Whales, Mister Melville? Really?
Jul. 7th, 2010 08:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraAt nine o’clock in the morning, it was 90 degrees. At nine o’clock at night, it was 90 degrees.
In between it got a whole lot hotter.
###
Samuel Clemens married an heiress named Olivia Langdon. She had no sense of humor. She hailed from Elmira, a town I know better than I want to: It’s also the ancestral seat of the Plunkett family into which I married.
Elmira’s history is typical of so many of the small dreary cities in this part of western New York State. Its fortunes rose in conjunction with the railroads that made the Erie Canal obsolete; those railroads, in turn, became obsolete themselves with the ascendency of the automobile. Here’s a theory to ponder: All human history is really a history of transportation.
Flooding in the wake of quixotic Hurricane Agnes all but destroyed Elmira in 1972 -- the city center had been built on the floodplains of the Chemung River; when the hurricane unexpectedly turned inland, the river broke its earthen levies. Sound familiar? Here’s another theory of human history: All catastrophes are doomed to be repeated on an ever larger and larger scale until finally someone pays attention.
Elmira’s entire downtown was buried under eight feet of tarry black mud; after it was demolished, it was never rebuilt. Then came the crack cocaine epidemic of the ‘80s. Today Elmira isn’t really a place anymore: just some ugly old houses that were once showcases, a handful of churches, a few office buildings, wide stretches of road. Mark Twain is one of two local cottage industries; the other is a prison.
###
Reportedly Sam Clemens first fell in love with Olivia Langdon’s portrait. Standards of beauty have certainly changed in the last 150 years, haven’t they? I would call the girl in this photograph “plain;” moreover, there is a sanctimonious, sepulchral expression on her face that really annoys me.
Said portrait was in the possession of a shipmate brother, and presumably Clemens had spent enough time with Bro at the gambling table to check out the accent and inexhaustible supplies of the ready, both signals of the upper class to the status-conscious young ruffian, longing to reinvent himself as a country squire.
###
Is Huckleberry Finn really that great a book? Whales, Mister Melville, really?
###
Here’s my third theory of the morning: People end up marrying the partners who can say, “No,” for them. Who can impose restraints that for one reason or another people are incapable of imposing themselves. It’s not about love necessarily, but it is about completion.
Clemens really loathed Mark Twain’s humor. If it had been up to him – and not the wind that blew so obsessively through him – he would have rewritten The Prince and the Pauper a dozen times.
###
One nice thing about the heat: There are hundreds of fireflies. At nine o’clock when it first gets dark, they’re all at ground level. They rise as the warm air rises, so that by midnight the tops of the trees are a glittering twinkle of tiny lights.
Of course since I have every window open, they fly into the house. I spent half the night rounding them up, escorting them out the door. Also moths, bees, assorted Daddy Long Legs and other bugs I can’t identify. I just can’t bring myself to kill them. I’m not more important than they are, I’m just bigger.
In between it got a whole lot hotter.
Samuel Clemens married an heiress named Olivia Langdon. She had no sense of humor. She hailed from Elmira, a town I know better than I want to: It’s also the ancestral seat of the Plunkett family into which I married. Elmira’s history is typical of so many of the small dreary cities in this part of western New York State. Its fortunes rose in conjunction with the railroads that made the Erie Canal obsolete; those railroads, in turn, became obsolete themselves with the ascendency of the automobile. Here’s a theory to ponder: All human history is really a history of transportation.
Flooding in the wake of quixotic Hurricane Agnes all but destroyed Elmira in 1972 -- the city center had been built on the floodplains of the Chemung River; when the hurricane unexpectedly turned inland, the river broke its earthen levies. Sound familiar? Here’s another theory of human history: All catastrophes are doomed to be repeated on an ever larger and larger scale until finally someone pays attention.
Elmira’s entire downtown was buried under eight feet of tarry black mud; after it was demolished, it was never rebuilt. Then came the crack cocaine epidemic of the ‘80s. Today Elmira isn’t really a place anymore: just some ugly old houses that were once showcases, a handful of churches, a few office buildings, wide stretches of road. Mark Twain is one of two local cottage industries; the other is a prison.
Reportedly Sam Clemens first fell in love with Olivia Langdon’s portrait. Standards of beauty have certainly changed in the last 150 years, haven’t they? I would call the girl in this photograph “plain;” moreover, there is a sanctimonious, sepulchral expression on her face that really annoys me.
Said portrait was in the possession of a shipmate brother, and presumably Clemens had spent enough time with Bro at the gambling table to check out the accent and inexhaustible supplies of the ready, both signals of the upper class to the status-conscious young ruffian, longing to reinvent himself as a country squire.
Is Huckleberry Finn really that great a book? Whales, Mister Melville, really?
Here’s my third theory of the morning: People end up marrying the partners who can say, “No,” for them. Who can impose restraints that for one reason or another people are incapable of imposing themselves. It’s not about love necessarily, but it is about completion.
Clemens really loathed Mark Twain’s humor. If it had been up to him – and not the wind that blew so obsessively through him – he would have rewritten The Prince and the Pauper a dozen times.
One nice thing about the heat: There are hundreds of fireflies. At nine o’clock when it first gets dark, they’re all at ground level. They rise as the warm air rises, so that by midnight the tops of the trees are a glittering twinkle of tiny lights.
Of course since I have every window open, they fly into the house. I spent half the night rounding them up, escorting them out the door. Also moths, bees, assorted Daddy Long Legs and other bugs I can’t identify. I just can’t bring myself to kill them. I’m not more important than they are, I’m just bigger.
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no subject
Date: 2010-07-09 07:01 pm (UTC)and i like moby dick. alot. its not much the subject, its in how he builds something symphonic.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-12 03:31 am (UTC)I just want to reiterate what a wonderful writer you are. My college boyfriend was from Elmira, so I visited that town many a time, but never could quite get a handle on it. In one sentence you've summed it up perfectly.
(Kinda glad I never married in...)
no subject
Date: 2010-07-12 11:14 am (UTC)Much great writing is rooted in a sense of place, I think. (My code word for it is terroir.) So when I run across a place with no sense of place, it always throw me for a loop. I always wonder, Well, why are these buildings here and not 20 miles away?