Subject: (urth) Re: Digest from  urth@urth.net
From: David Duffy 
Date: 30 Apr 2002 16:07:10 +1000

Having reread 5HC after reading all your insightful comments:

VRT's father is deft enough to have made the arrowheads [viz Peace BTW],
but says his son could not have knapped them.  That would be congruent
with the interpretation that only Victor's mother is full-blood.  

I think that the reading that Marsch killed Victor in a fit of jealousy
and took over his identity through guilt is perfectly consistent with
every detail folks have brought up.  Then, the "story" is a simple ;)
psychodrama and the details such as Poictesme, Lemuria et are whimsies
on his part. This also makes sense thematically if all the abo's have
been exterminated in the same way, so that ideas such as that of Veil
are again reflections of guilt rather than reality.  Also, Marsch in his
discussions with Jeanine may have heard of No. 5's suggestions about
Lemuria.  This reading can be seen to be David's side of the debate.

The inability to understand the knockings from the next cell, when he
has no trouble with the civilised coded taps of the other prisoners
might be indirect commentary on this.

WRT Lemuria etc, I might bring in Morgana le Fay here, who also gives
these as cover stories in _Castleview_, where I think we are not
intended to take them seriously. Supernatural beings love these kinds of
stories as much as anyone else.

Apropos of nothing, Marsch's embroideries in the his other writings (he
says he has put in traps for his jailors), notably the 1-1/2 mile long
military spacecraft he sees in the company of VRT and his father.

Apropos of robots, the relationship No. 5 has with his captors is very
much in keeping with the idea (which I think of as Lem-ian) that true
artificial intelligences will be just as prone to curiosity about their
own origins and limits, charitableness, madness, laziness, cheating, and
vice as we natural intelligences. I think Wolfe is quite happy with the
idea of free will being circumscribed by properties of the body and
brain in which the spirit is ensconced, as well as external events: this
makes me think of djinns who may be forced into actions against their
will by sorcery or foolish but completely binding promise, but who can
still choose to be good Muslims.  

David.


| David Duffy (MBBS PhD)                                         ,-_|\
| email: davidD@qimr.edu.au  ph: INT+61+7+3362-0217 fax: -0101  /     *
| Epidemiology Unit, Queensland Institute of Medical Research   \_,-._/
| 300 Herston Rd, Brisbane, Queensland 4029, Australia  GPG 4D0B994A v 


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