From: "Tony Ellis" 
Subject: Re: (urth) 5HC: Shadow Children in the Lupiverse?
Date: Sun, 5 May 2002 19:20:43 +0100

Phoebe Davis wrote:
>.I am in awe
>that this gentleman, Tony Ellis, used a word that I had to look up. Thank
you for
>tergiverseration.

That was Andy Roberston. And it's 'tergiversation', I believe. :-)


And Adam Stephanides wrote:
>But what Victor is doing within the world of 5HC is analogous to what Wolfe
>did in Soldier.

Only if you assume Victor is writing fiction. And if Wolfe wants us to
assume that, why go to the bother of making Victor write a piece of fiction
that has so many externally verifiable details in it? Why not put some
obvious internal inconsistencies in it, the way he does with Victor's
genuinely fictitious writing in 'V.R.T.'?


>There is nothing to suggest that Silk is a fictional character invented by
>Horn, and such a reading would contribute nothing to the interpretation of
>the Long Sun books: all we would be able to say is that a person about whom
>we know nothing wrote a novel for some reason. Neither of these is true for
"A Story."

So what _does_ the reading that 'A Story' is pure fiction contribute to 5HC?
I'm open to persuasion, but I have yet to hear anyone come up with a
plausible explanation as to why Wolfe should want to waste one third of a
novel with a section in which we are expected to understand that nothing we
are told happens actually happens.


>And the overlooking reinforces the picture of Croix/Anne as a backwater
>colony, which adds to the book's political dimension and helps to explain
>Number Five's father's frustration and Victor's interrogator's inferiority
>complex and over-compensatory bluster vis-a-vis Earth.

The picture of Croix\Anne as a backwater colony hardly needs reinforcing.
And why reinforce it with a fact that by a million-to-one chance just
happens to reinforce a key incident in 'A Story'?


>I'd suggest that the idea is repeatedly brought up, not because we're
>supposed to consider it seriously, but because it's one way the
>colonists/Annese are trying to fabricate a distinguished history for
>themselves and their system (like Rome's invented descent from the
Trojans).

Number Five brings it up because he is under pressure from Mr Million to
answer, and to wind up David who is sneakily reading 'Tales from the Odyssey
'. Dr Marsch, who brings it up in 'V.R.T.', is neither a colonist nor
Annese.


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