(urth) Pirate Freedom revisited

Sat Nov 3 14:37:44 PDT 2012

Yeah, that's a plausible reading.  I need to read the book again.  I came
away with the kind of possibilities you're suggesting here in tension with
what seemed to me a more spiritually sensitive person in the confessor.
 Thus making Chris a much more complex character than either simply 'good'
or simply 'evil' (the latter being what I think your reading avers), a
little closer to the moral complexity of someone like Severian perhaps.

-DOJP

On Sat, Nov 3, 2012 at 8:10 PM, Ed EDson <thalassocrat12 at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> On Sun, Nov 4, 2012 at 3:25 AM, Daniel Petersen <
> danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> The Chris who is writing the story seems a bit more complex than some
>> cunning greedy mob boss type.  His commentary on both his pirate adventures
>> and his current Catholic and urban context suggests a very theologically,
>> morally, and spiritually engaged character.
>>
>
> (Apols for the name change - I screwed up setting up a new gmail account.)
> I read the book differently. I think in Chris Wolfe paints a picture of a
> character who knows what "good" is but who wilfully chooses "evil" in his
> *actions*, which is all that matters in the end. He makes repeated repeated
> confessions, but they are all bad confessions, because there is no actual
> repentance.
>  For example, look at how he discusses "offing" Michet & recall that
> explaining this murder is why he says he is writing at all. Michet was a
> pirate the Spanish would have hanged out of hand; Michet could have been
> killed in the fight anyway & it's just chance that he wasn't; Chris didn't
> have a choice, because he couldn't keep respect if he let Michet's
> insolence go unpunished. Finally, it's God's fault for plopping Chris down
> in those times, and Chris would do it all over again - "I would have to".
>  In the end, Ignacio of course does choose that it happen all over again.
> No matter what excuses you can make for 17 year old Chris, you can't make
> any excuses for that.
> I think Chris ending up as an evil old mob reptile is totally appropriate
> and it's one of the reasons why I like my elaborated chronology.
>
>
>> On Sat, Nov 3, 2012 at 11:24 AM, Ed EDson <thalassocrat12 at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>> Many moons ago I worked out the chronology below & posted it to this
>>> list.  Having just re-read PF I think this can be elaborated in interesting
>>> ways.
>>>
>>> The idea starts with my observation that Chris seems to return to the
>>> future in the same year he was born, around 2007. This leads to thinking
>>> about Chris' transitions. We are told nothing about how or why these occur,
>>> but I think at first it is natural to suppose the transition ot the past
>>> has something to do with Chris being at the monastery.
>>>
>>> However,  there are objections. First, only Chris and Ingnacio appear to
>>> make the transition - Chris is convinced he would not be able to return to
>>> the monastery, for example. Second, his return to the future happens from a
>>> different place, out in the sea - so at least that transition doesn't
>>> depend on the monastery.
>>>
>>> What if the transition is personal to Chris, dependent on time and not
>>> on place? Wherever Chris is in ~2024, he would be sent to the past, and
>>> wherever he is in ~1675, he would be sent to 2007.  But Ignacio is Chris,
>>> so he goes back when Chris goes back - but also, he goes forward when Chris
>>> goes forward.
>>>
>>> Now the direction in which this is heading should be obvious - perhaps
>>> Chris is his own father. If the baby Novia is carrying is in fact Chris, it
>>> (and hopefully she herself!) will be carried forward from 1675, along with
>>> Ignacio.
>>>
>>> Obviously we don't know exactly what happens then, but we can make up
>>> plausible stories. Perhaps Novia-in-the-future dies, perhaps Ignacio sells
>>> her or kills her. In any event, whatever he says or believes of himself,
>>> Chris' actions are motivated, overwhelmingly, by money. (Eg: see what
>>> happens when he meets Lesage before the massacre at Rio hato - he hugs him;
>>> he *thinks* of Valentin, but it "didn't seem to be the time to bring it
>>> up", because he was too busy pulling gold off the mules.) To me it's surely
>>> the case that Ignacio-in-1675 was working with Ignacio, sealing a bond by
>>> killing Valentin for him, and then plotting with him the hijack of the gold
>>> and the massacre.
>>>
>>> So when Ignacio and Chris meet at the end of the book, I think it's
>>> clear enough that Ignacio has a share of the Rio Hato gold stashed
>>> somehwere and of course plans to dig up Captain Burt's treasure also.
>>>
>>> But then he gets snatched back to 2007, totally unexpected. Imagine how
>>> pissed he must have been! Back to the drawing board. He's now ~36 years
>>> old. He'll spend the next 10 years getting mobbed up and raising Chris in
>>> NJ, sans Novia. Sent to Cuba to run the casino, he'll do what needs to be
>>> done to "engineer" Chris, by making sure he is under the wing of his
>>> younger self at the monastery, and setting in place the events leading to
>>> his own birth.  When Chris goes back, he does too, as a ~53 year old, and
>>> does what needs to be done to make sure that all the treasure is someplace
>>> where he can retieve it in the future - he knows everything that Ignacio
>>> has plotted, of course, so for a man of his resourcefulness ripping off
>>> both his younger selves shouldn't be a huge problem.
>>>
>>> Returning to 2007 as a ~55 year old, with access to treasure worth many
>>> millions, and knowing everything that "Chris' dad" knew, perhaps on this
>>> run-through he becomes some kind of mob top management, in a position to
>>> send his younger self to Cuba to run the casino ...  Does he go back again,
>>> or does he die sometime before the clock ticks on 2024 again - who knows?
>>>
>>>
>>> Post from 2007:
>>>
>>> "I come to the following conclusions:
>>>
>>> - Chris1's "birthday" is around about now; 2007.
>>> - Chris2 is writing in about 2017.
>>> - Chris2 appeared from the past around about the same time as
>>> Chris1 was born, so 2007 again (interesting ...)
>>> - The pirate-action happens in about 1675.
>>>
>>> Here's how I get there. First, we have some information about
>>> various events in Chris1's time-line:
>>>
>>> A: "Born"
>>> B: Goes to Cuba
>>> C: Enters monastery school
>>> D: Begins novitiate
>>> E: Ends novitiate & goes to past
>>> F: Goes forward again
>>>
>>> We know:
>>>
>>> B = A+10 (he goes to Cuba at age 10).
>>> C = A+13 (approx: he went to school "a few years" after arriving in
>>> Cuba).
>>> D = A+16 (approx: "A year seems like a lifetime at that age, so
>>> three or maybe four lifetimes passed before I went from being a
>>> student to being a novice ...")
>>> E = A+17 (a novitiate normally lasting one year?)
>>> F = A+19 (or less: the pirate-time doesn't seem to have been more
>>> than this to me.)
>>>
>>> For Chris2, we know he is 28 or 29 when he goes to Cuba to become
>>> Ignacio: he's 28 at the time of his interview with Bishop Scully,
>>> with maybe a birthday before he finishes writing. Assuming "F"
>>> above is right, he was 19 when he appeared from the past, so that
>>> was about ten years before he heads to Cuba.
>>>
>>> And so, assuming he goes to Cuba at around "B", when Chris1 and his
>>> father go, the date of his appearance from the past must have been
>>> around about "A".
>>>
>>> In other words, he comes back at about the same time he was "born".
>>>
>>>
>>> We have reasonable dating for the "past" action.  Captain Burt
>>> speaks of Drake in the Golden Hind sailing around the world "almost
>>> a hundred years ago". This voyage lasted from 1577 through 1580.
>>> Let's say "E" = 1675.
>>>
>>> We can use this to kludge up an estimate for the "present" datings.
>>> At the very end of the book, Chris2 says: "Today .. we have been
>>> dead 300 years". This is rubbery, but let's assume that Chris2
>>> assumes he's going to live a three-score-and-ten. That gives him
>>> another 41 or 42 years at the time he's writing. So, back in the
>>> "past", he would live until about 1675+42 = 1717. Three hundred
>>> years on from then is 2017.
>>>
>>> That fixes an approximate date for "B", the date when Chris1 and
>>> (presumably) Chris2 both arrive in Cuba - about 10 years into our
>>> future. And Chris1 is being decanted from his test-tube or whatever
>>> just about now."
>>>
>>>
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