Seven American Nights

StoneOx17 · 11 Apr 2003, 16:36 · from urth-v0304.mbox · original

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From: StoneOx17 at aol.com
Subject: Re: (urth) Seven American Nights
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 12:36:27 EDT
Message-ID: <urth-v0304-3152 at digest.urth.net>
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I just got around to catching up on the Urth list, and I saw the questions=20
about Seven American Nights.  Nobody's answered many of them yet,=20
so here are my answers.

> 1) What caused the "genetic damage" in America?  At one point =20
> Nadan makes a reference to artificial hormones used to grow cattle=20
> more quickly, so I at first assumed that it was caused by food which
> treatment unbeknowst to the population slowly caused damage,=20
> like mad cow disease today.

Gene Wolfe used to be an engineer working in the food industry.  With=20
this connection, the reference to the cattle hormones, and Nadan's=20
dream of the never-staling bread (which Robert Borski likens to a=20
corrupted version of the Eucharist in an interesting set of posts that=20
appeared here a while ago), I am convinced that food additives are to=20
blame.

(and quoting out of order)
> I also find ironic Wolfe's clever reversal of an inhabitant of a developi=
ng=20
> country coming to America for sex tourism and drug tourism instead=20
> of vice versa, as Wolfe could have observed in the sixties and seventies=20
> when hippies were making escapes to Afghanistan and Goa.
...
> 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.

Nadan may be from Iran because of Wolfe's inspiration from Montesquieu's=20
"Persian Letters," a book from I have read only the four "troglodyte"=20
letters {because of their connection to "Peace").  "Persian Letters" has a=20
set-up similar to Seven American Nights, with a Persian tourist visiting an=
d=20
commenting on early 18th Century France.

> 2) So, Ardis is the creature Nadan shot, right? But I don't understand=20
> why she wants to take him to the interior.=20

My take is that Ardis and Kreton (her lover) have a "business" that involves
taking rich tourists to the interior, robbing and killing them.

> 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 room.

Borski's theory, which I subscribe to, is that it wasn't the police who=20
searched=20
Nadan's hotel room, but one of the actors (I forget his name, but the one=20
that=20
didn't show up that night) conspiring with Ardis and Kreton. =20

> 4) What is the secret under Mt. Rushmore?=20

Is there one?  I've been assuming that was just a rumor, but I can't really
say.

Borski's posts are definitely worth looking up.  I'm not sure I agree with=20
everything he says, but I'm convinced he has identified the missing
night.

http://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0205/871.txt.shtml
http://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0205/889.txt.shtml
http://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0205/922.txt.shtml

Stone Ox

--=20

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