(urth) PF Chronology

thalassocrat at nym.hush.com thalassocrat at nym.hush.com
Thu Jan 3 19:13:49 PST 2008



On Fri, 04 Jan 2008 09:19:55 +1100 Matthew Keeley 
<matthew.keeley.1 at gmail.com> wrote:
>On Dec 8, 2007 3:36 PM, Matthew Groves 
><matthewalangroves at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On another subject, what to make of Chris's many references to 
>saints?
>>  He reads about their lives, teaches kids what being a saint 
>means,
>> preaches about saints at midnight mass on Christmas eve....
>
>Well, one could put it down to an Italian or Mafioso reverence for 

>the saints.
>
>And of course, there's a reference to St. Catharine, which 
>actually
>made me laugh when I read it.
>
>I think there's more to it, though I'm not quite sure WHAT yet.

I was struck by how many of the female saints (Lucy, Agatha, 
Catherine, umm another one?) were tortured and matyred for refusing 
the marriage proposals or amorous advances of pagans. I wondered 
whether this connected somehow with the absence of any mention of a 
mother for Chris, but couldn't do much with that. Perhaps it's just 
a common trope in the hagiograsphy of early female saints.

St Joan crops up also, I think. FWIW, one of the formal charges 
against St Joan was wearing men's clothing, apparently - which 
makes you think of Novia. 

Wikipedia says Joan reverted to wearing men's clothing in prison 
after being raped, to avoid it happening again. That brings back 
one of the questions I have: why isn't Novia much more raped than 
she seems to be in Chris' narrative? Chris is raped immediately on 
his first ship; how does Novia-as-boy escape? And what about the 
periods where Novia and Chris are stuck on different ships etc? 




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