"Against the Day" by Thomas Pynchon

I've spent over a month reading Thomas Pynchon's massive novel "Against the Day." I have lugged it from home, to work, to lunch counter, with little regard to the damage it was causing to my shoulder. I've gotten lost in it and become frustrated with it, I've gone back and forth to reread parts that I'd missed, I've visited Wikipedia to learn about Iceland Spar and the quaternions, I have struggled to stay awake and I have struggled to put it down, and I have thought "I am spending far too much effort on this goddamn book."

Now that I've finished it, I can sum it up by saying...well, it's certainly "Pynchonesque," and it's as complicated and annoying as everybody says it is -- an endless parade of major characters, diversions into dozens of apparently unrelated topics, too much movement from place to place, no real thread to hold it all together -- but it also has a greater proportion of Pynchon-gentleness and enlightenment than I've come to expect. The payoffs -- oblique as they can be -- are so bittersweet and human that you don't mind the coldly scientific obsessions so much.

Unfortunately, these "human" moments are all bundled together during the last 150 pages, and the more interesting and clear-headed moments are in the first 500. The 400 middle pages are somewhat tiresome, when you realize that MORE subplots are being introduced, one of which -- the onset of the first world war -- is a non-stop machine-gun of politics, places, and personages. It's simply too much to handle after the mathematics, strikebreaking, and empire-busting that you've already been through. The characters start to seem like bits of leaves thrown into world events and just blowing around, to Venice and back, to Venice and back, to Venice and back again.

All these criticisms could perhaps be applied to "Gravity's Rainbow," and I'm not sure if my less enthusiastic reception of "Against the Day" is due to the fact that Pynchon "already did it once before," or that "Against the Day" feels like a "Gravity's Rainbow" in which everything -- the paranoia, the dark-mystery-which-cannot-be-comprehended, the sexual escapades, the slapstick -- has been duplicated several times over to fill out an excessive page length, with all these things happening to multiple characters in sequence instead of just to Tyrone Slothrop.

Basically, my impression is that "Against the Day" is five or six novels that Pynchon started writing years ago, all subsequently linked together by unions, WWI, the drift from Victorianism to modernism, explosions, light, and the Tunguska event.

But that's not necessarily a bad thing. "Against the Day" is FULL of wonderful detail and characterization, and -- as I said earlier -- there's a growing gentleness to Pynchon's writing that is absolutely welcome. Whereas "Gravity's Rainbow" culminated in uncertainty and confusion, the characters in "Against the Day" seem to find comfort in companionship, children, and purpose, and the novel doesn't judge them; they did wild things and struggled for noble causes when they were young, and now they're settled down and are raising their children and getting a bit mellower. And that's pretty much The End.

When I was wallowing through 400 Pages of People Just Running Around Europe, I felt like I was reading a really crappy book. Now that I've finished it, however, I look forward to reading it again someday, so I can get a feel for what REALLY matters in the novel: the little moments like Cyprian's trajectory from hedonist to (I won't spoil it for you), the complex interweaving of the Webb and Rideout families, and -- floating high above it all -- the aging airship children who are struggling to find meaning when the "Boys Adventure Story" days are gone.

Eat Your Eskimo Pie with the Six Brown Brothers While Playing Tops and Anagrams: A 1930s Trend Retrospective

The New Yorker was in a tizzy about humanism throughout 1930, as the philosophy had suddenly come back into vogue and gained national attention. Thanks to Charles Francis Potter and the establishment of The First Humanist Society of New York, discussing humanism became a frequent pastime among the New York intelligentsia. You can't pick up an issue of the magazine during this period without reading stories and sly jabs about the debates, the propaganda, and the reactionary religious response to the movement.

In the May 31, 1930 issue, Donald Moffat wrote "The Crime at Mrs. Ward's," in which a young man -- fed up with all the latest fads -- actually SHOOTS the guests at a swanky party when they are unable to tell him what humanism is. This supposedly indicates that lots of people gave lip-service to humanism at the time, and they loved to talk about it, but none of them had the faintest idea what it was all about (which seems strange to me, frankly).

Anyway, the interesting thing about the story isn't the heavy-handed plot, it's the long list of PREVIOUS crazes that are presented. Want to know what the highbrow fads were in New York between 1905 and 1930? Here you go.

...my friend acquired a leather-burning set, and happily joined the nation in burning Indian heads on leather--he was too young for the first ping-pong wave. He shouted 'Uneeda Biscuit' to street-car conductors and cabbies, 'Get a horse' to stalled motorists, and said 'ZuZu' to the groceryman. He was among the first of the 1906 diabolo addicts, and as the years rolled by he similarly took to his bosom put-and-take tops, Eskimo Pie, mah-jongg, Coué, scofflawry, categories (or Guggenheim), Queen Marie, crossword puzzles, sex, anagrams, badminton, Yo-Yo tops, and backgammon, as each in turn came into fashion. He seideled to Hoboken and taxied to Harlem when those were the things to do, and wrote little pieces on the social, artistic, and economic significance of....Charlie Chaplin, the Six Brown Brothers, short skirts, Joe Jackson, Lillian Gish, Will Rogers, the return of the corset, Rudy Valée, 'The Well of Loneliness,' Amos 'n' Andy, D. H. Lawrence, Krazy Kat, long skirts, Paul Whiteman, and kindred modern phenomena. He returned from France last summer wearing a beret and espadrilles, and he'd thrown away the top part of his bathing suit.

Whew! Some of them are self-explanatory. Here are my thoughts on the others that require a bit more explanation:

• Uneeda Biscuit: I assume this was just a joke on the name of the biscuit -- "Hey, you need a biscuit" -- along the lines of other knee-slappers at the time like "Do you have Prince Albert in a can? Then you'd better let him out!"
• Zuzu: A ginger snap brand. Their advertisements said "For a bang-up time take five cents to the grocery and ask for Zuzu ginger snaps. You'll hit the mark every time!" I guess this was similar to the hordes of people who walk into Tim Horton's and say "Rrrrrroll up the rim to win!" It's the adoption of a catchphrase.
• Seidel: I have no idea what this means. A seidel was a glass of beer, but how this relates to traveling to Hoboken I don't know.
• I also don't get the "beret and espadrilles" and "threw away the top half of his bathing suit" references.

I love a good piece of culture-spew, and I also love a good mystery! Any insights?

T-Minus Seven

We set the closing date for my condo to be really far in the future, because one of my RRSPs was stuck like Pooh in Piglet's door. That was cleared up surprisingly quickly, so I've just been waiting...and waiting...and waiting.

But oh thank goodness, next Saturday is the moving day! I have a truck rented, and friends who will help, and I've been stockpiling alcohol of various kinds because I think they all drink different things.

I've packed almost everything and it's strange living in an almost-empty house. Most of the musical equipment is still hooked up -- just in case I need an outlet -- and my clothes and bedding still need packing, and other than that it's just the odds and ends; pots, pans, lights, remotes, extension cords, and all the stuff that's too big for me to carry.

I'm having waves of panic, apprehension, excitement, and outright glee. People are wandering through my apartment, anxious to rent it for themselves. Zsa Zsa is adjusting surprisingly well to all her hiding spots being packed up and sent to the basement, but that's probably because the basement now has new hiding spots: rows of boxes, shelving units, and the milk crates I fortunately kept for all these years.

The vacuum is ready. The broom and feather duster are seeing heavy action. I am interrupting the long subterranean war between spiders and sowbugs in the basement; do you know how sticky a spider's egg-cocoon is?

PS: I finished reading The Young People's Library of Entertainment and Amusement, and I have to say that the Spanish-American warmongering was partly countered by statements from other anti-colonial politicians, and that Victorians really knew how to spend an evening indoors.

PPS: Then I re-read William T. Vollmann's "Whores for Gloria." It's amazing how different his prose is these days. I'd forgotten how "stream-of-consciousness" he could be. Anyway, it's an ugly book about an ugly subject, and its final statement seems to be "Don't go looking for happiness, because somebody will always find a way to make your happy times turn sour."

PPPS: So now I'm re-reading Vladimir Nabokov's "Ada or Ardor," which I remember loving many, many years ago. I'm hoping it will get me through to the end of the week.

Random Observations About the Young People's Library of Entertainment and Amusement

I am now firmly mired in the "Patriotism and War" section of "The Young People's Library of Entertainment and Amusement." I previously mentioned some general impressions of this 1903 child-indoctrination book. Here are more specific examples.

First, if I never read another "baby talk" poem, it will be too soon. Here's the first stanza from "Lulu's Complaint," by an uncredited author.

I'se a poor 'ittle sorrowful baby,
For B'idget is 'way down 'tairs:
My titten has scratched my fin'er,
And Dolly won't say her p'ayers.

Also included in the "Little Folks' Speaker" section is "The Spanish War Alphabet" by A. C. Needham. Here are some of the letters taught to little folks:

C is for Cuba, a tight little isle;
To get which we may have to fight quite a while.

F is for Freedom, which means a great deal
When your neck has been under a vile Spanish heel.

G is for Germany, whose rude employees
Should learn better manners; be taught to say please.

I's for Insurgents, who holler for aid;
Then eat up the rations and loaf in the shade.

J is for Jones, Davy Jones, if you will,
Whose lockers we've twice had occasion to fill.

William Hearst would have been pleased!

The modern reader will probably enjoy B. Taylor's "Grandpa's Aversion To Slang." Here are some choice lines.

It wasn't so long when I was young--
We used plain language then;
We didn't speak of "them galoots,"
Meanin' boys or men.

When speaking of the nice hand-write
Of Joe, or Tom, or Bill,
We did it plain--we didn't say,
"He slings a nasty quill."

An' when we saw a girl we liked,
Who never failed to please,
We called her pretty, neat and good,
But not "about the cheese."

Well, when we met a good old friend
We hadn't lately seen,
We greeted him, but didn't say,
"Hello, you old sardine!"

The "pathetic selections" are real gems and guaranteed to make your children hate the world. There are the child-death sagas of "Poor Little Jim," "Limpy Tim," "The Dying Boy," "Nobody's Child," and "In the Bottom Drawer," in which abused children get taken away by angels and the narrator feels really bad. Then there are the wife-death epics of "To Mary in Heaven," "The Singer's Climax," and "The Gambler's Wife." If you're really lucky, for extra pathos, these stories are told by people who -- at the last line -- suddenly jump into the air and then die. That's just how it was in 1903! And also God's way of culling bad poets.

The "Humorous and Dialectic" section taught me the following lessons.

1. Black people use long words, but always incorrectly. They are lazy except when they're playing games. They are always, always, ALWAYS stealing "watermillion."
2. German people are hard-working, but they're far too rigid in their behaviour. They complain a lot about petty problems.
3. Irish people are delightful and stupid and they know their place. Then they get in a fight.

When not making fun of ethnic minorities, the "humorous" selections are usually stories about funny things that children do in church. But then there's a little ditty called "An Apostrophe to Aguinaldo." How dare the people of the Philippines resist American occupation of their territory! Especially not when treated with such respect, as in these excerpts.

Say, Aguinaldo,
You little measly
Malay moke,
What's the matter with you?
...
What you need, Aggie,
Is civilizing.
And goldarn
Your yaller percoon-skin,
We'll civilize you
Dead or alive.
You'd better
Fall in to the
Procession of Progress
And go marching on to glory,
Before you fall
Into a hole in the ground.
Understand?
That's us--
U. S.

Even considering all the dead child and watermillion poems, this is by far the most disturbing thing in the book. So far.

Teaching Kids to Suffer Well

I've been reading a 1903 collection of stories, facts, pastimes, and recitations called "Young People's Library of Entertainment and Amusement." I suppose that in the days before radio it was fun to dress up your kids and make them do "tableaux," but for the modern reader it all seems a little quaint and weird and oh-so-gaslight.

There are lots of interesting things about this book. It starts with collections of poems written by the likes of Pope, Byron, and Whitman, and while poetry generally leaves me cold I can't deny that these fellows knew their words.

The brilliantly-crafted excerpts from Shakespeare stand in stark contrast to the "recitations" which follow. These recitations -- most of them uncredited -- must have been the bane of the Victorian child. They're heavy-handed poems which can be entirely summed up by their chapter headings: "Comic," "Pathetic," "Descriptive," "Religious," "Temperence," and "Patriotic." It's interesting that the largest section by far is reserved for patriotic poems...I'll post a truly horrific one about the Spanish-American war sometime soon.

I have to keep reminding myself that these recitations are intended for children, because even though the language is sophisticated -- when not imitating the cloying baby-talk of a four-year-old bein' aw tute an' gwown up -- the moral messages are entirely one-dimensional: a flawed person has an encounter with a saintly person, and then Jesus takes the saint to heaven and the flawed person says "Now I'm a changed man! Don't make the mistakes I made! Eat your spinach!"

I don't expect real-life ambiguity or deep philosophy from a book written for ten-year-olds, but I can't help thinking that Sunday School stuff was always sort of like that, and probably is today. These recitations -- whenever they try to tackle pathos or any sort of moral question -- are based on the really horrible assumption that we're all born with a spiritual debt, that if we suffer a lot then we'll become more saintly, and that it'll all be worth it for us when we die.

Pardon me if I disagree, and if I think that the ideas of original sin and redemption make the world a crappier place. I also disagree with the contradictory and entirely cloying presentation of small children in this book as "little angels." When I see a small child, I know that she isn't above crying extra-loud in the checkout line in order to extort candy, which is something an angel would never do.

And I don't understand how all humans owe an automatic spiritual debt EXCEPT when they're small. I assume the cutoff age is puberty, but such things are sadly beyond the scope of this book.

"The Beothucks or Red Indians"

As children, we Canadians are taught a bizarre and shameful footnote to our history: immediately after settling in Newfoundland, our ancestors began a three-century project of informal extermination. And I'm not talking about the auks, I'm talking about the Beothuks.

Their story is a sad one of brutality, stupidity, missed opportunities, and belated reparations. The Beothuks (called "red Indians" because they covered themselves with red ocher) were the dominant tribe on the island, living mainly in the interior but coming to the coasts during the summer in order to fish.

European settlers began to arrive in the 15th century, and though there are some stories of goodwill between the cultures, the Beothuks and the settlers REALLY got off on the wrong foot. The Beothuks, probably angry about incursions into their fishing grounds, stole the possessions of the settlers, and the settlers -- meanwhile -- were shooting Beothuks out of some combination of fear, hatred, and sport.

In addition, the French were giving guns to the Mi'kmaq in Labrador, resulting in a serious military imbalance with the Beothuks. Attacked on two fronts, the Beothuks became increasingly evasive, retreating almost entirely to the interior by the 19th century.

It was around this time that philanthropic groups were organized to try to make belated peace with the Beothuks, but the European powers-that-be had a bit of a credibility gap, especially since settlers were still quietly killing Indians. Ultimately the plan of the philanthropists was to find out where the Beothuk were hiding, give them presents, convince one of them to return to town with them, and show the Indian all the joys of civilization. It was thought that when the Indian returned to his tribe, he'd gush about how wonderful the settlers were, and everybody would smoke a peace pipe and get down to some serious fur-trading.

Twenty years later and all the Beothuck had quietly disappeared. Forever.

Right now I'm reading "The Beothucks or Red Indians" by James P. Howley, originally published in 1915. It was Howley's attempt to gather all the information about the Beothuck as possible, and it's basically a reprint of the letters, journals, and proclamations he found.

This format isn't entirely successful. Decades go by without a single update, and then a hundred pages are devoted to material from just a year or two. If an expedition to the Newfoundland interior involved more than one person, he prints ALL their journals about the trip...and then he prints the recollections of people who HEARD about the trip...and then he prints newspaper articles written about the trip a few years later.

It's annoying to read the same thing over and over again, but it does illustrate the unreliability of memory and biography. Everybody describes the situations differently, and as time goes by the stories get more and more inflated. Howley sidesteps this aspect of his book -- simply pointing out in a footnote when somebody is "unclear about" or "misunderstood" the history -- but it's one of the many ironies that a modern reader is able to pick up on.

Another odd thing about the book is how absolutely bungled the whole philanthropic enterprise was. The do-gooders would march into the woods, scare the heck out of some Beothuck by sneaking up on them, accidentally kill one or two, and then kidnap one or more women. They'd spend a year showering the women with gifts. Then, just before returning them to their tribes, the women would die of consumption.

Hey fellas, A+ for effort, but WHAT THE HECK DO YOU IMAGINE THE BEOTHUCK THOUGHT ABOUT THIS? And while acknowledging that the tribe was in danger of complete extinction, did it not occur to anybody that STEALING WOMEN OF CHILDBEARING AGE was the worst thing they could do?

To be fair it seems they really WANTED to kidnap a man, but the women were just easier to catch.

I'd feel more charitably about these heartfelt schemes if the people involved -- even at their most idealistic -- didn't qualify their "reconciliation" plan with the need to "bring the poor brutes to civilization." In the first meeting of the surprisingly liberal 1827 Beothuck Institution, the participants speak highly of the Indian's right to life and land...but they always slip in the verb "to civilize," as though the Beothuck were unable to decide for themselves.

But none of that mattered anyway because the tribe was already dying (if not dead).

Some of the most interesting parts of the book are the vivid accounts of Shanawdithit and Demasduit, two of the captured females who responded to European life in a somewhat delightful way (before dropping dead).

MOST fascinating, however, is the apparently complete narrative of William E. Cormack's east-west journey across Newfoundland. Over several hellish months he pushed through parts of the island that even the Indians wouldn't stray into, and his descriptions are engrossing: every detail about the geography, botany, wildlife, weather, and inhabitants during a trip that nobody had ever taken before, and no sane person would ever do again.

I don't have romantic ideas about Indians OR Europeans, and in this case especially their relationship seemed doomed from the start. Reading this book, though, I'm getting a strangely haunting impression of the situation as seen by both peoples. To the European settlers, living precarious lives in an enormous unmapped wilderness, the Beothuck must have seemed almost devilish, the way they disappeared into the interior, leaving behind deserted wigwams and tumble-down storehouses, coming back only to steal things silently in the night.

And imagine what the Beothuck thought, hiding in the interior that they knew so well, always aware that more and more settlers were living on the fringe. Occasionally the settlers would intrude down the rivers, and the Beothuck would quietly slip away, leaving their villages deserted and starting up elsewhere, further and further from the resources they required.

Eventually, undetected, the last Beothuck died in the middle of all that uncharted forest, and nobody else ever knew.

PS: As I said, this is a romantic impression based on a book written in 1915. Reality suggests that some of the Beothuck DID survive, mainly by mingling with settlers and other tribles.

Sherlock Holmes in "The Lost Pencil Case"

Chapter 1 - A Most Unusual Discovery

During my journies I happened across the widow McClure, a sweet Irish lass, long beyond her years and now terminally ill. Suffering from demetia, each time we met it was most similar to the first, and I found myself once again amazing her with my feats of deduction.

"On Thursday nights," I said to her, "you watch 'The Price is Right,' and you always cheer for the fat ones."

She was amazed. "Mr. Holmes, how do you know such things?"

"These mental stretching-exercises are like morning calisthenics to the student of crime. I am aware, of course, that your grandchildren always visit on Thursdays, and you have said in the past that they are uncommonly fond of television."

"I said that?"

"Indeed you did, but let's return to my monologue. In my curious daily business I am required to read all the latest periodicals, in order to keep abreast of current events which may impact my work. One such magazine which I devour from cover to cover is...'The T.V. Guide.'"

"I love that book," said the esteemed widow, the rosy blush of long-lost youth returning briefly to her aged cheeks.

I made fast my explanation, before her oncoming fit should stop it in its inevitable tracks. "It was short work to decipher the guide's Thursday night schedule, from which -- bracketed by your regular mealtime of five o'clock and your bedtime at six -- I deduced you would be watching 'The Price Is Right' on your video-telegraph machine on regular Thursday evenings." I paused for effect. "Now let me tell you about the Cottingley Fairies..."

Mrs. McClure, as always, was uncommonly amazed, and she shook my hand as best her palsy would allow. Whilst in the perpendicular position that was required to grasp her hand I noticed a most intriguing object lying atop the snow.

I did nothing to betray my knowledge at the time -- wishing not to entangle the widow in the nefarious schemes of the criminal underworld -- but after seeing her off to her daily sponge bath I returned to the sidewalk. Stooping to retrieve the singular object which I had spied, I saw immediately that it was a pencil case.

Chapter 2 - A Crime of Passion

From its position I deduced that it had been carelessly dropped, and not so recently as it was finely dusted with snow. The footprints around it had been hopelessly muddled by pedestrian traffic and by Mrs. McClure's tripedal walker, obscuring any clues as to the owner of the pencil case, or -- if they were not the same -- to the individual who had dropped it.

I turned my attention to the case itself. It contained numerous geometric tools and writing utensils, most telling of which was a gum eraser which proclaimed that somebody with the initials "P.M." had once loved somebody else "4ever," but the initials of the paramour had been cruelly defaced by what I soon determined to be a young girl's fingernail.

This discovery shone new light on the development. At first glance I had assume the pencil case to have been accidentally dropped, but the obscure gum eraser with its gouged-out initials suggested a more sinister motive: an affair of the heart, a lover spurned.

"This puts me in mind of a similar case which you may remember," I said to the stuffed and mounted figure of Dr. Watson which I carry for such purposes. "The unrequited love which John Hinkley, Jr. felt for Jodie Foster, which inspired him to steal her pencil case one night out of sheer pique, only to lose it on the day that he attempted to take the life of Ronald Reagan in a most inelegant way. I fear that the unknown figure involved in this case is similar to that of the case long past; merciless, passionate, and far beyond the bounds of common rationality. Mark my words, Watson...here we face the most vicious criminal we have ever known."

Watson, choosing not to interrupt my investigation at such a crucial stage, maintained his silence and leaned increasingly a-tilt in the growing wind.

Further analysis of the pencil case presented more evidence of the seriousness of the crime, not least in the form of a passionate scribbling on the inner lid: "Jessica you are a jalous bitch :)" I also deduced, from various obscure and sundry notes contained therein that the owner of the case was a Miss P___ M___, enrolled in form eight of M_____ Public School, located as I knew on C_____ Street.

I rushed immediately to the telegraph office but was dismayed to find it inoperative. My next step -- the telephone book -- revealed many more individuals with the surname M____ than I had anticipated. Having decided to attend to the school of M_______ in person, I briefly considered the hiring of a hansom or dogcart to fetch me there, but the hired lackeys in this town refuse to admit Dr. Watson in his current condition and the only other carriage drivers -- those singularly curious members of the Mennonite religious order -- have been reticent since the disastrous resolution of "The Case of the Poisoned Strudel."

Chapter 3 - The Visit

The following morning I hied myself to M_____ Public School with the wayward pencil case in my possession. Inspector Lestrade being long since lost in his ill-fated battle with the Fiery Moria Balrog, I brought instead a collection of Street Arabs in various disguise, these "Baker Street Irregulars" serving to lighten my spirits and affirm my superiority. Having delayed for so long any explanation of my methods or purpose, however, they soon dispersed to the nearest Tim Horton's, tongues a-poke and fingers raised.

Finally, after many minutes of solitary walking, I was on my own at the school, ready to spring the net that I had been carefully weaving since the discovery of the pencil case but a day previous.

Aware that a man in possession of cocaine should not linger at the gates of a public school, I entered the singular halls of the once-great institution. I was greeted by an uncommonly beautiful matron, so pale as to be nearly luminous in the dim fluorescent lighting, a figure at once so winsome and concupiscent that I felt Watson growing singularly stiff at my side.

I bowed respectfully under her gaze. "M'lady, I bring to you a pencil case which may or may not belong to one P____ M____, a student of your singular institution. The circumstances are unparalleled in their circumstance, but I deduce that the case was lost as she found her way home across C____ street. The soft cushion of the new-fallen snow no-doubt muffled the rattle of the falling protractors and pencils, with the result that--"

"I'll make sure she gets it," said the matron, removing the object from my hands and retreating instantly down the corridor. My interview, it would seem, was over.

Chapter 4 - The Scarlet Mormon of East Pushtan

You may wonder at the resolution of this astonishing tale, so unlike any that I or my imitators have told before. I too am uncertain as to the fate of the pencil case, and the fate of the mysterious P____ M_____, whose form and circumstance remain vague in my understanding.

Surely, if Watson were still an active and mobile young man of 35, he would have stumbled upon a postscript worthy of all that preceded, a final few chapters to explain the terrible curse of the M_____ family and their ancestry in another country, another time.

But Watson is no longer the man he was, and I confess the same regarding myself. 'Tis just me and my cat at Baker Street, waiting here, wondering what next will fall from the grasp of this world's singular criminals.

Quick Thoughts About Two "Up North" Books

I'm not even going to TRY to come up with a coherent thought, but somehow I can't leave these two books unreviewed. So here you go:

"Adventures in the Alaskan Skin Trade" by John Hawkes

My university PoMo teacher included John Hawkes in his "required postmodern reading" list, so I picked up a few of his books...but at the time I didn't understand how he fit into the category; his writing was far too straightforward for my rough little mind to accept.

I can't speak for Hawkes' other books (yet), but I can certainly understand his pomo chops now. "Adventures in the Alaskan Skin Trade" is partly a wild adventure story, but it is mainly a love-letter to language, in particular the telling of stories.

The book's characters often break into long, detailed, fascinating monologues about their adventures...but they don't do this to impart information or to soothe others...they do it to BLUDGEON their listeners. In this book, stories are weapons; they help to maintain the status quo. When two new characters meet each other for the first time, they attack each other with stories, and the loser is permanently scarred.

What's amazing about Hawkes is his ability to get this across in a subtle, ambiguous way, and to combine it with stories that are more gripping and unusual than you'd find in the best "boy's adventure" book. For that reason, "Adventures in the Alaskan Skin Trade" could be seen as a lot of different things (and that's also why, the first time I read it, I had no idea what the point was). But now I see it as an evil, uncomfortable, vicious tale about the passive ways that people abuse each other, presented through the metaphor of storytelling.

"Hunting with the Eskimos" by Harry Whitney

It's difficult to read an autobiography written by a man you don't like, and such is this book by Harry Whitney. He wasn't EVIL or anything, he was just a selfish, egocentric, dim-witted rich guy who decided on a whim that he'd like to kill musk ox, and then wrote a book about his year sponging off the Inuit.

His writing style is atrocious. The book is a long string of pseudo-facts that barely rise above the level of a point-form journal: somebody sees a walrus, everybody sets out to kill the walrus, the weather turns bad, they return home with only one walrus. It's all like that except when Whitney sees something beautiful, in which case he'll describe it to us as being "indescribable." Thanks, Harry.

What's more, Whitney spent the entire Arctic winter amongst the Inuit, who were forced to babysit him. What the Inuit got out of this exchange is never stated, though they did seem to like his biscuits.

Even before he got off the boat Whitney had begun to hurt himself. It seems like every week he was suffering some new injury and that some new part of his body was frozen, swollen, or both. He kept wandering off, getting stuck in storms, and coming home again with frozen feet, which the Inuit women would stick between their breasts and rub back to life.

Whenever they went hunting, Whitney insisted on getting his trophies. To hell with the fact that the Inuit needed to, like, EAT, Whitney would hold them off so that he could take the first shot, or so that they could find the musk ox with the biggest horns, and meanwhile the Inuit hunting dogs were getting slaughtered and the game was escaping. Whenever he did this the Inuit hunters would become, in Whitney's words, "sulky and disagreeable."

You understand why I didn't like him.

On the positive side, however, he provided many comical accounts of the Inuit "going problokto," which he described as a form of insanity that the "Highland Eskimos" were prone to. Right in the middle of cooking a meal or spearing a walrus, somebody or other would run screaming around the ice floes, tearing off their clothes. This happened more often even that Whitney's frequent injuries, and I suspect that the Inuit did this to amuse Whitney, or more likely to distract him while they stole his biscuits.

The book does manage to shed some light on Inuit culture, but moreso it exposes the strange mindset of the turn-of-the-century "professional sportsman," men who travelled the world in order to kill the biggest animals they could find, usually with the invaluable assistance of "sulky, disagreeable" natives, just so they could nail something to their wall and bludgeon their children with adventure stories.

A Moment's Pause

Sometimes, when this blog goes silent for a day or two, it's because I'm stupid and brain dead and I just want to take a seventy-two hour nap.

But at other times -- like this -- it's because I'm working on so many things that I simply don't have the time or brainpower left to explore heavy blog topics (such as the potential fetish appeal of 1920s cruise-line fruit).

What am I doing? I'm glad you asked! Besides the physical/mental logjam that occurs the week before any approaching drag show (it's tomorrow night!) I am also swamped at work (wading into the treacherous waters of DITA), continuously shoveling the sidewalk, finishing off a song that's been in the pipe for more than a year, experimenting with my new hair extensions, and...

...putting together a silly online project that I will link to in a day or two, but which will be of interest only to die-hard devotees of a certain obscure musical group. I mention this not to get you excited -- because I don't think anybody who reads this would be interested in the final product -- but only to explain why I'm so quiet right now.

PS: I'm also watching a DVD collection of pioneering films from the turn of the century, back before anybody realized that a camera could move (unless it was mounted on a train) or that chase scenes didn't HAVE to show every single participant arrive at one edge of the film, cross laboriously across the middle, and exit completely off the opposite edge.

Oh, those simple, child-like directors with their top hats and mustaches! Oh, those sickly-looking infants dressed in oversized doilies! Oh, those insatiable, oat-eating horses! And let's not forget the eight-year-old children working in factories to help buy heroin-laced medicines for their consumptive, coal-mining fathers.

It's no wonder they didn't have time to discover "the close-up."

"I Married the Klondike"

For the last few months I've been on a Klondike kick. I've read all about the social, political, and historical significance of the event. I've learned intimate details about all the gold rush archetypes: prostitutes, dance-hall girls, con men, Mounties, miners, and opportunistic businessmen. I've followed the history of Dawson from the first pan of gold to the start of the town's decline.

What more was there to learn? Obviously something, because Laura Beatrice Berton's autobiographical "I Married the Klondike" has been an eye-opener even to this jaded reader.

Berton, a school teacher, went alone to Dawson in 1907. The town was already in mid-decline but the unique social life of dances, teas, recitals, and endless gossip was still entrenched. Berton's book is a unique perspective of a 29-year-old woman's adventures in a dying mining town, including her marriage and the upbringing of her two children (one of whom, of course, was author and historian Pierre Berton).

The first half of the book consists of her detailed memories about the town's social stratification.

The social level began, of course, with the commissioner and his wife, and worked its way down through the judges and officers of the police, the high civil servants, the heads of the large companies, the bishops and church people, the bankers and bank clerks, lawyers and nurses until it stopped with us teachers, who clung to the charmed group by our finger-nails... The Mounted Police, noncoms and constables, were not admitted to Dawson's social set... Below the first social level came the merchants, who were known as "the downtown crowd", and below them the labourers, policemen and so on, who were, in turn, several steps above the dance-hall girls and the prostitutes of Klondike City and the half-breeds and Indians.

We also learn something about what it was like to be a single, unescorted woman living in the Yukon at the turn of the century. She describes riding an open sleigh from Whitehorse to Dawson, a week-long trip in the middle of winter, crammed in with thirteen other passengers, two of them amorous.

I sat in the rear seat, squeezed between a Swede on one side and a French-Canadian miner on the other... For five days I parried their advances, which followed much the same line.

"I mak' you present ermine skin, hey?" murmured the Quebecker, affectionately pressing my arm. "Two, t'ree, yes, enough for nice collar. How you like dat, hey?" Another squeeze.

Then from the other side--this time pressure against my leg and the Swedish voice: "In Dawson you go mit me to show, yah? Ve haf a good time, yah?" To all of which I smiled demurely and maintained a discreet silence.

Reading this in the midst of my furnace breakdown, I was particularly thankful that I wasn't currently Up North.

We could never quite keep the cold or frost out of the house. It seemed an animate thing, creeping insidiously under the crack of the door in a long white streak. Each nailhead in the strapping around the kitchen door was covered by a little coat of ice... A thick line of frost marked the lower edge of the door, and we could judge the temperature by gauging the distance this white line crept up along the door's edge from the floor to ceiling.

The environment kills many of her friends. They succumb to cold, incompetent medicine, animals, and drowning. Some go crazy, some just disappear. But most of them gradually trickled away as the city emptied, and eventually she left as well.

It's not all sad, though; far from it. She describes scenes of incredible bliss, spending summers floating around on the Yukon, picking an uninhabited island and living there for a month. She talks about the necessary acts of charity and kindness in a city where the smallest weakness could lead to death. She eloquently, breezily, and matter-of-factly describes the love that many people feel for small towns and the people in them, and the fact that Dawson was such an impossible place makes it all more fascinating.

More Vaudeville Cats, Plus Special JJ Synchronicity Bonus!

I've just finished Douglas Gilbert's "American Vaudeville." It really is an exceptional book. Sloppy, yes, full of asides and written almost like a journal, but if you pay close attention you get a real sense of the interconnectedness of vaudeville; the stage hands, the performers, the booking agents, the theatre chain owners, the critics.

But of course you want to hear about the vaudeville cats.

The domestic feline--the writer, who adores them, regrets to say--never graduated with high honors in vaudeville although there were a number of successful cat acts. Of course, these cats are not dangerous, but they are unreliable, merely because they are supreme individualists, preferring to do the thing they want at the time they want to do it; which should be understandable...

Yet even [Tetchow] could get from his pets, for indeed they were that, but one trick each. His star performer was a tom who ran from the wings, scrambled up a rope hanging from the proscenium arch, got into a basket attached to a parachute and came floating down to the stage.

Heck, my cat could do that. Or at least she would if there was a toilet up there to drink out of.

It may be unnecessary to say that goats are difficult to work with and more unreliable than cats.

So no goats in baskets.

Special synchronicity bonus for reader jj! He mentioned this act last week, and what did I find on page 247?

Willie [Hammerstein] combed the museums and side shows for his freaks. In Philadelphia he found the wonderful Sober Sue...A number of the best comics of the period tried [to make her laugh]--Sam Bernard, Willie Collier, Eddie Leonard, Louis Mann. All failed. But the customers kept coming, not to see Sober Sue, but the comedians who (without salary) were contributing thousands of dollars in prestige and box-office take... When the engagement terminated it was discovered that her facial muscles were paralyzed and it was physically impossible for her to laugh.

Apparently Sober Sue suffered from the very odd Mobius syndrome, and her real name was Susan Kelly.

Life Was Cheap For the Vaudeville Felines (plus "socks")

In his rather informal book "American Vaudeville," author Douglas Gilbert often goes off on wild tangents, describing the long-lost vaudeville routines that he obviously pines for. He takes real delight in remembering the more bizarre acts for us, and I take a real delight in reading about them:

A performer whose name nobody can recall had an act called "The Cat Piano." It comprised a number of live cats confined in narrow boxes with wire netting on the front ends. Artificial tails extended from the rear. This performer was a marvelous cat imitator and miaowed the "Miserere" by pulling the cats' tails. Spits, snarls, and plaintive mews added to the effect of the back-fence serenade.

He also mentions "Nelson's Boxing Cats" in his huge list of standard acts from 1880 to 1930, sadly with no further details.

Here's another passage that I love:

Most of the museums pasted warnings in dressing rooms that the words "slob," "sucker," "damn," "hell," and "socks" were forbidden. The ban on "socks" may seem unreasonable today [1940] but in the eighties crude jests--"stronger than father's socks," or "I threw my socks at the wall and they stuck"--were common gags.

Next time I'm at a party I'll be sure to try out some of those sock gags. "The wine has a pungent bouquet...stronger than father's socks!"

Ye Olde Novelty Songs: "A Bird in a Gilded Cage"

In honour of the gold rush demimondes that I'm reading so much about, here's a song they were known to sing in the far-north dance halls at the turn of the century: "A Bird in a Gilded Cage." Picture them decked out in diamonds, gold nuggets, and silk, illuminated by gaslight, surrounded by dirty and horny (but rich) men and performing until 5am. Amazing, beautiful, and terrible.

The singer is the largely forgotten Beatrice Kay who was known for her authentic reinterpretations of songs from that period. This comes from her "Gay Nineties" album, which has no date on it, but I bet it was recorded in the late '50s. There are many contradictory stories about why her voice sounds like that, most involving injury or illness.

PS: Visitors from the future, this link is bound to break eventually.

Klondike

I have just finished Pierre Berton's book "Klondike," and I've actually had -- yes -- some epiphanies!

Once you pass the age of 25 epiphanies become more and more rare. Eventually you know enough about the world that very few "connections" remain to be made in your mind. Sure, you can still LEARN new things, but rarely do you get those "aha!" moments when pieces of the world puzzle suddenly fit together.

I guess I'm lucky because I learned very little history when I was in school, so the historical timeline is still full of these little puzzles that need to be resolved. I've pretty much filled in the geopolitical gaps from 1920 on, but the turn of the century has remained a mystery.

Thankfully, Pierre Berton's wonderful sense of scope and organization has brought me the perfect overview of that period, and explained to me some questions that I didn't realize were vexing until I really thought about them: why did so many people rush off to the Klondike, even though the chances of staking a gold claim were next to impossible? How did so many of them become rich anyway? Why did those people notoriously just "throw their gold around" like it was worth nothing? And why was it so HARD to get to the Yukon, anyway?

There is no single answer for any of those questions, which is why the period has never seemed real to me; it was like a cartoon where people just did crazy things for no reason I could possibly relate to. But Berton's "Klondike" spends so much time answering all of those questions from every possible angle that...well, I had epiphanies. Lots of them. It's almost INDECENT, to suffer so many revelations in one's own armchair.*

Regarding the last question -- why was it so hard to get there -- I suffer an inability to judge the impossibility of physical tasks, and without actually undertaking the task myself I'm bound to be deluded for life. Last year's books about the Arctic impressed on me the horrible ordeal of walking on a glacier, Anton Money's "This Was the North" gave me a good sense of what solitary survival up north was really like...and now Pierre Berton has taught me about muskeg, swamps, mosquitos, and the impossibility of getting horses through such places.

Here's a simple equation: no horses, no supplies. No supplies, sickness. Sickness, slow movement. Slow movement through the sub-Arctic, forced to "winter in" repeatedly, in which case only the Indians were able to keep you from total starvation. Demoralization, disorientation, you finally make it to Dawson City only to discover that everybody's up and left.

I'm so thrilled with my revelations that I plan to follow up this book with three others. The first, "Good Time Girls of the Alaskan Gold Rush" by Lael Morgan is one I've read before. It elaborates on the histories of the dance-hall girls and prostitutes, who were very odd characters indeed. Berton covers this topic as well, but in a somewhat scattered way. Plus Morgan's book is beautifully illustrated, showing not just the women themselves but also their houses, streets, and men.

Then I'm moving on to another one I read but couldn't contextualize: "American Vaudeville" by Douglas Gilbert. It covers 1880-1930 and I hope will give me a sense of what entertainment was REALLY like during the period.

Finally, to solidify my grasp of the Yukon, I'll come full-circle with "I Married the Klondike." Written by Laura Beatrice Burton -- Pierre's mother -- it looks to be the sort of pioneer story that I love to read.

* I admit that I still don't really understand WHY gold is so precious. How did that all come about anyway?