PF as YA

Fernando Q. Gouvêa · 17 Apr 2009, 18:08 · from 2009-April.txt.gz

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From: fqgouvea at colby.edu (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=22Fernando_Q=2E_Gouv=EAa=22?=)
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2009 14:08:35 -0400
Subject: (urth) PF as YA
In-Reply-To: <49E8C201.90806 at mindspring.com>
References: <37bfbeb60904151450l562f1efap639973f799cb6aaa at mail.gmail.com>	<49E7735A.50009 at colby.edu>
	<49E8C201.90806 at mindspring.com>
Message-ID: <49E8C5A3.3020002 at colby.edu>

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

Henry Eissler wrote:
> Fernando Q. Gouv?a wrote:
>>
>> 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.
>    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
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-- 
=============================================================
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

A thing may be too sad to be believed or too wicked to be believed or too good to be believed; but it cannot be too absurd to be believed in this planet of frogs and elephants, of crocodiles and cuttle-fish. 
  -- G. K. Chesterton

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