{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4943", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 4943, "subject": "PF review", "messages": 14, "voices": 10, "first": "2007-11-30T13:40:53+00:00", "last": "2007-12-06T13:38:38+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "<470744.41152.qm@web44913.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "bill reilly", "address": "gdeonn at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2007-11-30T13:40:53+00:00", "subject": "(urth) PF review", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "For those interested, I posted my review of Pirate Freedom, from my review column in Realms of Fantasy magazine, on my blog: \n \n http://community.livejournal.com/theinferior4/199336.html\n \n\n " } ] }, { "message_id": "<11961.67.142.130.27.1196436794.squirrel@brunians.org>", "from": { "name": "brunians at brunians.org", "address": "brunians at brunians.org" }, "date": "2007-11-30T15:33:14+00:00", "subject": "(urth) PF review", "in_reply_to": "<470744.41152.qm@web44913.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hey, that's a pretty neat review.\n\nI'd want to run out and buy the book if I didn't already.\n\n." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "For those interested, I posted my review of Pirate Freedom, from my review\ncolumn in Realms of Fantasy magazine, on my blog:\n\n http://community.livejournal.com/theinferior4/199336.html\n\n\n\n---------------------------------\nNever miss a thing. Make Yahoo your\nhomepage._______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<20071130204516.CE7F22283F@mailserver5.hushmail.com>", "from": { "name": "thalassocrat at nym.hush.com", "address": "thalassocrat at nym.hush.com" }, "date": "2007-11-30T20:45:16+00:00", "subject": "(urth) PF review", "in_reply_to": "<11961.67.142.130.27.1196436794.squirrel@brunians.org>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Sat, 01 Dec 2007 00:40:53 +1100 bill reilly \nwrote:\nFor those interested, I posted my review of Pirate Freedom, from \nmy review column in Realms of Fantasy magazine, on my blog: \n \n http://community.livejournal.com/theinferior4/199336.html" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That's an excellent review. \n\nOne point: was it really to protect Chris that his father put him \nin a monastery? I thought about that, but how much protection would \nit actually offer, compared to other options? And Chris in the \nearly period spends a fair chunk of time back home - Christmas, 8 \nweeks over summer ...\n\nHis father seems to have some personal experience of monasteries: \nhe thinks abbotts \"bring you down\". \n\nOn Chris' hypocrisy: framing & limiting his whole confession is his \nassertion that he had no choice but to act badly - those times are \nnot these times, and so on. But he did he have choices. A critical \npoint for me is right at the beginning of his career, in Veracruz. \nHe helps a priest minister to slaves; he could keep on doing that, \nbut instead chooses to return to the Weald. \n\nActually, I suppose the real beginning is just before that, when he \nexcuses himself for stealing bread: God isn't going to send him to \nhell for any amount of venial sinning. Then he quickly progresses \nto assault, violently stealing a chicken. His older self helps him \ndo it - a little scene encapsulating the whole of Chris' story.\n\nChris is indeed a bad man. But he has direct encounters with Christ \n(or at least believes he does). In one of them, Christ tells him \nthat all that is needed is for Chris to love him. What to think \nabout that? You can be a mobster and a pirate, but if you love \nChrist it doesn't matter? Is that good theology? For me it might \nserve as a reductio ad absurdum against that theology; but what's \nWolfe's view?" } ] }, { "message_id": "<605329.12133.qm@web44909.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "paul witcover", "address": "gdeonn at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2007-11-30T22:22:18+00:00", "subject": "(urth) PF review", "in_reply_to": "<20071130204516.CE7F22283F@mailserver5.hushmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "thalassocrat at nym.hush.com wrote: " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Sat, 01 Dec 2007 00:40:53 +1100 bill reilly \nwrote:\nFor those interested, I posted my review of Pirate Freedom, from \nmy review column in Realms of Fantasy magazine, on my blog: \n\nhttp://community.livejournal.com/theinferior4/199336.html" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That's an excellent review. \n\nOne point: was it really to protect Chris that his father put him \nin a monastery? I thought about that, but how much protection would \nit actually offer, compared to other options? And Chris in the \nearly period spends a fair chunk of time back home - Christmas, 8 \nweeks over summer ...\n\nHis father seems to have some personal experience of monasteries: \nhe thinks abbotts \"bring you down\". \n\nOn Chris' hypocrisy: framing & limiting his whole confession is his \nassertion that he had no choice but to act badly - those times are \nnot these times, and so on. But he did he have choices. A critical \npoint for me is right at the beginning of his career, in Veracruz. \nHe helps a priest minister to slaves; he could keep on doing that, \nbut instead chooses to return to the Weald. \n\nActually, I suppose the real beginning is just before that, when he \nexcuses himself for stealing bread: God isn't going to send him to \nhell for any amount of venial sinning. Then he quickly progresses \nto assault, violently stealing a chicken. His older self helps him \ndo it - a little scene encapsulating the whole of Chris' story.\n\nChris is indeed a bad man. But he has direct encounters with Christ \n(or at least believes he does). In one of them, Christ tells him \nthat all that is needed is for Chris to love him. What to think \nabout that? You can be a mobster and a pirate, but if you love \nChrist it doesn't matter? Is that good theology? For me it might \nserve as a reductio ad absurdum against that theology; but what's \nWolfe's view?\n\n ###\n \n All excellent questions, many of which I continue to puzzle over! I've been a little disappointed by the critical reception of this novel so far -- the majority view seems to be that it's a light-hearted romp, just pure fun, without any of the weightier issues normally present in his work. It's baffling to me that the book could be so significantly misapprehended.\n\n\n\n " } ] }, { "message_id": "<20071130231633.046802283E@mailserver5.hushmail.com>", "from": { "name": "thalassocrat at nym.hush.com", "address": "thalassocrat at nym.hush.com" }, "date": "2007-11-30T23:16:32+00:00", "subject": "(urth) PF review", "in_reply_to": "<605329.12133.qm@web44909.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Sat, 01 Dec 2007 07:45:16 +1100 thalassocrat at nym.hush.com wrote:\n\nOn Chris' hypocrisy: framing & limiting his whole confession is \nhis \nassertion that he had no choice but to act badly - those times are " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "not these times, and so on. But he did he have choices. A critical " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "point for me is right at the beginning of his career, in Veracruz. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "He helps a priest minister to slaves; he could keep on doing that, " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "but instead chooses to return to the Weald. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Oops - screwed that up. The Veracruz episode happens before he is \ntaken by Captain Burt, of course. But I think the point stands: he \ndoes have lots of opportunities to become what he was trained to be \nat the monastery, and he dabbles in them, but in the end he rejects \nthem. When he does become a priest, as \"Chris2\", it's a time-filler \nwhile he plots his return to Novia - one which he pursues \nconscientiously, but still not the main game." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Crossley", "address": "ishmael at drizzle.com" }, "date": "2007-11-30T23:48:37+00:00", "subject": "(urth) PF review", "in_reply_to": "<605329.12133.qm@web44909.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On 11/30/07 2:22 PM, \"paul witcover\" wrote:\n \nI've been a little disappointed by the critical reception of this novel so\nfar -- the majority view seems to be that it's a light-hearted romp, just\npure fun, without any of the weightier issues normally present in his work.\nIt's baffling to me that the book could be so significantly misapprehended." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Not that I think he wants to be misunderstood, but Wolfe tends to purposely\ndisguise his meanings, and in PF he seems to have pushed that tendency about\nas far as it can go. The book almost begs for readers to see it as simply a\nboy’s adventure. I’d bet that a significant portion of casual readers (if\nWolfe still has any of those) wouldn’t be aware of the SF nature of the\nstory, granting that time travel is a mite fantastical, but not even\nnoticing that Chris’s reverse time travel begins in our future. The moral\nquestions are buried even deeper.\n\nWasn’t there something in the review about the brightness of the Caribbean\nsun helping us forget about the inevitable shadows? That says it right.\n\nJames" } ] }, { "message_id": "<5B108339-5549-4A05-B4B7-EF0759856B4D@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Adam Thornton", "address": "adam at io.com" }, "date": "2007-12-01T00:02:28+00:00", "subject": "(urth) PF review", "in_reply_to": "<20071130204516.CE7F22283F@mailserver5.hushmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Nov 30, 2007, at 2:45 PM, \n wrote:\nYou can be a mobster and a pirate, but if you love\nChrist it doesn't matter? Is that good theology?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It's good Protestant theology [0].\n\nWhich is odd, given the religious affiliations of Chris, Wolfe, and \nmost Mafiosi.\n\nAdam\n\n[0] Yes, yes, I realize that I'm being reductionist to the point of \ninaccuracy as well as awfully snarky, but honestly, that bit in James \nabout faith without works being dead *is* one of the bits that \nProtestants prefer to ignore in favor of the bit from Ephesians about \ngrace being a gift that no works can attain. Slap that into a sermon \nwith John 3:16 and you can make a case that faith alone--irrespective \nof works--is sufficient. Which I am sure is a great comfort to those \nwho prey with delight on their fellow men but go to bed secure in the \nknowledge that they are the Elect." } ] }, { "message_id": "<39ed084f0711301612x1e953887nc7e8e76e8370c45a@mail.gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "Matthew Groves", "address": "matthewalangroves at gmail.com" }, "date": "2007-12-01T00:12:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) PF Review", "in_reply_to": "<5B108339-5549-4A05-B4B7-EF0759856B4D@io.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "thalassocrat wrote:\nChris is indeed a bad man." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "To me, the most chilling insight into Chris's \"half-monstrous\" nature\ncomes when he is recounting having saved the slaves in the Spanish\nstockade outside Portobello. Chris says this incident was the\nexception, but that \"That just makes it sweeter.\"\n\nWas anyone else struck by the constant references to swords and\ndaggers of various shapes, often very carefully described, always\nbeing taken away or found or lost or traded or given? And all the\nguns and the importance of their size. Chris and Capt. Burt \"share\nthe captain's cabin with a long nine.\" Later he puts a long nine\nstern chaser in his cabin on the Castillo Blanco. Also doubloons and\ncoin purses of various sizes being taken by force or carried or lent.\nIt all struck me as Freudian. In particular, the incident on\nHispaniola when Chris and the Buccaneers parlay with the Spanish and\nthey take Chris's coin purse seems to be the source of a great deal of\nChris's rage." } ] }, { "message_id": "<20071201015637.GA2016@localhost>", "from": { "name": "gwern0 at gmail.com", "address": "gwern0 at gmail.com" }, "date": "2007-12-01T01:56:37+00:00", "subject": "(urth) PF review", "in_reply_to": "<20071130204516.CE7F22283F@mailserver5.hushmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "On 2007.12.01 07:45:16 +1100, thalassocrat at nym.hush.com scribbled 0 lines:\n..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Chris is indeed a bad man. But he has direct encounters with Christ\n(or at least believes he does). In one of them, Christ tells him\nthat all that is needed is for Chris to love him. What to think\nabout that? You can be a mobster and a pirate, but if you love\nChrist it doesn't matter? Is that good theology? For me it might\nserve as a reductio ad absurdum against that theology; but what's\nWolfe's view?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Wolfe is a Catholic, and I believe the pithy formulation is 'salvation by faith alone', and not works; hard cases make for bad law, but if salvation by faith alone works for even a degenerate Chris, then surely it must have sufficient virtue for lesser sinners?" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "gwern\nAxis LEETAC 707 b SUKLO .tc besopasnosti SAMU CTP Fetish" } ] }, { "message_id": "<20071201122621.7E0FCDA820@mailserver8.hushmail.com>", "from": { "name": "thalassocrat at nym.hush.com", "address": "thalassocrat at nym.hush.com" }, "date": "2007-12-01T12:26:21+00:00", "subject": "(urth) PF review", "in_reply_to": "<20071201015637.GA2016@localhost>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Sat, 01 Dec 2007 09:22:18 +1100 paul witcover \nwrote:\n \n All excellent questions, many of which I continue to puzzle \nover! I've been a little disappointed by the critical reception \nof this novel so far -- the majority view seems to be that it's a \nlight-hearted romp, just pure fun, without any of the weightier \nissues normally present in his work. It's baffling to me that the " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "book could be so significantly misapprehended." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In fact, isn't it quite clear that Chris is a monster? He sins, \nwilfully and in complete knowledge of what he is doing. Even when \nhe is given a chance to undo his sinful acts, he rejects it, and \ninstead uses the opportunity to try to ensure he will sin in the \nsame way, again. His confession is worse than worthless.\n\nLook: the whole story is supposed to be a kind of confession. No \nmatter how you look at it, there is at least one thing for which he \ndefinitely needs the premium-level forgiveness package: the killing \nof Michet. Assume that everything else can be marked down to \ncircumstances, battle, bad luck, youth, whatever. He killed Michet \nwhen Michet was offering him reconciliation, while he was \neffectively unarmed, and solely to preserve his respect as captain. \nThe Michet killing triggers the whole \"confession\".\n\nHe comes back from the past. He can, perhaps, undo Michet. Whether \nor not he can actually alter the future/past, he has an obvious \nmoral obligation to try to do so. But he wilfully chooses not to \ntry. He does not go to visit himself in Jersey. He obviously plans \nto act exactly as Ignacio did during his \"own\" youth, and do \neverything to ensure that \"Chris1\" follows exactly the same \ntrajectory as \"he\" did, so he can take over Novia when \"Chris1\" \ngoes back to the future.\n\nHe is going to ensure that his youthful self sins in exactly the \nsame way, so his older self can benefit. He preys not only on \nothers, but also on his own youth. \n\nI think Chris is perhaps the most unambiguously evil character \nWolfe has presented in a novel. I find it breathtaking.\n\n\"Sometimes I have had to slip.\" Maybe, sometimes, but when he came \nback to the future he had a miraculous chance to try to undo the \nslips - and he rejected it. " } ] }, { "message_id": "<08B418CD-FCEF-4F1C-B1FC-CC644569AE88@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "Matthew King", "address": "automatthew at gmail.com" }, "date": "2007-12-01T16:24:47+00:00", "subject": "(urth) PF Review", "in_reply_to": "<39ed084f0711301612x1e953887nc7e8e76e8370c45a@mail.gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Nov 30, 2007, at 6:12 PM, Matthew Groves wrote:\nAnd all the\nguns and the importance of their size. Chris and Capt. Burt \"share\nthe captain's cabin with a long nine.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "You find the same emphasis on number and size of guns in Patrick \nO'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels. I think it is better to take a \nnaval commander's obsession with gunpower at face value. A sizeable \nstern-chaser is not the same thing as a sizeable-stern chaser." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Straight", "address": "mfstraight at gmail.com" }, "date": "2007-12-05T19:56:29+00:00", "subject": "(urth) PF review", "in_reply_to": "<20071201122621.7E0FCDA820@mailserver8.hushmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Paul, that's a great review. Thanks for sharing.\n\nAnd yet one of the commenters at your website offers one of best\nperspectives for reading Wolfe that I have yet seen:\n\n\"I suppose Wolfe makes of the reader a priest, and puts him on the\nreceiving end in the confessional, and shows him at its most squirmy\nhow tough it is to love (and forgive!) thy neighbor, harder far than\nloving God and yet its essential corollary. And thus we can safely\nassume that Wolfe shares our repugnance while simultaneously putting\nit aside in favor of compassion for his character, so essential to a\nbelievable — let alone a soulful — portrayal of him?\"\n\nWow. I don't think there's a book Wolfe has written that is not\nilluminated by that idea.\n\nRostrum" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "David Duffy", "address": "david.duffy at qimr.edu.au" }, "date": "2007-12-05T21:38:57+00:00", "subject": "(urth) PF review", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Wed, 5 Dec 2007, Michael Straight wrote:\nPaul, that's a great review. Thanks for sharing.\n\nAnd yet one of the commenters at your website offers one of best\nperspectives for reading Wolfe that I have yet seen:\n\n\"I suppose Wolfe makes of the reader a priest, and puts him on the\nreceiving end in the confessional, and shows him at its most squirmy\nhow tough it is to love (and forgive!) thy neighbor, harder far than\nloving God and yet its essential corollary. And thus we can safely\nassume that Wolfe shares our repugnance while simultaneously putting\nit aside in favor of compassion for his character, so essential to a\nbelievable — let alone a soulful — portrayal of him?\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Two things I thought about after reading this comment were: C. is \nunrepentant, and comments that he cannot offer absolution to others who \nare in that state (_Peace_ anyone?); the other is a la _the Power and the \nGlory_ etc, that even a bad priest is still efficacious.\n\nI'm not completely happy with the central event in the story, the \ntime-slips. We have no hints about its nature, whether supernatural or \ntechnological. I have no problem with supernatural/fantastical \ndisplacements providing they don't have disturbing effects on overall \ncausality ;) ie unhappy young man yearns to slip back in time to the \nromantic age of pirates, mysteriously it happens, and today comes back to \ntell his story and mourn his lost love. And I don't mind a _By his \nBootstraps_ or even a _New Sun_. But in the latter, I want some kind of a \nrationale for my closed timelike curves eg meddling superintelligences ;)\n\n\nDavid Duffy." } ] }, { "message_id": "<535738.87685.qm@web44908.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "paul witcover", "address": "gdeonn at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2007-12-06T13:38:38+00:00", "subject": "(urth) PF review", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Michael Straight wrote: And yet one of the commenters at your website offers one of best\nperspectives for reading Wolfe that I have yet seen:\n\n\"I suppose Wolfe makes of the reader a priest, and puts him on the\nreceiving end in the confessional, and shows him at its most squirmy\nhow tough it is to love (and forgive!) thy neighbor, harder far than\nloving God and yet its essential corollary. And thus we can safely\nassume that Wolfe shares our repugnance while simultaneously putting\nit aside in favor of compassion for his character, so essential to a\nbelievable — let alone a soulful — portrayal of him?\"\n\nWow. I don't think there's a book Wolfe has written that is not\nilluminated by that idea.\n\nRostrum\n\n ***\n \n Yes, I thought so too!\n\n " } ] } ] }