Seven American Nights

Christopher Culver · 09 Apr 2003, 02:14 · from urth-v0304.mbox · original

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From: Christopher Culver <christopher_culver at yahoo.com>
Subject: (urth) Seven American Nights
Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2003 04:14:26 +0200
Message-ID: <urth-v0304-3126 at digest.urth.net>
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I recently read "Seven American Nights" and think it is one of Wolfe's=20
finest - and most chilling - works. I've long been unhappy that Wolfe=20
has shown little interest in minority characters (and his black orderly=20
in THERE ARE DOORS, quite the stereotype, makes me cringe), but I feel=20
Wolfe's use of an Iranian protagonist was sincere and accurate. Who=20
knows, though, how different Nadan would be had Wolfe been writing two=20
years later after the Islamic Revolution when American bias against=20
Iran really took off. I also find ironic Wolfe's clever reversal of an=20
inhabitant of a developing country coming to America for sex tourism=20
and drug tourism instead of vice versa, as Wolfe could have observed in=20
the sixties and seventies when hippies were making escapes to=20
Afghanistan and Goa.

Still, I've got several questions about the novella:

1) What caused the "genetic damage" in America? At one point Nadan=20
makes a reference to artificial hormones used to grow cattle more=20
quickly, so I at first assumed that it was caused by food which=20
treatment unbeknowst to the population slowly caused damage, like mad=20
cow disease today. But later on Ardis says the course of some rivers=20
has changed, which could be consistent with a thermonuclear attack.=20
Also, the Arab world is clearly superior in this novel, perhaps because=20
Europe has been wiped out in a Cold War shootout, though apparently=20
Rome is still around.

2) So, Ardis is the creature Nadan shot, right? But I don't understand=20
why she wants to take him to the interior. It can't be she is one of=20
the mutants from the interior, since her normal parents live in=20
Washington... unless she is pretending to be their daughter, or they=20
too are mutants. Why would Ardis want to take him into the interior?

3) The police are clearly conspiring against Nadan, so could the entire=20
population be evil mutants like Ardis? But Nadan doesn't say there was=20
anything abnormal about the three prostitutes who came to his hotel=20
room.

4) What is the secret under Mt. Rushmore? Could it be the command=20
center of the current government, as South Dakota is remote and barren=20
enough to escape a nuclear strike?

5) Whence the two plays mentioned in the novella? "Mary Rose" was=20
clearly originally "Rosemary" in tribute to Wolfe's wife, but is it or=20
the "Small Planet" play obviously based on any real work of literature?

I find SAN's very prototypical of The Book of the New Sun and Wolfe's=20
other works of the 1980's. The tone of narration seems similar to that=20
of Severian, and the protagonist's shooting of a person he later sleeps=20
with is like Severian the Autarch's attack against Gunnie in the dark.=20
The possibility that the entire plot comes from the ravings of a (in=20
this case drug-inspired) lunatic is like THERE ARE DOORS.

Christopher Culver <christopher_culver at yahoo.com>

--=20

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