Just the beer light to guide us.

 

Charles Dickens, you so FUNny.

I'm within tobacco-spitting distance of finishing Charles Dickens' most excellent American Notes, and have to say that it has been a most enjoyable little foray into CD's non-fiction writing. Also, his comments on the US of A are quite apropos for these days--what with incompetent, greedy, mean-spirited political leaders and massive amounts of stupidity. Not to mention all of the tobacco spitting. And here's a bit about The Shakers that I found particularly amusing:

"Presently we came to the beginning of the village, and alighting at the door of a house where the Shaker manufactures are sold, and which is the headquarters of the elders, requested permission to see the Shaker worship.

"Pending the conveyance of this request to some person in authority, we walked into a grim room, where several grim hats were hanging on grim pegs, and the time was grimly told by a grim clock which uttered every tick with a kind of struggle, as if it broke the grim silence reluctantly, and under protest.  Ranged against the wall were six or eight stiff, high-backed chairs, and they partook so strongly of the general grimness that one would much rather have sat on the floor than incurred the smallest obligation to any of them.

"Presently, there stalked into this apartment, a grim old Shaker, with eyes as hard, and dull, and cold, as the great round metal buttons on his coat and waistcoat; a sort of calm goblin.  Being informed of our desire, he produced a newspaper wherein the body of elders, whereof he was a member, had advertised but a few days before, that in consequence of certain unseemly interruptions which their worship had received from strangers, their chapel was closed to the public for the space of one year.

"As nothing was to be urged in opposition to this reasonable arrangement, we requested leave to make some trifling purchases of Shaker goods; which was grimly conceded.  We accordingly repaired to a store in the same house and on the opposite side of the passage, where the stock was presided over by something alive in a russet case, which the elder said was a woman; and which I suppose was a woman, though I should not have suspected it."

P.S. The complete text is available to you for free at https://www.gutenberg.org/files/675/675-h/675-h.htm. Or (no doubt) at your local library. No, no...thank YOU.

What's wrong with this picture?

There was a day when people who worked in bookstores actually knew something about books.

Those days are gone.

DDR: American Notes by Charles Dickens

American Notes is XIX + 305 = 324 pages. So that's a single, ennit?* I'm thinking ten days ought to do it here.

Day 1 (DDRD 1,817) October 22, 2022

Read to page 10--which with the introductory material puts me pretty much at 30 pages for the day. (Maintaining an even strength. **)

A couple of interesting things from the get-go. First off, there's a little paper inserted into the book, a kind of summary / advertisement, and in it the writer goes out of his / her way to point out that this is a MINOR work. And just in case you missed that yellow road sign, Sacheverell Sitwell, who writes the Introduction, repeats the warning. What's up with that?

Speaking of Sacheverell Sitwell, this obviously well-educated fellow makes a mistake which I found amusing. He writes, "The accounts of Cincinnati, Louisville, and St. Louis make interesting reading." Then a few sentences later he notes, "It is only a pity that Dickens' journey did not take him to Kentucky...." Although it's certainly true that we Louisvillians do on occasion wish that we were not affiliated with Kentucky (Rand Paul, for instance), geography and history say otherwise, and to their remonstrations we must bow. 

Whilst meandering around the internet, I happened up this lovely thing

at https://www.charlesdickenspage.com/charles-dickens-american-travels-map-1842.html. Interesting to see how much of Dickens' journey was via boat. (Note to Sacheverell Sitwell: please see "Louisville" on this map.)

There were no "reading dates" at the beginning or end of this volume, but I was happy to see this bit of scat

on page 5. It's not much, admittedly...and I'd much have preferred a few words of comment...but at least it's a sign that someone was here before me. I like that in a book. Unless I paid a lot of money for said book, in which case I don't like it at all. But for the most part I prefer cheap books, books which have had a little life before they washed up on my shore.

* Obscure reference to a quip made by Roy Harper on his live version of "Burn the World" (1990, Awareness Records).

** See (or hear) The Right Stuff (1983).

NOTE TO SELF: So as of today, my second 1,000 DDRDs' (or 817/1000ths of it) page count stands at 22,572. That's a 27.6 pages per day average. Not bad, if I do say so myself. And in terms of self-challenge, that's getting pretty close to twice the number of pages I read during my first 1,000 DDRDs--wherein I read 13,449 pages. In order to hit that DOUBLE BUBBLE, I need to read 4,326 more pages in the next 183 days, which would mean an average of 23.6 pages per day. So that sounds do-able.

Day 2 (DDRD 1,818) October 23, 2022

Read to page 40. The first 1/3rd or so of this was a description of the ocean journey to America, which was both powerful (such a difficult journey that you wonder anyone was willing to undergo the trial) and, because it's Dickens, amusing as well. Once in America... Boston, specifically...Dickens describes meeting Laura Bridgman, who has got to be one of the most fascinating people ever to walk this Earth. While she was an infant she was rendered blind, deaf, and with very little ability to smell or taste by fever. Dickens reports that her instructor, Samuel Gridley Howe (at the Perkins Institution for the Blind), taught her to communicate using Braille.

"Those who cannot be enlightened by reason, can only be controlled by force: and this, coupled with her great privations, must soon have reduced her to a worse condition than that of the beasts that perish, but for timely and unlooked-for aid." (38)

That idea applies to a lot of sighted and hearing folks, too, doesn't it? 

At any rate, I'm still in the midst of the story of Laura Bridgman, and would like to read some more about her, but I don't know if I'll get the chance as I have a pretty full Dad Duties Day ahead of me. But just in case I have a chance to grab a few more pages, I'm going to bring the book along with me.

I'm already starting to think that anyone who labels this book as "minor" is completely full of shit, though.

Day 3 (DDRD 1,819) October 24, 2022

Read to page 80...which includes an additional 10 pages read yesterday. Dickens has now moved to Lowell, Massachusetts...a mere 30 miles from Boston. 

Burl Ives is also a Dickens fan, I suppose.

Day 4 (DDRD 1,820) October 25, 2022

Read to page 110. After a few other stops, Dickens visits New York. Some amazing descriptions of pigs strolling down Broadway, abject poverty, dirt.... And how about this:

"...New York is a large town...." (111)

Dickens spends a lot of his time visiting "lunatic asylums," prisons, and other places where poor people live...yet he also hangs out with governors and other high falutin' folks. I definitely get the feeling that he cares profoundly for the poor and huddled masses.

Day 5 (DDRD 1,821) October 26, 2022

Read to page 140. Dickens passed through Baltimore, where he had his first brush with slavery (slaves serving dinner), and he was sickened and angered by it. Shortly thereafter he visited DC, and has thus far been unimpressed. I've been to DC a few times myself, and share Dickens' point of view.

Day 6 (DDRD 1,822) October 27, 2022

Read to page 171 (end of Chapter IX).

This is from Chapter VIII:

"I saw in them, the wheels that move the meanest perversion of virtuous Political Machinery that the worst tools ever wrought.  Despicable trickery at elections; under-handed tamperings with public officers; cowardly attacks upon opponents, with scurrilous newspapers for shields, and hired pens for daggers; shameful trucklings to mercenary knaves, whose claim to be considered, is, that every day and week they sow new crops of ruin with their venal types, which are the dragon’s teeth of yore, in everything but sharpness; aidings and abettings of every bad inclination in the popular mind, and artful suppressions of all its good influences: such things as these, and in a word, Dishonest Faction in its most depraved and most unblushing form, stared out from every corner of the crowded hall.

"Did I see among them, the intelligence and refinement: the true, honest, patriotic heart of America?  Here and there, were drops of its blood and life, but they scarcely coloured the stream of desperate adventurers which sets that way for profit and for pay.  It is the game of these men, and of their profligate organs, to make the strife of politics so fierce and brutal, and so destructive of all self-respect in worthy men, that sensitive and delicate-minded persons shall be kept aloof, and they, and such as they, be left to battle out their selfish views unchecked.  And thus this lowest of all scrambling fights goes on, and they who in other countries would, from their intelligence and station, most aspire to make the laws, do here recoil the farthest from that degradation."

Seems to me that Dickens "got" America right off the bat.

Day 7 (DDRD 1,823) October 28, 2022

Read to page 209 (end of Chapter XI). So yes, less than a hundred pages to go now. And you know...this was a good move for me. I've enjoyed this little book, and it's been a nice change of pace from the fiction. So I'm definitely going to go on to Pictures From Italy (which is in the same Volume in THE CENTENNIAL EDITION) when I finish this up in a few days.

I have a friend (former student, but she's about my age now) who lives in Cincinnati, so when I read this--

"Cincinnati is a beautiful city; cheerful, thriving, and animated.  I have not often seen a place that commends itself so favourably and pleasantly to a stranger at the first glance as this does: with its clean houses of red and white, its well-paved roads, and foot-ways of bright tile.  Nor does it become less prepossessing on a closer acquaintance.  The streets are broad and airy, the shops extremely good, the private residences remarkable for their elegance and neatness.  There is something of invention and fancy in the varying styles of these latter erections, which, after the dull company of the steamboat, is perfectly delightful, as conveying an assurance that there are such qualities still in existence.  The disposition to ornament these pretty villas and render them attractive, leads to the culture of trees and flowers, and the laying out of well-kept gardens, the sight of which, to those who walk along the streets, is inexpressibly refreshing and agreeable.  I was quite charmed with the appearance of the town, and its adjoining suburb of Mount Auburn: from which the city, lying in an amphitheatre of hills, forms a picture of remarkable beauty, and is seen to great advantage."

                                                                      --I felt compelled to send it to her. She liked it. He also noted that at this time, Cincinnati was a "thriving" city of 50,000. 

In other news...Dickens left Cincinnati and made the 13 hour trip (!) to Louisville. Let's see, that's 133 miles by the Ohio River...so they averaged a blazing 10 miles per hour. He stayed at The Galt House (which he called "a splendid hotel," then "The city presenting no objects of sufficient interest to detain us on our way, we resolved to proceed next day...." So much for my "hometown." Thanks, Charlie!

Day 8 (DDRD 1,824) October 29, 2022

Read to page 240.

Day 9 (DDRD 1,825) October 30, 2022

Read to page 271--to the end of Chapter XVI, which bears the title "The Passage Home." And indeed, by chapter's end we find Dickens leaving Liverpool by train, heading back to his home. 

But there are still two more chapters in this book: XVII "Slavery" and XVIII "Concluding Remarks" and "POSTSCRIPT." I'm guessing that I'll soon have a fuller idea of just how revolted Dickens was by "the peculiar institution." 

Dickens mentioned how he knew the ocean journey was about over with when Cape Clear showed up in front of them. And I said to myself, "Self, there can't be more than one Cape Clear, right?" So I checked, and sure enough...

                                ...you could walk from this Cape Clear to Baltimore in a little more than an hour. Well..."walk." 

At any rate...Hello, Baltimore my friend!

And P. Fuckin' S.:

Day 10 (DDRD 1,826) 🎃October 31, 2022 🎃

Read to page 305 (The End) and then read the Notes from 519 to 521. It was a good book, and it definitely helped to wash the bad taste of Martin Chuzzlewit out of my mind's mouth. And now I'll just go right on into Pictures From Italy.

Here are a couple of my favorite parting shots at The American Character: 

"Any printed lie that any notorious villain pens, although it militate directly against the character and conduct of a life, appeals at once to your distrust, and is believed." (292)

"The following dialogue I have held a hundred times: ‘Is it not a very disgraceful circumstance that such a man as So-and-so should be acquiring a large property by the most infamous and odious means, and notwithstanding all the crimes of which he has been guilty, should be tolerated and abetted by your Citizens?  He is a public nuisance, is he not?’  ‘Yes, sir.’  ‘A convicted liar?’  ‘Yes, sir.’  ‘He has been kicked, and cuffed, and caned?’  ‘Yes, sir.’  ‘And he is utterly dishonourable, debased, and profligate?’  ‘Yes, sir.’  ‘In the name of wonder, then, what is his merit?’  ‘Well, sir, he is a smart man.’" (293)

That pretty much explains the whole veneration of Trump, doesn't it?

DDR Day 1 to 1,000: 13,449 pages read

DDR Day 1001 to Day 2000:
(1) Leviathan 63 days, 729 pages
(2) Stalingrad 27 days, 982 pages
(3) Life and Fate 26 days, 880 pages
(4) The Second World War 34 + 32 + 40 + 43 + 31 + 32 days = 212 days, 4,379 pages 
(5) Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming 10 days, 572 pages
(6) The Great Bridge 25 days, 636 pages

(7) The Path Between the Seas 29 days, 698 pages
(8) Blake: Prophet Against Empire, 23 days, 523 pages
(9) Jerusalem 61 days, 1,266 pages
(10) Voice of the Fire 9 days, 320 pages
(11) The Fountainhead 15 days, 720 pages
(12) The Pacific Trilogy: Pacific Crucible 23 days, 640 pages

(13) The Pacific Trilogy: The Conquering Tide 28 days, 656 pages

(14) The Pacific Trilogy: Twilight of the Gods 31 days, 944 pages 

(15) Jazz: Its Evolution and Essence 13 days, 304 pages

(16) Toward Jazz 18 days, 224 pages

(17) The Worlds of Jazz 13 days, 279 pages

(18) To Be or Not...to Bop 14 days, 571 pages

(19) Kind of Blue 4 days, 224 pages

(20) Kind of Blue: Miles Davis and his Masterpiece: 5 days, 256 pages

(21) Miles: The Autobiography 16 days, 445 pages

(21) A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane's Signature Album: 8 days, 287 pages

(22) Ascension: John Coltrane and His Quest 8 days, 304 pages

(23) Living With Music: Ralph Ellison's Jazz Writings 11 days 325 pages

(24) The Pickwick Papers 28 days, 983 pages

(25) Oliver Twist 16 days, 542 pages

(26) Nicholas Nickleby 27 days, 1,045 pages

(27) The Old Curiosity Shop 22 days, 753 pages

(28) Barnaby Rudge 24 days, 866 pages

2nd 1K Total: 21,353 (to BR) Average Pages Per Day: 27.38 

Grand Total: 34,802. Average Pages Per Day: 19.55

(29) Master Humprhey's Clock 4 days, 145 pages

(30) Martin Chuzzlewit 32 days, 1,045 pages

(31) American Notes __ days, 324 pages

(Dickens, Trump)

Does this quote make my ex-president look like a big ass?

"Pandering to the worst of human passions was the office of his nature: and faithfully he did his work!" 

(Martin Chuzzlewit, page 467)

Amazon: Kicking Small Publishers in the Nuts and / or Ripping You Off

 I was jogging through Half-Price Books the other day (I HAVE to go there at least once a week, but I try to move fast so as to minimize the number of books I'm compelled to purchase) when I caught a glimpse of this beauty:

It stopped me in my tracks. I've been hopelessly in love with Arundhati Roy since I read The God of Small Things (one of the greatest novels of all time, by the way), and though I haven't read all of her books, I've kept up with her. Or thought that I had, because I somehow missed this one. 

At first I guessed that it must've just been published, but a peek at the copyright page showed that it had actually come out in 2019, so I really managed to miss that boat. The price was $14.99, and it was HEFTy...1,000 pages hefty. I would have bought it immediately, of course, but the weight of it was intimidating. And I have So Many books already. And SUREly the Louisville Free Public Library could be counted on to have this tome, right? So I put the book back on its little kickstand and carefully backed away.

When I got home I checked the LFPL website and...nope. I was astonished. 

So I thought I'd see what I could see elsewhere, starting with Amazon.

That Kindle price seemed a bit steep, though. So I poked around some more, and ended up on the book's publisher's website, my old friend Haymarket Books. And check this out:

So riddle me this: why is Amazon charging almost twice as much as the publisher for the e-book version here? I have heard a lot about Amazon selling books at lower prices so that they can undercut publishers, thus robbing said publishers of their fair profits, but this seems to be a simple case of inflating the price to rip off the consumer. And a quick look around The Usual Suspects on my used bookstores online shows that there is no print version that can compete here, so the unwary buyer might well think $14.99 was a good price for the ebook. 

Nope.

Coco Chow?

I don't use the word "hate" casually. And, in fact, there are not very many things that I would say that I hate.

But I hate Donald Trump. 

To me, he is a person who is so self-absorbed that he would, in the words of Lord Varys from Game of Thrones, "...see this country burn if he could be the King of Ashes." (Game of Thrones Season 3, Episode 4 ("And Now His Watch Is Ended," written by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss).

So I certainly am not nor will I ever be within five hundred miles of being an apologist for him.

But I have to admit that I'm puzzled about the fusillade of news reports reference his recent "racist" Truth Social post about Elaine Chao:

"China loving wife, Coco Chow" is certainly disrespectful and inappropriate...but I have to admit that I don't understand how it is racist. I checked Wikipedia's List of ethnic slurs and epithets by ethnicity (not making this up) to see if they knew something I didn't, and I couldn't find anything corresponding to any of the questionable words in this phrase. I checked other internet sites as well. Nothing.

So I have to admit that unless someone enlightens me, I am not seeing the racism here...and I don't just mean the "Chinese is not a race, so it's xenophobia, not racism" argument. 

And here's the thing: calling this stupid and disrespectful post racism allows Trump's defenders an opportunity to respond by saying, "See? These Woke Snowflakes go out of their way to make unfair accusations of Our Beloved Leader." And I don't think it's ever a good idea to give those fools fuel for their fire.

P.S. By a strange coincidence, as I was thinking about these things at 4 a.m. this morning I was watching a recap of the NFL games from yesterday, and caught a glimpse of this on my television:

It's a strange universe.