Subject: (urth) Seven American Nights

From: Christopher Culver <christopher_culver at yahoo.com>
Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2003 02:14:26 +0000

I recently read "Seven American Nights" and think it is one of Wolfe's 
finest - and most chilling - works. I've long been unhappy that Wolfe 
has shown little interest in minority characters (and his black orderly 
in THERE ARE DOORS, quite the stereotype, makes me cringe), but I feel 
Wolfe's use of an Iranian protagonist was sincere and accurate. Who 
knows, though, how different Nadan would be had Wolfe been writing two 
years later after the Islamic Revolution when American bias against 
Iran really took off. I also find ironic Wolfe's clever reversal of an 
inhabitant of a developing country coming to America for sex tourism 
and drug tourism instead of vice versa, as Wolfe could have observed in 
the sixties and seventies when hippies were making escapes to 
Afghanistan and Goa.

Still, I've got several questions about the novella:

1) What caused the "genetic damage" in America? At one point Nadan 
makes a reference to artificial hormones used to grow cattle more 
quickly, so I at first assumed that it was caused by food which 
treatment unbeknowst to the population slowly caused damage, like mad 
cow disease today. But later on Ardis says the course of some rivers 
has changed, which could be consistent with a thermonuclear attack. 
Also, the Arab world is clearly superior in this novel, perhaps because 
Europe has been wiped out in a Cold War shootout, though apparently 
Rome is still around.

2) So, Ardis is the creature Nadan shot, right? But I don't understand 
why she wants to take him to the interior. It can't be she is one of 
the mutants from the interior, since her normal parents live in 
Washington... unless she is pretending to be their daughter, or they 
too are mutants. Why would Ardis want to take him into the interior?

3) The police are clearly conspiring against Nadan, so could the entire 
population be evil mutants like Ardis? But Nadan doesn't say there was 
anything abnormal about the three prostitutes who came to his hotel 
room.

4) What is the secret under Mt. Rushmore? Could it be the command 
center of the current government, as South Dakota is remote and barren 
enough to escape a nuclear strike?

5) Whence the two plays mentioned in the novella? "Mary Rose" was 
clearly originally "Rosemary" in tribute to Wolfe's wife, but is it or 
the "Small Planet" play obviously based on any real work of literature?

I find SAN's very prototypical of The Book of the New Sun and Wolfe's 
other works of the 1980's. The tone of narration seems similar to that 
of Severian, and the protagonist's shooting of a person he later sleeps 
with is like Severian the Autarch's attack against Gunnie in the dark. 
The possibility that the entire plot comes from the ravings of a (in 
this case drug-inspired) lunatic is like THERE ARE DOORS.

Christopher Culver <christopher_culver at yahoo.com>

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From: Andy Robertson <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk>
Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2003 18:59:56 +0000

----- Original Message -----
From: "Christopher Culver" <christopher_culver at yahoo.com>
To: <urth at urth.net>
Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2003 3:14 AM
Subject: (urth) Seven American Nights

> in THERE ARE DOORS, quite the stereotype, makes me cringe),

Odd.    Wolfe is quite honest about the importance of race in human
behaviour.  I mentioned that passage to an e-friend who had been in a mental
insitution staffed by blacks, and he told me this was entirely typical
behaviour for the black orderlies.    The violence was in fact far worse
than this, and it was specifically, aggressively,  racial in nature

For another literary treatment of this type of racial bullying read ONE FLEW
OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST

    hartshorn

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From: William Ansley <wansley at warwick.net>
Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2003 19:19:54 +0000

Both are real plays: "Mary Rose" by J. M. Barrie (1920) and "Visit to a 
Small Planet" by Gore Vidal (1957). I had to read "Planet" in High School, 
so I knew it was a real play and automatically assumed the other one was, 
too. But I think you have put your finger on the reason Wolfe was familiar 
with "Mary Rose" and decided to use it in SAN (aka 7AN).

--
William Ansley

At 04:14 AM 4/9/2003 +0200, you wrote:
>5) Whence the two plays mentioned in the novella? "Mary Rose" was clearly 
>originally "Rosemary" in tribute to Wolfe's wife, but is it or the "Small 
>Planet" play obviously based on any real work of literature?

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From: William Ansley <wansley at warwick.net>
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2003 16:36:56 +0000

[I am posting this for Dan'l. -William Ansley]

Still unable to post to the list. Grrrr.

 > Both are real plays: "Mary Rose" by J. M. Barrie (1920) and
 > "Visit to a Small Planet" by Gore Vidal (1957). I had to read
 > "Planet" in High School, so I knew it was a real play and
 > automatically assumed the other one was, too. But I think you
 > have put your finger on the reason Wolfe was familiar

That may well be part of it, but he might have known about it
for other reasons -- we know he's a fan of at least one other
work of J.M. Barrie's ("Peter Pan"), after all.

--Dan'l

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From: Alex David Groce <alex_groce at forlesen.modck.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 06:30:39 +0000

> Both are real plays: "Mary Rose" by J. M. Barrie (1920) and "Visit
> to a Small Planet" by Gore Vidal (1957). I had to read "Planet" in
> High School, so I knew it was a real play and automatically assumed
> the other one was, too. But I think you have put your finger on the
> reason Wolfe was familiar with "Mary Rose" and decided to use it in
> SAN (aka 7AN).

If I recall, Vidal's "Visit to a Small Planet" isn't quite the play
that's in the story.  I think "Mary Rose" on the other hand, doesn't
seem changed.  Can anyone confirm my memory that the Vidal play is
changed?

--
"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:32
--
Alex David Groce (agroce+ at cs.cmu.edu)
Ph.D. Student, Carnegie Mellon University - Computer Science Department
8112 Wean Hall (412)-268-3066
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~agroce

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From: StoneOx17 <stoneox17 at aol.com>
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 16:36:27 +0000

I just got around to catching up on the Urth list, and I saw the questions 
about Seven American Nights.  Nobody's answered many of them yet, 
so here are my answers.

> 1) What caused the "genetic damage" in America?  At one point  
> Nadan makes a reference to artificial hormones used to grow cattle 
> more quickly, so I at first assumed that it was caused by food which
> treatment unbeknowst to the population slowly caused damage, 
> like mad cow disease today.

Gene Wolfe used to be an engineer working in the food industry.  With 
this connection, the reference to the cattle hormones, and Nadan's 
dream of the never-staling bread (which Robert Borski likens to a 
corrupted version of the Eucharist in an interesting set of posts that 
appeared here a while ago), I am convinced that food additives are to 
blame.

(and quoting out of order)
> I also find ironic Wolfe's clever reversal of an inhabitant of a developing 
> country coming to America for sex tourism and drug tourism instead 
> of vice versa, as Wolfe could have observed in the sixties and seventies 
> when hippies were making escapes to Afghanistan and Goa.
...
> Europe has been wiped out in a Cold War shootout, though apparently 

Nadan may be from Iran because of Wolfe's inspiration from Montesquieu's 
"Persian Letters," a book from I have read only the four "troglodyte" 
letters {because of their connection to "Peace").  "Persian Letters" has a 
set-up similar to Seven American Nights, with a Persian tourist visiting and 
commenting on early 18th Century France.

> why she wants to take him to the interior. 

My take is that Ardis and Kreton (her lover) have a "business" that involves
taking rich tourists to the interior, robbing and killing them.

> anything abnormal about the three prostitutes who came to his hotel room.

Borski's theory, which I subscribe to, is that it wasn't the police who 
searched 
Nadan's hotel room, but one of the actors (I forget his name, but the one 
that 
didn't show up that night) conspiring with Ardis and Kreton.  

> 4) What is the secret under Mt. Rushmore? 

Is there one?  I've been assuming that was just a rumor, but I can't really
say.

Borski's posts are definitely worth looking up.  I'm not sure I agree with 
everything he says, but I'm convinced he has identified the missing
night.

http://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0205/871.txt.shtml
http://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0205/889.txt.shtml
http://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0205/922.txt.shtml

Stone Ox

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