Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 16:18:44 -0700 (PDT)
From: Jerry Friedman 
Subject: RE: (urth) 5HC a good introduction to wolfe? (was Washington Post article)


--- Dan'l Danehy-Oakes  wrote:
> > the hints there (along with others) that the narrator's name is Wolfe.
> > Am I supposed to think that Mr. Million is the author (or a
> descendant)?
> > That the narrator is a portrait of the well-born wolf after a series
> > of worse and worse upbringings?  Scary.
> 
> More: you are to think that he is an n-th generation clone of our own
> beloved Gene Wolfe. (I believe it was John Clute who gave a canonical
> list of arguments for that being Number Five's real name.) The name is
> quite fitting, too: the clone-series that includes Five, Maitre, and
> the original of Mr. Million, is clearly a series of vicious predators
> upon their fellow humans who use genetic manipulation to acheive their
> ends -- that is, Number Five is a gene wolf. Gene, of course, is short
> for "Eugene," well-born: that is exactly what Number Five is _not_. He
> is simply gene, born. Etc., etc. This is full of the kind of play that
> would delight Derrida if he could ever bring himself to read American
> SF...

Well, Mr. Million is number 1 (or 2, being Number Five's great-
grandfather?), so maybe he _is_ the author, which is what I said.
I missed the "merely born" thing, though.  On the other hand, even
"born" is, in a sense, what Number Five is _not_--born of man and
woman, anyway.

Anyway, I've been reading Robert Borski's pages, and the parts that
I believe are answering a lot of questions.

Jerry Friedman

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