From: Jim Jordan <jbjordan@gnt.net>
Subject: Re: (urth) Gene/Jeannine/#5
Date: Fri, 03 Apr 1998 22:28:09 


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

A coupla notes:

	1. The brother of No. 5 in "5th Head" is indeed a "control," a child of
man and woman. The differences between him and No. 5 are important since,
as the father says, "we don't make progress." The Cerberus line is stuck;
though "someday they'll want us," which I've always taken as an allusion to
a future antichrist, especially given that their home is a WhoreofBabylon
House.

	2. Note how this them is carried through in the third story, as the humans
try to wipe out the shapeshifters, thus eliminating diversity and the kind
of marriage-to-the-other that could make for a dynamic future. VRT is, of
course, a shapeshifter.

	3. On Thecla and the alzabo: It seems to me rather clear that since
everything that comes in contact with Severian is brought back to life,
Thecla comes back to life and live within him. Some of Severian's memories
seem more likely to be Thecla's. I think of his comment after visiting the
whorehouse that he never went there again because it was painful. Men don't
experience pain in their initiation into sex, but women do, of course. I'll
bet that was Thecla's memory.

	Then again, maybe I'm wrong.

Nutria (if that's still who I am)
(Well, I'll always be the Rat to Alga!)


*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/