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3.95 AVERAGE
3.95 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
So. I've read the opening novella several times, but this is my first time through the whole book.
--Probably this is not the place to start. I'd go with the Best of Gene Wolfe collection or An Evil Guest.
--I don't think it's connected to the Solar Cycle but I'm not married to the idea.
--I think a base concept might be, "Humanity rediscovers the fae." I think the shadow children are or partake of the fae, either literally or figuratively, and have kept psychic abilities that earthly humans have lost but atavistically remember.
--Probably this is not the place to start. I'd go with the Best of Gene Wolfe collection or An Evil Guest.
--I don't think it's connected to the Solar Cycle but I'm not married to the idea.
--I think a base concept might be, "Humanity rediscovers the fae." I think the shadow children are or partake of the fae, either literally or figuratively, and have kept psychic abilities that earthly humans have lost but atavistically remember.
challenging
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Personally, this book is written well. Lots of cool stuff. Doesn't make a lick of sense though. begging science fiction authors to abandon their Scorpio tendencies and write a silly little story.
UPDATE: The ReReadingWolfe Podcast reached out to me about their own interpretation. I got some things similar to them, but some things I took to a different conlsuion. Hear their take here. Start at 1 hour 4 minutes.
The double planets of Sainte Anne and Sainte Croix were once home to a shapeshifting aboriginal culture, but then came the human French colonizers, and then after them was a coup on Sainte Croix but another governmental power.
In the first, titular story, a young boy, deemed Number 5 by his "father"--for he is the fifth clone of him--grows up in his father's brothel along with his brother David, his aunt, and robotic servant Mr. Million. As time passes however, Number 5 experiences blanks in his memory. Years pass and things are missing, but he always remembers being drugged by his father and interviewed by him and his lessons with Mr. Million on who the abos--the aboriginal people--were and what happened to them.
In the second story, called ""A Story," by John V. Marsch," is a story from Sainte Anne before the colonists arrived. We follow young John Sandwalker, one of the abos, on his own coming-of-age as he tries to learn the art of dreamwalking from his people, confront his twin brother Eastwind, and prepare for battle against the marshmen, another tribe. However, while on his journey, he will encounter the Shadow children, a mysterious group of people who may predate his own people.
And in the third story, "V.R.T," Marsch, the anthropologist who appears in the first story and wrote the second one, is imprisoned on Sainte Croix for a crime that is not immediately revealed. Through interviews and diary entries and interrogations, Marsch's story comes together, including his search for a sacred abo cave. Though what exactly happened may reveal things about both Marsch and the abos themselves.
So, a while ago I picked up [b:Shadow & Claw|40992|Shadow & Claw (The Book of the New Sun, #1-2)|Gene Wolfe|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388180510l/40992._SY75_.jpg|40575] and read [b:The Shadow of the Torturer|60211|The Shadow of the Torturer (The Book of the New Sun, #1)|Gene Wolfe|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1329650008l/60211._SX50_.jpg|762497], and...I didn't have the best time with it. My review wasn't much of a review, but I drove home that I didn't like the book. However, members of the Gene Wolfe fandom convinced (and bullied, don't hold it against them, it's in the past) me to return to it at a later date. So, I picked up The Fifth Head of Cerberus instead. And...I was completely blown away! Wolfe's unreliable narration and dual-wielding of opacity and complexity can be a difficult read, but the stories that unfold here and the themes touched upon within them reveal a mind-bender of a story that carry more weight and nuance that most other books that attempt to address them.
For starters, we could all easily say that this is a book that deals with colonialism, and it does to some extent. I would venture to argue that Ursula K. Le Guin's [b:The Word for World Is Forest|24933757|The Word for World Is Forest (Hainish Cycle, #5)|Ursula K. Le Guin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1423929448l/24933757._SY75_.jpg|3256815] would make a good companion piece to The Fifth Head of Cerberus; both she and Wolfe cover the same territory, and the second story of Wolfe's book does bear some similarities to Le Guin's novella in many places. However, whereas Le Guin shows the casualties of violent colonialism and what it injects into the peoples it attacks, even after it's been repelled, and the question of how to fight it, Wolfe brings to the forefront the questions of humanity and identity. There is a repeated theme throughout The Fifth Head of Cerberus of doubles--Number 5 and his father, Sandwalker and Eastwind, John Marsch and his half-abo guide Victor--and how much they are of each other and who is more human. Wolfe never shows us the exact moment of when colonialism sank its fangs into Sainte Anne and Sainte Croix, only the before ("A Story,") and the long after (5H and V.R.T.). I find that utterly fitting that the before story takes place on Sainte Anne, name for the mother of the Virgin Mary and thus the maternal grandmother of Jesus--and was the one with the Immaculate Conception of her daughter, not Mary with Jesus--and that the after stories take place on Sainte Croix which is named for the cross of Jesus' crucifixion. We only have the before and after, what happened in between is mentioned in passing and haunts all the stories in different ways.
Anyway, Wolfe's prose in the first story and the last one are not as ornate as it was in The Shadow of the Torturer. Overall, they're a bit more accessible texts despite Wolfe's usual bells and whistles. The titular, first story reads more like a straightforward sci-fi work while V.R.T. is mostly told told, as I said, through interviews and diaries and the like. In V.R.T. is where some our answers come out, however, some of those answers are only discernable if you pay attention and can follow the threads of what Wolfe left unspooled on the ground in 5H and "A Story." The pacing in 5H is a touch slow, but nothing aggravating while V.R.T.'s is much quicker given the format. would argue that the same abundance of information is given to you in the last story as there is in the first, but V.R.T.'s format and quicker pacing doesn't lose any of the significance of that information. Again, I know this may be an oft-repeated thing for Wolfe's books, but pay attention and you can work out some of what's going on. You won't get everything, I certainly didn't, but the central theme and story bits will come together.
But then there's the middle portion "A Story," by John V. Marsch, my absolutely favorite part of this entire book. Like, I honest to God wish that Wolfe made an entire book out of this story or wrote something similar to it. Here, the prose is more ornate, though I don't consider it as ornate as The Shadow of the Torturer's prose. It's in fact, I daresay, beautiful. Wolfe uses the pre-colonial abo setting and culture to his advantage. The abos all have names like Sandwalker, Eastwind, Seven Girls Waiting, Mary Pink Butterflies, Sweetmouth, etc. and the descriptions of their beliefs and practices, evocative of the Australian Aboriginals in some places (dreamwalking), feel like something out of a fairy-tale or some sort of Oscar Wilde fever dream. The pacing in this one is slower, but my God do the events that unfold just capture you like some sort of spell. Although "A Story," is considered to be a pre-colonial tale, transcribed by Marsch, as you read V.R.T. afterward, you begin to wonder: Is it? One idea presented in 5H, called Veil's hypothesis, which was conceived by Number 5's aunt, is that none of the humans on Sainte Anne and Sainte Croix as actually humans or even those descended from the first colonizers. It states that the abos killed all the humans and them shapeshifted into their image and then forgot that they were abos. It's something declare matter-of-factly, and that isn't Wolfe's style. Not only that, but after you read the other stories and line them up with each other and investigate, you definitely can see that it's not true.
All my speculations about this book are purely my own. As I said, I have missed stuff, but these are entirely my interpretation of what Wolfe was hiding/hinting at.
Number 5 is a clone of his father, there is no doubt, however, he is not the only clone. Throughout the first story, Number 5 encounters other clones--of himself or his father, one can only guess. One is greatly deformed, another looks exactly like him and is being sold in the public slave market. We learn that Mr. Million actually holds the mind of Number 5 and David's great-grandfather, the first clone. Number 5's aunt is the daughter of a previous clone. One man, for whatever reason, perhaps obsessed with his legacy or wanting to control as much as he could "eternally" do so, cloned himself so many times. By his name along, Number 5 is suggested to be the fifth most successful clone. So, why five heads of Cerberus and why Cerberus who only had three heads. Well, the eponymous hellhound is the guardian of the Underworld in Greek mythology, and is service to the god Hades and his niece-wife Persephone, and he wasn't always depicted with just three heads, despite what popular culture adaptations show us. In book itself, Number 5 states that the other heads alongside himself are his brother David, his aunt, his father, and Mr. Million. They are the family that rules over the brothel at 666 Saltimbanque (a French word for acrobat) and they seem to be guarding some sort of secret, or at least Number 5 and his aunt are. Number 5's memory lapses do not tell us what this secret is--I assume it is something to do with the current-reigning government on Sainte Croix--and we soon find that he is working with David and Phaedria, a girl they befriend, to commit crimes and betray his father. At first, because when they are both introduced they are both wearing long, black dresses and have leg problems, I assumed that Phaedria was a clone of Number 5's aunt, but as the story progressed I abandoned that idea. Phaedria's noted violet eye color is shared with a woman from V.R.T. called Celestine who may be an abo. Phaedria herself is name comes from Edmund Spencer's Faerie Queen who is in service of the witch Acrasia. This makes me wonder if Phaedria, who first meets Number 5 in the park and is quite eager to speak to him, was planted or was intended to meet him from the very beginning. Either way, the brothel in question seems to be implied to be a place where information and spying is traded, but I will admit that this part of the book was the one where I was most confused. One of the prostitutes at the brothel, a woman only identified by her pink regalia, seems to know some stuff or at least what's going on with Number 5.
Regardless, Number 5's story ends with him returning to the brothel as an adult after a long imprisonment. He has murdered his father, but he has become the same person his father was, my like how his father probably repeated whatever Mr. Million did in his human life. Phaedria and David return to him as well. It's strange that in this post-colonial settlement that family with much knowledge and a vast network on information at their hands are back right where they started with the new generation.
John Sandwalker, all male abos are called John, and his brother Eastwind were born so because of events at their birth. Sandwwalker's birth is, in fact, reminiscent of Genesis 38:27-30, the births of Perez (Hey look at that name!) and Zerah. As an adolescent, one bigger for his age, Sandwalker tries to complete his coming-of-age rituals by trying to give gifts to priest and learn form his dreams where he sees his brother amass his own strength. He does this all under the blue light of Sainte Croix in the sky, or sisterworld as the abos call it. When he encounters the Shadow children, some strange-looking people who are able to manifest one elderly man astrally to speak for them, is when the history of Sainte Anne is called into question. The Shadow children claim that they were once people from another planet that came centuries ago. A possible colonization effort before the French came? But then the Shadow children claim they can't remember if that's right or not. What is known is that Sandwalker and his brother Eastwind are mirrors of each other, literally twins, each on their own path to manhood. We don't know much about Eastwind's other than his desire to sacrifice the hill people, Sandwalker's people, but Sandwalker himself seeks love from the women around him, including his mother Cedar Branches Waving who is his separated from for a time, and understanding. It all seems like a fairly standard hero's journey and first contact story but the end, but is it truly that? Sandwalker tries to perfect dreamwalking, but when the first French colonists finally land, as the text says, the dreaming comes to an end. That may not sound like much more, but with V.R.T. it is SO much more!
In V.R.T., the anthropologist John Marsch recounts his travels to Sainte Anne and into the ancient land of the abos as he is interrogated in prison and his notes read by the guards. We learn that most of the humans on Sainte Anne believe the abos all gone and tales of their survival a myth. Except for one drunkard named Trenchard who, with his son Victor, claims abo descent. Victor is a strange boy, able to act like a completely different person at will and who dearly misses his prostitute mother who vanished one day according to his mother. Knowing what Wolfe was doing, I knew that Trenchard and Victor just had to be abo or abo-descent. Marsch eventually takes Victor as a guide to search for a sacred abo cave and along the way, Victor gets upset when he hunts the animals.
So, here's the thing: the abos were shapeshifters and "A Story" implies that they have some sort of plant-like growths or appendages on their bodies and other humans have noted that they can look like dead wood. I wouldn't doubt that they can shapeshift into animals too. Marsch may be killing the abos without knowing. I don't think the abos killed all the humans and took their places, I think they've hidden themselves among the flora and fauna of Sainte Anne, something only Victors know as he tells Marsch that his mother would take him to see the Free People before she left him. What's also interesting is that Victor's eyes are green, much like Mary Pink Butterflies--all abo women are called Mary--a baby girl in a "A Story." And...just like Sandwalker in "A Story," Victor's mother is missing from his life.
Hmm....
In between these travels, Marsch tells of how he came to prison. He was arrested while at another, different brothel, on the claims that he committed some sort of crimes. The police tell the proustite Celestine, the blue-purple-eyed young woman, that she can request to see him a certain intervals. Marsch notes that Celestine dressed in pink. I assume she is that same pink-wearing woman from Number 5's story and there's so much more than she knows. But wait! How old is she? Has Number 5 already grown to adulthood at this point and served his own prison sentence? She still looks so young. She is probably an abo.
But as the guard continues to read Marsch's diaries of his journey with Victor, things get stranger. Marsch expresses his frustration with his research and those around him. Victory starts acting stranger, wanting to desperately see other abos and growing close to some strange cat that keeps following them. He wants to leave their uneaten food out for other abos, though Marsch still hasn't see these abos. And Marsch is almost certain that some woman is coming into the camp and having sex with Victor. Who who!? Young Sandwalker himself in "A Story," has sex with both Seven Girls Waiting, the mother of Mary Many Butterflies, and another abo girl Sweetmouth. They see the same places that Sandwalker came to go, they even find a river where the marshmen comitted a brutal sacrifice.
And then Victor dies. And so does the cat. Marsch starts referring to Sainte Croix in the sky as sisterworld. His speech changes. He mentions that he has grown his beard out.
Okay, this part's obvious. Victor isn't dead. Marsch is. Victor has taken on Marsch's identity, the crime is mostly Marsch's murder. What "Marsch" is writing in prison is "A Story"...Sandwalker's story! It's not just a tale of the past, past down from his abo mother and the Free People he visited. It's also his own life. John Sandwalker is a mythicized Victor transplanted into the past. It is Victor synthesizing his life and heritage into a story dear to him, he's reaching to the past and his culture. If I am reading it right, then he may have started the story as a kid in school and finished it as John V. Marsch. It is the last story of his people, his people's past, but his story as well. Wolfe intentionally put "A Story," between 5H and V.R.T. to make it look like a simple prequel of sorts when it was always more than that.
THIS! This is why "A Story," besides its prose, is my favorite! It's record of a people who had to blend in different ways to survive. It is one man's last testament to his people that he can never return to. But it isn't a pure story. In taking on Marsch's identity, parts of Marsch have bled into the story. It's no longer pure. The colonizer/settler/foreign anthropologist/whatever you want to call it, has tainted the story.
In the end, we learn that fake Marsche/Victor came to Sainte Croix to look for his prostitute mother. Perhaps she was the female prisoner trying to signal him. His fate is unknown, but a story of the abos, albeit an impure one, lives on. At the end of the book, it is implied that a slave serving one of the guards will get a chance to run away, possibly to freedom. This slave is a minor character, never appearing in the other stories, but unlike Number 5, Sandwalker, Marsch, and Victor, he has no double. He did not lock himself into an eternal struggle. He can actually escape from all this.
This is why Wolfe's book is so different from everyone else's on this topic, aside all the usual Wolfean techniques. I don't believe that The Fifth Head of Cerberus is meant to be a novel like any of Le Guin's are or like [b:The Traitor Baru Cormorant|23444482|The Traitor Baru Cormorant (The Masquerade, #1)|Seth Dickinson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1422463936l/23444482._SY75_.jpg|43007917], but it's still cautionary tale on the after effects of colonialism. The colonialist situation of Sainte Croix and Sainte Anne sets the stage for a reality that only results in fractured identity and the loss of what is true. Number 5 loses himself in the end, Victor tried as hard as he could but he only became another Marsch (quite literally), Sandwalker lives on in both history and myth, but even his is not completely his total self.
Now, does this mean that I will finally get back to The Shadow of the Torturer? Not just yet. I will try [b:The Wizard Knight: Comprising The Knight and The Wizard|52379730|The Wizard Knight Comprising The Knight and The Wizard|Gene Wolfe|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1572994093l/52379730._SY75_.jpg|98290] next.
Wolfe, you are a genuius.
The double planets of Sainte Anne and Sainte Croix were once home to a shapeshifting aboriginal culture, but then came the human French colonizers, and then after them was a coup on Sainte Croix but another governmental power.
In the first, titular story, a young boy, deemed Number 5 by his "father"--for he is the fifth clone of him--grows up in his father's brothel along with his brother David, his aunt, and robotic servant Mr. Million. As time passes however, Number 5 experiences blanks in his memory. Years pass and things are missing, but he always remembers being drugged by his father and interviewed by him and his lessons with Mr. Million on who the abos--the aboriginal people--were and what happened to them.
In the second story, called ""A Story," by John V. Marsch," is a story from Sainte Anne before the colonists arrived. We follow young John Sandwalker, one of the abos, on his own coming-of-age as he tries to learn the art of dreamwalking from his people, confront his twin brother Eastwind, and prepare for battle against the marshmen, another tribe. However, while on his journey, he will encounter the Shadow children, a mysterious group of people who may predate his own people.
And in the third story, "V.R.T," Marsch, the anthropologist who appears in the first story and wrote the second one, is imprisoned on Sainte Croix for a crime that is not immediately revealed. Through interviews and diary entries and interrogations, Marsch's story comes together, including his search for a sacred abo cave. Though what exactly happened may reveal things about both Marsch and the abos themselves.
So, a while ago I picked up [b:Shadow & Claw|40992|Shadow & Claw (The Book of the New Sun, #1-2)|Gene Wolfe|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388180510l/40992._SY75_.jpg|40575] and read [b:The Shadow of the Torturer|60211|The Shadow of the Torturer (The Book of the New Sun, #1)|Gene Wolfe|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1329650008l/60211._SX50_.jpg|762497], and...I didn't have the best time with it. My review wasn't much of a review, but I drove home that I didn't like the book. However, members of the Gene Wolfe fandom convinced (and bullied, don't hold it against them, it's in the past) me to return to it at a later date. So, I picked up The Fifth Head of Cerberus instead. And...I was completely blown away! Wolfe's unreliable narration and dual-wielding of opacity and complexity can be a difficult read, but the stories that unfold here and the themes touched upon within them reveal a mind-bender of a story that carry more weight and nuance that most other books that attempt to address them.
For starters, we could all easily say that this is a book that deals with colonialism, and it does to some extent. I would venture to argue that Ursula K. Le Guin's [b:The Word for World Is Forest|24933757|The Word for World Is Forest (Hainish Cycle, #5)|Ursula K. Le Guin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1423929448l/24933757._SY75_.jpg|3256815] would make a good companion piece to The Fifth Head of Cerberus; both she and Wolfe cover the same territory, and the second story of Wolfe's book does bear some similarities to Le Guin's novella in many places. However, whereas Le Guin shows the casualties of violent colonialism and what it injects into the peoples it attacks, even after it's been repelled, and the question of how to fight it, Wolfe brings to the forefront the questions of humanity and identity. There is a repeated theme throughout The Fifth Head of Cerberus of doubles--Number 5 and his father, Sandwalker and Eastwind, John Marsch and his half-abo guide Victor--and how much they are of each other and who is more human. Wolfe never shows us the exact moment of when colonialism sank its fangs into Sainte Anne and Sainte Croix, only the before ("A Story,") and the long after (5H and V.R.T.). I find that utterly fitting that the before story takes place on Sainte Anne, name for the mother of the Virgin Mary and thus the maternal grandmother of Jesus--and was the one with the Immaculate Conception of her daughter, not Mary with Jesus--and that the after stories take place on Sainte Croix which is named for the cross of Jesus' crucifixion. We only have the before and after, what happened in between is mentioned in passing and haunts all the stories in different ways.
Anyway, Wolfe's prose in the first story and the last one are not as ornate as it was in The Shadow of the Torturer. Overall, they're a bit more accessible texts despite Wolfe's usual bells and whistles. The titular, first story reads more like a straightforward sci-fi work while V.R.T. is mostly told told, as I said, through interviews and diaries and the like. In V.R.T. is where some our answers come out, however, some of those answers are only discernable if you pay attention and can follow the threads of what Wolfe left unspooled on the ground in 5H and "A Story." The pacing in 5H is a touch slow, but nothing aggravating while V.R.T.'s is much quicker given the format. would argue that the same abundance of information is given to you in the last story as there is in the first, but V.R.T.'s format and quicker pacing doesn't lose any of the significance of that information. Again, I know this may be an oft-repeated thing for Wolfe's books, but pay attention and you can work out some of what's going on. You won't get everything, I certainly didn't, but the central theme and story bits will come together.
But then there's the middle portion "A Story," by John V. Marsch, my absolutely favorite part of this entire book. Like, I honest to God wish that Wolfe made an entire book out of this story or wrote something similar to it. Here, the prose is more ornate, though I don't consider it as ornate as The Shadow of the Torturer's prose. It's in fact, I daresay, beautiful. Wolfe uses the pre-colonial abo setting and culture to his advantage. The abos all have names like Sandwalker, Eastwind, Seven Girls Waiting, Mary Pink Butterflies, Sweetmouth, etc. and the descriptions of their beliefs and practices, evocative of the Australian Aboriginals in some places (dreamwalking), feel like something out of a fairy-tale or some sort of Oscar Wilde fever dream. The pacing in this one is slower, but my God do the events that unfold just capture you like some sort of spell. Although "A Story," is considered to be a pre-colonial tale, transcribed by Marsch, as you read V.R.T. afterward, you begin to wonder: Is it? One idea presented in 5H, called Veil's hypothesis, which was conceived by Number 5's aunt, is that none of the humans on Sainte Anne and Sainte Croix as actually humans or even those descended from the first colonizers. It states that the abos killed all the humans and them shapeshifted into their image and then forgot that they were abos. It's something declare matter-of-factly, and that isn't Wolfe's style. Not only that, but after you read the other stories and line them up with each other and investigate, you definitely can see that it's not true.
All my speculations about this book are purely my own. As I said, I have missed stuff, but these are entirely my interpretation of what Wolfe was hiding/hinting at.
Number 5 is a clone of his father, there is no doubt, however, he is not the only clone. Throughout the first story, Number 5 encounters other clones--of himself or his father, one can only guess. One is greatly deformed, another looks exactly like him and is being sold in the public slave market. We learn that Mr. Million actually holds the mind of Number 5 and David's great-grandfather, the first clone. Number 5's aunt is the daughter of a previous clone. One man, for whatever reason, perhaps obsessed with his legacy or wanting to control as much as he could "eternally" do so, cloned himself so many times. By his name along, Number 5 is suggested to be the fifth most successful clone. So, why five heads of Cerberus and why Cerberus who only had three heads. Well, the eponymous hellhound is the guardian of the Underworld in Greek mythology, and is service to the god Hades and his niece-wife Persephone, and he wasn't always depicted with just three heads, despite what popular culture adaptations show us. In book itself, Number 5 states that the other heads alongside himself are his brother David, his aunt, his father, and Mr. Million. They are the family that rules over the brothel at 666 Saltimbanque (a French word for acrobat) and they seem to be guarding some sort of secret, or at least Number 5 and his aunt are. Number 5's memory lapses do not tell us what this secret is--I assume it is something to do with the current-reigning government on Sainte Croix--and we soon find that he is working with David and Phaedria, a girl they befriend, to commit crimes and betray his father. At first, because when they are both introduced they are both wearing long, black dresses and have leg problems, I assumed that Phaedria was a clone of Number 5's aunt, but as the story progressed I abandoned that idea. Phaedria's noted violet eye color is shared with a woman from V.R.T. called Celestine who may be an abo. Phaedria herself is name comes from Edmund Spencer's Faerie Queen who is in service of the witch Acrasia. This makes me wonder if Phaedria, who first meets Number 5 in the park and is quite eager to speak to him, was planted or was intended to meet him from the very beginning. Either way, the brothel in question seems to be implied to be a place where information and spying is traded, but I will admit that this part of the book was the one where I was most confused. One of the prostitutes at the brothel, a woman only identified by her pink regalia, seems to know some stuff or at least what's going on with Number 5.
Regardless, Number 5's story ends with him returning to the brothel as an adult after a long imprisonment. He has murdered his father, but he has become the same person his father was, my like how his father probably repeated whatever Mr. Million did in his human life. Phaedria and David return to him as well. It's strange that in this post-colonial settlement that family with much knowledge and a vast network on information at their hands are back right where they started with the new generation.
John Sandwalker, all male abos are called John, and his brother Eastwind were born so because of events at their birth. Sandwwalker's birth is, in fact, reminiscent of Genesis 38:27-30, the births of Perez (Hey look at that name!) and Zerah. As an adolescent, one bigger for his age, Sandwalker tries to complete his coming-of-age rituals by trying to give gifts to priest and learn form his dreams where he sees his brother amass his own strength. He does this all under the blue light of Sainte Croix in the sky, or sisterworld as the abos call it. When he encounters the Shadow children, some strange-looking people who are able to manifest one elderly man astrally to speak for them, is when the history of Sainte Anne is called into question. The Shadow children claim that they were once people from another planet that came centuries ago. A possible colonization effort before the French came? But then the Shadow children claim they can't remember if that's right or not. What is known is that Sandwalker and his brother Eastwind are mirrors of each other, literally twins, each on their own path to manhood. We don't know much about Eastwind's other than his desire to sacrifice the hill people, Sandwalker's people, but Sandwalker himself seeks love from the women around him, including his mother Cedar Branches Waving who is his separated from for a time, and understanding. It all seems like a fairly standard hero's journey and first contact story but the end, but is it truly that? Sandwalker tries to perfect dreamwalking, but when the first French colonists finally land, as the text says, the dreaming comes to an end. That may not sound like much more, but with V.R.T. it is SO much more!
In V.R.T., the anthropologist John Marsch recounts his travels to Sainte Anne and into the ancient land of the abos as he is interrogated in prison and his notes read by the guards. We learn that most of the humans on Sainte Anne believe the abos all gone and tales of their survival a myth. Except for one drunkard named Trenchard who, with his son Victor, claims abo descent. Victor is a strange boy, able to act like a completely different person at will and who dearly misses his prostitute mother who vanished one day according to his mother. Knowing what Wolfe was doing, I knew that Trenchard and Victor just had to be abo or abo-descent. Marsch eventually takes Victor as a guide to search for a sacred abo cave and along the way, Victor gets upset when he hunts the animals.
So, here's the thing: the abos were shapeshifters and "A Story" implies that they have some sort of plant-like growths or appendages on their bodies and other humans have noted that they can look like dead wood. I wouldn't doubt that they can shapeshift into animals too. Marsch may be killing the abos without knowing. I don't think the abos killed all the humans and took their places, I think they've hidden themselves among the flora and fauna of Sainte Anne, something only Victors know as he tells Marsch that his mother would take him to see the Free People before she left him. What's also interesting is that Victor's eyes are green, much like Mary Pink Butterflies--all abo women are called Mary--a baby girl in a "A Story." And...just like Sandwalker in "A Story," Victor's mother is missing from his life.
Hmm....
In between these travels, Marsch tells of how he came to prison. He was arrested while at another, different brothel, on the claims that he committed some sort of crimes. The police tell the proustite Celestine, the blue-purple-eyed young woman, that she can request to see him a certain intervals. Marsch notes that Celestine dressed in pink. I assume she is that same pink-wearing woman from Number 5's story and there's so much more than she knows. But wait! How old is she? Has Number 5 already grown to adulthood at this point and served his own prison sentence? She still looks so young. She is probably an abo.
But as the guard continues to read Marsch's diaries of his journey with Victor, things get stranger. Marsch expresses his frustration with his research and those around him. Victory starts acting stranger, wanting to desperately see other abos and growing close to some strange cat that keeps following them. He wants to leave their uneaten food out for other abos, though Marsch still hasn't see these abos. And Marsch is almost certain that some woman is coming into the camp and having sex with Victor. Who who!? Young Sandwalker himself in "A Story," has sex with both Seven Girls Waiting, the mother of Mary Many Butterflies, and another abo girl Sweetmouth. They see the same places that Sandwalker came to go, they even find a river where the marshmen comitted a brutal sacrifice.
And then Victor dies. And so does the cat. Marsch starts referring to Sainte Croix in the sky as sisterworld. His speech changes. He mentions that he has grown his beard out.
Okay, this part's obvious. Victor isn't dead. Marsch is. Victor has taken on Marsch's identity, the crime is mostly Marsch's murder. What "Marsch" is writing in prison is "A Story"...Sandwalker's story! It's not just a tale of the past, past down from his abo mother and the Free People he visited. It's also his own life. John Sandwalker is a mythicized Victor transplanted into the past. It is Victor synthesizing his life and heritage into a story dear to him, he's reaching to the past and his culture. If I am reading it right, then he may have started the story as a kid in school and finished it as John V. Marsch. It is the last story of his people, his people's past, but his story as well. Wolfe intentionally put "A Story," between 5H and V.R.T. to make it look like a simple prequel of sorts when it was always more than that.
THIS! This is why "A Story," besides its prose, is my favorite! It's record of a people who had to blend in different ways to survive. It is one man's last testament to his people that he can never return to. But it isn't a pure story. In taking on Marsch's identity, parts of Marsch have bled into the story. It's no longer pure. The colonizer/settler/foreign anthropologist/whatever you want to call it, has tainted the story.
In the end, we learn that fake Marsche/Victor came to Sainte Croix to look for his prostitute mother. Perhaps she was the female prisoner trying to signal him. His fate is unknown, but a story of the abos, albeit an impure one, lives on. At the end of the book, it is implied that a slave serving one of the guards will get a chance to run away, possibly to freedom. This slave is a minor character, never appearing in the other stories, but unlike Number 5, Sandwalker, Marsch, and Victor, he has no double. He did not lock himself into an eternal struggle. He can actually escape from all this.
This is why Wolfe's book is so different from everyone else's on this topic, aside all the usual Wolfean techniques. I don't believe that The Fifth Head of Cerberus is meant to be a novel like any of Le Guin's are or like [b:The Traitor Baru Cormorant|23444482|The Traitor Baru Cormorant (The Masquerade, #1)|Seth Dickinson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1422463936l/23444482._SY75_.jpg|43007917], but it's still cautionary tale on the after effects of colonialism. The colonialist situation of Sainte Croix and Sainte Anne sets the stage for a reality that only results in fractured identity and the loss of what is true. Number 5 loses himself in the end, Victor tried as hard as he could but he only became another Marsch (quite literally), Sandwalker lives on in both history and myth, but even his is not completely his total self.
Now, does this mean that I will finally get back to The Shadow of the Torturer? Not just yet. I will try [b:The Wizard Knight: Comprising The Knight and The Wizard|52379730|The Wizard Knight Comprising The Knight and The Wizard|Gene Wolfe|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1572994093l/52379730._SY75_.jpg|98290] next.
Wolfe, you are a genuius.
An interconnected set of 3 novellas. My rating for each of the stories is 1) 5 stars 2) 3 stars and 3) 4 stars.
I found the first novella to be the most compelling. As with most of Wolfe's stories, the reader is never 100% sure what is going on but I found this story to be the most straightforward. Deals with the character "Number 5" and his relationship with his father, brother, and aunt.
The second novella was by far the most confusing for me and least engaging. A story written by John Marsh, a minor character from novella 1. Deals with the myths of the aborigines of the sister planet. Set before the events in novella 1.
A mish-mash of journal entries from John Marsh and an investigative officer during John Marsh's imprisonment. Set after the events of novella 1. This story connects a few of the dots and clues that we learned in both of the preceding novellas but still leaves a lot of things open to interpretation. A reread at some future date would probably provide an even better understanding of this book.
I found the first novella to be the most compelling. As with most of Wolfe's stories, the reader is never 100% sure what is going on but I found this story to be the most straightforward. Deals with the character "Number 5" and his relationship with his father, brother, and aunt.
The second novella was by far the most confusing for me and least engaging. A story written by John Marsh, a minor character from novella 1. Deals with the myths of the aborigines of the sister planet. Set before the events in novella 1.
A mish-mash of journal entries from John Marsh and an investigative officer during John Marsh's imprisonment. Set after the events of novella 1. This story connects a few of the dots and clues that we learned in both of the preceding novellas but still leaves a lot of things open to interpretation. A reread at some future date would probably provide an even better understanding of this book.
Cleverly constructed book that reads more like fantasy or magical realism than SF, but not as enjoyable as Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun.
Tri povezane novele koje zapravo manjeviše čine jednu celinu, te se ovo komotno može tretirati kao roman. Prvi moj susret s Vulfom tekao je ovako.
1. (novela) – „ma ha-ha, pa ovo uopšte nije teško“
2. (novela) – ja na kolenima, uplakan
3. (novela) – „zašto“
Vulf izgleda voli slagalice, voli da spaja delove različitih slika i pokuša da od njih napravi nešto novo i drugačije. Priča o identitetu, kolektivnom i ličnom, samospoznaji i tzv „istini“, smeštena u vrlo knjiški saj faj topos. Daleko je ovo od lošeg, šta više, nekom dostojnijem verovatno bi bilo fenomenalno i bajno, ali mene je druga novela toliko dotukla konfuznošću da iskreno na trenutke nisam bio toliko siguran šta čitam i ko je uopšte ovaj, a ko onaj. Treća, iako takodje levitira na ivici nepouzdanog naratora, naprotiv, daleko je razumnija i interesantnija, dok druga, iako se na meta nivou celokupne narative savršeno uklapa u roman, prosto ubija u pojam svaku želju za sledećom stranicom.
4-
1. (novela) – „ma ha-ha, pa ovo uopšte nije teško“
2. (novela) – ja na kolenima, uplakan
3. (novela) – „zašto“
Vulf izgleda voli slagalice, voli da spaja delove različitih slika i pokuša da od njih napravi nešto novo i drugačije. Priča o identitetu, kolektivnom i ličnom, samospoznaji i tzv „istini“, smeštena u vrlo knjiški saj faj topos. Daleko je ovo od lošeg, šta više, nekom dostojnijem verovatno bi bilo fenomenalno i bajno, ali mene je druga novela toliko dotukla konfuznošću da iskreno na trenutke nisam bio toliko siguran šta čitam i ko je uopšte ovaj, a ko onaj. Treća, iako takodje levitira na ivici nepouzdanog naratora, naprotiv, daleko je razumnija i interesantnija, dok druga, iako se na meta nivou celokupne narative savršeno uklapa u roman, prosto ubija u pojam svaku želju za sledećom stranicom.
4-
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I am impressed at the beautiful, many-layered puzzle Wolfe lays out for readers in this collection of three novellas. It's the Wolfe I remember from years past, an intricate narrative that will only improve on re-reads.