Gene Wolfe’s ‘The Fifth Head of Cerberus’ (1972), or an Uncanny Science Fiction Revision of Proust’s À la Recherche du temps perdu: Remembrance of Things Past, Remembering Oneself
The question of memory constitutes the core of Gene Wolfe’s science fiction novella. The opening section can be read as a clear echo of the beginning of Du Côté de chez Swann. But the (implicit) Proustian intertext, prevalent though it is, coexists with references to Dickens (David Copperfield), the...
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| Vydáno v: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/ebc, |
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| Hlavní autor: | |
| Médium: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Jazyk: | Anglais |
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Études britanniques contemporaines
2023
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| On-line přístup: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Shrnutí: | The question of memory constitutes the core of Gene Wolfe’s science fiction novella. The opening section can be read as a clear echo of the beginning of Du Côté de chez Swann. But the (implicit) Proustian intertext, prevalent though it is, coexists with references to Dickens (David Copperfield), the Bible, Greek mythology, and is integrated to an uncanny fantasy realm that is both very archaic (existence of a slave trade, old- world French toponymy) and belongs to a scientifically advanced era (using cloning and parthenogenesis).As Wolfe’s text belongs to the dystopian tradition (like Brave New World, 1984 and Fahrenheit 451), the problem of memory must be addressed alongside the question of identity taken in at least two senses, sameness or similarity. Wolfe’s narrator simply must recapture the past to reconstruct it and himself. The ultimate aim of remembering is re-membering himself, (re)building his identity. The open conclusion of the novella provisionally answers one (if not the) major question posed by the text. Why write at all? |
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