<font color='black' size='3' face='Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif'>Richard --<br>
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<font size="3">The book about the assassination of Leon Trotsky is Bernard Wolfe's <i>The Great Prince Died</i> (alternatively titled <i>Trotsky Dead</i>). Wolfe was, for a while, Trotsky's secretary. He was also a science fiction writer. <br>
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The library shelf would, of course, contain all kinds of literature, but by including three science fiction writers (Bernard Wolfe, Wilhelm, and Vernor Vinge [misplaced]), Gene Wolfe is strongly hinting that we should think of Number Five's (progenitor's) name in connection with science fiction. By describing Bernard Wolfe's novel the way he does, Gene Wolfe also avoids explicitly saying the name "Wolfe," though by including Virginia Woolf, he does get the sound of his last name in. Kate Wilhelm's inclusion is probably a tip of the hat to her husband, Damon Knight, who grew Gene Wolfe from a bean (as the dedication of the book says).<br>
<br>
As for "Gene," that's derived from Aunt </font><font size="3">Jeannine's name. Her brother, Number Five's father, would be Jean, and so that would also be Number Five's name ... but if you Anglicize the pronunciation, you get "Gene." <br>
<br>
Robert Borski worked all of this out in his Cave Canem essay, "Je m'appelle Jean Loup" (http://www.wolfewiki.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=CaveCanem.Number5). <br>
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John<br>
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<div style="font-family:arial,helvetica;font-size:10pt;color:black">-----Original Message-----<br>
From: Richard Simon <gallebuck@yahoo.co.uk><br>
To: The Urth Mailing List <urth@lists.urth.net><br>
Sent: Mon, Sep 1, 2014 9:49 am<br>
Subject: (urth) 5HoC: The Top Floor of the Library<br>
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<div>Thank you, Gerry, Lee and Mark, for motivating me to re-read <span style="font-style: italic;">The Fifth Head of Cerberus</span>. I had hesitated to do so for many years because I found it repellent in many of its details and depressing in its entirety. The details are still repellent, but I found it a little less depressing on this reading, largely because the emotional tone of the second story ('A Story') had altered for me.</div>
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 19px; font-family: HelveticaNeue, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-style: italic; background-color: transparent;"><br>
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<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 19px; font-family: HelveticaNeue, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; background-color: transparent;">Save for one, the books Number Five finds at the top of the spiral in the public library were easy enough to identify and confirm that Five's surname begins with a W. But who is the author of the book about 'the assassination of Leon Trotsky'? And what is the book? Is it a book at all, or something to do with the film of that title?</div>
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 19px; font-family: HelveticaNeue, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; background-color: transparent;"><br>
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<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 19px; font-family: HelveticaNeue, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-style: normal; background-color: transparent;">By the way, I didn't find any specific evidence in the book for Five's first name. There are Wolfe clues aplenty, but though 'Gene' is obviously an appropriate name for a clone, I couldn't find anything to confirm that it really was
his name. The author has confirmed that it is, but he did so to someone who had arrived at name by guessing. Anyone have any light to shed?</div>
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<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 19px; font-family: HelveticaNeue, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-style: normal; background-color: transparent;">Also by the way, Maitre's cloning experiments almost certainly eliminate the possibility that the population of Ste. Croix are anything other than Earth-human (well, most of them). Maitre must have gained his knowledge of genetic engineering from Terrestrial textbooks, and unless the mimicry of the shadow-children extends all the way down to the microbiological level (which is surely absurd) it wouldn't have worked if
everybody was a shapeshifted nonhuman.</div>
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