Disclaimer: The X-Men and Alpha Flight belong to Marvel. The movie belongs to Fox. I do feel like Scott and Logan are a little bit mine since I've been borrowing them for so long.
I received such positive feedback on the literature guide I put together to go with the first two series in this saga, that I figured I would do it again for "Canadian Nights". As was the case with the previous literature guide, this one does contain spoilers, so it should be read after reading "Canadian Nights".
Scott Summers (in this incarnation) is: a mutant superhero, really good at giving blow jobs, a funny guy with a joke for most any occasion, and an English teacher. So the stories are full of quotes from poems and other literature. The following gives a little information on the works quoted and urls to read the complete works, where possible.
Unifying Story Structure
The series is called "Canadian Nights" because of its connection to Arabian Nights. The connection begins with the first story in which Scott says that for a period in his youth he felt like Scheherazade, trying to please the man with the Manhattan pied-a-terre for just one more night. It continues through the last story, in which Logan, like King Sharyar, takes a different lover every night once he becomes disappointed in love. In between there are a lot of references to stories and storytelling. Scott is a storytelling kind of guy, and tries to entertain and interest Logan both with stories of his past and with phone sex tales. He also makes up the story about the aliens who like "Cats" to amuse Jean. In addition, Mac and Oliver both tell stories that are central to the plot of the series.
Arabian Nights, also known as 1001 Nights or Scheherazade and the Thousand and One Nights, is a collection of traditional Arabic, Persian and Indian folktales with a unifying story structure connecting them. There are many different versions of the work, with no one definitive text. The story tells of a sultan, King Sharyar, whose wife commits adultery. He has her executed but also decides to take his revenge on all women, concluding that all are faithless. So he has a succession of young women brought to him, one each night. He spends the night with each woman and has her executed the next morning, so she will never have a chance to cheat on him.
This goes on for some time and the kingdom is running out of young women. Enter Scheherazade, who is the vizier's daughter and, in the way of folk hero(ine)s is brave and resourceful and clever. She volunteers to be the next victim of Sharyar. But after sex she tells him a story, stopping at a crucial point. He wants to hear what happens in the end and lets her live another day.
Each night she tells him a story and each night she stops at an exciting place, leading the king to let her live another day and night to find out what happens. The stories she tells are the folk tales that make up the volume. After 1001 nights (and after she has borne him three children in that time) she begs him to let her live. He enthusiastically agrees and expresses regret over all the women he killed previously. Not exactly a model relationship, but interesting.
Some of the stories that Scheherazade tells have become quite well-known in their own right. Chief among these are the story of Aladdin and the lamp and the story of Ali Baba and the forty thieves. The collection is also often published as a children's book, with much of the sex and violence expurgated.
The web site www.arabiannights.org has the full text of two well-known versions of Arabian Nights along with a lot of information about the book and some great illustrations.
Poems
George Gordon Byron (Lord Byron). "We'll Go No More A-Roving".
Scott alludes to this one in the story about Jack the Boy Scout. He has the one encounter with Jack, who then snubs him, and Scott says that he "went no more a-roving". He is probably thinking of this stanza:
"Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a-roving
By the light of the moon."
The entire poem can be read at http://www.bartleby.com/101/599.html
Samuel Taylor Coleridge. "Kubla Khan"
Scott recites this fantasy story-poem in response to Logan's anxious request that he say a poem or a story unrelated to them or anything they know. It also provides the title for the story it appears in: "The Demon-Lover". The title foreshadows what the almond-scented oil does to Logan, turning him into a demon lover of sorts. It is available at http://www.bartleby.com/101/550.html
T.S. Eliot. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock".
This poem, which featured largely in my second Scott/Logan series, "We're Not What You Think", makes a couple of appearances in "Canadian Nights". Scott, in trying to explain to Logan how hard it is for him not to conform to the expectations of others, says that he is someone who doesn't "dare disturb the universe". Later on he jokes with Jean about writing a musical comedy based on Prufrock. She alludes to Scott's Prufrock tendencies by saying that he will have to play the lead. You can read the poem at http://www.bartleby.com/198/1.html
Christina Rossetti. "Is it Well with the Child?"
Scott quotes this poem just as he's warming up for phone sex, trying to get Logan to shake off the aftereffects of his nightmare, telling him that he is "Safe from the frost and the snow, Safe from the storm and the sun". The poem is brief and available at http://www.bartleby.com/101/786.html.
Carl Sandburg. "Killers"
This is another one of Sandburg's poems about World War I, following on the use of "Murmurings in a Field Hospital" in the previous series. It is a brief, very powerful, poem depicting the millions of men who are killing in that war. The poet prefaces the discussion of the killers with a brief stanza about his feelings in talking about the subject. It is this preamble that Scott quotes, saying that Logan's uncharacteristic softness of voice reminds him of the line "Soft as a man with a dead child speaks". He then remembers that the following lines are "Hard as a man in handcuffs, Held where he cannot move" recognizing that he was being physically held where he could not move but that Logan also was being held by something (although they don't yet know what). Read the whole poem at http://www.bartleby.com/165/67.html
Robert Service.
Several different poems by Robert Service are quoted in the series. Many of Service's poems tell stories, fitting in with the story-within-a-story theme of this series. Service is generally considered to be one of the premier Canadian poets and Mac is quite fond of his work and quotes him more than once. Service wrote a lot of poems about rugged men in northern climes and I had decided up front that in this series I wanted to use one that was evocative of Logan - the problem was choosing! So many of the Service poems sound a lot like Logan, or at least the version of him I've developed for these stories. Here's a little bit of information on the ones I used:
"The Men That Don't Fit In" - Mac quotes the beginning of this poem, saying it reminds him of Logan. Scott wonders if he means it as a warning to him, that Logan will break his heart. However, it could apply, in a different way, to Scott. It is because he is trying too hard to fit in that he himself "breaks the hearts of kith and kin".The poem also has this line (speaking again of this race of men who can't fit in): "They are strong and brave and true". It's evocative of the "good and strong and brave" line that both Logan and Scott have used since the first series. Read the poem at http://www.arcticculture.about.com/culture/arcticculture/library/service/bl-spell19.htm
"My Friends" - Scott teaches this poem in class. Oliver wonders if it was picked specially for him, to point out that his past life of prostitution is not as important as what he does with his life from here on in. He also quotes a part about feeling like he is in a "lurid dream" when he is feeling disbelieving about his discovery about Scott and Logan. You can read the poem at http://www.arcticculture.about.com/culture/arcticculture/library/service/bl-cheechako12.htm
"The Quitter" - Mac quotes a line about it sometimes being easier to die than to keep on living. He's referring to Logan's withdrawal symptoms, but it could equally refer to Logan's suicidal periods, alluded to throughout the three series. The poem is at http://www.arcticculture.about.com/culture/arcticculture/library/service/bl-rollstone26.htm
"The Song of the Wage Slave" - Logan quotes a line from this one when he's talking about the three of them working hard on the center after Scott has gone: "Resolute, dumb, uncomplaining, a man in a world of men". He notes that he's still thinking of poems Scott taught him, still sometimes thinking of Scott. Another line from this poem seems to me very much like Logan: "I, with the strength to two men, savage and shy and wild". The poem is available at http://www.arcticculture.about.com/culture/arcticculture/library/service/bl-spell11.htm
Scott makes reference to two of Service's best-known poems, although they are not quoted: "The Cremation of Sam McGee" and "The Call of the Wild". They can be read at http://www.artdamage.com/service/yukon/cremation.htm and http://www.artdamage.com/service/yukon/wild.htm.
William Shakespeare. Sonnet 29.
Both Scott and Logan quote from this sonnet. It is one which is thought by many to have been written to a male lover (usually referred to by critics as only "the fair youth" by contrast with the female lover other of the sonnets are written for, who is called "the dark lady"). The poem begins "When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes" and Logan alludes to that when he says "Fortune and men's eyes be damned" (which is pretty much the conclusion that Will came to in the poem, as well). Scott starts with the end of the poem, extolling love over all, but comes back to the feeling of being out of luck and out of favor in the view of others, reflecting his deep-seated closet issues. You can read the sonnet at http://www.bartleby.com/70/50029.html
Walt Whitman. "Oh Captain My Captain"
The poem is about Lincoln's assassination and uses the metaphor of a ship whose captain has died. Scott quotes a reassuring line from it when he's talking to Oliver: "The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done". He also, in doing so, tells Oliver that he will know Whitman "before I'm done with you". His use of that phrase is ironic when contrasted with Scott's reaction to Logan using the same phrase about Oliver. Read the poem at http://www.bartleby.com/102/140.html
"We Two Boys Together Clinging"
Scott quotes another Whitman poem in his email to Logan after he returns from Montreal. He is reminiscing about the time they were on the road together "Arm'd and fearless-eating, drinking, sleeping, loving". The poem, which begins "We two boys together clinging, One the other never leaving" is available at http://www.bartleby.com/142/56.html
William Butler Yeats. "Men Improve with the Years"
Logan quotes a line from this poem: "I am worn out with dreams". He says that Scott taught it to him. He doesn't appear to know what it's from but perhaps Scott was struck by it in connection with Logan not only for the reference to dreams but also for the age difference between the two of them. You can read the poem at http://www.bartleby.com/148/4.html
Plays
Christopher Marlowe. The Jew of Malta.
Scott quotes a bit from this when he is trying to indicate how remote his life of prostitution seems now. It's probably the most famous Marlowe quote and is used in many different contexts. The full line (which is the character Barabas's response to the accusation that he has committed fornication) is:
"Fornication? but that was in another country; And besides the wench is dead."
The full text of the play is available many places, including at http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/undone/MarMalt.html
T.S. Eliot and Andrew Lloyd Weber. Cats.
Cats, which was the world's longest running Broadway show, is a musical based on fourteen poems about cats by T.S. Eliot, adapted and with music by Andrew Lloyd Weber. Scott makes up a story for Jean about aliens who believe that Cats is the only thing of value humanity has produced. Like Scott, I think it's dreadful, but it certainly has plenty of fans. More information than anyone could want about the show is available at http://www.reallyuseful.com/cats/
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