The vagaries of history

Will Durant said "most history is guessing, the rest is prejudice." Caroline Alexander's exhaustive (and exhausting) The Bounty: the true story of the mutiny on the Bounty tackles this notion with diligent scholarship. Then-Lieutenant-later-Admiral William Bligh is a polarizing figure, as is his antagonist, Master's Mate Fletcher Christian. Bligh, by all accounts, was a serious and dutiful officer having served with distinction under the two greatest Captains in British Naval history--James Cook and Horatio Nelson. His epic journey in an open boat after the mutiny is one of the great feats of seamanship by anyone anywhere. For all that, a reputation as a cruel and tyrranical martinet has dogged him for 200 years, while Christian elicits sympathy as a Romantic adventurer, cutting loose the bonds of oppression to find freedom and a new life in the blue Pacific. Never mind he marooned his erstwhile shipmates and former patron to what everyone at the time thought was certain death. Funny how things play out. The Age of Discovery, embodied by men like Cook, gave way to War with Napoleon and Nelson's heroics, soon followed by the Romantics, amongst that was industrialization, abolition, the decline of monarchial power, in short, cataclysmic changes in the social order of the Empire. Bligh and Christian were alternately hero and villain depending on who was writing history at the time. Ms. Alexander gives an unflattering portrait of Christian as a bit of a spoiled brat, but well-connected, and his mutinous actions as indicative of an immature, unstable personality. Bligh, the quintessential mariner and scrupulously loyal public servant, has the bulk of her sympathy. At the time, a Royal Navy sea captain was the closest thing to God among men, and sailors were expected to endure unbelievable hardships. What was normal at sea was unimaginable to most landsmen. Safe in our armchairs, we can ruminate on history and pass our judgments. Alexander's book, for me, was a journey back to the 7th grade when I discovered the Charles Nordhoff & James Norman Hall Mutiny on the Bounty trilogy. Older and wiser 35 years later, it was nice to sail again with these timeless characters, although they were closer to flesh-and-blood men this time.

Best laid plans . . .

Hey, so who sez I gotta do what I said I was gonna do? I told myself I would blog about all things reading and writing, especially since I have a reading problem. (My problem is I don't get to read ALL the time.) I had a flurry of fiction writing, that tapered off, and I'll pick up again soon. (My job sucks out my brain--have I mentioned that?) So what has made the biggest impression on me lately? Easy--Children of Men. Not the novel by P.D. James. Haven't read it (yet). No, the movie. An outstanding film! It just came out on DVD, and I so rarely go to the cinema the DVD release is like Opening Night for me. Children of Men is a powerful hard-boiled SF tale of the near future, with an understated lead from Clive Owen and a brilliant supporting role from Michael Caine. All the acting is strong throughout, but the rich visuals and striking camera work are the real stars. Whether you are in police-state, terror-prone London or the green English countryside, fear and paranoia lurk beneath every surface. The rebels are as corrupt and morally ambiguous as their enemy, a fascist government, and feral youth gangs menace everyone. The movie is mostly a long chase, with Owen finding himself as a reluctant hero safeguarding a woman who might be humanity's salvation. The stunning ending sequence in the squalid refugee camp has echoes of Bosnia, Baghdad and Gaza, you will grip your seat throughout. A dark and complex movie around a simple tale, so beautifully constructed and photographed that the few far-fetched plot elements quickly become minor quibbles. Highly recommended.

OUT OF THE GUTTER

Nothing I like better than small press, independent literary ventures. And the latest to grab my attention is OUT OF THE GUTTER: Pulp Fiction and Degenerate Literature. Issue number one is now available and going fast so head to http://outoftheguttermagazine.blogspot.com/ and get your copy NOW! If you have perused DZ Allen's Muzzle Flash site as I suggested in an earlier post (http://www.dzallen.blogspot.com/) then you will get the OOTG vibe. (DZ is an assistant editor for the magazine.) Noir, pulp and hard-boiled fiction seems to be making a comeback of sorts, although it has been updated and modernized for a 21st century audience. While crime and mystery fiction is widespread and at least as old as Poe, the hard-boiled story is a uniquely American, post-WWI phenomenon. I wonder what Robert Bellem ("my roscoe went chow-chow") and Carroll John Daly (of Satan Hall fame) would make of OOTG. I suspect they'd dig it.

Basque noir

Continuing the theme of loaned works, my enthusiasm for the brand of fiction many of us call "noir" resulted in Robert Laxalt's A Cup of Tea in Pamplona on my reading pile. My colleague Kevin, a French-speaking Mexican-American of Irish and Basque ancestry, introduced me to Prof. Laxalt, and his highly-regarded 1985 novella. I was immediately drawn to the world of smugglers, the rainy nights in the high mountains, and the themes of honor and identity among the Basque peasants. Crime and criminal organization is the center of the story, and a tragic death the key plot element. But is it noir? It lacked the lurid and sensational aspects of, say, Mickey Spillane, or the grim violence of Jim Thompson. But it had the crisp dialogue of the Cains (both James M. and Paul) and the fatalism of Hammett and Chandler. Laxalt gained fame as a chronicler of the Basque emigration to this country, in particular their unique stamp on the rural West. A Cup of Tea reads more like a memoir than a novel, the people are rough but not uncultured, the portraits loving but not sentimental. My sensitive and scholarly friend doesn't wrestle with silly distinctions about whether or not something fits the definition of noir, I imagine he's happy to leave that to me and other noir junkies. I'm just glad he knows a good read when he comes across one.

Aimee's on a bender

Pal Stephani loaned me Aimee Bender's 1998 short story collection The Girl in the Flammable Skirt. Ms. Bender has a deceptively simple style--the stories have the feel of fairy tales or even Aesop's fables. But the landscape they inhabit includes a mermaid and an imp in high school, a hole where a stomach should be, a nymphomaniac librarian (very appealing!), a devolving lover, a ruby that turns the ocean red, a man who deforms himself into a hunchback, a woman who gives birth to her mother, a backpack made of stone, and, well, some other stuff, too. Weird, funny, serious, light, deep, smart, contradictory, confusing, cockeyed and dead-on, Bender is on to something. Or on something. Then I got to thinking about pal Stephani. I mean, it is her book. And she thought I'd like it. Hmmm.

The Commodore

"Thick weather in the chops of the Channel and a dirty night, with the strong north-east wind bringing rain from the low sky and racing cloud: Ushant somewhere away on the starboard bow, the Scillies to larboard, but never a light, never a star to be seen; and no observation for the last four days." (This is the opening paragraph in Patrick O'Brian's The Commodore, #17 in the Aubrey-Maturin series.)

There are days, usually cold, gray, rainy days, when I'm battened down with The Captain and The Doctor, somewhere off Brest, Gibraltar, the Macassar Strait, or the wide blue expanse of the Indian Ocean, and I'm convinced--certain, in fact--that Mr. O'Brian is the finest writer in English, nay, the greatest master of the Mother Tongue to have ever put pen in hand. Just look: how many guys can put a colon and a semicolon in the same sentence without blushing, not only that, the sentence is perfect, grammatically speaking, and that same sentence is a complete paragraph and capsule summary of a week's action; not to mention a precise, beautiful and vivid description of place. Imagine twenty novels. Imagine them to be the same story, the same characters, the same setting. Now imagine being enthralled from cover to cover twenty times over, and you will have some sense of P. O'B.'s appeal. Despite my earlier hyperbole, I do know for certain that the aforementioned Doctor, Stephen Maturin y Domanova, is my all-time favorite fictional character. In fact, I know him and love him like a brother. This series, this gigantic 20-chapter sea story and adventure novel, is a meditation on friendship, love and loyalty, and a study of the peculiarities of relationships and the social conventions that bind and break them. O'Brian's grasp of history and language, his astonishing erudition, his encylopedic technical knowledge of ships and sail, his feelings for nature, his keen eye, and his sense of cosmic wonder leave me speechless with awe. There are writers who can do things better than O'Brian, but I'm hard-pressed to find those who can do all the things he can do as well as he can do them. The World Cup of Cricket is happening in the West Indies right now, and that quintessentially English game gives us a term, "all-rounder," describing an athlete who leads his team both batting and bowling. That's Patrick O'Brian.

Shameless self-promotion

Enough lit crit. Time for some old-fashioned American hucksterism. M.C. has his own stuff to show off and brag about. (Soon I will have a website, and you, Gentle Reader, will go there and get it.) Today I am bragging about my Summer of 2006 Project, which was a travel memoir of my Summer of 2005 Scotland Odyssey. If you are catching on to the Summer Theme here, you will understand the hopeless mental rut of the professional schoolteacher. School year = brain and soul sucked out by carnivorous youth. Summer = joy, bliss, and self-indulgence. Repeat. Retire after multiple repetitions. Sorry, back to shameless self-promotion. My creative efforts resulted in a chapbook, 8 1/2 by 5 1/2 inches, 4o pages with map and photos. I have a lovely little program called "ClickBook" (vers. 9) from Blue Squirrel that lets you format word processor documents in a variety of print-ready layouts. After some hilarious errors, I managed a tidy booklet of about 9000 words. I called it Whisky Tales. If you send me money, I will mail you a copy. WT is the gripping tale of a lad and his lass searching for the perfect spirit. Over hill and dale, moor and mountain we journeyed, drinking nearly unpronouncable drams which we pronounced eminently quaffable. I think it is one hell of a read and can't believe the Scotch Malt Whisky Association hasn't seen fit to make me their Grand American Poo-bah because of it. Alas, there is no justice in this world.