PF as YA

For those of you who suggested that Pirate Freedom was a YA novel, does your definition of that genre include an element of didacticism? If so, what lessons would you a young person take away from the book? Though this is a disputable claim, I find it plausible that younger readers are more apt to identify uncritically with the protagonists of books they read. Another generalization is that writers of YA fiction try to create sympathetic (and perhaps even instructive) protagonists for these identity-seeking young readers. I find it difficult to believe that Wolfe intends Christopher to be such a character. At the same time, however, was there any doubt in your minds that Christopher as American priest is intended to be sympathetic in his current actions and beliefs? In an interview with Peter Wright published in Shadows of the New Sun (Liverpool UP: 2007, p. 143, viewable via google books), Wolfe says in an interview that There Are Doors came closest in execution to his original conception as any of his work. I wonder how PF would measure on that scale. (He also mentions on that page his bafflement at the unexplained/unexplainable strong reactions that readers have to his work.)

Jon writes:

I'm baffled. Why should a YA novel include "an element of didacticism"? Some YA novels have that, I suppose, but hardly all of them. Read, for instance, Megan Whalen Turner's The Thief (and sequels). Or, going a bit older, John Bellairs' novels, which are entirely fun and not at all didactic. I don't know if you'd say there's a didactic element in, for instance, N. D. Wilson's recent 100 Cupboards and its sequel Dandelion Fire. If you find a didactic element in these novels, I suppose you could make just as good a case for saying that adult novels include "an element of didacticism." In fact, it would be easy to make that case for Flannery O'Connor or Walker Percy or G. K. Chesterton or C. S. Lewis. Or Gene Wolfe, whose books frequently (and especially recently) seem designed to teach wisdom and spur the reader (as well as the characters) toward maturity. That's something you see pretty strongly in Short Sun and Wizard Knight, for instance, the latter of which especially is about a boy becoming a man and a man becoming a true knight. John **************Why pay full price? Check out this month's deals on the new AOL Shopping. (http://shopping.aol.com/?ncid=emlcntinstor00000001)

I know that "didactic" has a pejorative connotation in many circumstances (which might be derived from New Critical orthodoxy, at least in part); but I meant it only descriptively. In the interview that I quoted in my original message, Wolfe goes on to address the very issue of the necessity of fictional moral ambiguity in a morally ambiguous world. (He mentions Treasure Island specifically). But it also seems clear that he takes the instructive or moral exemplar aspect of writing seriously. Is it significant morally, for example, that Christopher is or believes himself to be genetically modified?

It seems to me likely that Wolfe means all of his work to have a didactic element (in that descriptive sense). Otherwise, what would be the moral purpose of writing it? And to go back to your slightly earlier question -- while Chris surely isn't held up as a moral exemplar, he does seem to me to be portrayed sympathetically, and his exploits laid out in such a way that instruction might be drawn from them. So this might be a more sophisticated take on the identify-with protagonist of simplistically didactic YA. I'm not an expert, but I'm sure there must be a tradition of other such in the YA canon. Mo # ~ # ~ # WolfeWiki -- a wiki about Gene Wolfe http://www.wolfewiki.com/pmwiki/

I think by the time that he's writing his narrative, in America, as a traditionalist priest, he is meant to be a wholly sympathetic character by Wolfe. I do not find him so, for any number of reasons, but my feeling is that Wolfe does intend him to be. I solicit other reactions to this, from those of you who read the book and still care. Also, about the wiki, while I have you on the horn here: The "Seven American Nights" entry ends with the following line: "It shows us that Americans could behave as horribly as the third-world people they look down on, were the roles reversed. " I know it's a wiki, etc.; but is that what whoever wrote it really meant to say?

No, I didn't find Adult Chris to be sympathetic and I'm not sure I was supposed to. I don't really have a developed argument for that, though.

Hmm, I thought it was obvious that PF (and, before it, The Wizard Knight) were intended as books for young adults! Both books are about manliness and what it implies, about honor and courage, about danger and our reaction to it. Those are long-standing themes of young adult fiction, though I'll admit that these days they are minor chords amidst a slew of plucky heroines and folks who overcome their disadvantages and/or oppressions. In both PF and WK the main characters are young, come from "our world" or something close to it (which makes them easier to understand and identify with), and have to deal with a completely different reality. How they deal with it is what makes the books interesting. Is Chris intended as a sympathetic character? I think that to some extent he is, though Wolfe has never really written a character that was a "good guy" in every way; he knows that all of us have flaws. One of the things Wolfe was trying to do in PF, I think, is to complicate our sense of what is right and what is wrong by having a young man be formed in an utterly foreign culture (piracy in the 17th century). Things we consider horrible are routine for him. Things we consider routine (see his comments about his life as a priest) are horrible to him. I know it's easy to just say Chris is a "bad guy", but most of us haven't been shot at and had to fight for our lives. Could we? If we could, should we? Nor have we been hungry and had to decide whether to steal. This is why, I think, the time travel motif is essential to the book. It allows the kind of distancing that is required to embed us (via Chris) in a different cultural world. Of course, all this is going on while Wolfe is also taking a look at pirate adventure stories and rubbing our noses in the parts that don't usually get much attention: the easy brutality, the way women and slaves were treated, and all that. But he does it through Chris's eyes, who sees much of it as "just the way things are"... Fernando

I haven't read PF, but I can pretty well guarantee that WK will not end up in the library at any junior high I know about. It's violent and overtly sexual. And it's tone would definitely not hold the attention of any but the most exceptional young teen. I'd as soon label "A Voyage to Arcturus" as YA fiction as I would WK. J.

That particular bit was written by DaveTallman, who's also on this list -- hopefully he can answer to his intention. The url is: http://www.wolfewiki.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Stories.SevenAmericanNights for anyone else who's interested, best, Mo # ~ # ~ # WolfeWiki -- a wiki about Gene Wolfe http://www.wolfewiki.com/pmwiki/

Now why do you dislike him as a modern priest, because he thinks children should be taught to violently resist sexual predation? Someone else was on about that, they thought that it was 'blaming the victim', something I don't see. .

I sort of liked him. I think he was probably a valuable priest in his inner-city parish there. .

... Mostly I find him sympathetic. However, I didn't like his sophistry about why it didn't matter that he planned to break his vow of chastity, or the fact that he broke his vow of obedience and planned to break his vow of poverty without a word to us on the subject. I'd have liked him better if he'd said, "I know I took these vows, but I'm going to break them because my wife and our unborn, long-dead child are the most important things to me." It also seemed that he wasn't serious about the religion he was professing. When he discusses moral problems such as whether it's okay to knock down obstreperous teenage boys ("the fighting priest who can talk to the young"?) or teach children to violently resist molestation, I don't remember him ever mentioning the Church's view. He certainly believes in God, but I remember no sign that he believes in the divinity of Jesus or the holiness of any saint. I don't find this sort of thing sympathetic in a clergyman, but I don't know what Wolfe intends. Do we ever find out why he chose the priesthood when he returned to the 21st Century? Or whether, when he chose it, he was already thinking that he'd leave for the 17th if Communism fell in Cuba? Jerry Friedman

I don't think "for young adults", quoted above, means junior high. Maybe "YA", which I used, does, thought I thought it included high-school-age kids too. Jerry Friedman

For what it's worth: It always seemed to me that PF was about situational ethics- or rather, morals. I didn't walk away with the impression that Chris considered the horrible things he and his crew did to be anything less than horrible. It took a long time and a lot of pushing for him to finally become a pirate, even with his gangster background. After that, he did everything in his power to influence his crew and anyone he came into contact with to be better, more devout people. Just like so many other Wolfe protagonists. Bram Burt was a privateer. Chris took his orders directly from Burt. Essentially, they were at war with Spain. This was the situation he'd been thrust into- that God placed him in. He made the best of it, and tried to be the best man he could be within it. And I believe that Father Chris knew that no good man would be likely to understand or forgive the life he'd led. That only God could be his judge. And would be. And perhaps had been. Anyway, that's my take. Father Chris knew it was a rougher, tougher world than his fellow priests would like to imagine; he wanted to give the boys in his care some guidance that they could accept. But I never thought of it as a Young Adult novel. Wizard Knight yes. Not Pirate Freedom. ---H

Most definitions of YA put it in the range of I've seen are tween-16 Jeff

I actually thought a bit before phrasing it as "for young adults" instead of "YA", for that very reason. "YA", after all, is a marketing category. Today it seems to mean "preadolescent". That said, however, the scuttlebut among authors is that folks have been asked to add sex and violence to their books in order to make them appropriate for the YA market. If you've read a review of Margo Lanagan's "Tender Morsels", to choose an example that I happened to notice, you know that the "YA" category today embraces a lot of stuff that junior high librarians used to frown at. Fernando

Well, when I browse through the YA section of my local used bookstore, I see "Wizard of Oz", "Chronicles of Narnia", OS Card's "Ender" series, "Tom Sawyer", the "Harry Potter" series, Susan Cooper, and Madeleine L'engle. None of these could be categorized with Wizard Knight IMO. High school libraries might include these books as well and books that students might be assigned in college (such as "Huckleberry Finn"). High school literature is a "tween" category which doesn't seem to have a specific shelf in the publishing industry. For example, L Ron Hubbard's "Battlefield Earth" is pulpy and probably especially appealing to a 14 to 17 audience, but I can't imagine it being marketed as Young Adult. But you're probably right in this sense: If WK had any chance of becoming a "Gold Book", it would happen for an exceptional older teen. But I stand my analogy to "A Voyage to Arcturus". J.

That is my reading as well, though I think that we're also expected to see that some of Chris's choices are pretty bad choices. The business at the end about the vow of celibacy is a particularly discomforting one. See my other comment about "YA". I'm not sure what that means any more. But I still think the themes in PF are appropriate for young adults, and especially young men. This seems to be a concern of Wolfe's. Our society seems no longer interested in "manliness", but Wolfe is. Fernando

It should come with a warning label of SOME kind, though. Adam

Funny...I was in junior high in the mid-1970's. We had "Voyage to Arcturus". And a lot of stuff by Robert Silverberg, Samuel Delany, and others that was pretty dang "adult". And a lot of the stuff I see marketed as YA is explicit one way or the other. In the "teen room" of the town library they have shelves of manga. Some manga can be pretty dang adult. My wife or I check whatever our daughter wants to borrow, less to censor than to provide guidance and offer advice. (If she wanted to take out any of the really "hard" stuff, I'd probably censor/ban, but that's me.) So there might be more in that junior high library than you know of! But I doubt you'd find Gene Wolfe, as I don't recall him ever getting a teen/YA marketing push. F.P. Kiesche III "Ah Mr. Gibbon, another damned, fat, square book. Always, scribble, scribble, scribble, eh?" (The Duke of Gloucester, on being presented with Volume 2 of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.) Blogging at The Lensman's Children and TexasBestGrok! --- On Thu, 4/16/09, James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com> wrote:

I haven't read PF, but I can pretty well guarantee that WK will not end up in the library at any junior high I know about. It's violent and overtly sexual. And it's tone would definitely not hold the attention of any but the most exceptional young teen. I'd as soon label "A Voyage to Arcturus" as YA fiction as I would WK. J.

My Catholic all-guys high school had copies of The Wizard and The Knight; that is not, however, how I got into Wolfe.I remember that the librarians put both books on display (along with lots of other sci-fi and fantasy stuff, including Watchmen). I was always tempted to read them, but it's just as well I didn't - I think New Sun was a better introduction to Wolfe for me. -Matt

I think I would have worded that differently, but that in the end we'd be talking about the same thing. I agree. I hadn't thought the novel was intended for a younger audience, but it could have been. I think the spectre of "Treasure Island" helps that impression.

I realize now that I was somewhat stating the obvious. I didn't get the part about Chris making bad choices. His plan to break the vow of celibacy, for instance- didn't disturb me. At that point Chris was long past having decided that his own relationship with God was unique. Perhaps the danger of that is part of what the book tries to explore. But also, the woman in question was his wife. Why he made such a vow in the first place, I don't know; but the idea of breaking it bothered him enough to mention it in his "confession". All I can say is that upon my first read, I wasn't struck by any moral qualms. I don't know if I'd say that I found the character sympathetic, but I felt his actions to be contextually appropriate. That is, though I probably wouldn't have done the same things in the same situation, it seemed to make sense for him. It never occurred to me to doubt his (young Chris') relationship with his own conscience. As I said in a previous post, there were points where I felt that Father Chris was tempted to take a dark road. That owing to freedom of choice, there were necessarily a Good Ignacio and a Bad Ignacio in the 17th century. Anyway, thanks for your kind response. ---H

I should ask my sister the youth librarian what she thinks. She's pretty much of the, "hey, if it gets them to read, it's okay" school when it comes to sex and swashbuckling in novels. But would it draw in and reward a Young Adult audience, that slippery category?

You make some very good points! Hey, do you think he took his vow partially because he thought, "there can be no other woman for me but Novia"? IIRC, he doesn't figure out that he can possibly go back until after doing so; I'm not 100% on this chronology, though. It's still creepy. Hey, you know that old monk guy who's living with you? Well, he's really the same person as your dashing teenage pirate husband! On the up side, you have someone to help take care of the baby (possibly with a lot of loot). On the down side, you've traded in your handsome young man for someone much older (something you ran away from, if I recall). Plus, there's this priest who keeps checking out your ass. At what point does Chris wearing the cassock become seriously deceitful?

I don't quite remember the rules, but isn't there some special provision for men who were married before becoming priests? Fernando

2009/4/20 "Fernando Q. Gouv?a" <fqgouvea at colby.edu>:

There have been a few exceptions granted for clergy from other denominations converting and becoming priests, but that is very rare. The relevant question here -- and it's one which I don't know the answer to -- is, "what if a widower becomes a priest and it turns out his wife isn't dead after all?" My guess is that this would become an exception, because neither the sacrament of matrimony nor that of holy orders can be "undone."

If you are a deacon (we have four in our RC parish) and your wife dies, you've made a committment to become a priest... F.P. Kiesche III "Ah Mr. Gibbon, another damned, fat, square book. Always, scribble, scribble, scribble, eh?" (The Duke of Gloucester, on being presented with Volume 2 of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.) Blogging at The Lensman's Children and TexasBestGrok! --- On Mon, 4/20/09, "Fernando Q. Gouv?a" <fqgouvea at colby.edu> wrote: From: "Fernando Q. Gouv?a" <fqgouvea at colby.edu> Subject: Re: (urth) PF as YA To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net> Date: Monday, April 20, 2009, 11:29 AM I don't quite remember the rules, but isn't there some special provision for men who were married before becoming priests? Fernando

that means any more. But I still think the themes in PF are appropriate for young adults, and especially young men. This seems to be a concern of Wolfe's. Our society seems no longer interested in "manliness", but Wolfe is.

school when it comes to sex and swashbuckling in novels. But would it draw in and reward a Young Adult audience, that slippery category?

But also, the woman in question was his wife. Why he made such a vow in the first place, I don't know; but the idea of breaking it bothered him enough to mention it in his "confession".

-- ============================================================= Fernando Q. Gouvea Carter Professor of Mathematics Colby College Editor, MAA FOCUS 5836 Mayflower Hill Editor, MAA Reviews Waterville, ME 04901 http://mathdl.maa.org/mathDL/19/ http://www.colby.edu/~fqgouvea It is necessary for the welfare of society that genius should be privileged to utter sedition, to blaspheme, to outrage good taste, to corrupt the youthful mind, and generally to scandalize one's uncles. -- George Bernard Shaw

Eastern Catholic (and Orthodox) priests may marry before their ordination, but married men cannot be bishops in either jurisdiction. In the various Anglican and Old Catholic jurisdictions, any clergy may marry at any time. The more conservative will not allow divorce and remarriage, but there are otherwise no restrictions on wedlock, nor any requirement of celibacy. The Roman Catholic Church has, on occasion, reordained married Anglican clergymen into the RC priesthood (the official RC position is that Anglican orders are not valid, so they are re-ordained if they are to function clerically). Otherwise, only perpetual deacons are permitted to be married, and they must be married before they are ordained.

That's weird. In our diocese there's a clear distinction between "transitional deacons" who expect to become priests and "permanant deacons" which are the married men who assist in parishes.

--- On Mon, 4/20/09, Allan Anderson <rubel at goosemoon.org> wrote: ...

... That's an interesting question. I don't remember anything about when he makes the decision. or when he figures out that he can go back. It could be as soon as he finds out what year he's returned to.

Another interesting question. Maybe the second he puts it on? He seems to want to help people, which is important to me, but as I said in an earlier post I remember no evidence that he believes in Christianity, which seems important to the question of deceit. and again, he has even less trouble breaking his vows of poverty and obedience than he does his vow of chastity. I would also imagine that somebody would talk to a prospective priest about his vows, and say something like, "This vow means, for example, that if there's a woman you'd go back to if it ever became possible, you're giving up on her." If this subject or something like it is raised, it's really time for Chris to think about Novia and whether he could ever go back to her, if he hasn't thought about that already. Jerry Friedman

--- On Mon, 4/20/09, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com> wrote: ...

As I recall, there's such a thing as a conditional baptism. You're making me wonder whether there's a conditional ordination in cases where there's some doubt about whether the wife is really dead. Of course, if there's much doubt, I imagine the widower couldn't be ordained, but what about the case of a shipwreck or plane crash where it's practically certain that no one survived, but no bodies were recovered? Getting back to /Pirate Freedom/, though, obviously Chris isn't going to tell anyone in the 21st-century Church about Novia. Who here wishes Wolfe had included Chris's letter to Bishop Scully resigning his post? Jerry Friedman

No, a conditional ordination would be when there's doubt that a person has been ordained validly. Sacraments *sub conditione *are administered when there is some kind of doubt as to the validity of a previous bestowal (as also with baptism or confirmation; the RCC will conditionally re-baptize or confirm if an initiate is unsure whether he has been previously baptized or confirmed, or if the person has been baptized with a non-Trinitarian formula). There's no provision for "taking back" any sacrament once it's been conferred; even ordination, once it's been given, can never be taken back. A so-called "defrocked" priest hasn't been deprived of the priesthood, just his ability to legally exercise it. Likewise, a declaration of a marriage's nullity doesn't cancel the sacrament--it says that it never actually occurred. There is no dogmatic or doctrinal prohibition against married priests in the RCC. It is purely a matter of discipline. A married man can be a priest; the Roman Catholic Church just doesn't ordain married men. There are a number of explanations why this is so; the most frequent ones are 1) being a priest is a demanding job which requires the full attention of the person who exercises it, leaving no room in his life for a family; and 2) paying the additional amount required to support a wife and children would divert money that the Church needs for other things.

...

... Thanks for the information. It seems that if they could baptize on that condition they could administer other sacraments on other conditions, but I believe you that they don't.

So occasionally they face the question of whether a supposed widower really is one. If I understand you correctly, accidentally ordaining a married man wouldn't be a disaster, so this may not be that big a deal. I didn't think about, but the question must come up far more often in the case of supposed widows and widowers who want to marry again, and I'm sure ways of dealing with that have been developed. Jerry Friedman

Oh, they do; but an ordination sub conditione isn't the circumstance of "we're ordaining you presuming that you're single," but the condition of "we're re-ordaining you because there is reason to doubt your first ordination." In other words, an ordination isn't invalidated if the cleric is found to be married after all (and never could be).

Been awfully quiet around here lately. Did everyone get eaten by a werewolf? Adam

I might have been. I'm not making promises. -L.

I've been rereading the stories Clute listed as his favorite Wolfe, mostly novellas.

Shhh. We're meditating. .

Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside a dog (or presumably other canid), it's too dark to see. But perfect for meditation. Adam

But then, how to answer the question; Where wolf? ?? .

Where wolf? Wolf here! Good wolf!

Oreb, you seem so...hairy and...canine... Where wolf? Wolf here! Good wolf! On Thu, Apr 23, 2009 at 11:20 PM, <brunians at brunians.org> wrote: But then, how to answer the question; Where wolf? ?? .

I'm in the middle of 5 countries in 10 days in SE Asia...don't know if GW has fans in Malasyia Here's one...what happened to Mucor at the end of SS? Why didn' she leave to the Whorl with the rest??? ------Original Message------ From: Adam Thornton Sender: urth-bounces at lists.urth.net To: The Urth Mailing List ReplyTo: The Urth Mailing List Sent: Apr 23, 2009 8:03 PM Subject: (urth) Is this thing on? Been awfully quiet around here lately. Did everyone get eaten by a werewolf? Adam

Good Wolfe!

Where's this list?

Hey, random Oreb sighting! http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=532 Panel 3. Well, sorta. Adam

I've been on a strange noir kick, re-reading 100 bullets (the series is finally done, sniff), Ed Brubaker's Criminal, and Kris Saknussemm's Private Midnight (which is fantastic until the last thirty pages, but wraps things up too neatly at the end) I thought it was going to be like Sharp Teeth (speaking of werewolves) but they have nothing in common really except the noir angle. Sharp Teeth is f'ing awesome btw. LA werewolf noir in iambic pentameter. You have to read it to believe it. Don Doggerel www.don-doggett.blogspot.com Monkeypish www.monkeypish.blogspot.com