For years, I've tried and failed to read certain Great Books. Despite a much-indulged interest in modernist fiction I cannot slog beyond the page-thirty mark of Bloch's The Death of Virgil. The Last of the Mohicans has bored me at least once per decade since age 15. When it comes to Dracula's epistolary style, it's Bram Stoker 11, Me 0.
The ebook possibilities have led me to look again at rewriting public domain works in a style that's actually readable, perhaps even enjoyable, for contemporary readers. Those of a certain age remember the pop revisions of The Bible that hit the shelves in the Seventies. Same idea.
Though I mentioned well-known works above, and will return to that idea in another post, the main purpose of the rewrite project would be to revive second-tier or obscure public domain works. These novels offer stories or characters of interest to contemporary readers. Alas, the literary conventions of their times drain the modern reader's joy in the story, if not his/her will to live. But... if one could "translate" the outdated prose or difficult style into a form accessible to the modern-day reader, these mostly forgotten works might rebound back into the public consciousness, at least that miniscule part of the public conscientiousness concerned with reading. Curiosity seekers and masochists might even seek out the original.
By way of an example, let me propose a commercial revisiting of Cornelius Mathews' Behemoth: A Legend of the Mound Builders, a 19th-Century let's-kill-the-monster tale that may have provided a grain of inspiration for a famous white whale. Our revisited version would keep the basic plot and characters. Even the dialogue could remain, though from the little I've read, I'm not certain Behemoth has dialogue.
But the rewriter could take some poetic license. Adding accurate archaeological details regarding the Mound Builder culture, for example. Maybe throw in background info and psychological detail on the characters. Add new conflicts and even better characters. Better pacing. Humor or horror or whatever other entertainment value might be appropriate.
A frontier epic about the destruction of a Native American legend/monster, (re-)done right, can find an audience. It's like Dances with Wolves meets Call of Cthulhu!
I recognize that such alterations offend purists, and that I may even run afoul of some violent local chapter of the Cornelius Mathews Society. But Behemoth is not going to make a comeback on its own. Nor is it a classic. Nor is it a minor work by a major 19th Century author, though Mathews did enjoy fame in his own day as a writer and critic, and perhaps most of all as a persistent advocate of a homegrown American literature. Nor is it terribly readable in its original form.
I can change the readability piece, however. By so doing I'd also resurrect Mathews, if only to the members of an as-yet-unformed reading subculture that will occasionally invest $1.49 in reinterprations of obscure public domain texts. Would Cornelius mind? Possibly. A lot of authors consider every word they right pure gold.
Then again, he's not getting a lot of attention. Surely a flawed notoriety (however small) beats a noble obscurity.
Tuesday, February 07, 2012
Wednesday, February 01, 2012
Rough Draft: Grandmothers and hockey
From the Blackhawks book in progress.
Grandmothers want you around more than your parents do. My folks weren’t going to chase me into a blizzard. But they made it clear that being outside on any weather short of a rain of toads trumped sitting in front of TV. Willie Bea, by contrast, wanted company. Granny was a fairly active sixtysomething, mind you. Not an unspent overachiever running marathons, but humankind could’ve reached Mars by harnessing the energy she spent washing clothes, cleaning dishes, cooking up homemade divinity, and sewing buttons. Still, it was winter. In those days, when sixty was the old sixty and orthopedics had not yet advanced enough to save Bobby Orr’s knees, slipping on the ice had enormous consequences. Better to stay inside.
I’m not sure Willie Bea liked watching sports. But she did watch them, all the way into her eighties, and I don’t think she was just trying to keep me happy. She ranged far beyond the NHL on NBC. The Harlem Globetrotters, tape delays of Frazier or Ali or Foreman licking some alleged challenger, whatever the Norwegians were doing with skis that week on Wide World of Sports—if she had switched the laundry and no one had thrown a button, she was there, and with rigid posture, at least until she dozed off.
Willie Bea must’ve considered pro basketball her favorite. I say that because hoops actually got her excited enough to stay awake. At times she even raised her shrill granny voice—in a tone that reminded everyone of her Beverly Hillbillies namesake, or a pterodactyl—to tell someone to “get it, get it” or “ruuuuun.” Once a game she would see Moses Malone or the like and say in awed tones, “Now that’s a big man.” Someone told me a possibly apocryphal story that Granny had played basketball as a girl. Since some girls’ leagues played a nine-on-nine game in the Twenties, I imagine you could roster a skinny five-footer and be okay. It must’ve been hard to pull off a crossover dribble in billowy pantaloons.
Grandmothers want you around more than your parents do. My folks weren’t going to chase me into a blizzard. But they made it clear that being outside on any weather short of a rain of toads trumped sitting in front of TV. Willie Bea, by contrast, wanted company. Granny was a fairly active sixtysomething, mind you. Not an unspent overachiever running marathons, but humankind could’ve reached Mars by harnessing the energy she spent washing clothes, cleaning dishes, cooking up homemade divinity, and sewing buttons. Still, it was winter. In those days, when sixty was the old sixty and orthopedics had not yet advanced enough to save Bobby Orr’s knees, slipping on the ice had enormous consequences. Better to stay inside.
I’m not sure Willie Bea liked watching sports. But she did watch them, all the way into her eighties, and I don’t think she was just trying to keep me happy. She ranged far beyond the NHL on NBC. The Harlem Globetrotters, tape delays of Frazier or Ali or Foreman licking some alleged challenger, whatever the Norwegians were doing with skis that week on Wide World of Sports—if she had switched the laundry and no one had thrown a button, she was there, and with rigid posture, at least until she dozed off.
Willie Bea must’ve considered pro basketball her favorite. I say that because hoops actually got her excited enough to stay awake. At times she even raised her shrill granny voice—in a tone that reminded everyone of her Beverly Hillbillies namesake, or a pterodactyl—to tell someone to “get it, get it” or “ruuuuun.” Once a game she would see Moses Malone or the like and say in awed tones, “Now that’s a big man.” Someone told me a possibly apocryphal story that Granny had played basketball as a girl. Since some girls’ leagues played a nine-on-nine game in the Twenties, I imagine you could roster a skinny five-footer and be okay. It must’ve been hard to pull off a crossover dribble in billowy pantaloons.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Epics Made Easy: Njal's Saga, Chapter 4
Previously: Hrut goes to Norway in pursuit of his inheritance and meets King Harald. Hrut spends a fortnight in the (ahem) upper chamber with the king’s mother. Harald soon makes him a retainer.
Hrut learns that Soti, the keeper of the inheritance, has run off with the money to Denmark. The Cayman Islands of medieval Europe? Anyway, King Harald and his lusty mother Gunnhild loan the intrepid Icelander four longships to go after the thieving nogoodnik. They also assign Ulf the Unwashed, leader of the gestasveit, to lend our hero service. In a footnote we learn the gestasveit was a secret police organization responsible for rooting out rebellion. King Harald sees off Hrut and the pursuit is on!
Next time: Hrut runs afoul of pirates; spears are thrown; much booty is seized.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Epics Made Easy: Njal's Saga, Chapter 3
Previously: Hrut Herjolfsson, now engaged, sets sail with his Uncle Ozur to claim an inheritance in Norway. Riding a favorable wind, they reach the country in three weeks.
After a shout-out to King Harald Grey-Cloak and a short list of his forefathers, the story turns to the intrigues of Queen Gunnhild, Harald’s mother and a woman of influence. According to Ozur, she controls the fate of Hrut’s inheritance. “I know Gunnhild’s nature,” Ozur warns. “The moment we refuse her invitation, she will hound us out of the country and seize all we own; but if we accept, she will treat us as handsomely as she promised.”
Hrut asks to become the king’s retainer. Harald, unimpressed, nonetheless yields to his mother’s high opinion of the visitor and tells him to return in a fortnight to take up his duties. Meanwhile, he’s to stay in Gunnhild’s tapestry-filled hall. A night of drink and Gunnhild states that Hrut is to lie with her in the upper chamber—alone. “Such matters are for you to decide,” says our shrewd and amenable Viking. After two weeks in the love nest, Hrut gives the queen fine cloth and furs, then returns to the king—with thirty men, just to be safe. On Gunnhild’s suggestion, however, Hrut is granted a place of high honor.
Next time: Enter . . . Ulf the Unwashed.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
45s: Tipping points
Throughout pop history certain artists have combined an inexplicable run of success with historic suckdom. One or two probably occurred to you at the very moment you landed on the period at the end of that sentence. Said acts pulled a train of hits through an era. Today they, and the hits they spawned, stand as watchwords for nostalgic kitsch, at best, and cultural assault, at worst.
Yet, yet, in the list of their hits lurks a mostly forgotten song that takes them into a still deeper level of badness. When you hear this song it makes you think, My God, they're even worse than I thought.
I have no pithy term to apply to this concept, nor to the offending song. But the phenomenon deserves study.
Target: Billy Joel
After a dalliance in metal, Joel broke through as an inoffensive singer/songwriter who tried to keep that vibe going even as he became an adult contemporary colossus. But he ran out of gas after 52nd Street or during The Nylon Curtain and, his own creativity tapped, filled vinyl by cannibalizing the history of pop music. New Wave, doo wop, Springsteen, Fifties pop, Phil Spector, the Four Seasons, reggae (!), hard rockin' early Beatles--the man was voracious.
My God!: Going just on my level of antipathy, I'd choose "You're Only Human (Second Wind)." I find the background vocals to be transcendently grating, and the overall song sounds like the theme to a Jim Belushi-Whoopi Goldberg comedy that fortunately remained unmade. Also, the Human League did the same thing better the next year. But I cannot in clear conscience pick on a song written for suicide prevention. Frankly, I'm conflicted about hassling Joel at all, as the guy has been treated for depression more than once in his life, and was friendly the one time I spoke to him. As I am obviously a soft-spined weak ass, I will forgive "You're Only Human" and instead pin the My God! label on 1984's dire "Keeping the Faith," his 12th or so Fifties homage and a hit mostly forgotten after its run up the charts. Double negative vibes for a video that showed off Christie Brinkley (we get it, dude) and gave Joe Piscopo a cameo.
Target: Lionel Ritchie (solo)
If you lived through the 1980s, you can call off a Lionel Ritchie playlist that sounds like a list of felonies. "All Night Long." "Hello." "Stuck on You." The "We Are the World" disaster. "Dancing on the Ceiling." That's enough to condemn anyone.
My God!: Yet, yet, "Running with the Night" takes the man even further into Perdition. You can picture Lionel in the studio with the tape ready to roll. He's got his fists balled in excitement. This is where I want to get edgy, he tells the musicians. No more of that "Stuck on You" treacle. I want hot! I want dangerous! Then these collected professionals--they include Steve Lukather of Toto and (choke) Richard Marx--deliver what a person with synesthesia would hear as the color biege.
"Running with the Night" admittedly subverts some of what I'm getting at. Most My God! songs come late in a run of hits, when all the bandwagon jumpers have made their leap. But "Running" followed up "All Night Long," the first mega-single from Can't Slow Down. Still, it fits our concept as it seldom got airplay after its heyday. "Dancing on the Ceiling" came later, but if you'd like to become the first My God! purist, we'll choose it instead. Cover artists for "Running" include available-via-this-TV-offer-only giant Richard Clayderman. 'Nuff said.
Target: Phil Collins/Genesis
I read that Collins, having purchased the Alamo, sits in his Swiss chalet and wrestles with the black dog due to the abuse rained on his career. Looking at his singles list from a historical angle, I'd say that, for my money, nothing plumbs greater depths than what he inflicted on an innocent public back in the 1980s. He seems like a pleasant enough sort in a Ringo way, though. It couldn't have been easy to hold onto a sense of humor after years of contact with Peter Gabriel.
My God!: Only one thing saves "Another Day in Paradise" (with David Crosby on backup, no less) from worst-of-the-decade honors: ninety other hits were just as bad, and that's too many certificates to print out. The song doesn't work for our purposes, alas, because everyone remembers it, indeed puts their fists to their temples and screams gibberish about "that homeless song" if it's mentioned. The thing is, I can't pinpoint one Collins song that's extraordinarily bad. There's a spectrum, with aggravating ballads on one end and "Another Day in Paradise" on the other, but he maintained a very consistent level of suckdom. I'm going to go with "Take Me Home." Not as obscure as "Don't Lose My Number," but the drum machine mania makes it worse, and it was the last hit single released off an Eighties mega-album. Honorable mentions to Genesis' "Invisible Touch" and all the Collins/Genesis songs with tonight or the letter a in the title.
Target: Huey Lewis and the News
My favorite thing about Huey Lewis and the News is that they beat Ray Parker Jr. out of a pile of cash for the latter's appropriation of "I Want a New Drug" for the Ghostbusters theme. That you'd rip off Huey Lewis and run with it on a high profile piece of product--I mean, the lack of taste on display is actually surpassed by the lack of ethics, and the stupidity dwarfs both.
Huey and the News broke with the inoffensive "Do You Believe in Love?" but Sports launched a thousand hits (and 10 million units). "Hip to Be Square," a regrettably memorable song from the Fore long play, came near the end of their string and has since been immortalized, in proper cultural context yet, by Christian Bale in American Psycho.
My God!: "Stuck with You." Because Billy Joel didn't wear out the old time music homages. Even worse when you consider it worked the same themes as Orleans' "Still the One."
Target: Bryan Adams
Philanthropist and vegan, so archetypically a Canadian his middle name is Guy, Adams started out as a fill-in singer for Sweeney Todd (more or less replacing Nick Gilder) at age 15. Aided by craprepreneur Mutt Lange, Adams flourished all over the Eighties before closing out his salad days with two culture-halting mega-ballads: "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You," a single that sold in historic volume; and "All for One," the Adams-Sting-Rod Stewart super team-up meant to remind us of the Three Musketeers. That very serious trio could've really used a Porthos. I assume Meat Loaf was unavailable.
My God!: The ballads are unforgettable, and therefore unsuitable for our project. "Please Forgive Me," a 1993 song released in utter defiance of every music trend then bearing fruit, had less of a hold on memory in the U.S. I could never hear 1985's "Heaven" again, either. But I will, probably while tied to a chair at a wedding in Hell.
Yet, yet, in the list of their hits lurks a mostly forgotten song that takes them into a still deeper level of badness. When you hear this song it makes you think, My God, they're even worse than I thought.
I have no pithy term to apply to this concept, nor to the offending song. But the phenomenon deserves study.
Target: Billy Joel
After a dalliance in metal, Joel broke through as an inoffensive singer/songwriter who tried to keep that vibe going even as he became an adult contemporary colossus. But he ran out of gas after 52nd Street or during The Nylon Curtain and, his own creativity tapped, filled vinyl by cannibalizing the history of pop music. New Wave, doo wop, Springsteen, Fifties pop, Phil Spector, the Four Seasons, reggae (!), hard rockin' early Beatles--the man was voracious.
My God!: Going just on my level of antipathy, I'd choose "You're Only Human (Second Wind)." I find the background vocals to be transcendently grating, and the overall song sounds like the theme to a Jim Belushi-Whoopi Goldberg comedy that fortunately remained unmade. Also, the Human League did the same thing better the next year. But I cannot in clear conscience pick on a song written for suicide prevention. Frankly, I'm conflicted about hassling Joel at all, as the guy has been treated for depression more than once in his life, and was friendly the one time I spoke to him. As I am obviously a soft-spined weak ass, I will forgive "You're Only Human" and instead pin the My God! label on 1984's dire "Keeping the Faith," his 12th or so Fifties homage and a hit mostly forgotten after its run up the charts. Double negative vibes for a video that showed off Christie Brinkley (we get it, dude) and gave Joe Piscopo a cameo.
If you lived through the 1980s, you can call off a Lionel Ritchie playlist that sounds like a list of felonies. "All Night Long." "Hello." "Stuck on You." The "We Are the World" disaster. "Dancing on the Ceiling." That's enough to condemn anyone.
My God!: Yet, yet, "Running with the Night" takes the man even further into Perdition. You can picture Lionel in the studio with the tape ready to roll. He's got his fists balled in excitement. This is where I want to get edgy, he tells the musicians. No more of that "Stuck on You" treacle. I want hot! I want dangerous! Then these collected professionals--they include Steve Lukather of Toto and (choke) Richard Marx--deliver what a person with synesthesia would hear as the color biege.
"Running with the Night" admittedly subverts some of what I'm getting at. Most My God! songs come late in a run of hits, when all the bandwagon jumpers have made their leap. But "Running" followed up "All Night Long," the first mega-single from Can't Slow Down. Still, it fits our concept as it seldom got airplay after its heyday. "Dancing on the Ceiling" came later, but if you'd like to become the first My God! purist, we'll choose it instead. Cover artists for "Running" include available-via-this-TV-offer-only giant Richard Clayderman. 'Nuff said.
Target: Phil Collins/Genesis
I read that Collins, having purchased the Alamo, sits in his Swiss chalet and wrestles with the black dog due to the abuse rained on his career. Looking at his singles list from a historical angle, I'd say that, for my money, nothing plumbs greater depths than what he inflicted on an innocent public back in the 1980s. He seems like a pleasant enough sort in a Ringo way, though. It couldn't have been easy to hold onto a sense of humor after years of contact with Peter Gabriel.
My God!: Only one thing saves "Another Day in Paradise" (with David Crosby on backup, no less) from worst-of-the-decade honors: ninety other hits were just as bad, and that's too many certificates to print out. The song doesn't work for our purposes, alas, because everyone remembers it, indeed puts their fists to their temples and screams gibberish about "that homeless song" if it's mentioned. The thing is, I can't pinpoint one Collins song that's extraordinarily bad. There's a spectrum, with aggravating ballads on one end and "Another Day in Paradise" on the other, but he maintained a very consistent level of suckdom. I'm going to go with "Take Me Home." Not as obscure as "Don't Lose My Number," but the drum machine mania makes it worse, and it was the last hit single released off an Eighties mega-album. Honorable mentions to Genesis' "Invisible Touch" and all the Collins/Genesis songs with tonight or the letter a in the title.
Target: Huey Lewis and the News
My favorite thing about Huey Lewis and the News is that they beat Ray Parker Jr. out of a pile of cash for the latter's appropriation of "I Want a New Drug" for the Ghostbusters theme. That you'd rip off Huey Lewis and run with it on a high profile piece of product--I mean, the lack of taste on display is actually surpassed by the lack of ethics, and the stupidity dwarfs both.
Huey and the News broke with the inoffensive "Do You Believe in Love?" but Sports launched a thousand hits (and 10 million units). "Hip to Be Square," a regrettably memorable song from the Fore long play, came near the end of their string and has since been immortalized, in proper cultural context yet, by Christian Bale in American Psycho.
My God!: "Stuck with You." Because Billy Joel didn't wear out the old time music homages. Even worse when you consider it worked the same themes as Orleans' "Still the One."
Philanthropist and vegan, so archetypically a Canadian his middle name is Guy, Adams started out as a fill-in singer for Sweeney Todd (more or less replacing Nick Gilder) at age 15. Aided by craprepreneur Mutt Lange, Adams flourished all over the Eighties before closing out his salad days with two culture-halting mega-ballads: "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You," a single that sold in historic volume; and "All for One," the Adams-Sting-Rod Stewart super team-up meant to remind us of the Three Musketeers. That very serious trio could've really used a Porthos. I assume Meat Loaf was unavailable.
My God!: The ballads are unforgettable, and therefore unsuitable for our project. "Please Forgive Me," a 1993 song released in utter defiance of every music trend then bearing fruit, had less of a hold on memory in the U.S. I could never hear 1985's "Heaven" again, either. But I will, probably while tied to a chair at a wedding in Hell.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Epics Made Easy: Njal's Saga, Chapter 2
Previously: the stepbrothers Hoskuld and Hrut had a disagreement about the morals of Hoskuld’s daughter, Hallgerd, who according to Hrut has “thief’s eyes.” Also: many ancestors were mentioned, including Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye and Olaf Peacock.
CHAPTER 2
Hoskuld and Hrut set out for the Althing, Iceland’s parliament. Hoskuld insists his stepbrother find a wife and suggests Unn, daughter of the mighty chieftain and lawyer Mord Fiddle. “I like the look of her,” says Hrut. “But I do not know we are destined to be happy together.” You ain’t kidding, Hrut. Mord, too, is dubious, and he isn’t buying Hoskuld’s brotherly hype. Hrut admits, “love makes Hoskuld exaggerate my virtues.”
Mord insists on a dowry of sixty hundreds, a price explained in a boggling footnote that says a hundred refers to 120 ells of woolen cloth and that this translates to various numbers of livestock. The translator helpfully runs the numbers and comes out with a dowry of 80 cows. Hrut, owed a fair amount of land and already owner of a trading ship, agrees to the price and is betrothed to Unn.
On the way home, however, Hrut learns that a sizable inheritance awaits him—in Norway. Enemies, alas, threaten to seize the money. But if Hrut leaves Iceland to claim the cash it’ll wreak havoc with the date of his wedding. The longhouse is rented, the skalds hired, it's a mess. Hrut asks Mord for an extension. His future father-in-law agrees to wait three years to give his daughter away. Thus protected, Hrut sets sail, for some reason with everything he owns, and heads for Oslo Fjord.
NEXT TIME: Queen Gunnhild wants what Hrut’s got, and it has nothing to do with cows.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)