Individual Titles

Drawing the Line

May 29, 2020 by CP Leave a Comment

Perhaps best known as the author of Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift was also engaged in the political and social debates of his time. Combining satire and allegory, he wrote The Battle of the Books (published in 1704) as an introduction to the possibly more famous and certainly more polemic A Tale of a Tub.

As a stand-alone fiction, The Battle of the Books forms a comedy that is apparent not just in its rhetoric and satire. The story of some learned books housed in the King’s Library taking sides in the ancient versus modern debate, leading to a full-blown battle, reflects the then fierce argument between the merits of either side. Attack and counterattack also form a parody of the battles found in Homer and the Iliad.

Swift is skilful in his moving of the debate from a verbal one, between a spider housed in the library and a visiting bee, to a physical one. After listening to the discussion and author Aesop’s comments on it, the books begin to hurl abuse at each other, then move on to spears and other weapons of war as the disagreement deepens. The gods enter the fray, as do the seventeenth century proponents of the argument, in particular those whom Swift himself knew and worked with, including Sir William Temple and William Wotton.

The anthropomorphising of the books is emphasized by the different sides choosing leaders, allowing an interpretation of Swift’s own view in the argument. This leads to the incorporation of an attack on critics, one of whom the moderns have chosen as their leader, and Swift’s view that critics are dispensable is confirmed when the battle continues perfectly well without them.

The incidents of the battle reflect incidents in the real-life debate, and some knowledge of the situation at the time helps in interpreting the story. Swift, for example, takes pot-shots at his rival Dryden, and the objects of the spear throws, the heads not fitting their helmets, and the ineffectual actions of various allies and leaders, lend substance to the battle. The reader can still enjoy the story though, even without a seventeenth-century knowledge and education.

With Swift’s use of literary devices, such as bits of a purported manuscript missing and therefore not permitting a supposed full transcription, he allows the story’s conclusion to remain open. The relevance of and reason for the battles have echoes in twenty-first century political debates, and archaic language aside The Battle of the Books remains a comic and rewarding read.

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World Travel

May 22, 2020 by CP Leave a Comment

Primarily an adventure story, Around the World in Eighty Days was written by Jules Verne, one of the most frequently translated authors in the world. Published in French in 1872 and in English in 1873, the story begins in London with English gentleman Phileas Fogg and his French manservant Passepartout setting out across the globe to win a bet Fogg has made with acquaintances at his club. If Fogg loses the bet he loses half of his substantial fortune, so the tension is set early on in the story.

Using careful calculations, Fogg endeavours to circle the globe in the most modern and therefore the quickest way possible, but his intensions are significantly complicated when he realises he is being pursued as a suspected bank robber. As the quarry of ambitious Detective Fix from Scotland Yard, who will stop at nothing to get his man, Fogg still manages to focus on his goal and he continues to move ahead despite a never-ending series of difficulties and setbacks.

Verne had a strong interest in technological advances which were developing rapidly in the 1860s and ’70s, and Around the World in Eighty Days is an illustration of how exciting this was at the time. In a showcase of the different modes of transport available in the mid-19^th century, incidentally excluding the hot air balloon although this has become synonymous with the story via the film version of 1956, Verne incorporates the exhilaration of speed and the frequent inconvenience of timetables into the story.

Fogg is inspired by news of the efficiency and speed of a new railway in India, and his journey across the globe is accomplished mainly via train and steamer, although episodes involving an elephant add to the interest. Romance also enters the fray, with Fogg and Passepartout rescuing a damsel in distress in India. The romance theme continues from that point on, leavening the story that proceeds with adventure, trickery and deceit as the pair near the completion of their journey. Does Fogg win his bet? Read it and see.

The humour is sustained in Around the World in Eighty Days through the use of an outrageous storyline, dramatic tension and the always present intention of Fogg who aims to achieve his goal no matter what, or almost no matter what. Verne produced the book in collaboration with his publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel as part of the popular adventure series Voyages extraordinaires.

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Versatile Anatomy

May 15, 2020 by CP Leave a Comment

Coming in at just over 1000 words, The Eyes have It by Philip K Dick is one of his shorter stories. Published in 1953, it contains the elements of science fiction on which Dick based most of his stories, but also presents the idea of how the English language can be misconstrued when taken literally, with very unusual results.

The story begins with the narrator reading a book and starting to imagine it is describing the takeover of earth by extra-terrestrial life. He determines the characters are aliens by the way in which they are able to engage in fantastic actions such as removing parts of their body and sending them to undertake independent action. With eyes roving around the room and an arm placed around someone else’s shoulder the narrator is in no doubt that he is in the presence of aliens.

The idea is taken further, with the narrator interpreting a group ‘splitting up’ as yet one more example of the fiendish ability of the aliens to distribute their bodily attributes as and wherever they wish. With other abnormalities present, such as one alien missing a brain and another lacking in guts, not to mention yet another giving away her heart, the narrator begins to see the characters as individuals each with their own particular horror.

The Eyes have It is an illustration of how much an author assumes of the reader for their use of language be understood. The way in which language can be employed for different meanings, the difference between literal and intended meanings and the misunderstandings that can occur when the two are not distinguished, are emphasised by Dick throughout the story.

At another level, the story is also a depiction of paranoia, as seen in the interpretation of the book by the narrator as the depiction of an alien invasion rather than as a regular story and non-literal word use. As Dick relies on the reader being in touch with reality to appreciate the different levels, the mental state of the narrator may counter the humour otherwise evident in the story.

With his tenuous grasp on reality, the narrator does nothing with what he thinks is his discovery, and takes refuge in a personality trait that possibly led him to interpret the story in the way that he did in the first place. But in the end, whether or not the human response wins out over the paranoid or the paranormal is left for the reader to decide.

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O, No

May 8, 2020 by CP Leave a Comment

The Wonderful O, a fairy tale by James Thurber, was published in 1957. Written ostensibly for children, the story follows the nefarious activities of the two evil pirates Black and Littlejack and the actions that result from their loathing of the letter O.

The pirates arrive with their crew on the island Ooroo aboard their ship the Aeiu in the pursuit of treasure. Not immediately finding it, they create chaos as they take over the island and its inhabitants and set about installing a new rule based on the banning of the letter O, leading to its removal from all objects, actions and emotions that contain it. With the resulting words contracted to nonsense, the people of Ooroo, or R as it has become, can no longer communicate in a meaningful way.

To illustrate how the English language copes without the use of one of its more frequently employed letters, the story proceeds with lists of words and how they change meaning without all of their letters. Thurber groups the words into topical sections creating a coherent exercise for the developing reader. Animals, different kinds of food, and body parts are just three of the many word clusters that form an integral part of the story.

Thurber’s further use of literary techniques such as word play and poetry-like phrasing, as well as bookish allusions likely to go over the head of the average eight-year-old, ensure the story is funny for adults as well as for children.

Underlying the fairy story, various subplots turn The Wonderful O from a child’s-own romp through fantasy and language to a comment on totalitarianism and the underground movements that develop in order to fight it. All of them are illustrations of the relatively recent realities of life as lived during the second world war, directed at the adult but allowing an introduction for some of its young readers in the older age bracket.

Complementing the political subplots, Thurber relays a message through his underground characters as they work out the importance of the meaning of words such as Honour and Valour, and their final conclusion of which constitutes the greatest of all possible words.

Although Thurber was also a cartoonist and often illustrated his own work, by the time The Wonderful O was published he was no longer able to see well enough to draw. Various editions have had different artists depict the story, with the first edition illustrated by his friend and colleague Marc Simont and a later edition by Ronald Searle.

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A Nose for It

May 1, 2020 by CP Leave a Comment

As an example of surrealism in written form, the short story The NosebyNikolai Gogol holds its own more than 180 years after it was published in the mid-1830s. In addition to its absurd storyline, that of a nose that undertakes a series of adventures independently of its owner, it is also very funny.

Part of the humour is embedded in Gogol’s running commentary on the social obsession with rank and status held by the residents of the Russian city of St Petersburg where the story is set. The main character Collegiate Assessor Kovalyov, who although a civil servant of middling rank has decided to refer to himself as ‘Major’ due to the title’s implied superiority, wakes up one morning to find that his nose has disappeared, leaving a blank patch of skin in its place.

Kovalyov eventually locates his nose living a life of its own as a separate person-size but nose-looking individual, and much to his horror and dismay finds that it now holds a position superior to his own. The way in which this situation leaves him at a complete loss is based on the reality of the rivalry and jostling for position within the bureaucracy, and it is this that carries the reader along with the less than believable story.

The story ends with the nose located, it having been on the point of absconding to live a permanently independent life of its own, and delivered to Kovalyov by the policeman who apprehended it. It is once more nose-sized, and after a series of difficulties during which Kovalyov attempts to reattach it to its rightful position, all is resolved.

Taking the story on a more serious level, various theories of what the nose represents have been proposed. The obsession with appearance is one theory, demonstrating what may happen in the absence of the most prominent feature of a person’s face and potentially the representative of that person’s status.

Pointing to Kovalyov’s prowess with women, another popular theory is the likelihood of the nose being a phallic symbol, also possibly due to all civil servants being at that time male. With the loss of the nose that holds its own power, the revised status of its owner is emphasised when it goes missing.

Despite a complete lack of explanation on the part of the author as to why and how the nose removed itself, The Nose remains a funny and enjoyable read on its own terms.

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And that’s that

April 17, 2020 by CP Leave a Comment

“I know it is wet
And the sun is not sunny.
But we can have
lots of good fun that is funny!”

Who hasn’t read these words, central to the children’s book The Cat in the Hat by Dr Seuss? Functioning on more than one level, humour is an integral part of Dr Seuss’s books for children and The Cat in the Hat enjoyed immediate success on its publication in 1957. It has remained a benchmark in children’s literature ever since.

Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr Seuss was a pseudonym and Geisel no doctor) wrote and illustrated The Cat in the Hat as a challenge from his editor who wanted a book for early readers that was not wearisome and uninspiring, as most of the primers at that time were. Working within the framework of the debate about child literacy, Geisel used a limited range of words thought necessary for the beginning reader and the book contains 236 different words.

The anthropomorphic cat of the title is a madcap character who walks into the house of two bored children and creates mayhem in the absence of their mother. Using a structure built around the adventures of two small children that was popular at the time, Geisel introduces fantasy in the form of the cat and his two friends, Thing One and Thing Two.

With the immediate success of The Cat in the Hat, in both the critical and popular audience, the far-reaching publisher of books for new readers, Beginner Books, was born. With Geisel as an initial partner it became a division of Random House two years later.

Many of Geisel’s stories contain metaphors for real life, and The Cat in the Hat fits into this mould. With a fully formed narrative in verse form that proves to be satisfying on several levels, its traditional nuclear family (minus the father although he has a role in the sequel) and an eye to good behaviour, adults can appreciate the wisdom behind the story. Geisel wrote a sequel to The Cat in the Hat in 1965, The Cat in the Hat Comes Back.

Geisel was a prolific humorous writer and illustrator, becoming one of the most popular and best-selling children’s authors of all time, and received a Pulitzer Prize for his work in 1984. The Cat is the Hat was and remains a favourite for children and adults alike, with its upbeat rhymes, funny story, and lively and engaging illustrations. Enthralling bedtime story for some, joyous romp through a bit of nonsense for others. Take your pick.

Individual Titles

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