(urth) Pirate Freedom revisited

David Stockhoff dstockhoff at verizon.net
Sat Nov 3 14:49:17 PDT 2012


Me too. Chris seemed to me like a more or less "good" (or at least 
civilized and self-aware) person who does bad things, some of them 
necessary but by no means all.

On 11/3/2012 5:37 PM, Daniel Petersen wrote:
> 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 
> <mailto:thalassocrat12 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>
>     On Sun, Nov 4, 2012 at 3:25 AM, Daniel Petersen
>     <danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com
>     <mailto: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 <mailto: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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