(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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