Raven Jake Dawes

Book Review: Peter Pan

Last summer while I was reading some of the classics, Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie came on up the list and I decided to revisit it.  Be assured folks, that the version I read as a kid in the '50s ain't nothin' like the original. I think kids were a lot tougher back in the day, and I also think that that tuning up the story to fit the times is all for the best.

Now let's pretend for a moment that you're trying to bridge some uncomfortable truths with your child like racism, particularly towards Native Americans, is so culturally ingrained that in the early part of the 20th century no one questioned depictions of Indians as "bloodthirsty savages." Or maybe that narcissistic sociopaths can be charming as all get out, and they'll smile the whole time they're cutting off your face. Or that young girls on the edge of adulthood are especially prone to being exploited by these nefarious types because of their desire to please, to be thought responsible and because they get a little "boy crazy." Well then, Peter Pan is like a case study. Check out this bit about population control in Neverland:   

All wanted blood except the boys, who liked it as a rule, but to-night were out to greet their captain. The boys on the island vary, of course, in numbers, according as they get killed and so on; and when they seem to be growing up, which is against the rules, Peter thins them out; but at this time there were six of them, counting the twins as two.

That's right. Peter Pan killed kids - the ones he lived with and took care of - for rules infractions or "getting too old." Not in a metaphorical "you have to leave Neverland" way - just straight shanked 'em. 

So here's the thing: in the original Peter Pan, Peter ain't exactly the hero. Captain Hook, the mermaids, the native tribe, Tinkerbell and the crocodile all try to kill some or all of the kids, but Peter Pan is the one who kidnapped them out of their beds and held them hostage. None of them would'a needed rescuing if they hadn't been put in harm's way to start with. Not that the Darling parents were so great either - most of the time the kids were just left with a large dog, and on the night that the children were abducted, the dog was tied up in the yard while the Darlings took off to go to a party up the road. Course I guess around that time, they were all just lucky not to be working in a coal mine or textile mill. Kids were tougher then...

Read it for yourself: Peter Pan 

Side note: This movie version  from 2003 ain't bad. Has a lot of the original in it, but without the cringey parts

Book Review: King Solomon’s Mines

Y’All, in my interests of being historical, plus my natural thriftiness, I’ve been readin’ more and more public domain books. And some of the books I’ve been reading are by a feller named H. Rider Haggard, who besides being quite prolific, was also way ahead of his time in terms of fantasy/adventure stories. For starters, he invented the lost world genre.  He also wrote very extensively about his time in Africa.

This revelation happened in a thrift store (a lot of my adventures either begin or end in that kind of establishment) where I found a "Great Illustrated Classics" version that was illustrated by Pablo Marcos, and the pictures were pretty darned cool.  That guy just has a flair for it, as you can see here. The text? Not so much - it was a 4th grade reading level book with all the good parts cut out or translated into elementary school English. So I looked online for inspiration.  

Haggard ain't so well known today, but back in his time he was prolific and an inspiration to hundreds of fantasy genre writers who came after. Allegedly, he and his brother had a £5 bet going over whether or not he could write a yarn good as Treasure Island, which came out a few years before in 1882. I don't know if he won or lost that bet, but King Solomon's Mines was a best seller, and I don't think it's actually ever been completely out of print in the last 132 years.

Now as I mentioned before in my “Cons of the Classics” post, a lot of what we would consider to be unacceptably racist/misogynistic in 2017 was just how things were in 1885. A case could be made that in some of his more racist/misogynistic moments, he was only describing social mores and not exactly offering an endorsement. That said, ol’ H. was way ahead of his time in terms of being non-racist and non-misogynistic with a few regrettable paragraphs thrown in there that can be safely skipped over without losing much of the story.

So where things get thorny is that he’s got a real nationalistic Hail Britannica thing going on, very common for his times. Pandering to his readers? Maybe, and that comes up again in his treatment of religion. He’s waaay more open-minded than the Christianity of the day would get behind, and offers a lot of time to Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and indigenous beliefs in later books. I think he might have had Theosophical leanings… He also has some very well-developed African characters and female characters. Not so much in King Solomon’s Mines, but definitely in She and in Nada the Lily, which has no white characters, besides the traveler who hears the story but has no lines.  Many of the black characters in his books are basically redshirts (In Star Trek, red-uniformed security officers and engineers who accompany the main characters on landing parties often suffer quick deaths). Nowhere near as bad as in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan series (I think Burroughs probably was a racist) and the justification is that most of these guys are Zulu warriors who have a low life expectancy anyway, but in the Raven Jake revision, I’d like to see this more equitable. Also, there’s a certain amount of trophy hunting going on, and we’ve seen the results of the ivory trade, and that’s rather uncomfortable. Leave them elephants alone, ok?

So those are the caveats. If you’ve ever seen a film version of King Solomon’s Mines, just erase that piece of crap from your memory. Rider ain’t like that. His writing is incredibly cinematic, considering this book was pre-motion picture, and his whole opus was pre-CG. I’d like to see Peter Jackson take on the She series, but I’m gonna leave that for another post. If y’all saw League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and wondered who Allan Quatermain was, he’s a big-game hunter based in South Africa who is persuaded to lead two other explorers into the African interior, trying to find the expedition sponsor’s (Sir Henry Curtis) treasure-seeking brother, George Neville. They’re accompanied by Curtis’ friend Captain John Good and a few African guys that Quatermain has hired to be porters and guides.   

Generally, “porters and guides” is code for “redshirt,” and that happens, but it is also revealed that Umbopa, one of the guides, is actually Ignosi, hereditary chief of the Kukuana tribe. Their mission shifts from finding the missing brother, to restoring Ignosi’s kingdom (the lost world ruled by a despot and an evil witch) and finding the missing diamond mine. In the meantime, Good falls hopelessly in love with a beautiful African girl, Foulata, who is tragically killed while saving the adventurers. Rider muses that it’s all for the best because mixed-race families didn’t really have a place in either British or African societies, and in this case I think he was doing more than pandering to his readership – this is both racist and misogynistic and the Raven Jake Mental Edition just chops those offending paragraphs right out.

Now in my plot synopsis, there isn’t a whole lot of appealing stuff that you probably can’t wait to read, but let me tell you folks – this story is awesome. It’s funny, it’s got fights and narrow escapes and witchcraft and battles, brave warriors, lost worlds and treasure. Allan Quatermain came more than 100 years before Indiana Jones and he’s a lot more likable. J. R. R. Tolkien (Lord of the Rings) and George R. R. Martin (Game of Thrones) stole some of their best material from H. Rider Haggard, so if you’re a fantasy reader, you’re going to see Easter eggs all over the place with this. The African characters aren’t filler – the characters are fully fleshed out and in subsequent books like Allan Quatermain (1887) or Nada the Lily (1892), which is a fictionalized account of the life of Shaka Zulu, the character of Umslopogaas, a Zulu warrior friend of Quatermain’s, is one of the best drawn, wisest, bravest and most interesting of them all.  I’d like to see H. Rider Haggard make a big comeback.

As a small example of his self-effacing sense of humor, here's  Quatermain explaining in a letter to his son why he is writing down this adventure:

“Second reason: Because I am laid up here at Durban with the pain in my left leg. Ever since that confounded lion got hold of me I have been liable to this trouble, and being rather bad just now, it makes me limp more than ever. There must be some poison in a lion's teeth, otherwise how is it that when your wounds are healed they break out again, generally, mark you, at the same time of year that you got your mauling? It is a hard thing when one has shot sixty-five lions or more, as I have in the course of my life, that the sixty-sixth should chew your leg like a quid of tobacco. It breaks the routine of the thing, and putting other considerations aside, I am an orderly man and don't like that.”

Read it here:

King Solomon's Mines

Allan Quatermain

She (Who Must Be Obeyed)

Nada the Lily

Raven Jake's Book Club - the Cons of the "Classics"

Just kiddin' y'all, I don't have a book club. Yet. It might be on the horizon. Lately I've been reading some oldies that I missed the first time around. You might have caught "The Big Sleep" a couple posts back. Now sometimes reading the oldies is uncomfortable. Sometimes it's because the words have fallen out of favor and it's hard to chew your way through and sometimes it's because they're unrelievedly racist and misogynistic.  I read once that a good barometer of whether or not a text is racist (like if for some reason your racism reader is jammed and you need some help deciding) is to ask yourself "Would I feel comfortable reading this to a child of the ethnic/racial group in question?" That ought to clear things up right there. 

Over to the right is Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs. It's super racist and quite misogynistic. And not just "for the times"  - plenty of older books are not as flagrantly "White Man's Burden" as Tarzan. Also, the scenarios described are simply absurd. It isn't all that well written. Here is an interesting fact: The Apes that Tarzan is the King of are not gorillas. They are a different intermediate form of hominid that have some gorilla-like attributes and some that are more human. They are like Bigfoots. Bigfeet. What's the plural of Bigfoot, y'all? 

Folks have written PhD thesis about pervasive literary racism, and I'm not adding to that body of knowledge, I'm just readin' and reviewin' some old books. You've got a few things going on. In the 1800s up to World War II or so, there is a very strong trend of nationalistic identity - the pervasive belief that being a white American or British man was in all ways superior to any other state of being. Some of the stereotyping is "positive" -  that natives are strong or good hunters, although that is often mitigated by them being the first characters to be killed off or that they are superstitious or cannibalistic.  Slavery and colonialism were often not questioned. There is a difference between describing social stratification and actively endorsing it and some writers get into a gray area here.  It can also be pretty darned informative to read about the state of racial/gender relations at various points in history from a primary source rather than through the 21st century lens (where we've got it all figured out, right?) So just about every classic book could use a rewrite before it's ready to go live - some more than others - but this is kind of risky too. It's dangerous to whitewash the whitewashed past. There is merit in learning from other's mistakes.  Still, I think before I sat down and read "Peter Pan" to a Native American kid, I'd want to bring it more in line with the values of equality and justice. 

 

 

Book Review: The Big Sleep

Y'all, I've been delving into the public domain for my reading material lately, and come to a couple of conclusions. (1) Those books that I thought I remembered reading in my youth are a lot different than I remember them, and I'm pretty sure I must have been reading the Severely Abridged For Young Readers Edition and (2) Many of these classics are worth revisiting. Go ahead and check out The Big Sleep here.

This is a classic noir story, set in the late '30s in Los Angeles. The tough-guy gang talk is hilarious. and would have pleased my late mother-in-law to no end. Some of those slang words are definitely worth bringin' back.  And then there's stuff like this:

I grinned at her with my head on one side. She flushed. Her hot black eyes looked mad. "I don't see what there is to be cagey about," she snapped. "And I don't like your manners."

"I'm not crazy about yours," I said. "I didn't ask to see you. You sent for me. I don't mind your ritzing me or drinking your lunch out of a Scotch bottle. I don't mind your showing me your legs. They're very swell legs and it's a pleasure to make their acquaintance. I don't mind if you don't like my manners. They're pretty bad. I grieve over them during the long winter evenings. But don't waste your time trying to cross-examine me."

Swell! Private detective Phillip Marlowe is hired by an oil baron with two miscreant daughters to clear up a blackmail threat. But things aren't exactly what they seem and a few plot twists later and with more murders than an episode of Game of Thrones, he's got his hands full trying to stay alive and save the world. But he just can't help his wisecracking ways and it only lands him in more trouble with LA's criminal underworld, not-so-honest cops, and damsels in distress. 

It's a short book - only 130 pages - with tight writing and some of the funniest descriptions you'll ever read. Git's the Raven Jake seal of approval. 

Vote for the Sun Runner on Facebook

To my Desert Rats on Facebook,

Shanghai Brown is trying to get some grant money for the Sun Runner, an independent publication that supports all sort of Desert Ratishness, and therefore it's a good cause. Only takes about two minutes, and it's a worthy cause:

Hey folks,

I'm asking for your help from those of you who use FACEBOOK, but it's really easy. My magazine, The Sun Runner, is applying for a Mission Small Business grant through Chase and LivingSocial. This grant would make a huge difference for our ability to cover serious desert issues, as well as to help promote desert arts and culture, history, tribal matters, and more.

Facebook users can help support The Sun Runner Magazine with a few clicks.
In order to be eligible, we have to get at least 250 votes before June 30. The more votes, the better for our application.

To vote, all you have to do is go to https://www.missionsmallbusiness.com/, log in with Facebook - then like them & then near the bottom of the email search for Sun Runner, California, Joshua Tree, and when we pop up, hit "Vote."

That's it. It only costs you a few seconds to help us be eligible for a grant that could make a significant difference for our ability to serve the desert region. Thanks for your help and support! ‹Steve "Shanghai" Brown

"Significant Objects... and how they got that way"

"Significant Objects... and how they got that way" is an awesome literary exercise in adding value to absolute crap with a compelling story.  In other words:

"A talented, creative writer invents a story about an object. Invested with new significance by this fiction, the object should — according to our hypothesis — acquire not merely subjective but objective value. How to test our theory? Via eBay!" 

here's how this snow globe went from .99 to $59 (and sent $58 to Girls Write Now)

Now this touches my heart, 'cause a couple of days ago I bid farewell to my old truck. I'll post about that in a little bit. It ain't a dead truck in your driveway you miss, it's all the investment and memories that went into it. But I tell you folks, I wish I'd spent a little time writing up a sad tale about it before I called Pick Your Part.

Insider Magazine Article

Here's a special preview of my upcoming profile in Insider Magazine. Thanks, Matt!

Open publication - Free publishing - More blog

Rodent Jihad

That's right, folks - due to recent terrorist activity, I've been forced to declare a holy war against yard rodents, specifically ground squirrels. Here we are at week six and three of the corn plants were sucked underground, some of the beans have been decimated and all of the young squash have been chewed right off the vine. The tomatilos are recovering from the grasshopper predation, the radishes are coming along nicely and there are lots of tomato blossoms, but no little tomatoesyet. In the meantime, ground squirrels have overrun the yard, setting up a base of operation under the woodpile. While we were sitting out by the garden the other afternoon, a rat ran out of the garage and along the fence.

Now I've got no great love of rats, but they freak Jane right out. She sees them as scuttling plague vectors, so it doesn't take much to get her goin'. Ironically, we were reading Rats: Observations on the History & Habitat of the City’s Most Unwanted Inhabitantsby Robert Sullivan at the time. It's quite a page-turner. I thought Jane might be a little too fragile to handle a whole book about rats, but she seems to be coping nicely. On the other hand, those rats better watch out. Same with the gophers and the ground squirrels. Y'all mind your own business, and we'll get along fine. Mess with my garden, and suffer primate wrath.

Culinary Historians of SoCal on April 14

It's going to be a busy month what with animals getting blessed and different lectures and Heritage Day and whatnot, but this one looks pretty promising too: 

The Cookbook Family Tree

 Saturday, April 14th, 2012, at 10:30 AM at the Los Angeles Public Library

Mark Taper Auditorium, Downtown Central Library, 630 W. 5th St.

Free and open to the public

Anne Willan speaking on…

“The Cookbook Family Tree”

Before 1501, the first four printed cookbooks were written in English, Latin, German, and French in four European countries. Who wrote these early cookbooks? Who read them? Who used them? Anne will explain the origin of these books and those of the centuries that follow. For her talk to the Culinary Historians of Southern California, Anne will be sharing her “cookbook tree,” a unique visual guide she has created to demonstrate how all the genres of food book we know today, such as recipe books, dining guides, gastronomic memoirs and more can be traced back to these early volumes.

Anne Willan Anne Willan has over 50 years experience as a teacher, cookbook author, and food columnist. The founder of famed French cooking school École de Cuisine la Varenne, Anne’s accolades include the IACP Lifetime Achievement Award, James Beard Award, and Bon Appétit Teacher of the Year Award. The author of over thirty cookbooks, Anne’s long-awaited The Cookbook Library: Four Centuries of the Cooks, Writers, and Recipes That Made the Modern Cookbook will be published in April 2012. The book is based on the extensive cookbook collection Anne and her husband Mark Cherniavsky have amassed through years of passionate collecting. Anne is also working on a memoir.

LA Heritage Day April 29

Just a reminder y'all - come out to LA Heritage Day on Olvera Street on April 29.  I'll be there with the Friends of the Michael White Adobe and with the Old Spanish Trail Association.

Over here at the left, I'm surveying the wreckage from the San Francisquito Dam disaster, and if you don't know what that was, you'd better come to Heritage Day and see if one of the 200 member organizations can help you out.

http://laheritage.blogspot.com/