I'm by no means sure that this is worth your reading. (The Fifth Head of Cerberus - Gene Wolfe)

Member Name: jdkane

Product:	The Fifth Head of Cerberus - Gene Wolfe
Date:	08/03/01 (84 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Imagination; overused if anything, but totally undisciplined, could have been better served by much less; C-

Disadvantages: Characterisation; utterly unreliable, and not engaging; D

Another "SF Masterwork', and one I am, for one, less confident of. There are two kinds of complex plots; those that succeed in drawing you in and those that do not. Any fool can follow any plot, in principle, if prepared to read and re-read carefully, think, and in extreme cases take notes. Capability is never a problem. Perceived return, on the other hand, is. There are very complicated, sprawling plots out there that simply do not yield enough intellectual, emotional fruit to seem worth paying much attention to. Plots involving continual doublecross turn me off, for a start. It's futile, intrinsically evil in the first place, and does not make rewarding reading. Wake me up when they finish going round the mulberry bush. (Not a problem here, although you suspect it is so only from want of opportunity.)

Texture, also, can be a problem. Some people make much heavier weather of aspects of writing than others; things balloon out of all proportion. This is one of Gene Wolfe's novels, and his specialty, it seems, is inventing colourful, detailed local customs and jargon and never, ever, with a constancy that borders on obstinate insolence, bothering to translate for the 20th (early 21st?) century terran reader.

This is a problem. You start wondering if there is anything allegorical behind it, and if so why is he going to such pains to avoid easily drawn parallels? Then you broaden the question by asking again in general terms, what is he trying to say, what is the point of this tale, what is the message, the import...and you realise that there really isn't one. He's just telling a story, with no more bite to it- in fact, substantially less- than Hans Christian Andersen. Now I don't want all literature to have some kind of political purpose, but I do so solely on the grounds of practical results; the end product of writing that way is disgustingly tacky and insulting to it's readers. I do, however, have a sneaking feeling that a man with no opinions, w
ith nothing to say- no core outlook to write around- would be doing better service to the world by helping save trees.

Yes, this is slightly unfair. But only slightly. I have several times mentioned being a gamer. That's roleplaying. Extremely Amateur Dramatics. There are lots of different kinds of gamer, but the quote I want to appropriate for the purposes of this review should clarify things and make you doubt my sanity. "...I just can't help it if I'm an impossibly anal retentive fool for numbers, I keep thinking "Sure this is science fiction, [....] but I just don't see how mankind f****d up this bad given any amount of time perceivable."

The bad syntax, bad semantics and bad language are all entirely characteristic- of the game, HOL (Human Occupied Landfill- otherwise referred to as "the Conservative vision for Scotland'), that is, not the book. Which is actually more fun; it has at least one far more interesting and constructive suggestion than Wolfe's book, which doesn't really mean anything at all; all societies, all civilisations look very much the same once you reach the lowest common denominator of personal taste. There is a further connection, as all the characters from the first part of the triptych should be shipped there at once. It would make them better people. What a bunch of sick puppies.

The Fifth Head of Cerberus is divided into three parts- fore, mid and hind brain?- each a semi- independent story set on the same world, with the same problems. There are twin colony worlds, French colonised- shades of 2300AD- on which lived aborigines, and before anyone mentions that Wolfe only put them on Saint Anne, there could have been. There is a theory that the aborigines were mimetic; Wolfe runs though all the extremely sound standard arguments against it- growth spurt from hell and all that- but with nary an iota of conviction, and the theory itself is put in the mouth of someone who has as much scientific credibility as Bil
ly Graham. With writing like this, where nothing is given as such, how do you find the truth? You can't, it's nowhere.

This is a running problem. As soon as one of the characters suggests something, the book suddenly loads itself with evidence for it, only to contradict itself in the next passage. There's no heart to it, no reliable viewpoint. "The uncertainty principle embodied in brilliant fictionÓ Ursula LeGuin called it. Uncertain, wildly. Brilliant, depends what the author actually had in mind. If you can work it out, let me know, but I very much doubt it.

The colonies were invaded- he never mentions who by- and in fact the separate camps of invaders are now eyeing each other warily. Probably. The French are effectively the new aborigines. One of the worlds was governed more liberally than the other. Doesn't quite follow. If difference provoked hostility the entire universe would be up in arms. This is a worm's eye view of politics, of the ordinary citizen caught in it all who neither knows nor understands what is happening and probably wouldn't care if you explained it all. Well, yes; there are a lot of people who go through life like this, for want of time to think or ability to find out. There's absolutely no reason why an author should inflict that kind of incapacity on his readers, except maybe sadism. Granted, I occasionally complain about science fiction novels where the action occurs at so high and esoteric a level the readership could have little or nothing in common with the characters, and I still think it's a complaint worth making- but this total alternative is ridiculous. The first part of the triptych concerns the son of a brothel keeper with a taste for genetic engineering and reconstructive surgery, who is an identical copy of his father, who was an identical copy of his and so on back for as many generations as they have been here- and does exactly as he did by murdering him and taking over. A distinction without a differen
ce, presumably. There's something wrong with you if you only care about sympathetic characters, but we have here a clear illustration of the banality of evil. The second part is a story of aboriginal life, I think. So much he doesn't explain. At one point he suggests that the terrans are all so intoxicated by native plantlife they have no judgement left and couldn't recognise a state of affairs if it ate them, which puts the rest in a dubious light. Whether they psychically took our place is secondary to the fact that we literally, physically took their place- their planet. I'm sorry, but I didn't follow the story; I couldn't. Not worth it. I just looked at the words and waited for things to become clear, and they never did. The third part has a terran anthropologist, met in the first, in jail as a spy. He thinks in his cell while a police officer reads his journal. Is he- well, the book tries to have it both ways. Barefoot In The Head was easier to follow. I'm by no means sure that this is worth your reading.

Imagination; overused if anything, but totally undisciplined, could have been better served by much less; C-
Science; very little science, way too much fiction; D
Scene- setting; Murky liquid, no roots at all; C-
Characterisation; utterly unreliable, and not engaging; D

Overall; the various elements add up to zero in the end; D+

Summary: