I Was Going To

type out the recipe, from the cookbook of Alexandre Dumas, for young elephant's feet. Then I said to myself, I said, "Kevin, dude -- this is the world-wide web. And your influence is enormous (needless to say). Do you really want to feel responsible should some sweet young elephant, no doubt the apple of its mother's eye, suddenly disappear, only to end up in a stockpot with two slices of Bayonne ham, half a bottle of Madeira, and fifty little pimentoes? No. No, you don't. Plus that's a lot of typing."

Enough to know that Dumas apparently did publish a cookbook -- actually it sounds more like a cooking encyclopedia, some thousand pages long, with digressions on topics like burns (how best to treat them). Come on, Penguin books: you know you want to put out a new translation of this, you know you do.

In the meantime, if you're dying to find out how to cook young elephant feet (and, let me emphasize, if you live in a country with absolutely no free roaming elephants, and where the zoos and reserves have adequate security) then you should hunt up Guy Endore's "Autobiography-Anthology" of Dumas.

Apparently the trunk is tasty, too.

~

Alas, my mental picture of Dumas appears to have been wildly inaccurate, at least in terms of height. Here's a description of him that Endore quotes "from the diary of the Goncourt brothers:"

Dumas is a kind of giant with the hair of a Negro, the salt beginning to mix with the pepper, and with little blue eyes buried in his flesh like those of a hippopotamaus, clear and mischievous; and an enormous moon-face, exactly the way cartoonists love to draw him.

"From the diary of the Goncourt brothers" is a little mysterious. Did they really keep a co-diary? Was their handwriting so similar that scholars can't distinguish who wrote which entry? Did they take turns writing alternate words, like the father and son conspirators in that Sherlock Holmes story, so that each would be equally responsible for every entry?

Or is Guy Endore merely a doofus?

~

Doofus or not, here's a passage from Endore's enconium on the Count of Monte Cristo:

But that's the dream of every man! Every man to whom life has been unjust. And which of us has never felt that injustice? Which of us has never felt that there was a secret conspiracy against us, so that born to wealth and fame, we have somehow lived in misery? Which of us has not felt robbed of a beautiful and rich bride?

And who has not dreamed of finding some great treasure? And then appearing among our false friends in an impenetrable disguise, rich as Croesus, to administer stern and well-deserved punishment upon his enemies?

Except for the "finding some great treasure" part, I can honestly say that I've never dreamed of dreaming any of those things.

Myles na gCopaleen had a great line about a man only needing (quoting from memory, here): "money, drink, and opportunities for scoring off his enemies. Give him those three things, and you won't hear much squawking out of him."

But I mean, seriously -- "Which of us has not felt robbed of a beautiful and rich bride?" Is that really a common, near-universal feeling? Do millions of grown men actually wander about the world, grumbling about how they could have married that hot wealthy chick, if it weren't for the machinations of their enemies? I'm appalled.

Endore is the author of Werewolf of Paris. I've heard of this before; it's supposed to be a classic of its kind. Now I'm tempted to read it -- if I can find a cheap paperback somewhere.

the S.S.

I read little contemporary non-fiction -- maybe 3 or 4 books a year, usually connected to whatever story I'm working on. But whenever I do, I'm always struck by how stereotyped the prose style is -- whether the topic is trash, or lexicography, or the Stratemeyer Syndicate, they might all have been written by the same person, if you judged strictly by the style: standard journalese, gently salted with the sort of "fine writing" that garners marginal kudos from High School English teachers. I blame the Universities, personally; but if you believe that style (when it isn't a contrived affectation) is always merely an index of how someone thinks, this pervasive sameness is mildly depressing.

I'm about halfway through Ms Rehak's book, and am now skimming and skipping cavalierly to get it over with, having already enjoyed the parts that really interest me: how Edward Stratemeyer started and ran his crazy "Syndicate", inventing the Bobbsey Twins, the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Tom Swift, and the lunatic Bomba the Jungle Boy ("For Bomba is white... Bomba is white!") among numerous others, making a fortune and revolutionizing the publishing industry; and how his daughters, with no business or literary experience, were forced to take over the Syndicate after their father's death, and managed to successfully keep the empire afloat for decades and decades. Great stuff. Also love the fact that in letters, Harriet Stratemeyer refers to the Stratemeyer Syndicate as "the SS".

But I wonder if Ms Rehak is responsible for the subtitle ("Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her") or if it was wished upon her by the publishers. Because it's simply inaccurate -- going by the facts contained in this very book. Mildred Wirt was responsible for ghostwriting most of the original Nancy Drew books; Harriet and Edna S played a huge role in shaping the development of the character over the years (and came up with the vast majority of storylines, secondary characters, etc) -- they surely deserve the majority of the credit. But Edward Stratemeyer created Nancy Drew. You know, words do have meaning.

the Brother-in-Law

is moving to Toronto in a couple weeks, to design space robots at the U of T (no, really -- space robots). On Thursday he brought over a bunch of stuff to store in our basement, and a big old tub of books.

I haven't had a chance to go through them all carefully yet (the Bell-Jar? Really, Paul?) but I've already found one absolute treasure: a copy of the Young Visiters by Daisy Ashford. I'd read an excerpt of it before, but never seen a copy of the whole thing.

Ashford wrote it in 1890 at the age of nine. Then it sat in a drawer for thirty years until a family member came across it, thought it was hilarious (it is), and convinced Chatto & Windus to publish it. The main story is a love triangle between Alfred Salteena ("an elderly man of 42"), the 17 year old Ethel Monticue, and Salteena's pompous friend Bernard Clark, who invites Mr Salteena and Ethel for a visit:

My Dear Alfred,

I want you to come for a stop with me so I have sent you a top hat wraped up in tishu paper inside the box. Will you wear it staying with me because it is very uncommon. Please bring one of your young ladies whichever is the prettiest in the face.

I remain Yours truely
Bernard Clark

Mr Salteena is naive, enthusiastic and excitable. (He also has fat legs, a fact that's emphasized repeatedly, with the implication that Mr Clark's thin legs are what win him Ethel's heart.) He especially gets excited when he's served breakfast in bed, which happens several times and which apparently strikes him as the absolute height of class and luxury. Ethel is "peevish" and "sneery":

I shall put some red ruge on my face said Ethel because I am very pale owing to the drains in this house.

You will look very silly said Mr Salteena with a dry laugh.

Well so will you said Ethel in a snappy tone and she ran out of the room with a very superier run throwing out her legs behind and her arms swinging in rithum.

Well said the owner of the house she has a most idiotick run.

Leaving Ethel in the care of Mr Clark (big mistake), Mr Salteena puts himself in the hands of the Earl of Clincham, who specializes in helping commoners become gentlemen:

Personally I am a bit parshial to mere people said his Lordship but the point is that we charge a goodly sum for our training but however if you cant pay you need not join.

I can and will proclaimed Mr Salteena and he placed a £10 note on the desk. His Lordship slipped it in his trouser pocket. It will be £42 before I have done with you he said but you can pay me here and there as convenient.

Brilliantly, the Earl's program for converting Mr Salteena into a gentleman seems to consist entirely of introducing him to people under a false name: "You wont mind if I introduce you as Lord Hyssops do you... it wont matter and will look better."

My only complaint is that the book is too short -- I finished it in about an hour last night. So there you go, Paul -- I forgive you for trying to palm off Sylvia Plath on me.

Half A Handful Of Cannibals

Back when, my wife used to lead canoe trips into northern Ontario. At Wendigo Lake, the version she heard of the wendigo myth was that, when the cannibal demon possessed someone, the person would eat himself -- starting with his own lips and face, and working outward. This is brilliant; but of course the more usual version is that the man possessed would kill and eat others. There's more than one documented instance of a man, believing himself possessed by a wendigo, begging his family to kill him and destroy his body before he's compelled to eat them.

~

At one point in the Thin Man, Gilbert -- the painfully awkward and desperately unhappy teenager who may or may not be sleeping with his sister, and who takes refuge in a laboriously assumed intellectualism -- asks Nick Charles about cannibalism:

"-- in the United States, say. Is there much of it?"

I went over to the bookcase and got the copy of Duke's Celebrated Criminal Cases of America that Nora had picked up in a second-hand book store, found the place I wanted, and gave it to him....


Gilbert, book in hand, came over to us. He seemed disappointed in the story I had given him. "It's very interesting," he said, "but, if you know what I mean, it's not a pathological case." He put his arm around his sister's waist. "It was more a matter of that or starving."

"Not unless you want to believe him," I said.

~

My absolute favourite encounter with cannibalism in literature was in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

I'm going from memory here, but the episode went something like this: Sun Jian has been forced to make his way on foot and incognito back to his kingdom, following a disastrous military campaign. He spends one night at the house of a woodsman, who recognizes him. The man goes out hunting, hoping to be able to provide a suitably magnificent meal for his royal guest, but he's unable to catch anything -- so he goes home, slaughters his wife, cooks her and serves her.

Here's the kicker: when Sun Jian learns what happened, instead of being disgusted and horrified, he's actually touched and charmed. And when he gets back to his palace, he sends the woodsman a whack of money to show his gratitude. The author (or was it an editor?) remarks that this is fortunate, since the woodsman will certainly need lots of money if he hopes to find another wife.

~

'Upon my soul, they are nice, even half-cooked -- delicious! I'll have another half-dozen, there are lots of them -- delightful! I can't keep the gravy from running out of the corners of my mouth. Upon my soul, Mrs Lovett, I don't know where you get your meat, but it's all as tender as young chickens, and the fat actually melts away in one's mouth...'

A modicum of reflection will tell you that human meat -- especially from the middle-aged men who primarily make up Mrs Lovett's pies -- is more likely gristly, greasy and tough as old horse meat, than 'tender as young chickens.' That's okay -- what makes the story horrible (instead of merely disgusting) is not that thousands of Londoners inadvertently commit cannibalism, but that they really really enjoy it.

Be Happy in Your Work

'Continue at your work,' said the voice, 'or death will be your portion as soon as sleep overcomes you, and you sink exhausted to that repose which you will never awaken from, except to feel the pangs of death, and to be conscious that you are weltering in your blood.

'Continue at your work and you will escape all this -- neglect it, and your doom is sealed.'

'What have I done that I should be made such a victim of? Let me go, and I will swear never to divulge the fact that I have been in these vaults, so I cannot disclose any of their secrets, even if I knew them.'

'Make pies,' said the voice, 'eat them and be happy. How many a man would envy your position -- withdrawn from all the struggles of existence, amply provided with board and lodging, and engaged in a pleasant and delightful task. It is astonishing how you can be dissatisfied!'

After that lovely fat hammy passage -- on page 161 out of 256 -- alas, String of Pearls starts to fall apart.

By this point in the book, a reader of the meanest intelligence will have figured out from the ridiculously broad hints, asides and verbal wink-wink nudge-nudges -- even if he didn't know it already, for example from having read this blog -- what Sweeney's barber-chair does; what the foul smell from under St Dunstan's Church is really all about; and where the supply of meat for Mrs Lovett's pies comes from. But for some dumb-ass reason, the author[s] are committed to pretending that these things (and several other, less important ones) are all "mysteries" until the final chapter -- perhaps to give the reader an opportunity to feel smugly clever for having "figured it out."

Regardless, it's an idiotic decision, because it means that instead of concentrating on what's really interesting -- Todd skulking and scampering about his subterranean empire, lugging chunks of his victims to and fro -- we have to endure the asininities of two naval gentlemen playing detective and sounding for all the world like the goofy gophers, a plucky heroine (if plucky meant vapid and delusional), the irritating refusal of Sweeney's former apprentice to die quietly in his nice madhouse cell like we all want him to, and no less than two boring, completely irrelevant short stories thinly disguised as conversation.

Nothing on how Sweeney started his slaughter-factory, built or discovered his tunnels, or came up with the idea of turning his victims into pies; nothing on where he found or how he invented the wonderful machinery; nothing on how he and Mrs Lovett entered into partnership, where they met or what their relationship was. Not even -- and speaking here as a fellow-writer, this is flabbergasting to me -- not even a climactic chase scene through the tunnels. The "big finish" is more like "half-assed farce", and as I read it, all I could think was, "Oh, come on, you're not even trying."

Which is probably true. What do you expect for a penny? Effort?

Some Good Advice

for all you aspiring barber/mass-murderers out there.

First, resist the urge to take on an inquisitive young apprentice in your barbershop. Sure, the extra couple bucks a week will come in handy, and it's always nice to have someone to run errands, sweep up the hair from the barbershop floor, and to terrorize with vague threats about his mother -- but what about peace of mind? There's nothing a barber/mass-murderer needs more than peace of mind if he hopes for a long, remunerative and spirtually fulfilling career.

Second, before you really get underway with your business of shaving chins and slitting throats, make arrangements with a good fence. Take that extra effort to find the right man. That way, when you murder a mysterious sailor who happens to be carrying a fabulously expensive string of pearls as a present for his dead companion's fiancee, you won't be subjected to the hazardous and difficult business of trying to sell them yourself, and will be saved the embarrassment and effort of being first chased down the streets of London by an excitable mob, and then up a tenement stairwell by a throng of bloodthirsty robbers, beating them back with only a mop for a weapon. It's just this kind of tedious and unnecessary business that brings premature grey hairs to so many barber/mass-murderers you meet.

(Contrariwise, if you're a young fellow who's been apprenticed to a barber, and you begin to suspect him of being a mass-murderer on an unprecedented scale but can't do anything about it because he's blackmailing your poor mother, don't walk around the shop soliloquizing when you think you're alone. Of course he's going to pop out from behind a doorway, having overheard you. That's what barber/mass-murderers do. Any time they're not barbering or mass-murdering, they're happily crouching behind doorways, waiting for good opportunities to pop out. There's a little thing I like to call "thinking to yourself, without speaking out loud." You should try it some time.)

~

When we first meet Sweeney Todd, he's far more comic gargoyle than sinister uber-villain; he's tall, skinny and misshapen, a coward and a bully -- with the emphasis very much on coward. A little later (during the pearl-fencing adventure mentioned above) he takes on a kind of swashbuckling, daring and resourceful character for a couple chapters -- also suddenly displaying an almost superhuman strength, tossing grown men through plate glass windows without even slowing his pace. Then he suddenly goes back to the cowardly bully we first met. Then he suddenly develops a penchant for ludicrous disguises (including, hilariously, a habit of wearing a mask, but only while stalking his dimly-lit underground tunnels to which no one else has access anyway -- apparently he doesn't want to risk having the rats identify him in court one day).

Now (I'm about halfway through the book) he's showing signs of turning into a criminal mastermind, even though up to this point he's never displayed more than slightly below-average intelligence. All of which might suggest multiple-authorship, but it might just as easily be evidence of rapid, improvised and alcoholic composition. Anyway, what do you expect for a penny? Consistency?

None of it matters. The true fascination of the book isn't in Sweeney's slaughters (and it sure as hell isn't in the god-awful comic and sentimental subplots, ripped straight out of Pickwick and Dombey and Son respectively), but in Mrs Lovett's pies. The author[s] love to linger on how popular these meat pies are -- a regular phenomenon -- how everyone from high to low, poor to rich, suburbs to City, enjoy them. So succulent, so tender, so flavourful! And the high point of the book so far -- by far -- has been the description of the vast underground cellar where the pies are made: thousands upon thousands of pies produced daily by a single, imprisoned homeless man working a series of crazy infernal machines (the story's set in 1785, remember), and slowly starting to realize where the supply of meat is coming from. And what's that shadow falling across his shoulder? He turns on his stool and sees a masked man raising a hammer....

There are two really interesting things here. The obvious one is cannibalism in the popular imagination. The one that I wasn't expecting when I started the book, is the fascination with machinery, and the equation of machinery with evil. There's more loving detail expended on Mrs Lovett's automated pie-making machines than on Sweeney's murders; and I'm eagerly awaiting the passage that explains Sweeney's barber-chair. I want to talk more about this later; remind me, will you?