Some Pirate Freedom thoughts and questions

Fernando Q. Gouvea · 01 Dec 2007, 20:34 · from 2007-December.txt.gz

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From: fqgouvea at colby.edu (Fernando Q. Gouvea)
Date: Sat, 01 Dec 2007 15:34:56 -0500
Subject: (urth) Some Pirate Freedom thoughts and questions
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I just finished reading the book, so these are off-the-cuff comments and 
questions.

I'm not really completely convinced of the "Chris is evil" reading. He 
strikes me as no worse than many other Wolfe characters. Wolfe knows, I 
think, that most of us are bad men who are protected from our own 
badness by a veneer of civilization and lack of opportunity. Chris is 
one such, and when the veneer comes off we see the real man underneath. 
He is loyal, brave, smart, and sometimes even thoughtful. I actually 
find him rather likeable, though he is surely a rogue, a murderer, and 
yes, somewhat selfish when it comes to his love for Novia. I'd be scared 
of him if I met him in the street, and probably wouldn't want to have 
him over for dinner... but that's probably just as true about Ignatius 
Loyola.

I think it is significant that a lot of the "faults" we see in Chris are 
things that might well have not been seen as faults in the 18th century. 
  This point is made repeatedly in the book, of course. A clear example 
of this is his attitude to the use of force. We see almost any use of 
force as "violence". He doesn't. He has the faults of the 18th century 
too. He cannot see someone who does not resist the attempt at sexual 
abuse as a "victim"; for him, rape is rape, but sexual contact that is 
not (physically) coerced is not.

Is Chris's attitude towards the Spanish a virtue or a fault? We'd say a 
fault, folks in the 18th century would, I think, disagree. Are we that 
sure we are right?

On a purely formal level, I am glad that Wolfe avoided the "try and 
change the past" territory that Witcover mentions in his review. That 
would turn the novel into a time travel story, a logical puzzle in which 
figuring out the ins and outs of the time paradoxes would take over the 
book. (In general, I believe that while Wolfe's books can puzzle the 
reader, they are not intended primarily as mind games.) Avoiding that 
morass, Wolfe gives us a portrayal of character in the context of a 
historical period that he clearly finds fascinating.

Some unrelated points:

1) Wolfe has used the motif of love for a woman as motivation many times 
before. (The ending of "There Are Doors" comes to mind, for example.) 
This is clearly an important theme for him. He seems to be aiming for a 
mix of Dante's portrayal of Beatrice as a motivation toward sanctity and 
the far more common portrayal of woman as temptress. With a slight 
tendency towards the Beatrician side, I think.

2) The missing mother is also an important Wolfean theme. I think we 
should be wary of jumping to the "Chris is a clone" conclusion. Mothers 
that are missing or hidden appear very often in Wolfe's books.

3) I'm also not sure about the conclusion that this is a different 
"present" (or near future) from ours. Just because of the monorail? 
Perhaps, but this assumes we're talking about the very near future. How 
long will it take for the communists to fall in Cuba? It could easily 
take long enough for the monorails to arrive by then.

4) Which "most famous question in the New Testament" did Saint Jude ask?

5) Why is Captain Kidd in the glossary? A privateer who turned pirate" 
is a good description of Captain Burt.

6) What is the chronology of Chris's story? How long does Brother 
Ignacio wait? I agree that it might be interesting to see if we get any 
clues as to what he was doing. Of course, he may well have simply been 
slaving away, doing the proper penitence for his acts at last, and 
learning that patience, too, is a virtue.

Fernando

-- 
==================================================================
Fernando Q. Gouvea
Carter Professor of Mathematics
Colby College                     Editor, FOCUS
Mayflower Hill 5836               Editor, MAA Reviews
Waterville, ME 04901		
fqgouvea at colby.edu

War is a dreadful thing, and I can respect an honest pacifist, although 
I think he is entirely mistaken. What I cannot understand is this sort 
of semi-pacifism you get nowadays which gives people the idea that 
though you have to fight, you ought to do it with a long face and as if 
you were ashamed of it.
   -- C.S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity

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