While my computer was down, I started reading Dickens again. I've reviewed Little Dorrit in this blog before, about people caught up in debtor's prison--and other prisons. This time, I am reading Dombey and Son.
Dombey and Son is a family-owned firm. All the sons are named Paul. The book starts with the birth of a new Paul, and the death of his mother. The newborn's sister, Florence, is about six years old. She is completely ignored by her father because she cannot take over the business. She's considered a mistake and a disappointment, because she cannot be groomed into an heir to the Dombey tradition.
Dickens is known in the contemporary academic parlance as not having a good handle on women. It's an interesting question, but I'm not so sure it's altogether true. For instance, Dickens didn't invent a lack of business opportunities for women in the Victorian Age, did he? He was telling what he saw: girls were not looked at as viable heirs to a commercial enterprise.
In Dombey and Son, Florence is a paragon of virtue. In the Dombey family, she is the one person who can meet life and death with appropriate emotions. She's not the head of anything, and doesn't look to be.
The "selfless female" comes up a lot in Dickens (Little Dorrit, for instance), and I think forms part of the basis for what is considered Dickens' misogyny. What I think the literature critics don't see is the constant self-analysis and focus that these paragons undertake in order to forgive, excuse, prop up, and otherwise maintain goodness in the face of one disaster after another. But in this book, Dickens distinctly describes how hard it is on the paragon--it's not always natural to them, but a product of self-training and focus. These paragons get blown around and hurt all the time. But they don't give up. And eventually, they prevail. They find happiness.
As Florence comforts her mother on the deathbed, Mr. Dombey watches, mostly over his son and heir. But afterward, he avoids his daughter because he is ashamed of what he lacked when his wife died. Over and over in the book, Florence garners true affection and admiration, only to wish her father would notice her. He only responds to servility: in adult family members, his employees, and the false friends who eventually surround him. Though Florence is obedient, meek, et cetera, it doesn't have the same feel to it as a craven or opportunistic submission. And Mr. Dombey never knows what to do around her. He always feels rebuked, when all she wants is to be accepted. He only hits one note. She hits nearly all of them.
When her brother goes to school, he is physically weak and inundated by the curriculum. Dickens plainly shows that Florence is up to the intellectual task--she gets all of her brother's books and studies them so she can tutor him. The non-modern part of this is that she never shows any ambition to use it for herself, but to help another. Nowhere in the book does she spout off a quote from something she's read, or put herself forward in any way. People do it for her. They want her around. After awhile, you learn who's really moving forward, though: Florence. Her dad is in full retreat. He just doesn't know it.
I find myself wondering how different the world is post-Freud. In this era, we believe that we are the product of our early experiences--Mozart in the crib, judiciously-chosen educational toys, no shoes that pinch the foot, no corsets that bind us up. We don't believe people can be good just in themselves. We don't think they extend themselves emotionally if someone else hasn't done it first, like a parent, to show how it's done. There's a lot more to this book, but I just keep thinking, this time around:
How much of the disconnect between Dickens and a modern reader is Dickens' fault? He had a world view. We think we're past all that. But we are as firmly entrenched in our world view as Dickens was in his.
He thought a good woman could do no wrong. That's not a lot of wiggle room for us non-perfect females. Never to have a resentment, or say a cross word, and to have that "shine through" to perfect strangers, even though someone nearer to us might not see it. It's not that easy. To try to be Florence would twist me like a rope.
On the other hand, in this era, some people still grow up in emotionally distant environments, still have "right" feelings and the impulse to virtue. These remarkable individuals did not have all the advantages, but still bring emotional consonance and decency to their dealings in the world. They do not fit our current formula.
I think Dickens is saying that a good person is able to function with emotional power, to "do the right thing" in whatever role they might have. When emotion enters it, the right thing is sometimes distinct from the "proper" thing. It transcends rank, class, income. A good person listens, sees, feels, and develops internal character.
I also think it is not easy, and that it never was. I think Dickens would say the same.
Just my two cents.
Showing posts with label fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fiction. Show all posts
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Thursday, December 16, 2010
from Keep Your Mind on Your Job . . .
More from Keep Your Mind on Your Job. This is the stepdaughter, Jenny, thirteen years old. She's remembering when she was six, and her father deserted the family after he couldn't make a go of it out west. They ended up in Camp Verde, Arizona, instead of California.
Her uncle Elijah Harris is one of her captors--her birth mother's brother, out with bad companions. Jenny's relationship to her uncle is one of the things keeping them in good health--and maybe the only thing--except Anne Davison's wits.
--
We used to live in Camp Verde in our busted wagon. You could hear what anybody said on the dirt outside. I don’t think Uncle Eli would call it a street.
There were Indians down the hill and soldiers across the way. Cowpunchers and settlers would come through and sometimes dead people got carried in. Most nights the bar would tinkle with fancy music. Noah and I wanted to go. But Mr. Flynn told Noah we’d get the whip hand if we disobeyed our Ma.
One night, some fight crashed out of Mr. Flynn’s saloon. Ma must have been listening for it, because she was still dressed, almost to the hat. They yelled and cursed and grunted when they got hit. I covered my ears and cried; I couldn’t help it. Back then, with my father first gone, I was crying scared almost all the time.
Ma said it was the last straw. She opened the front of our wagon cover and stood behind the seat. She raised the shotgun and fired a double blast. We found that out later.
Noah said that he knew it at the time. But he didn’t know in advance.
“Gentlemen, I have young children.” Ma was so scared, her voice cracked. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but please don’t kill anybody where they can hear it.”
Noah doesn’t think they wanted to kill each other. But he only said that long afterward. At the time, he was scared just like me.
The next day, those men and some others started coming over for coffee. Every last one left a nickel a cup. Each one also advised her to shoot at one of them next time, not at the air. Because she was lucky no one shot back.
And that made no sense to me then, and it doesn’t now either.
But that’s how it started: Ma lost her temper. Then she was ashamed because she put herself forward. And then she went to work, fixing things.
She served bean soup and cornbread and strong coffee off of the back of our wagon. Those men would come by to eat a meal or take away a piece of cornbread. Some days after that, Mr. Hough came to taste the soup. He staked Ma so she could expand business into a tent. And Mr. Flynn had our wagon’s wheels repaired, so we could move behind the business.
Ma thanked him over and over. But I think he did it because men liked to fight in his saloon. And no one gets to fight much with Ma around.
Her uncle Elijah Harris is one of her captors--her birth mother's brother, out with bad companions. Jenny's relationship to her uncle is one of the things keeping them in good health--and maybe the only thing--except Anne Davison's wits.
--
We used to live in Camp Verde in our busted wagon. You could hear what anybody said on the dirt outside. I don’t think Uncle Eli would call it a street.
There were Indians down the hill and soldiers across the way. Cowpunchers and settlers would come through and sometimes dead people got carried in. Most nights the bar would tinkle with fancy music. Noah and I wanted to go. But Mr. Flynn told Noah we’d get the whip hand if we disobeyed our Ma.
One night, some fight crashed out of Mr. Flynn’s saloon. Ma must have been listening for it, because she was still dressed, almost to the hat. They yelled and cursed and grunted when they got hit. I covered my ears and cried; I couldn’t help it. Back then, with my father first gone, I was crying scared almost all the time.
Ma said it was the last straw. She opened the front of our wagon cover and stood behind the seat. She raised the shotgun and fired a double blast. We found that out later.
Noah said that he knew it at the time. But he didn’t know in advance.
“Gentlemen, I have young children.” Ma was so scared, her voice cracked. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but please don’t kill anybody where they can hear it.”
Noah doesn’t think they wanted to kill each other. But he only said that long afterward. At the time, he was scared just like me.
The next day, those men and some others started coming over for coffee. Every last one left a nickel a cup. Each one also advised her to shoot at one of them next time, not at the air. Because she was lucky no one shot back.
And that made no sense to me then, and it doesn’t now either.
But that’s how it started: Ma lost her temper. Then she was ashamed because she put herself forward. And then she went to work, fixing things.
She served bean soup and cornbread and strong coffee off of the back of our wagon. Those men would come by to eat a meal or take away a piece of cornbread. Some days after that, Mr. Hough came to taste the soup. He staked Ma so she could expand business into a tent. And Mr. Flynn had our wagon’s wheels repaired, so we could move behind the business.
Ma thanked him over and over. But I think he did it because men liked to fight in his saloon. And no one gets to fight much with Ma around.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Fiction: Doubt to a Desert Man
This is from a novel I wrote but haven't sent out yet, called Keep Your Mind on Your Job or alternately, The Territory Man. In it, James Davison and his stepson Noah Miller are trying to chase down the men who kidnapped James' wife Anne, his stepdaughter Jenny, and the toddler Sally Anne.
The reason I chose that title is because James is a Territory Man. He's in a big damn hurry and scared of course, but the way he works is also to maintain his own integrity in the desert. That way, he's able to win just by sticking it out longer, making fewer mistakes. But this is much more of a test.
Going out to the writers out there--(hello, The Bug and C.L.)--the desert man I know who's coming back from vacation (hello, Captain)--Bob and Momma Fargo, who are dealing with environment all the time--to Slamdunk and BobKat for the missing persons work--and to anyone who enjoys it. And I hope you do.
They've stopped for the night--this chapter is told from the stepson's point of view.
---
I hear him drink out of the jar. My stomach growls again, loud and long.
“Careful now. We’ll want that jar.”
I feel for the jar in the dark. The tomatoes taste just fine. I use my knife to get them out.
“Annie’s good cooking.”
I cough. It’s the last of Ma’s canning, then. I set them down.
“Finish ‘em,” he says. “That’s what we have.” Something hits my leg. “Plus some of that floodwater rabbit.”
It takes me a minute. But he’s waiting, and he’s right. I pick them back up. He starts talking, low as always.
“When a man comes back from a job like this, he generally says he had the most doubt right before the fast time. But that’s only the story he makes afterward, against people congratulating on him, or telling him how he should have done different.” Pa clears his throat. “But if he remembered true, he’d know he lived in doubt for the whole job. Do you live to be a hundred, Noah, doubt only grows in life. But you get used to it. You learn to work with it heavy on you. I’m more used to it than you are.”
He doesn’t know where they are. That’s what he’s saying. But I knew that.
“Noah,” he growls. “Pay attention.”
“I’m trying.”
“You’re struggling. Just quit.”
I draw in air. “Doubt grows, and you get used to it.”
“Uh-huh. You’ve already made a good start on growing it and getting used to it. You take care of what’s yours, responsible most of the time. But a responsible man is rarely certain what’s altogether best, or if he can do what’s required. He has to choose, and he might be wrong.”
“Yes, sir.” He’s telling me he decided wrong. We should have gone west—
“So. You’ve been right patient, like I said.” Pa’s boot scrapes against rock. “Seagraves will get the message out, that’ll stave off some kinds of trouble we might have afterwards. Or maybe make the difference if we can’t. But we’re getting close to rapidity.”
Close to rapidity.
The jar starts sliding out of my hands. I grab it. “That scout told you something.”
“He had knowledge of this range. I found a stick with blue thread tied on it, two blue threads, not too far from where we are. It might be Annie’s sign for the second camp.”
“Lord.” I take a huge breath. “That’s good. That’s the best yet.”
“So now tell me how much doubt you lost,” Pa says. “Maybe you think I didn’t miscalculate now, but we’re still behind. Next all your what-ifs will come to roost. When we find out which one it is for sure, you’ll start on the if-onlies. Then you’ll sorry me, or expect I’ll sorry you. And maybe I will at that.” He waits. “Nope, that doubt didn’t go down any.”
Lord. He pegged me exactly.
“We’ll find them,” Pa says, after a long quiet. “The chance for disappointment is the same as it was before, Noah. Maybe you’ll never see them alive again. Maybe they’ll be bandbox fresh. But doubt doesn’t leave you, either way. You just handle it, same as you have been. You’ve kept your mind on getting through. So remember you can, and that you have.”
Sometimes I wonder why he doesn’t say these things earlier. But there’s no point in asking that. Pa’s more or less always on desert time.
There are tomatoes left. I eat them, then set the jar to the side. “What’s another way to grow doubt? Other than being responsible.”
“If you were in that band of snakes, you’d have doubts I reckon.”
We’re coming after them. They should have doubts.
“When men have doubts, they fight themselves and each other. We have. They take measures against threat. We’ve done that too.” I hear him pop his knee. “Question is, what fights they had and what measures they took. That refines what you do in fast time.”
The reason I chose that title is because James is a Territory Man. He's in a big damn hurry and scared of course, but the way he works is also to maintain his own integrity in the desert. That way, he's able to win just by sticking it out longer, making fewer mistakes. But this is much more of a test.
Going out to the writers out there--(hello, The Bug and C.L.)--the desert man I know who's coming back from vacation (hello, Captain)--Bob and Momma Fargo, who are dealing with environment all the time--to Slamdunk and BobKat for the missing persons work--and to anyone who enjoys it. And I hope you do.
They've stopped for the night--this chapter is told from the stepson's point of view.
---
I hear him drink out of the jar. My stomach growls again, loud and long.
“Careful now. We’ll want that jar.”
I feel for the jar in the dark. The tomatoes taste just fine. I use my knife to get them out.
“Annie’s good cooking.”
I cough. It’s the last of Ma’s canning, then. I set them down.
“Finish ‘em,” he says. “That’s what we have.” Something hits my leg. “Plus some of that floodwater rabbit.”
It takes me a minute. But he’s waiting, and he’s right. I pick them back up. He starts talking, low as always.
“When a man comes back from a job like this, he generally says he had the most doubt right before the fast time. But that’s only the story he makes afterward, against people congratulating on him, or telling him how he should have done different.” Pa clears his throat. “But if he remembered true, he’d know he lived in doubt for the whole job. Do you live to be a hundred, Noah, doubt only grows in life. But you get used to it. You learn to work with it heavy on you. I’m more used to it than you are.”
He doesn’t know where they are. That’s what he’s saying. But I knew that.
“Noah,” he growls. “Pay attention.”
“I’m trying.”
“You’re struggling. Just quit.”
I draw in air. “Doubt grows, and you get used to it.”
“Uh-huh. You’ve already made a good start on growing it and getting used to it. You take care of what’s yours, responsible most of the time. But a responsible man is rarely certain what’s altogether best, or if he can do what’s required. He has to choose, and he might be wrong.”
“Yes, sir.” He’s telling me he decided wrong. We should have gone west—
“So. You’ve been right patient, like I said.” Pa’s boot scrapes against rock. “Seagraves will get the message out, that’ll stave off some kinds of trouble we might have afterwards. Or maybe make the difference if we can’t. But we’re getting close to rapidity.”
Close to rapidity.
The jar starts sliding out of my hands. I grab it. “That scout told you something.”
“He had knowledge of this range. I found a stick with blue thread tied on it, two blue threads, not too far from where we are. It might be Annie’s sign for the second camp.”
“Lord.” I take a huge breath. “That’s good. That’s the best yet.”
“So now tell me how much doubt you lost,” Pa says. “Maybe you think I didn’t miscalculate now, but we’re still behind. Next all your what-ifs will come to roost. When we find out which one it is for sure, you’ll start on the if-onlies. Then you’ll sorry me, or expect I’ll sorry you. And maybe I will at that.” He waits. “Nope, that doubt didn’t go down any.”
Lord. He pegged me exactly.
“We’ll find them,” Pa says, after a long quiet. “The chance for disappointment is the same as it was before, Noah. Maybe you’ll never see them alive again. Maybe they’ll be bandbox fresh. But doubt doesn’t leave you, either way. You just handle it, same as you have been. You’ve kept your mind on getting through. So remember you can, and that you have.”
Sometimes I wonder why he doesn’t say these things earlier. But there’s no point in asking that. Pa’s more or less always on desert time.
There are tomatoes left. I eat them, then set the jar to the side. “What’s another way to grow doubt? Other than being responsible.”
“If you were in that band of snakes, you’d have doubts I reckon.”
We’re coming after them. They should have doubts.
“When men have doubts, they fight themselves and each other. We have. They take measures against threat. We’ve done that too.” I hear him pop his knee. “Question is, what fights they had and what measures they took. That refines what you do in fast time.”
Sunday, July 18, 2010
An Impoverished Army
This is from my favorite fiction account of the Civil War. It is written from the South's point of view, in a humanistic and somewhat stream-of-consciousness style: The Black Flower. The author, Howard Bahr, lives in Oxford Mississippi. For a time, he ran William Faulkner's home and museum. He has been acquainted Shelby Foote and other Southern writers and historians of note. None of that is important compared to how well he describes the near-end of the Confederate effort, through the medium of one man and one woman.
In the book, a single woman, Anna Hereford, has lost two Confederate suitors already to war. She befriends an exhausted and mildly-wounded Confederate soldier in Tennessee in 1864. The plantation house is surrounded by troops about to go into battle. In true Southern style, the Confederate leader brings his compliments, and asks if the house may be used as an infirmary. Thus it is filled with soldiers: exhausted, dragging, hungry. Some are bent on rape and pillage; others, decent men with no luck at all.
For instance, Bushrod Carter's mild wound is not mild for long.
I did not enjoy Bahr's sequel quite as much. But I would pick this first novel over Cold Mountain, although with some regrets; I would quickly choose it over Shaara's fictional Killer Angels. Michael Shaara presumes too much into the mind of Lee to please me, and I think he thereby trivialized Lee's intellect and strategy. But that is just another opinion. . . on yet another book.
The Black Flower. Howard Bahr. Available.
Picture below: Dead soldier, near Fredericksburg.
In the book, a single woman, Anna Hereford, has lost two Confederate suitors already to war. She befriends an exhausted and mildly-wounded Confederate soldier in Tennessee in 1864. The plantation house is surrounded by troops about to go into battle. In true Southern style, the Confederate leader brings his compliments, and asks if the house may be used as an infirmary. Thus it is filled with soldiers: exhausted, dragging, hungry. Some are bent on rape and pillage; others, decent men with no luck at all.
For instance, Bushrod Carter's mild wound is not mild for long.
Bushrod's body was white, hairless, frail, etched with grime . . . Anna wondered dully how such a slight frame could be a soldier's.
The surgeon offered only a glance at Bushrod's arm. 'It has to come off," he said.
"No!" said Anna.
The surgeon shrugged. "Then he will die. You can see that for yourself."
Anna could, indeed, see that for herself. The arm was beginning to turn the color of blackberries. It was swelling too, and the red streaks coursed through the puffy flesh from the hand to the elbow. It was already beginning to smell.
"It came so fast,' said Anna. 'It was just . . . . . so fast!"
"It is how it happens," said the surgeon, gentler now. "These boys--they live on parched corn and bacon and coffee, they never sleep, never quit, and when somethin happens to em they got nothin to prop em up. It is a wonder any of em can still put one foot in front of another."The black flower is a bullet wound, and perhaps a symbol of other things. Every page in this book gives some idea of what the culture of the Confederacy wrought, how it withered, and what remained: then, for years after, and into the present day.
I did not enjoy Bahr's sequel quite as much. But I would pick this first novel over Cold Mountain, although with some regrets; I would quickly choose it over Shaara's fictional Killer Angels. Michael Shaara presumes too much into the mind of Lee to please me, and I think he thereby trivialized Lee's intellect and strategy. But that is just another opinion. . . on yet another book.
The Black Flower. Howard Bahr. Available.
Picture below: Dead soldier, near Fredericksburg.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Little Dorrit, Little Prisons
Between my bouts with the zombie ledgers, I am re-reading Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens, my second favorite of his books. Just a chapter at a time. Dickens was a heavily-worded writer. Most if not all of his stories were serialized in magazines. So they could drag on and on, and a public starved for reading materials would wait for the next installment. When he was writing "The Old Curiosity Shop" he left his tiny heroine in dire straits. It is said that a crowd met the ship with the next installment in Boston Harbor--a near-riot--all of them chanting "Little Nell. Little Nell." They wanted the magazines unloaded first to see if she was okay.
The Marshalsea
Each one of Dickens' novels seems to follow a theme, and show every possible permutation of it. Little Dorrit is about prison. The most obvious prison is the Marshalsea, a debtor's prison that Dickens knew well. When people like Dickens' father could not pay his bills, he was sentenced there by his creditors. A debt-convict could not leave until he satisfied those creditors in full. In the meantime, your family moved in with you (to save expense) and other family members on the outside paid your meager bills inside. Your sons and wife could seek work during the day. They had to be back at the prison before dark so they could be locked in.
Food was not free. A better prison cell cost money. Tobacco and clothing. All of that. Thus some were more wretched than others, based upon how many people did for them on the outside. It skewed the value of clearing up debt. Once you were in, you didn't have to do for yourself any more.
The Dorrit Family
Amy Dorrit's father, a gentleman, is sentenced to the Marshalsea. Eventually Amy is born there, which makes her an object of fame and of pity. She is small because she never got enough to eat. She went to the prison church and her uncle got her basic schooling. Otherwise, there is no reason for her to understand morals better than the rest.
Her father has long since given up trying to get out of debt, and instead uses his status as a gent and a "long-lived tenant" to beg from other prisoners. The way he receives alms is as a sign of appreciation for the "tone" he sets at the prison. If someone goes about this alms-giving without the proper manners, Mr. Dorrit is hurt beyond bearing. He is a scam artist, but the person he has scammed the best is himself--and his other two children.
His eldest son is a ne'er do well who cannot keep a job. Her sister works in a dance hall, and is not averse to blackmailing society ladies whose sons are infatuated. The combination of pretension and self-deception, despair and acceptance have ruined this family. Except Little Dorrit, who continues to work, and who refuses to be less than honest with herself. She is a remarkable lady. As in all Dickens, the remarkable ladies are always a bit of a doormat, but she has a way of making her opinions known when necessary.
[Mr. Dorrit's cell. From l. to r. The elder Miss Dorrit sitting on a bed, Maggy (beaten simple as a child) in the cap (unrelated, makes a living selling potatoes in prison), Little Dorrit serving her father tea, and a visitor to Mr. Dorrit (of the wrong class) not given a place at the table. Arthur Clennam, a genteel visitor, at the table.]
There's a moral in this for today--the way people are ruined and self-ruined. The way it passes onward. How remarkable it is when somebody doesn't buy into the value system they're given. How hard it is for them.
Other Prisons, Other Rooms.
There is Mrs. Clennam, who has made a name for herself in business. In guilt for what she has done, has imprisoned herself in a bedroom and a wheelchair. She gives herself no joys, she tells her every visitor, and yet at three in the afternoon some servant brings her a plate of perfect oysters, wine, and dry bread. This is a prison of guilt and spite, a proud prison. It satisfies no guilt, and it spreads misery.
Then there is the young girl who has been lovingly imprisoned in good parental care and wealth--so much so that she does not recognize a respectable brigand. She makes a bad marriage--another prison.
Many of the prisons in this story are quite genteel: those of the upper class, the bureaucracy, the social climbers, the cynical, the oblivious, and the resentful with money to spare. Yet there is Mr. Dorrit, genteel for a living. He tries to get little Amy to flirt with the Warden's son. An eminently respectable thing to do, if you were on the outside, yes? Be nice to the important man, darling. Little Dorrit's hand comes up. It covers her father's mouth. There is nothing he won't do now for a favor, for a chance at a cigar or someone to look up to him. Except the one quiet voice says 'no'. It tears the veil away, for one half-hour. He is nothing without it. She helps him put it back. Later, when he unexpectedly gets out, he is still a prisoner to his habits of mind.
Little Dorrit goes on to a happy ending. And in Dickens' lifetime, the Marshalsea was torn down. He saw it as a triumph. Nobody knows what happened to its dependents. Dickens just wanted no more of them.
The Marshalsea
Each one of Dickens' novels seems to follow a theme, and show every possible permutation of it. Little Dorrit is about prison. The most obvious prison is the Marshalsea, a debtor's prison that Dickens knew well. When people like Dickens' father could not pay his bills, he was sentenced there by his creditors. A debt-convict could not leave until he satisfied those creditors in full. In the meantime, your family moved in with you (to save expense) and other family members on the outside paid your meager bills inside. Your sons and wife could seek work during the day. They had to be back at the prison before dark so they could be locked in.
Food was not free. A better prison cell cost money. Tobacco and clothing. All of that. Thus some were more wretched than others, based upon how many people did for them on the outside. It skewed the value of clearing up debt. Once you were in, you didn't have to do for yourself any more.
The Dorrit Family
Amy Dorrit's father, a gentleman, is sentenced to the Marshalsea. Eventually Amy is born there, which makes her an object of fame and of pity. She is small because she never got enough to eat. She went to the prison church and her uncle got her basic schooling. Otherwise, there is no reason for her to understand morals better than the rest.
Her father has long since given up trying to get out of debt, and instead uses his status as a gent and a "long-lived tenant" to beg from other prisoners. The way he receives alms is as a sign of appreciation for the "tone" he sets at the prison. If someone goes about this alms-giving without the proper manners, Mr. Dorrit is hurt beyond bearing. He is a scam artist, but the person he has scammed the best is himself--and his other two children.
His eldest son is a ne'er do well who cannot keep a job. Her sister works in a dance hall, and is not averse to blackmailing society ladies whose sons are infatuated. The combination of pretension and self-deception, despair and acceptance have ruined this family. Except Little Dorrit, who continues to work, and who refuses to be less than honest with herself. She is a remarkable lady. As in all Dickens, the remarkable ladies are always a bit of a doormat, but she has a way of making her opinions known when necessary.
There's a moral in this for today--the way people are ruined and self-ruined. The way it passes onward. How remarkable it is when somebody doesn't buy into the value system they're given. How hard it is for them.
Other Prisons, Other Rooms.
There is Mrs. Clennam, who has made a name for herself in business. In guilt for what she has done, has imprisoned herself in a bedroom and a wheelchair. She gives herself no joys, she tells her every visitor, and yet at three in the afternoon some servant brings her a plate of perfect oysters, wine, and dry bread. This is a prison of guilt and spite, a proud prison. It satisfies no guilt, and it spreads misery.
Then there is the young girl who has been lovingly imprisoned in good parental care and wealth--so much so that she does not recognize a respectable brigand. She makes a bad marriage--another prison.
Many of the prisons in this story are quite genteel: those of the upper class, the bureaucracy, the social climbers, the cynical, the oblivious, and the resentful with money to spare. Yet there is Mr. Dorrit, genteel for a living. He tries to get little Amy to flirt with the Warden's son. An eminently respectable thing to do, if you were on the outside, yes? Be nice to the important man, darling. Little Dorrit's hand comes up. It covers her father's mouth. There is nothing he won't do now for a favor, for a chance at a cigar or someone to look up to him. Except the one quiet voice says 'no'. It tears the veil away, for one half-hour. He is nothing without it. She helps him put it back. Later, when he unexpectedly gets out, he is still a prisoner to his habits of mind.
Little Dorrit goes on to a happy ending. And in Dickens' lifetime, the Marshalsea was torn down. He saw it as a triumph. Nobody knows what happened to its dependents. Dickens just wanted no more of them.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Braudel: Fate, and a Break, on Jammed Streets
This is from the Prologue to Bounty Hunters: Crowded, unraveling Manhattan, March of 2109. Braudel's homicide squad is slammed; he has two red-ball cases running at once. He's solved one, made the 'vid and the street papers, but can't get caught up on the other. At the new homicide in this series, he gets a tip handed to him from one of the first officers on the scene. He has no idea that his tipster is another investigator doing tactical. Or that he will be on her investigation team later in the year.
Eventually the wagon came for the vic. Fricke and Verdero were waiting for someone to lock up. Braudel walked two blocks to Paddy Brickell’s Irish Pub and ‘Dub Station. This made the sixth knife murder in an all-night grocery store in three weeks, and he was the investigator for all of them. The Boiler Case had taken his full attention for one of those weeks. He needed momentum. So maybe this ‘dub.
The back stairway was plain. He pushed on the door, hand on his Lapis. She sat on the plastene-covered mattress, applying mascara. Great ankles. Two sleeves of gaudy tattoos: this trickster was never leaving the curb.
“I’m recording this conversation, Miss. We’re here for my job and not yours.”
“Right, Spike.” She batted her eyelashes at him. “Your jerk is five-seven or so, very light brown, with brown hair. He’s called Barrata, and he’s mean as shit. He lives somewhere around the Crimson Club. Or so Cat Charlie says. That’s on East 23rd.” She held out her ‘dub registration card. “I wasn’t there. I only caught the Cat. You want a wit to that, there isn’t one.”
He checked his Police Pad. Her name was Lily Smile, born Las Vegas, Nevada as Lily Miles. Her ‘dub stats were in order: no priors. He didn’t believe her anyway.
“Where’s this Charlie Cat? I want to talk to him.”
She shrugged. “Cat Charlie’s a street kid. Won’t talk to a cop, Braudel.”
So she knew him from the ‘vids, too. Because he’d never run into her before.
She stood, slinging her bag onto her shoulder. “That’s one big you owe me, if this Barrata checks out.” She plucked her ‘dub card out of his hand. “Good work on the Boiler Case.”
Okay, fine: it was a tip, anyway. “Don’t call me Spike the next time we meet. You know my name.”
She started on his shirt.
“No.” He put his hands around her wrists. She looked up: dark brown eyes like his, only larger, painted. He smelled perfume, a little sweat. He never did ‘dubs. He liked amateurs, the babes who wanted to dance, play, get busy for laughs.
But just this once: make the spot and get some sleep.
She finally spoke. “I’m buttoning, not unbuttoning.”
He looked down. Yeah, he’d dressed in a hurry all right. She disengaged her wrists.
“I like kids, you know. So I mean it, about the Boiler thing. Take care of yourself.”
“Is Cat Charlie a boy or a girl, Miss Smile?”
“Didn’t drift that past you, huh?” She grinned at him. “I’ve never been sure. The Cat’s too young to tell.”
She slid her skinny lacy ass out. Braudel used his PolPad and started looking up Barrata in the cop’Base. It didn’t work. He tried some variations: finally Barry Resata, 616 East 23rd, previous convictions for StreetKing possession, right description.
Braudel got on his TeleSat. A sweet nice face showed on the ‘screen.
“Officer Verdero, you’re detailed to me and my heap until I say otherwise. Call it in and then wait for me.”
He sat down on the rent-a-bed just for a minute. He put his elbows on his knees and rested his head on his hands. Two dead girls appeared inside his eyelids: the ones that kept him from sleeping, the ones in the boiler.
Time to get moving. He walked into the bar, still wondering if Lily’s tip was a set-up.
“You know Lily Smile?” He had to shout over the prismatic banshee band.
Brickell’s face lit up. “Fine bartender, sweet girl,” he yelled back. “She treat you right?” He pointed. “You don’t look happy.” He laughed, but Braudel couldn’t hear it.
Braudel lifted two fingers. “Tell me about her.”
Brickell poured two coffees, yelling, “Stops in sometimes. That’s all I know.”
Eventually the wagon came for the vic. Fricke and Verdero were waiting for someone to lock up. Braudel walked two blocks to Paddy Brickell’s Irish Pub and ‘Dub Station. This made the sixth knife murder in an all-night grocery store in three weeks, and he was the investigator for all of them. The Boiler Case had taken his full attention for one of those weeks. He needed momentum. So maybe this ‘dub.
The back stairway was plain. He pushed on the door, hand on his Lapis. She sat on the plastene-covered mattress, applying mascara. Great ankles. Two sleeves of gaudy tattoos: this trickster was never leaving the curb.
“I’m recording this conversation, Miss. We’re here for my job and not yours.”
“Right, Spike.” She batted her eyelashes at him. “Your jerk is five-seven or so, very light brown, with brown hair. He’s called Barrata, and he’s mean as shit. He lives somewhere around the Crimson Club. Or so Cat Charlie says. That’s on East 23rd.” She held out her ‘dub registration card. “I wasn’t there. I only caught the Cat. You want a wit to that, there isn’t one.”
He checked his Police Pad. Her name was Lily Smile, born Las Vegas, Nevada as Lily Miles. Her ‘dub stats were in order: no priors. He didn’t believe her anyway.
“Where’s this Charlie Cat? I want to talk to him.”
She shrugged. “Cat Charlie’s a street kid. Won’t talk to a cop, Braudel.”
So she knew him from the ‘vids, too. Because he’d never run into her before.
She stood, slinging her bag onto her shoulder. “That’s one big you owe me, if this Barrata checks out.” She plucked her ‘dub card out of his hand. “Good work on the Boiler Case.”
Okay, fine: it was a tip, anyway. “Don’t call me Spike the next time we meet. You know my name.”
She started on his shirt.
“No.” He put his hands around her wrists. She looked up: dark brown eyes like his, only larger, painted. He smelled perfume, a little sweat. He never did ‘dubs. He liked amateurs, the babes who wanted to dance, play, get busy for laughs.
But just this once: make the spot and get some sleep.
She finally spoke. “I’m buttoning, not unbuttoning.”
He looked down. Yeah, he’d dressed in a hurry all right. She disengaged her wrists.
“I like kids, you know. So I mean it, about the Boiler thing. Take care of yourself.”
“Is Cat Charlie a boy or a girl, Miss Smile?”
“Didn’t drift that past you, huh?” She grinned at him. “I’ve never been sure. The Cat’s too young to tell.”
She slid her skinny lacy ass out. Braudel used his PolPad and started looking up Barrata in the cop’Base. It didn’t work. He tried some variations: finally Barry Resata, 616 East 23rd, previous convictions for StreetKing possession, right description.
Braudel got on his TeleSat. A sweet nice face showed on the ‘screen.
“Officer Verdero, you’re detailed to me and my heap until I say otherwise. Call it in and then wait for me.”
He sat down on the rent-a-bed just for a minute. He put his elbows on his knees and rested his head on his hands. Two dead girls appeared inside his eyelids: the ones that kept him from sleeping, the ones in the boiler.
Time to get moving. He walked into the bar, still wondering if Lily’s tip was a set-up.
“You know Lily Smile?” He had to shout over the prismatic banshee band.
Brickell’s face lit up. “Fine bartender, sweet girl,” he yelled back. “She treat you right?” He pointed. “You don’t look happy.” He laughed, but Braudel couldn’t hear it.
Braudel lifted two fingers. “Tell me about her.”
Brickell poured two coffees, yelling, “Stops in sometimes. That’s all I know.”
Saturday, February 20, 2010
102,955 words
Okay, I know you guys think I have been phoning it in here. Truth to tell, I was wrapped into that editing I wrote about. The police/suspense/science fiction/with romantic interest series. Yeah, something for everybody.
Manuscript 2 (The Red Riders--The Syndicate Wars, October 6-21, 2109) is now less than 103K. I'm kind of hoping they don't completely disprove global warming, since I factored it into the city upheaval in Manhattan. Scrap the setting on two manuscripts--I could fix that though.
Anyway, I had a blast writing it. Syndicate Wars in a densely-populated city. What that would mean.
The head of the operation, my Detective Mel Kean, is well up on her Sun Tzu, her jakido, and her abiity to bullshit. She's a detective in organized crime bureau, who came out of a foster home in Nevada to become a police officer. The other protagonist is Leonidas J. Braudel, a homicide detective and naturalized citizen from Canada. Braudel fits into MPD chain of command. Kean is either a huge frustration or a huge solution wherever she walks. Either way, supervisors lose hair around her.
Her idea is to start a new syndicate and get access to the other syndicate leaders. The MPD is short-handed and overwhelmed by not just war but a suffering populace and constant riot conditions. So the unthinkable happens: her idea is approved. The brass figures they'll at least get street forecasts out of her.
So, Kean's teamed up with that short jerk Bud Fogarty of FinCrim and the unknown but obviously sour Hawkins. But then Braudel has related homicides. He and Carney of Electronic Investigations get drafted into the operation. This is Braudel's beginning assessment:
No one had a name for the op yet. Braudel wanted to call it Fairy Tale. The plan was all Mel: a flow chart of action and reaction. Their war had two theatres of operation: the curbside and the ‘scraper high. They fought against two or three enemies: the deVane syndicate, the Gallagher syndicate, and the Fragonard Society if they could squeeze it in.
Fogarty would track money flows and cut syndicate income. Mel would track and reduce syndicate influence. The big bad wolves would be desperate for cash and juice. Little Red Riding Hood would scam them with the deal in her basket. They’d fall for it. Then Red Riding would have the hammer. Axe. Whatever. Manhattan would live happily ever after.
So, lying and faking. Also anti-racketeering. His homicides would have to fit in somewhere. He would have less time for them, even when he put his foot down.
He took Carney to the VendLounge for coffee. They conferred in the one place in Plaza where you would never be disturbed. They needed a lot of supply chain, fast. Fogarty would forget anything routine. Mel would go anywhere and do anything for her op, backed up or not.
“Poor Granny, you’re out of StreetKing,” Carney hooted. “And what big teeth you have. Rock and sword: we’re in the magic forest of crap and shit.”
She popped out of the mop closet and strode down the hall. Braudel followed her silver skimpants and yellow sweatshirt, red plastic flips and crazy blue-green hair back to the op room.
“Fogarty, pay attention,” she said. “I’m naming this op. It’s Red Riders.”
“Hey. Whatever. Just remember it’s my act of genius.”
So now Carney was fully invested in the op. Braudel could turn to items other than supply.
Manuscript 2 (The Red Riders--The Syndicate Wars, October 6-21, 2109) is now less than 103K. I'm kind of hoping they don't completely disprove global warming, since I factored it into the city upheaval in Manhattan. Scrap the setting on two manuscripts--I could fix that though.
Anyway, I had a blast writing it. Syndicate Wars in a densely-populated city. What that would mean.
The head of the operation, my Detective Mel Kean, is well up on her Sun Tzu, her jakido, and her abiity to bullshit. She's a detective in organized crime bureau, who came out of a foster home in Nevada to become a police officer. The other protagonist is Leonidas J. Braudel, a homicide detective and naturalized citizen from Canada. Braudel fits into MPD chain of command. Kean is either a huge frustration or a huge solution wherever she walks. Either way, supervisors lose hair around her.
Her idea is to start a new syndicate and get access to the other syndicate leaders. The MPD is short-handed and overwhelmed by not just war but a suffering populace and constant riot conditions. So the unthinkable happens: her idea is approved. The brass figures they'll at least get street forecasts out of her.
So, Kean's teamed up with that short jerk Bud Fogarty of FinCrim and the unknown but obviously sour Hawkins. But then Braudel has related homicides. He and Carney of Electronic Investigations get drafted into the operation. This is Braudel's beginning assessment:
----------------------------------------------------
No one had a name for the op yet. Braudel wanted to call it Fairy Tale. The plan was all Mel: a flow chart of action and reaction. Their war had two theatres of operation: the curbside and the ‘scraper high. They fought against two or three enemies: the deVane syndicate, the Gallagher syndicate, and the Fragonard Society if they could squeeze it in.
Fogarty would track money flows and cut syndicate income. Mel would track and reduce syndicate influence. The big bad wolves would be desperate for cash and juice. Little Red Riding Hood would scam them with the deal in her basket. They’d fall for it. Then Red Riding would have the hammer. Axe. Whatever. Manhattan would live happily ever after.
So, lying and faking. Also anti-racketeering. His homicides would have to fit in somewhere. He would have less time for them, even when he put his foot down.
He took Carney to the VendLounge for coffee. They conferred in the one place in Plaza where you would never be disturbed. They needed a lot of supply chain, fast. Fogarty would forget anything routine. Mel would go anywhere and do anything for her op, backed up or not.
“Poor Granny, you’re out of StreetKing,” Carney hooted. “And what big teeth you have. Rock and sword: we’re in the magic forest of crap and shit.”
She popped out of the mop closet and strode down the hall. Braudel followed her silver skimpants and yellow sweatshirt, red plastic flips and crazy blue-green hair back to the op room.
“Fogarty, pay attention,” she said. “I’m naming this op. It’s Red Riders.”
“Hey. Whatever. Just remember it’s my act of genius.”
So now Carney was fully invested in the op. Braudel could turn to items other than supply.
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