(urth) Seven American Nights Forgery

Dave Tallman davetallman at msn.com
Thu May 8 12:59:55 PDT 2008


I found more evidence for the forgery theory in SAN:

"I carried with me the bottle we had bought, still nearly half full;
and before she pinched out the candle I persuaded her to pour out a
final drink for us to share..."

There's a strong implication that Nadan drank some of that
bottle. Ardis would be very suspicious if he didn't. But Wolfe has
established that Nadan doesn't drink (p. 362, Orb IODDAOSAOS). Nadan
can't change character without explanation. He wouldn't break his
principles just for a chance to see her. There were simpler ways; he
could have had an extra candle and matches in his pocket and left his
pants in easy reach of the bed.

The story is melodramatic and absurd. It has to be a lie. That's why
it has perplexed so many of us. Before, we were left with
impossibilities:

1) Ardis had some ugly deformity that couldn't be detected by feel,
such as discolored blotches on her skin. The violence of his reaction
makes this impossible. He might be disgusted and break up with her,
but that would be all.

2) Ardis herself was the werewolf he tried to kill. The Osman Aga
story gives a scientific origin for the beasts. There's no way that a
non-supernatural mutant woman could morph her skull into the inhuman
shape Nadan saw (blunt muzzle, low brow like an macaque) and then back
to her beautiful self the next day. Wolfe can't be asking us to
believe this; it would destroy the story.

4) Ardis was not the werewolf, but had some hidden deformity that
instantly identified her as the same sort of creature. Nobody has been
able to figure out what this could be.

Nadan would have no reason to fabricate this incident. From at least
that point on, a forger is writing for him. I'm still suspicious of the
Good Friday parade description, but it could be genuine. Nadan seems to
be allegorical here -- the "dead leader lifted up" is the lost greatness
of America.

Here is my reconstruction of what really happened.

1) Saturday, Nadan arrives in Washington.

2) Sunday, Nadan heads north to see the buildings. He visits the
National Art Gallery. (Why would he bypass the place his mentor visited
and see the old ruins first? The gallery was on his way there.) That night
he writes of his fears.

3) Monday, he goes back and visits the ruined buildings. The beggar
with no lower jaw shows him the Smithsonian room. The beggar boasts
"Sunday we will be great again," knowing that he will be misunderstood
as saying "Someday we will be great again."

Nadan's visit is noticed by F.E.D. informers among the beggars. The
police tail him to the theater. The "curator" goes in, sits in his
row, and draws him into conversation. Nadan escorts the curator
home. He doses the eggs.

4) Tuesday, visits the park during the day. Attends the theater again
and sees "Mary Rose." Eats egg one. Goes out to try to find
Ardis. Kills the werebeast.

5) Wednesday, buys gift for Ardis at the Washington Monument
fair. Eats egg two. Attends first part of "Mary Rose." Bobby attempts
to pickpocket him, gets arrested. Ardis cones to his room to intercede
for Bobby.

6) Thursday, spends most of the day trying to get Bobby out of jail.
While he is occupied, the secret police search his room. They are
experts and leave no trace. They make a copy of his journal and get it
translated. Nadan returns home, eats egg three, then goes out to the
play, where he ends up performing. Goes to Ardis' apartment.

The police return while he is absent. They found the mention of the
eggs in the journal. It won't do for Nadan to destroy his mind or
possibly die before they are ready with a cover-up. They bring a
sniffing dog or some other detector and find the bad egg. They cannot
simply replace it with a harmless copy -- the eggs are speckled and he
might have noticed the patterns. Instead, they take the bad egg and
move the journal, hoping he will attribute it to a thieving maid.

When Nadan returns, he finds the journal disturbed. He tears out the
incriminating section about the Art Museum visit (shortening the
record for Sunday).

7) Friday, eats the next-to-last egg. Picnic and boating with
Ardis. Hears her proposal to go treasure-hunting. Sees the Good
Friday parade (whether or not the account of it was forged).

Sometime during the evening, Nadan and Ardis are captured by the
secret police. It could be before or after the costume party.
Ardis is taken to her apartment and killed with Nadan's gun. Nadan
will never be seen again.

His journal entries are given to the story-writing and forging
computers, which come up with the twist ending in which Ardis was a
werewolf and Nadan ran off to the interior of America after killing
her.

By this time, his family is worried. All his letters to them have been
intercepted by the police (p. 382-383). They send a detective, who
will eventually find the doctored journal as a false clue.

On Easter Sunday, the American government will pull some kind of stunt
with a forged document. It may start a war (as Kreton wanted to do in
"Visit to a Small Planet"). The intent will be to bring America back
to more power in world. ("Sunday we will be great again").

The death of the "hero" on Good Friday and the potential
"resurrection" of America's power on Sunday form a nice Christian
analogy, of course.
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