From: m.driussi@genie.com
Subject: (urth) Tracquing Song
Date: Sat,  9 Aug 97 22:44:00 GMT


[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]

Reply:  Item #5721678 from URTH@LISTS.BEST.COM@INET#

Nutria,

Ah, there you are!

Re: "Tracking Song" and FIFTH HEAD.  While I'm really =not= trying to
paint TS as a miniature to TBOTNS (as, say, "A Cabin on the Coast"
stands to CASTLEVIEW, or "The Fifth Head of Cerberus" stands to THE
FIFTH HEAD OF CERBERUS <g>), still, I'll take your statement as a
challenge.  And imho, nope, there are no famous scenes from FIFTH
HEAD that jump into my mind as I read TS.

"My grandfather is a robot and my aunt is myself"--nope.
"I stuck my head through the library window"--nope.
"Nearly the whole city was related to me"--nope.
"So I killed my `father' and took his place"--nope.
"The most enigmatic of the `aliens' are actually from Earth"--nope.
"So I killed my employer, an anthropologist, and took his place"--nope.
"The mast of the ship grows down like a tree root, the ship doesn't
move"--nope.

And so on.

I agree with you that =thematically= TS has some similarities with FHC.
(Perhaps strongest with the abo centered middle tale.  Then again, FHC
has no terraforming whatsoever; nor is there a shift from a "dying world"
to a "reborn world"; and the FHC issue is, imho, more alien/human rather
than animal/human, if one cares to make such distinctions--clearly I do!)
I was relating the scenes that reminded me of the later work--if there
are specific scenes in TS that remind you of exact scenes in FHC, by all
means mention them!

alga,

I left off another reading, the Shaman's Death Quest.  Keep an eye
out (but not like Odin!) for Lap or Scandinavian tales of a Santa-like
sleigh--this Great Sleigh business sounds so familiar, but I can't
find the fingerhold.

=mantis=