PF review

thalassocrat at nym.hush.com · 01 Dec 2007, 12:26 · from 2007-December.txt.gz

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From: thalassocrat at nym.hush.com (thalassocrat at nym.hush.com)
Date: Sat, 01 Dec 2007 23:26:21 +1100
Subject: (urth) PF review
Message-ID: <20071201122621.7E0FCDA820 at mailserver8.hushmail.com>

On Sat, 01 Dec 2007 09:22:18 +1100 paul witcover <gdeonn at yahoo.com> 
wrote:
>   
>  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.

In fact, isn't it quite clear that Chris is a monster? He sins, 
wilfully and in complete knowledge of what he is doing. Even when 
he is given a chance to undo his sinful acts, he rejects it, and 
instead uses the opportunity to try to ensure he will sin in the 
same way, again. His confession is worse than worthless.

Look: the whole story is supposed to be a kind of confession. No 
matter how you look at it, there is at least one thing for which he 
definitely needs the premium-level forgiveness package: the killing 
of Michet. Assume that everything else can be marked down to 
circumstances, battle, bad luck, youth, whatever. He killed Michet 
when Michet was offering him reconciliation, while he was 
effectively unarmed, and solely to preserve his respect as captain. 
The Michet killing triggers the whole "confession".

He comes back from the past. He can, perhaps, undo Michet. Whether 
or not he can actually alter the future/past, he has an obvious 
moral obligation to try to do so. But he wilfully chooses not to 
try. He does not go to visit himself in Jersey. He obviously plans 
to act exactly as Ignacio did during his "own" youth, and do 
everything to ensure that "Chris1" follows exactly the same 
trajectory as "he" did, so he can take over Novia when "Chris1" 
goes back to the future.

He is going to ensure that his youthful self sins in exactly the 
same way, so his older self can benefit. He preys not only on 
others, but also on his own youth. 

I think Chris is perhaps the most unambiguously evil character 
Wolfe has presented in a novel. I find it breathtaking.

"Sometimes I have had to slip." Maybe, sometimes, but when he came 
back to the future he had a miraculous chance to try to undo the 
slips - and he rejected it.

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