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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 01/09/2014 06:55, Richard Simon
wrote:<br>
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<div>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.</div>
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<div dir="ltr"><font face="Arial" size="2">On Sunday, 31
August 2014, 21:22, Gerry Quinn
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:gerry@bindweed.com"><gerry@bindweed.com></a> wrote:</font></div>
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<div dir="ltr"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">"But then
who is Victor? He is apparently not a Shadow Child,
and he imitates Marsch."</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">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.</span></div>
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<br>
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.)<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
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<div>"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."</div>
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<div>You should put <span style="font-style: italic;">some</span> faith
in them. The explanations you suggest for them are
possible, of course, but they lead us nowhere.</div>
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<br>
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.)<br>
<br>
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. <br>
<br>
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.<br>
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<div> 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.</div>
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<br>
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. <br>
<br>
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?<br>
<br>
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.<br>
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<div>Now:<br>
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<div>There are Shadow Children on Ste. Croix. I don't know
about Marc Aramini's trees in the front courtyard of <span
style="font-style: italic;">Cave Canem</span>, 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.</div>
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<div>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.<br>
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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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
- Gerry Quinn<br>
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