Great series of podcasts on this novella so far. I binge-listened to them while on a long car trip, and thought I'd chime in with some thoughts, mostly pretty disjointed. I know you're doing a closed reading, but forgive me if I jump ahead to some issues from the rest of the story. If anyone on the forum hasn't finished the story and wants to avoid spoilers, you might want wait to read this.
One of the mysteries (and I haven't read "V.R.T." yet) I can't quite figure out is exactly how many waves of colonization have hit St. Anne and St. Croix - we know there was at least one French one, and some kind of English speaking one, and from comments by the Wise Old One, one that perhaps brought the Shadow Children's ancestors from a supercivilization in ancient or at least antediluvian times, either Atlantis or Lemuria (Mu), or Gondwanaland before it split up, or Cabell's Poictesme or "The Country of Friends" - which I take to mean Texas, as the state's name comes from the Caddo Native American word "táyshaʼ "(friend), with the "S" added by Spanish colonists to make it a hispanicized plural. Texas is the only U.S. state that was once an independent republic (as Texans will often tell you, ( I've visited the site of the former embassy of the Texan Republic in London, not far from Churchill's War Chambers - there is a small plaque on the site), so Texas is literally the Country of "Friends". Or maybe the Shadow Children's ancestral memory, or the shared racial consciousness that the Wise Old One taps into from the spacefaring humans recalls the space base at Houston, when the Shadow Children dream of departures from the planet Earth.
Oddly, Number 5 even suggests this antediluvian theory during the lesson with Mr. Million and David, when he says the Abos could be the "descendants of some earlier wave of expansion...even predating the Homeric Greeks." Although Mr. Million notes this as implausible, Number 5 glosses on the Etruscans, Atlantis, and the tenacity and expansionist tendencies of a hypothetical technological culture occupying Gondwanaland."
That the Wise Old One should express the same idea as Number 5 in John Marsch's story is puzzling- the notion of interstellar colonizing missions launched from Atlantis or Gondwanaland (or even the Republic of Texas) is a fairly unusual idea, and how would John V. Marsch, the author of this story, be aware of the concepts espoused by Number 5 during this childhood lesson?
One possibility is that (jumping ahead to the end of this novella), in the same way Eastwind either assumes the identity of Sandwalker or that Sandwalker and Eastwind are reunited in a single body after the Shadow Child bites him, in a similar fashion John V. Marsch, as an Abo assumes some aspect of the identity of Number 5 - which could be the significance of the (Roman numeral) middle initial. I don't know if that idea will be supported by the final novella, though.
Or is the Wise Old One tapping into the human clone Number 5's theories as part of the human consciousness stream?
If the first wave of colonists came from prehistoric Earth, as Number 5 and Marsch reports the Wise Old One as saying, and possibly carrying the ancestors of the Shadow Children, was there a later (Christian, monotheistic) one that imparted the monotheism (a religious concept that is rare in early civilizations on Earth) and the Christian names of John and Mary, and the "Go with God" salutation common to Germanic and Spanish Earth cultures - "Geh mit Gott" and "Adios") to the Abos before the events of "A Story" and the colonists who arrive at the end of the second novella? Does the German salutation of "Go with God" and the sort of rudimentary Calvinistic predestination that Sandwalker seems to profess indicate a German colonization wave?
Like Glenn, I thought that the descriptions of the Shadow Children could just be the description of baseline Humans, as viewed from an outsider's perspective, which would probably tell us more about the Abos (or at least Sandwalker's Hill People - there obviously could be more than one race or species of indigenous, or near-indigenous people). If I describe an average-sized man as very tall, that will imply to others that I am short. The frequent descriptions of the Shadow Children as having short legs strongly indicates that the Abos are a very long-legged people - and this seems a strong clue why the women of the Maitre's bordello are so frequently described as long-legged. I would guess that the mimicry skills of the Abos are not absolute - they are basically bipeds and have two arms and two limbs, and can alter their facial features and perhaps skin color to resemble settlers but could not physically assume the shape of, say, a ghoul-bear. So in their "natural" state, they have similar body structures but are extremely long-legged and taller than us, a fact which is hard to conceal. The Shadow Children's description as having heads and necks with the mobility of owls and their "too-supple necks" might simply be normal human neck range of motion, implying that Abos have thicker, less mobile necks. Their "claws" and "talons" would simply be the long nails that humans grow if they are untended. The Shadow Children's faces, "dark and weak, huge eyes above sagging flesh, the cheeks sunken, the nose and mouth, from which a thick fluid ran, no larger than an infants" would imply that the Abos are lighter-complexioned, strong-featured, high cheekboned, with large mouths and big noses. The thick fluid running from their mouths might be simply snot or saliva.
Later, Sandwalker describes the Shadow Children as too small, unhealthy-looking, ears too round and not enough hair - implying, perhaps, that the Abos have pointed ears. But later, the Old Wise One says the Shadow Children looked like the Abos look at the time of "A Story" - did the Abos initially mimic the Shadow Children, then the Shadow Children devolve over time? That seems to be what is meant; the use of the narcotic fiber that is chewed, like Dune's melange, seems to have reduced them in stature and health, as well as in corporeality. The essential weirdness of the Shadow Children, though, with their group mind and not-quite-solid presences and possibly venomous saliva doesn't seem to comport with an earthly Adamic origin, though. They might also be, literally, the Fair Folk who pop up regularly in Wolfe's work, from "Cabin on the Coast" to "Peace", who mounted their own space expedition in ancient times? Yet another possibility is that the Shadow Children of the story never existed, and that John V. Marsch is another Wolfeian unreliable narrator. (They do, however, seem to make an appearance again in Citadel of the Autarch.) In looking at any text forensically, we have to ask who the author is, who the intended audience is, and what the message is. I'm still trying to figure that out. Did John V. Marsch's name represent the "John" Christian first name of Sandwalker, and "Marsch" the Marsh-people of Eastwind's adopted tribe, and is John Marsch the twins, reunited in a single body, still alive? I have to read the final novella this week to see if any of this is supported.
Re "Eastwind", I note that "Westwind" was Gene Wolfe's CB radio handle, and of course the title of one of his best-known short stories, but I don't know if that has any relevance.
Going all the way back to the beginning of "Fifth Head", when David and Number 5 are getting a lesson in the library from Mr. Million, what is the source of David's (and 5's) knowledge of Abo history and culture. David seems especially well-informed about some aspects of Abo culture that show up in the second novella - has he read this story at some point, or as the naturally-born son of a prostitute (possibly the woman in pink) who is Abo or part Abo, has he obtained this information from some kind of racial memory? I'm thinking particularly of his statement that "they killed their sacrificial animals with flails of seashells that cut like razors," and how Sandwalker and Eastwind together flog Lastvoice to death, using the limbs of a tree with "little shells that slice the white flesh" of Lastvoice's back. Was there an even earlier, less-human form of the Abos before adopting the partially human template seen in "A Story"? I remember one passage saying the Abos lived in holes and were "longer" (but can't find it).
Again, jumping ahead in the story past your close read (sorry), to the concept that the Shadow Children take different names based on how many are in the group - I'm trying to think about what significance the names chosen for each-sized group have, although of course, if there is only one in the group, that Shadow Child becomes (the lone) Wolf.
I have a sneaking suspicion that the seed of that concept (name-by-number) may have somehow come from Walt Kelly's comic strip Pogo, of which Wolfe is a fan (as am I) - in his collection of "Letters Home" from the Korean War, he thanks his mom for sending him some Pogo strips, and asks her to send him some of the Pogo books.
In Pogo, three little bats (themselves creatures of the shadows) are recurring characters. They don't possess individual names, but decide who they are going to be each morning by who wears which pair of pants - they have their three names stitched on the backside of each pair. Collectively, their names are Bemitched, Bothered, and Bemildred (sic, a take-off of the Rogers and Hart song) but like the Shadow Children, their identities of course are fluid.
Contemplating all this has made my head hurt, but in a good way. (Thank you, Mr. Wolfe.) I'll post more later as I think on all this...
Again, a great series of podcasts!
I missed the implications of Lastvoice's dissection of women, showing his desire for greater scientific knowledge (so to speak), and that as a father-figure to Eastwind, he is killed by Eastwind (and Sandwalker). Those are some pretty strong parallels with Maitre. the Oedipal (and possibly Dostoevskiian) father/son homicides occur in the first two novellas (and Marsch references Freudian theory at one point). I'm seeing some hints that may have occurred yet again with VT and VRT in the 3rd novella, as VT drops out of the narrative without comment, seemingly. The more I think about it, Dostoyevskii seems to be a strong influence on the 3 novellas, with the recurring themes of imprisonment and patricide. The "sponger" Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov seems a likely model for VT. Fyodor's illegitimate son, Pavel Smerdyakov, who has some parallels with VT, was also a cat-killer. Another thought: Lastvoice was murdered with razor sharp seashells attached to the branches, I wonder if Wolfe intended any parallels to Hypatia?
Last podcast, examining the theological implications of the story and the opening quote from St.John of the Cross (who was martyred this day in 1591) was really good.
I read a little more about Australian aboriginal birth practices, and found the following in https://www.researchgate.net/publication/215781043_Traditional_Aboriginal_birthing_practices_in_Australia_Past_and_present : (citing the Minyamaku Kutju Tjukurpa, a 'women's business' manual for aboriginal women's health centers), which states that in the outback, post-birth the birth attendant, or even the mother herself prepares 'warm ash or sand to pack onto her stomach, between her legs and the base of her spine. This relieves pain and helps to stop the bleeding.' ...which sounds similar to the description of the grandmother packing sand around her legs.
A thought occurred to me in comparing the first two novellas: there is a significant contrast in parenthood between the two cultures on St. Anne and St. Croix. In 5's clonal family, there is no place for mothers, other than as wombs for the genetic material provided solely by men. Although Maitre isn't anyone's idea of a good father, and 5 probably will not be either. But on St. Anne, child-bearing among the Abos is exclusively the role of the mothers, with fatherhood attributed to trees. The males and females obviously have sexual relations, but there seems to be no awareness that children result from the act - if they do not, in fact, reproduce by a kind of parthenogenesis. It's likely that at some point, Wolfe read the influential anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski's writings about the Trobriand Islanders in Melanesia, who told him that they thought conception was caused by spirits entering the mother's body while bathing in the lagoon. They seemed to have some idea that intercourse also played some kind of role, but felt that it was of lesser importance. Reportedly, some Australian aboriginal tribes held a similar belief (that the father's "spirit child" entered the mother), but later this view became controversial, and some writers (like Carl Sagan, in Broca's Brain) have felt that the islanders were just enjoying trolling Malinowski. The comment that "It came to her" early in the story could refer not to the onset of menstruation or the breaking of water and the beginning of labor, but could also refer to the quickening - the first stirring of movement of the child within the womb as felt by the mother, which is felt in some societies (such as the Australian aboriginal culture) to be the official "beginning" of pregnancy.
I take a more biological and sexually dimorphic view of the It here and see it as the onset or near-onset of the sessile and non-motile stage of the abo life cycle, when planting becomes more necessary and female legs are fragile. If they can’t find suitable soil to sleep in the implications are dire. I also view almost all of the names in the second novella as highly allegorical (bloody finger - a bite, Etc - more later) I do think that the name of one shadow child being Wolf is a big metatextual hint about authority - everything was written by a wolf(e) here.
There was some discussion in the last podcast of the meaning of this conversation between Sandwalker and Seven Girls Waiting: --- “Will you,” she asked hesitantly, “make this your sleeping place tonight?” He knew what she meant and answered as gently as he could, “I have no food to share. I’m sorry. I hunt, but what I find I must keep for a gift for the priest in Thunder Always. Doesn’t anyone sleep where you sleep?”
“There was nothing anywhere. Pink Butterflies was new, and I could not walk far … We slept up there, beyond the bent rock.” She made a wretched little gesture with her shoulders.
“I have never known that,” Sandwalker said, laying a hand on her arm, “but I know how it must feel, sitting alone, waiting for them to come when no one comes. It must be a terrible thing.”
“You are a man. It will not come to you until you are old.”
“I didn’t mean to make you angry.” “I’m not angry. I’m not alone either—Pink Butterflies is with me all the time, and I have milk for her. Now we sleep here.”
“Every night?” The girl nodded, half-defiantly.
--- In context, my read on this was not that it was sexual nor referred to parenthood, as was suggested, but that the small nomadic hunter-gatherer Hill People tribe of which Seven Girls Waiting had been a member abandoned her after she gave birth, and she was left without a tribe - essentially, leaving her to die because she could not care for herself post-childbirth and could not keep up with the tribe, and because she had produced another mouth they could not feed.
Left behind by her tribe while they went out foraging, one day they did not return for her.
The comment that the feeling would not come to Sandwalker until he is old, refers to aging members of the tribe, no longer able to hunt or fight for the tribe, being abandoned to die. Seven Girls Waiting is asking him to stay with her and begin a new tribe which will help provide for her and her child - essentially an offer of domesticity, which as you noted, is one of the obstacles a hero must avoid on his quest in the Hero's Journey monomyth.
There seems to be biblical parallels in this story with St. John the Baptist as well, who ate a diet of honey and locusts, and John Sandwalker shares a meal of honey and larvae with Seven Girls Waiting. As I noted earlier, St. John baptized his (possible) cousin Jesus by submersion in a river, while John Sandwalker murders his brother Eastwind by submersing him in a river, but I'm not sure where this leads us.
Hi Mick. I'm glad you're enjoying the podcast so far. A Story By John V Marsch is one of the most difficult stories I think we've covered so far. I think a lot will be filled in when reading V.R.T. More than anything, A Story and V.R.T. are really of a piece and work very well together.
Prepping to do these episodes often left me feeling bewildered and really working hard to solve some puzzles in the text and figure out what is going on.
I'd hate to say anything more and color your reading of V.R.T. I'm sure that we'll have a robust discussion about these stories when we get to the end.
Yeah, just got to that scene, which is really darkly funny. I would guess the influence of the 3 bats was in there. If you ever have some free time (ha) check out some of the Pogo collections. Walt Kelly, who started as a Disney animator, was genius as an artist and writer.
Mick, thanks for the kind words. Hoarding podcast episodes for a road trip is my whole MO, and it really makes me happy to know that someone has done that with my own work.
If we were to make a documentary of our process of covering this book, we'd have to call if CSI: Sainte Croix. These questions you raise are addicting but also befuddling and then ultimately frustrating, and our studio walls are covered with head shots, maps, sticky notes, and string tying it all together. We do our best to answer these questions (especially in the two-part wrap-up episode), but the evidence is so tricky. In the end, we revisit all of these questions when we finish V.R.T., too. I'd never heard of Pogo, but this seems relevant as well to a scene you'll get to in V.R.T, so thank you for pointing this out.