Subject: (urth) American Nights Forgery -- more evidence

From: Dave Tallman <davetallman at msn.com>
Date: Tue, 13 May 2008 15:59:00 +0000

Here is some more evidence I found. Here some are other errors (other than
Nadan drinking alchohol) in what I believe is the forged part, the account
of the final day and night:

   - Nadan was nearly convinced that all he had left of the eggs was
   candy (p. 370 IODDAOSAOS Orb edition). The next day, he is afraid one of the
   remaining eggs will cause despairing madness (p. 377).
   - He says "We walked north along the bank of the channel until we
   reached the ruins of the old tomb..." (the Jefferson Memorial). To reach
   this place from the hotel, they couldn't just walk north. They would have to
   turn west and cross a bridge, exactly the same bridge where robbers lurked a
   few days before (p. 353).
   - The parade is not something that would be done on Easter, but on
   Good Friday. Would the theater really be closed for Good Friday? The
   American society as a whole doesn't seem that religious for the theater to
   forego the income.
   - "The dead leader lifted up" phrase seems wrong. Mulims honor Jesus
   as a prophet but don't believe he really died on the cross.

Here is an extended list of Holy Week parallels:

   1. In the first paragraph, Nadan compares himself to a man condemned
   to death.
   2. The ruined city suggests Jerusalem. One part is described as
   "occupied." (As in 'Jesus Christ Superstar' -- "We are occupied. Have you
   forgotten how put down we are?") The police act like the Roman soldiers.
   3. He is staying at the "Inn of the Holidays" (holy days).
   4. The first real entry into the city is on Palm Sunday. Nadan
   describes crowds and music.
   5. The authorities are plotting against him.
   6. Nadan is followed by beggars and people needing healing.
   7. A sacred place (the Washington Monument) has been converted into a
   den of thieves, selling stolen rings.
   8. Ardis becomes Judas, the disciple who betrays him. Her gift is a
   bracelet containing pieces of silver. She shuts his mouth "with a kiss."
   9. The meal of sandwiches (bread) and fruit-flavored beverage (wine)
   recalls the Last Supper (although I believe this is in the forged part).
   10. Twice Nadan is served bitter drinks (pp. 345 and 363).
   11. Red and purple garments in the city. Scarlet and purple robes were
   put on Jesus.
   12. The curator's conversation with Nadan is an elaborate form of the
   question "What is truth?". I suggest the curator is meant to be the
   Procurator, Pontius Pilate. If so, it suggests he has a role in condemning
   Nadan to death.

Like the woman with two halves to her face "one large-eyed and idiotically
despairing, the other squinting and sneering" (p. 339), there are two horror
stories here. One is a monster tale, but the hidden one is of human
monsters. It shows us that Americans could behave as horribly as the
third-world people they look down on, were the roles reversed.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/attachments/20080513/22c60ec3/attachment.htm>

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Thu, 15 May 2008 05:40:02 +0000

Dave,

If, as you contend, the last three pages of the notebook were forged, and
if, as you also contend, they were forged by an automated writing machine,
then the climax of the story is a Farsi farce. The most pivotal incident of
Nadan's life is nothing but a machine-generated fiction, which trivializes
what, for Nadan, was a soul-shattering event. And it makes for a much less
interesting story.

I don't see Wolfe attempting to map a week in the life of a Moslem to the
events of Holy Week. As you said early on, this story is a perverted rehash
of the story of Cupid and Psyche, but with a reversal of gender. Instead of
Psyche's light revealing the naked glory of a god, Nadan's light revealed
something that was not merely ugly to behold, it was something that crossed
a moral or spiritual boundary from which there was no return. He had
embraced that something, loved, or at least lusted after it, and saw himself
as irrevocably polluted by his contact.

-Roy

---

From: Dave Tallman <davetallman at msn.com>
Date: Thu, 15 May 2008 12:05:14 +0000

> what, for Nadan, was a soul-shattering event. And it makes for a much less
In my version, Nadan will have the same soul-shattering revelation, but 
it will be an epiphany of psychological horror. He will learn before he 
dies that the woman he loved was a moral monster, lying to him from the 
beginning, part of a plot to cause destruction on a massive scale.

I find this more interesting than the original, a mere werewolf story. 
There are layers of abstraction; the story is told by a foolish man with 
his own agenda, embellished here and there to make him look good, 
redacted out of fear of the police, and capped with a false ending. In 
spite of all that, we can still catch a glimpse of the truth at the 
core. It is not a closed curve.

> as irrevocably polluted by his contact.
I expect Wolfe believes that every person must ultimately face the 
transcendent truth of Christianity. There is an inversion of Cupid and 
Psyche, but I think the inverted passion story is the big picture. 
Here's another parallel. In the final paragraph Nadan wrote, he says "I 
will" three times. He will "grapple the trend" and force things in the 
direction he wishes. In other words, "not Thy will, but mine be done," 
an inversion of the Gethsemane prayer. It won't work -- things will be 
taken out of his hands and the ultimate result will be a Black Easter 
when an American bomb comes forth from its tomb to bring death and 
destruction.