Subject: (urth) Another PF Inspiration?

From: Matthew Keeley <matthew.keeley.1 at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 05:19:05 +0000

Does the plot of this series sound like PF at all to anyone? It seems
like something Wolfe could have read in his youth; I know the stories
were pretty well-known into the 50's, when Disney did a rough
adaptation of some of the stories with Patrick McGoohan, star of The
Prisoner, a rather Lupine show. Anyone read these? I gather some are
still in print I gather (though the Wikipedia entry more or less gives
away the entire plot).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Syn

-Matt

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From: David Duffy <david.duffy at qimr.edu.au>
Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 06:42:13 +0000

Has he reviewed it elsewhere?  It doesn't go too deeply into analysis 
(after all it is a review), though he mentions the possibility of 3rd or 
4th iterations of Chris.  I can give more details if people are 
interested.

David Duffy.
-- 
| David Duffy (MBBS PhD)                                         ,-_|\
| email: davidD at qimr.edu.au  ph: INT+61+7+3362-0217 fax: -0101  /     *
| Epidemiology Unit, Queensland Institute of Medical Research   \_,-._/
| 300 Herston Rd, Brisbane, Queensland 4029, Australia  GPG 4D0B994A v

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From: brunians at brunians.org <brunians at brunians.org>
Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 08:12:53 +0000

Yo ho ho, a pirate AND a smuggler AND a highwayman! What a guy!

.

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From: brunians at brunians.org <brunians at brunians.org>
Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 08:13:43 +0000

Please do.

.

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From: Matthew Keeley <matthew.keeley.1 at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 15:43:34 +0000

And a vicar! That's what really struck me.

-Matt

> Yo ho ho, a pirate AND a smuggler AND a highwayman! What a guy!
_____________________________

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From: brunians at brunians.org <brunians at brunians.org>
Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 16:32:09 +0000

AND his name is Christopher!

I think you might be onto something.

.

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From: David Duffy <david.duffy at qimr.edu.au>
Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 22:02:57 +0000

On Tue, 5 Feb 2008, David Duffy wrote:

> 4th iterations of Chris.

Actually, he doesn't mention further iterations and says the maze is 
unicursal ;)

OK.  This is in the NYRSF Jan issue, only one page.  Generally liked it, 
though found a bit Catholic ;)  "Angriest and most fun"

most amusing claim: "any character in any Wolfe novel whose emotional
response to any event is deeper than seems exactly appropriate is fairly
likely to be the protagonist of that novel in a guise we have not yet
encountered".  So, he implies that as he read it he was suspicious of 
i) Ignacio crying; 
ii) "We are almost dead certain" that on P 23-24, the man whose chicken is 
stolen is Chris [see P 310].

comparisons: Severian - tall and thin, seen as dark; excel in 
fighting; charismatic; repressed extreme emotions; attractive to 
(untrustworthy) women; torturers; God speaks to them directly; inhumanly 
acure moral judgements; write confessions.  It seems to me this equally 
applies to Latro and Able though.

difference: too certain in faith, "Savaranola-intense"

reason for confession: convince the reader that "life as a pirate [is] a 
good preparation for becoming a priest".  Well, self-justification anyway.

And ends:

"The reader may envy the sea-foam and clarity of that past, and would be 
there with him in a flash of trance, if given entry.  But the reader may 
also take [the] final sentence as a dreadful warning: Danger! We are the 
people. We are you."  Well you either like Clute's writing style or you 
don't.

Cheers, David Duffy.