.  But what of thhe green eyes?  In 'A Story'
    these are clearly associated with the human-looking abos.


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.
>What are the subtle clues that suggest this woman is Victor's mother? Pardon me if this has been discussed before. And if she is his mother, how does that help us understand anything, or move the story along?
Those are the clues.  And it's NOT essential to the story, which is
    why Wolfe doesn't bother rubbing it in with lots of clues.  It
    simple adds a bit of colour and pathos. 


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.)
>I dealt with this in my earlier reply. You're an experienced Wolfe reader, aren't you? You should know your man better. Everything in a Gene Wolfe story is relevant, and the more incidental it appears at first sight, the more critical it is likely to be to a full understanding of the story and Wolfe's intent.
I disagree.  To make everything crucial to an understanding of the
    story would result in books that are abstract puzzle pieces, not
    novels.



>
>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.
>Very impressive, but I doubt that you can point me to one 'contradiction in the text' that negates my reading of it. Especially since it is hardly mine alone, and the author endorses elements of it, if not the whole.
>
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According to your theory the hooks and ankle straps should be especially relevant, as they are so inconsequential?  So what do they mean?  Or can things be irrelevant after all?

The contradiction is that Victor and the Shadow Children must be
    completely and utterly insane.  And the 'abos' too, if they have
    completely forgotten they were human.  Also, humans did not in fact
    develop space flight in prehistory.


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?
>>
>What have I thrown away? Are you certain that you have understood me correctly?
>
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Your theory throws away everything we are told of the origin of Shadow Children and abos in 'A Story'.

- Gerry Quinn
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