text:
The Lost King of France
Balthazar Bourbon, a distant descendant of European royalty, had rarely traveled far from his claustrophobic Indian town. Then one day, he was told he was the direct heir to the now defunct French throne. That's when his problems started
Anon—so beginneth the tale of Balthazar Napoleon de Bourbon, with an angel swooping o'er the earth. The angel flew over the green pastures and sunflower fields that were Europe, above the burnt highland that is Asia Minor, and then out across an emerald ocean, the Indian, to the lush shores of its namesake. The angel's silver wings were those of a jetliner, and he sat inside the machine of his being, reclining in splendor, perchance sipping some fine wine. In the course of flight, the angel's shadow fell over spired castles and well-appointed châteaus, exquisite alcazars and fortresses made of red clay. In the interior of India, he passed over a resplendent marble mausoleum engraved in jasper known as the Taj Mahal, built during a seventeen-year span by a king named Shah Jahan as a tribute to his third wife, who died in childbirth. (For his troubles, he was dethroned and imprisoned by his son and left in a cell to die, though one that permitted a view of his glorious creation.)
The angel's destination was a city on the Malwa Plateau called Bhopal. Bhopal—built atop volcanic rock, its own ancient palace crumbling upon itself, streets clogged with cows and goats and sari-clouds of color, birds circling at dusk in the pinkish-orange gloaming like the slow movement of a dark scythe. Looming over the lower city was a giant mosque, Taj-ul-Masajid, its pale white domes hovering in the shimmery heat like an extraterrestrial incursion, its minarets reaching to heaven, its tiny rooms full of boys memorizing the Koran, their voices murmuring across the hot stones of the vast inner courtyard. And there was one other notable landmark, a death memorial really, the abandoned chemical plant—that of Union Carbide—on the north edge of town that on a particular December day twenty-two years earlier oozed methyl isocyanate, a toxic plague that ultimately caused 22,000 deaths.
Why had this angel come to Bhopal now, you might ask? Of all the cities of the world, why this dustier, irascible, ignominious one?
Fate, friend: The wheel spun, the globe revolved, and the angel landed in central India, making his way through the town of Bhopal, among the vegetable and meat stalls, among the poor and hungry, among the Hindus and Muslims, to the gate of our unsuspecting hero, Balthazar. The angel wore a pressed white tunic and a silk vest. He was a tall white man of nearly 70—well preserved, of regal bearing, with a full head of silver hair. In this frenetic, rural city, he was a celestial vision of calm and erudition. He seemed not to shed a drop of sweat.
He knocked on the large wooden door near which the French fleur-de-lis greeted all visitors as Balthazar sat in the cool blow of air conditioners, in a disconnected kind of gloom. He possessed an ample belly and a Taurus-like bellicosity, though his were harmless snorts, loving snorts, humanitarian snorts, his were ineffectual snorts, snorts to what might have been, lost snorts in the winds of time. He had big, rounded cheeks and wore a bushy mustache. Hair sprouted from the nape of his neck. He seemed to be missing a tooth or two, upper back. "Ours is a life of insecurity," he would sometimes say. "What will happen tomorrow? And how can we be safe among all these hidden grudges?"
The angel pressed the doorbell and Balthazar rose heavily, making his way through the house, swinging the door open wide, and this otherwise ordinary Indian man looked upon the angel glowing there, who looked down upon Balthazar, and reflexively they embraced.
It is not uncommon for angels to take corporeal form, to appear before us on earth as people with names and credentials. Some may be street sweepers or poets, and this angel here, this bearer of good tidings, was known as Prince Michael of Greece. He and the Indian man before him shared a name: Bourbon.
On his front stoop, Balthazar was blinded, flummod, could only utter the words: "Your Highness." Prince Michael clasped his hands to Balthazar's shoulders, looked him in the eye, and replied, "Nonsense, we are cousins! You shall call me 'Cousin.' " The feeling that came over Balthazar then was one of "great warmth," as he would later put it. Referring to the royal Bourbons in Europe, Prince Michael told him, "You are in their talks—and have been for many years."
In their talks. But who were they? And when and where did _they _talk? No doubt in the gilded rooms of capacious castles, nibbling cookies, sipping tea served by tailcoated butlers.
Balthazar could not begin to imagine such a scene, but technically this was his family the angel was talking about—more cousins, blood brethren in France, a place he'd never been. How his line of the family had been separated and removed to India led back to the fateful day in the sixteenth century when the king's alleged nephew Jean-Philippe had killed a man in a duel. The tale had been told time and time again: Jean-Philippe fleeing for his life from France; Jean-Philippe kidnapped by pirates; Jean-Philippe sold in a Cairo slave market; Jean-Philippe escaping and making his way to India, where he presented himself at the court of the Mughal emperor, Akbar, thus becoming one of the emperor's most trusted advisers.
Prince Michael had become fascinated with that early swashbuckler, the progenitor of the Indian line, Jean-Philippe, so much so that he'd written a book based on his life. After years of research, Prince Michael said, he had found out a little secret, too. He believed that the long-forgotten, down-at-its-heels Indian strain of the Bourbon family might, in fact, be its most senior. More senior than other lines, including the Orleans, the Capetians, and the Navarres. It had been nearly 200 years since the Bourbons ruled France, or since France had a monarch at all—and yet the royals still kept competing lists that itemized who stood in line for the throne. At stake was not just one's place in line but one's social stature and relevance, as well as a claim to the vast family holdings, estimated in the billions.
Balthazar's bushy eyebrows shot up. A man of congenial hospitality, he offered Prince Michael a seat at a table set with mutton curry and chili chicken. The annunciation scene was in place. On the wall nearby were framed images of the Eiffel Tower, a château, the Arc de Triomphe.
The angel-prince-messenger spoke.
"If my theory is correct," said Prince Michael, "then you are France's king-in-waiting."
Balthazar seemed not to understand.
"If there were a throne," Prince Michael said for emphasis, "_you _would be the Dauphin."
When it finally dawned upon our Balthazar what was being said, he found himself transported to a state of fuddled joy. Could it be true? He, king? One day—just this morning—he'd been a man at great risk, hunted and haunted by his family history in India, living as a Catholic among Muslims and Hindus, threatened with bodily harm. And now…this! In a fairy tale, this is where the man living in proverbial rags would ascend in ermine to the throne, to the loving cheers of his subjects, jeweled scepter flashing, shining an infectious happiness, which would in turn infect his kingdom with everlasting happiness. This is where the royal trumpets would be cued, and so would begin the commencement of celebratory cannon fire.
But it didn't happen that way.
The cousins finished their meal and embraced on the doorstep, Balthazar filled with "great satisfaction, great love" for the angel. Lost in the moment, he thought he heard the prince make a promise, that he would prepare for Balthazar to visit the homeland, France. At which time, with the proper introductions, Balthazar could assess for himself just what his auspicious future might hold.
Sometime after their good-bye, the prince took leave of Bhopal, flying back over ocean, desert, and mountain to the swaddled comfort of royalty. And Balthazar was left behind, ecstatic, near bursting, in-waiting with his dreams.
O what bright news was this? What orbed luck? Who hasn't come to a moment of desperation in life, and who hasn't dreamed that one's ill-starred existence might be suddenly solved by a knock at the door, an angel announcing: You have been found! You shall have riches, power, happiness!
It is, for one in a position of vulnerability, a dream come true. Elation. For the angel-messenger who might liberate us from our torment also completes us, brings us to the full glory of our delusions. So would you, friend, take the throne? There's hardly a knave among us who wouldn't, though it's a profession that often ends poorly, conferring upon one a lifetime of paranoia and longing. If the truth must be told, kings carry bleak outcomes in their bones. Look now—Lear on his heath, Arthur betrayed by Lancelot, Oedipus killing Father, marrying Mother…
But we have wandered far afield from our dear friend Balthazar and his precious joy.
In the afterglow of the prince's visit, there was an excitement like none Balthazar had felt before in his life, barring births and first love. Knowing that he might soon take leave of Bhopal, he saw the city in new and wondrous ways. The old tensions—of feeling exposed at every turn, of being one in a very small Catholic minority—were overridden now by an inflating sense of possibility. One could almost regard the colorful street scene outside his door as poetic rather than maddening and insane, pitting neighbor against neighbor for survival. One could stand at sunset by the shore of the upper lake, watching the blackbirds wheel above, and remark, "There is no light in all the world like the light of Bhopal!"—and truly mean it.
Balthazar had spent a lifetime in dialogue with his family's history, with all the Bourbon ghosts who came before him: the jeweled, wealthy, powerful progenitors of his line, from Jean-Philippe down to his own father, Salvador, who had passed away thirty years earlier. The Bourbons had always served the Indian rulers with distinction, honor, and great loyalty—and for their services, they'd been richly rewarded with privy purses, which were monetary allowances, and jagirs, which were land entitlements. But then, with India's independence in the late '40s, the state had abolished old jagirs, over time robbing the Bourbons of most of their holdings—and then, in the early '70s, abolished the privy purses, which had been the Bourbons' primary source of income. After hawking their jewels, after being moved from the palace to what the family called an "outhouse" near the church, Balthazar's father had finally been forced to take work as a low-level government functionary, trapped by servitude to the very force that sought to undo him.
Balthazar now lived in the old section of Bhopal, among the masses. It was here in the '90s that Hindus and Muslims rioted and burned whatever they could, including Balthazar's law office down the street. Recently, when a Muslim boy and a Hindu girl eloped, they were burned in effigy not far from Balthazar's door. He'd come close to losing his own life, too, when a small mob attacked him with iron rods, striking him first in the legs, until he fell, and then raining blows on his head and back and arms. Was it because he was Catholic or because he was a Bourbon?
If nothing else, our Balthazar was an absolutely sane man, a highly religious man who believed God's hand moved the universe. As a lawyer, he possessed an intellect marked by logic. He understood the burden of proof, which in the case of would-be kings was quite complicated. And yet, with the prince's Amazing Revelation, one based on conjecture and opinion, he was willing to suspend his disbelief for a moment. The prince had placed him before the Duke of Anjou and the Count of Paris, the two leading contenders for the crown (which, by the way, did not exist). If they wanted to test his DNA, they'd find he came by his last name honestly.
So did that make him king?
More than anything, this new status marked a very important reversal, the beginning of a vindication for the family's long, slow fall from grace. He couldn't think of his own father without being overwhelmed by anger for what they'd done to him.
Even producing an heir had been taxing and heartbreaking. The first three boys had died before a year, then there were four girls, and finally him, Balthazar, the chosen. Even when Balthazar was a teenager—much to the boy's embarrassment—his father would hold his hand walking down the street, half out of love, half for protection. And now, at the age of 48, almost thirty years after his father's death, Balthazar had received the prince bearing news of his good fortune. And his vindication. Oh, had Daddy lived for this day! Somewhere in heaven, he was smiling down. His son Balthazar would salvage the family name. But how?
"To fully rise again in the Bourbon sense," Balthazar said, "would be to win the hearts of the French people."
**Amazing was the news **that Balthazar Napoleon de Bourbon held within his breast, but it wanted to be sung out! It was the kind of urgent revelation that might hasten one's ascension—and on the other hand (that of the European family, pure-blooded France, all of Christendom), it seemed so far-fetched that it was, well, like the perfect cosmic joke.
Q. Who is the king of France?
A. That's right, > _mesdames and> _ messieurs—a short, hirsute man of bushy 'stache living in…> Bhopal, India!
When the prince's book about Jean-Philippe de Bourbon was published shortly after his visit, he proclaimed his theory to the world. Soon there was a cavalcade of reporters knocking on the front door to the home of Balthazar Napoleon de Bourbon, the media-anointed lost king of France. Journalists from Agence France-Presse, The Guardian, and The Statesman came to report on his life. They wrote about his history and how, though he'd never set foot in France, he was a Francophile who spent much time dreaming of the homeland. They described him as portly and rotund. Some thought he was a -mechanic, a farmer, whatever made a better story. They asked him how it felt to be king, a question he sidestepped with quasi diplomacy. "I'm not desirous of any fortune," he told them, "but if I'm truly the legitimate heir, I should get the recognition." They photographed him, often standing before the fleur-de-lis, part of his family's coat of arms, the great symbol of monarchist France. And for each, he painstakingly recited the history of the Indian Bourbons, almost five centuries' worth, from Jean-Philippe to the he-who-would-be-king, Balthazar.
It would be fair to say that the attention was quite heady, especially after having had so little attention at all—and after having been completely ignored by his European cousins. Balthazar had waited all his life for some message of hope—anything to reclaim the family's former glory—and here it had come out of the blue, with repercussive force. Random letters arrived, like this from one Kenneth Hesselwood of Belgium:
"I am now sixty," Mr. Hesselwood wrote. "My father died when I was seven…and [I] am a retired chief inspector after forty years with the Brussels police district. I hope you shall accept this humble letter. I admire your great work at…the court. I wish you and all the members of your family the best for the future. I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant."
Even his colleagues at the high court greeted him with respectful jocularity. "All hail the king of France!" they said. Or, in a hush: "So when will you leave us and take the throne?"
What throne? the would-be king wanted to bellow, brows flaring—and by whose authority? He bespoke whoever would listen: "My friends ask me, 'Should we come for the coronation?' How to explain it to them, in their ignorance—wait, should I say 'their ignorance' or 'their love for me'? 'We don't need any proof,' they say. 'You are king! You are!' "
And now his cousin the prince was, he hoped, setting the stage for Balthazar's first visit to France, though there was no word yet of his progress. It was delicate; it might take a month or so. "I don't want to go as a tourist. I want to see the family homes and my relatives," announced Balthazar, "but given our history here in India, I need to be careful not to stir jealousies."
And what were the provocations to which he alluded? It was the history of a pale-faced family making its way in a dark-skinned country, as for several centuries the Bourbons took only European brides, thus preserving their bloodline. It was the history of a stubbornly Catholic family making its way among Muslims and Hindus—and more than once paying a bodily price for its faith. It was the history of interlopers currying favor with the -emperors and nabobs to their own great material gain who, no matter what their largesse to the nation, inspired resentments among the natives whose land it was.
It was Balthazar's namesake, his great-grandfather, who had done the unthinkable and paid with his life. As the legend went, that Balthazar (his Indian name was Shahzad Maseeh) had acted as first minister to the rulers of Bhopal and ended up sleeping with the queen. Regardless of whether the queen had seduced him, the affront could not stand, and he was poisoned by his Muslim rivals at the court.
Balthazar, the supposed king of France, knew this history by heart, so many times had it been told to him by his father. It was after his great-grandfather that the Indian Bourbons started taking Indian women for brides, perhaps for their own survival, which to their minds hardly lessened their royalty. In fact, his father had bequeathed him an old history book with an inscription on the opening page, there in neat hand, that read:
For my sweetest son, Balthazar,
You are a toddler, two years old. Please do not lend this book to anyone for the sake of chapter accounts of the Bourbons in Bhopal. This book is purchased, this book will make you understand that you are a son of a dynasty and will inculcate and instill in your mind the qualities of a noble family that might help you to shine according to my wishes.
Your loving Dad,
Salvador Bourbon
And now maybe Balthazar was King—and a very important visit to France was in the offing. What vindication indeed!
"There will be a lot of interest should I go," said Balthazar. "When it's time, I shall notify the press."
And so he waited with his dream. Inside the cloud castle of his own mind, the King's voice was all-powerful—and with no other voice in his head, soon his ascendancy was all but official: His Royal Highness. The King. Of France.
The King did not like waiting. It was very awkward, indeed. But with no invitation yet proffered, his initial joy settled into a kind of protracted yearning. How could it not? To gaze upon the boulevards of Paris, to consume the fromage, to promenade the halls of Versailles, to be properly received by his cousins, the princes and marquesses of France, to claim what was rightfully his, that scepter, that royal gravy boat of bone china finely etched with swans—when, in fact and deed, would this all be forthcoming?
After the initial rush of media coverage, the King found himself right smack back in his old life. Working at the court, defending common criminals as well as arguing civil cases—divorces and the like. Helping his wife with the school his father had founded, the Bourbon School. On the streets, he was just another face in the crowd, shuttling the children to school, trolling for fresh fruit. Zooks, he was a king! Wasn't this engagement with the hoi polloi beneath him? One had only to ask Prince Michael.
Another thing piqued him mightily: If one had perused the list of royals that stood in line to the French throne, his name had never warranted so much as a mention. An unpardonable slight—and even as the Indian Bourbons now clung precariously to the last branch of honor, the European Bourbons had never once contacted them directly, by mail or phone. The only thing that linked them to Europe was the rare royalty-magazine article about the swarthy Indian Bourbons, separated by 5,000 miles (Paris to Bhopal) from their lily-white kin.
Now time itself was the main offender. One week had turned to one month, then three, then six. Stuck in place, the King saw the traumatic events of his past come rushing forward again. The humiliations suffered by his father, who had only the biggest heart, who literally picked broken men up off the street and gave them roofs over their heads. The humiliations suffered by him, the King, who was seen as the embodiment of his family's past affronts: All hail the Bourbon, taker of Indian women, taker of Indian land, taker of Indian treasure, believer in that heretic Jesus Christ! From the attack, he still had scars and clots on his back and a thumb that didn't work.
Behind the broad smile, the King sank into a darker mood. He cloistered himself in the cool, shadowed inner depths of the "outhouse," his rambling abode. He had servants. A driver. A woman in the kitchen. Men farming his land. He had four ferocious Great Danes that ate better than most Indians—and would eat most of them, too, if they came over the high walls surrounding the property. In truth, he was not so poor after all! But His Highness dismissed all that with an angry flare of eyebrow. His family once rode by elephant from their palace to church, to the houses and lodges in their possession. His coach now was a Maruti Suzuki, a common economy vehicle; his houses numbered one, this one here. His family once owned more than twenty miles of land, what would have carried a value of $1 billion today, according to the King's calculations. His family now owned sixty-five acres. His possessions, he said angrily, were a mere splinter of his family's former glory in Bhopal. He liked to call his line of the family "Bourbon on the Rocks."
Over and over, the same haunting question looped in his mind: Wasn't he the senior of the senior line? Prince Michael of Greece had said as much. Senior of the senior line. King! (Of a throne that did not exist.) It was increasingly hard to be diplomatic.
"If I am in their talks, then why have they not shown their concern or support?" the King asked, half hurt, half in rage, referring to his faraway family. He sat on his own throne now, a gaunt chair with armrests, sipping tea and nibbling cookies, in the cold blow of the air conditioners again. His three children—who ranged in age from 15 to 21 and whom he tenderly called "my dears"—came and went. His wife sat to his right and at his command sprang to the kitchen to retrieve a glass of sweet lime for him. Time was passing; the monsoons were approaching. Extreme weather was upon the King now, cataclysmic, earth-ending rains. The shades were drawn against the heat, and a table lamp was on and glowing.
Exactly how they might show their support was for them—the king of Spain or the Duke of Bourbon, the Duke of Orleans or the Count of Paris—to decide. He claimed not to know but then enumerated abstract possibilities, stressing that he was not asking, that it was a terribly awkward position in which he now found himself. But, okay, for one, a title might be bestowed. The chief of the house of the Bourbons—the so-called titular King Louis XX who resided now in Venezuela with his Venezuelan wife—went by a couple of titles: the Duke of Anjou and of Bourbon and the Duke of Touraine.
Didn't he deserve something?
For two, there were those privy purses, the grants that sustained one's royal lifestyle. "Perhaps when the time comes," the King said, "Prince Michael will share with me how this works in Europe."
And finally, citizenship would help remove an obstacle to the possibility of his taking up residence in France someday, which would remove the obstacle of claiming the throne as a Frenchman, if it ever came to that, if the royals and commoners would have him.
On the day Prince Michael had taken his leave of Bhopal, the King's happiness had billowed and proliferated. And so he'd retreated into the safety of his house, where he waited…and waited…and waited.
His chest tightened now with each passing day; a queer venom rose that he could not hold down. What went unspoken was the possibility that they saw him as a bit of a rogue, an eater of broken meats! What went unspoken was that, perhaps, he'd been made a fool by this good tiding, this visitation!
"I am told by my cousin that the queen of Spain is talking about Balthazar Bourbon in Bhopal, inquiring about my health, but after that, it's finished," lamented the King. "The inquiries are finished. 'How is he?' 'Oh, he's doing very well.' It's finished. But who understands, who has gone within me to say what is the state of my heart over here? How do I sustain? How do I live?"
Almost on cue, the air conditioners died; the room went dark. The King exhaled a resigned sigh that contained within it a lifetime of sighs. "Blackouts," he proclaimed. "They are common here."
**Friend, it has **been suggested in the tomes of history and the parchments of drama that one of the most common afflictions of kings is madness, brought on by their own fantastical self-delusions. Nothing is ever enough for the king. There is a surfeit of funds, adulation, good times. But he requires more land, jewels, women. He sits, derriere upon sumptuous throne, discontented by his good fortune, and slowly, in this manner, he unhinges from the universe we know.
He wants more, yes, but who among us does not? We may be knaves, but we strive and reach, too. And in the process, we become blind to our own posturings upon that stage of our own making. Let it be suggested that the resonations between us and our King are greater than we may first believe, for there is always one more circle to which we hope to gain admittance.
In the case of our King, that last circle is now closed—and yet he believes. He believes in his own golden fiber, his latent greatness. He believes in the magical powers of his last name. And yet isn't that name its own curse? Just ask his ancestor, King Louis XVI, and his wife, Marie Antoinette, guillotined by Parisian revolutionaries; ask the Bourbons who were massacred in 1775 at an Indian fortress known as Shergarh; ask his great-grandfather Balthazar, who, after taking the Indian queen, was snuffed out by Muslim rivals.
The King comes to the conclusion that he is owed his ascendency like an unpaid debt, all because one day an angel knocked on his door bearing some news that bathed our King in celestial light. His faith, then, comes to bear a very existential problem: His stated destiny, which is the vindication of his lost family, belongs not to his God but to those who seem less than concerned about him—his brethren, the European Bourbons.
So, friend, be thankful that your own life isn't one of such fragility. (Or is it?) Be thankful that no angel knocks upon your door now. (Prithee, what is that knock?)
Ask yourself: What comes in the wilderness beyond that light? What any king knows best: danger, darkness, death.
Spring came and went. The monsoons came and went. And then the dry season—and its brain-drilling, sweltering heat. One year after the annunciation that had given birth to nothing and still no word or missive from the prince regarding the invitation.
When the King felt most inert now—when he felt that slow, slumbery, lubricious death inside—he forced himself to move, to escape, sometimes with no destination in mind. He might call for his driver and slip into the backseat of his Maruti Suzuki and exit past the slobbering Great Danes, through a first gate and then a second that opened to the street. And though servants opened the gates—and three women smiled from a nearby guardhouse—the King would pay them no mind, wouldn't even look at them from the backseat, glowering there as he often was. Soon the car would be crawling past animals and carts of sticks and fabric, people moving in colorful rivers on either side of the street, cow haunches greeting his gaze through the window.
After a while, the King might brighten a bit, caught up in the flow of energy. "This is a lovely city," he would proclaim, seeming to dismiss his own proclamation with a wave of his hand. (How very French that gesture appeared!) Passing the palace—Palace Shaukat—that once belonged to his family but now stood in disrepair, he might look for his great-grandfather in the windows.
And his grandfather.
And his daddy.
Two lakes organized the city, the upper and lower. The King might skirt the lower, which was smaller and had muddy banks choked with grass, and then climb the hill along the upper, which was vast, beautiful, and retained the wild character of a time when tigers lived on the outskirts of the city. Up the hill, where the homes became larger and more spread out, where Bhopal's upper class, such as it was, resided.
Now the King uttered words in Hindi, and the driver drove out to the country, maybe a half hour from Bhopal across flattened brown fields, until arriving at his acreage, the place where he'd been beaten nearly to death.
This was the King's farm and these were his servants, standing in dirty rags, shyly offering him through the window their hands, which he took, filthy as they were, again without making eye contact, and he spoke rather brusquely to them from the backseat, prattling orders: It's time to send for a plow. Only wheat and soybeans this year. The well needs scrubbing. The wall needs fixing.
One had credit card debt and sheepishly asked if the King might pay it for him. And the King would not, in order to teach him a valuable lesson. "I love my servants," he said, "but they are not smart enough to understand."
He directed the driver to a grove of trees where a canopy of leaves offered shade from the lasering sunlight. The King pulled himself out of the car and stood for a moment, alone, scanning the fields, looking up through the leaves above. That feeling in his chest unhitched, and he drew big mouthfuls of air, as if surfacing from underwater to an image of Daddy again, on his deathbed.
The King had been 19 at the time (a few years younger than his eldest son now, the one who wanted to go to film school in America and be done with India and all this royal nonsense). But those thirty years ago, the family gathered round, and his father pointed to the King and said to his daughters, "Look at your brother. He is your father now."
Thus, Salvador abdicated to his son. And the King took charge. He mediated all family disputes. (The King often sided with his sisters' husbands so as not to show partiality.) He oversaw the family holdings. He helped maintain the Catholic church, the one adjacent to his house that had been built by his forebears in 1875. He broached few other opinions but his own, for none were worth as much. Except maybe one: To hear the King thirty years later, his father loomed as large as ever. He was the figure who animated him, who looked down from heaven and actually saw him there, recognized his harrowing travails because they'd once been his own. "I've stepped into his shoes," the King would say. "And his predicament."
When the King spoke of Daddy, it was always with reverence. "He didn't have a kingdom, but he was a king," he'd say. "He was a king with his heart, flowing, overflowing. He could not see anyone in pain. And that is what carried forward."
Looking at it now, however, there'd been a kind of unreasonable hope bequeathed from father to son. That the past could be resurrected. And once their position of greatness was restored, the Bourbons would change the world—again.
But if deprived of those glories, then what?
"I am stuck," the King muttered, gazing upon the brown furrowed fields, all that was left of the Bourbon empire in India. "It is a mental state, you see. From which there seems no escape."
Well, there was one escape: the Throne That Did Not Exist. He was a sane man, a rational man, a man who had sworn an oath to uphold the law. He dealt in facts and evidence. His delusions, whatever they were, were held privately.
**Woe, this tale **of Balthazar Napoleon de Bourbon beganeth with the light-filled flight of an angel and endeth with a jail cell. Such is the fate of a monarch's life. It begins with bright colors and ends in ash.
In the time between the visitation of the angel-prince and that time even now when no invitation has yet been issued—almost a year deprived of this basic courtesy—our King went back to work at the high court, driving his Maruti Suzuki on his own. Morbidity turned to anger turned to resignation—and the cycle repeated itself over and over until the King was characterized by a certain empty bluster, a disconnection from his own life that lay before him, one replaced by an obsession with visions of Paris and Versailles, of a more formal anointment, of the King himself embraced by white people living in châteaus. (Did those even exist anymore? What was real and what was fantasy?)
Unbeknownst to him, even now, the prince, while standing by his theory, denied ever offering an invitation for Balthazar to visit France. He claimed that that invitation belonged to powers beyond him. And he described Balthazar's family this way: "I met them by accident. I thought they were very nice and very welcoming, and they looked like a typical bourgeois Indian family. Nothing French, nothing royal. Except the famous name of Bourbon was inscribed in their passports. Now he calls me 'Brother,' but I said, 'Cousins, yes. But brothers, not yet.' "
Now, on a stifling, overcast morning, Bhopal smelled like a cesspool. The high court was a collection of open-air, sand-colored buildings decorated by mongrel dogs lying in the heat. The rain did little to wash away that scent of mold and urine. Wearing the standard uniform of a lawyer—black jacket, white shirt, and a wide wing collar—the King went to the sweltering library, where he had a book to return. The weak fan on the table almost made matters worse, and then he took his leave, huffing for air, zagging through the crowded hallways. It was like a drill, dodging the press of attorneys and clients as well as a sea of wooden tables set everywhere, what constituted impromptu office stations with the phone number and name of each lawyer painted in Hindi on the wall.
The King did not loiter. He moved with purpose—busily. He breathed heavily, exposed to the heat as he was. That constriction again, across the chest, that queer anger. He smiled broadly when he bumped into colleagues, but he was not exactly one to make idle chitchat—and his expression returned to seriousness and slight agitation after passing.
"And how is the King of France today?" said one friend, making a loud show of shaking his hand. The two exchanged pleasantries, and when they broke off the King was almost buoyant.
So they did love him—right? It was a relief to live in the lacuna between this first question and the one that followed: Or did they?
The King came upon a courtroom where an old man stood in threadbare clothes, slouched in the defendant's box. The judge appeared displeased by the villain, but it was hard to imagine the defendant, looking frail and almost kindly as he did there, killing anyone. Watching from the back of the room for a moment, the King emitted a low sound—half-grunt, half-complaint. Did he pity the old man? Had he seen enough to know that beneath the broken veneer this toady varlet was a cold-blooded killer? That his brokenness was an act?
The King's eyebrows flared. He stopped to wipe his brow, and then he was swept up among the others dressed exactly as he was, just another in the crowd. All of his history—his name, his blood—had rendered him as common as the next commoner. And yet it was the displeasure flickering on his face that separated him from them. Perhaps he saw the old man, the convict, as lucky—at least he was receiving justice. Even his jail cell might have been easier to accept, after having been recognized and judged. But the King—the King stood before time, before the great cosmic flow of history, and worse than being unjudged, he'd been completely forgotten.
His jail cell was invisibility. His destiny was inaction (still waiting). His life, he now acknowledged, was nothing but "a tragedy." Perhaps it's fair to say that any true king would have preferred the guillotine to nonexistence, if he weren't sustained by the dream-delusion of what could be: visions of oneself ascending in ermine to the throne, to the loving cheers of his subjects, jeweled scepter flashing. But, dear friend, how likely is such an outcome even for the man who has rightful claim—or who simply desires it more than any other?
When the King returned to his walled compound, he passed his servants again in the driveway without paying them any mind. And they kept up their conversation this time, paying him none, either.
michael paterniti is a gq_ correspondent._


text: First alloyed in the Middle East during the late 4th millennium BC, bronze became popular as it allowed metal workers to form objects more easily than before. This was the early stages of what later became known as the "Bronze Age". Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper with tin as a main additive. Typically, modern bronze is 88% copper and 12% tin.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Are Billionaires Smarter Than You?
New research suggests the richer you are, the brighter you are. Quentin Fottrell breaks it down on Lunch Break. Photo: AP Images.
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.
... I ... oh ... are you smart as a billionaire are you smart enough to keep telling MarketWatch ... finance reporter ... quite that runs the digging into the data see what ... formal education really has to do with income ... the key is to release ... al say it's smart guys with two different opinions on this issue quickly tell us in these Mendler and and what the research entailed writes Jonathan way down ... I he's the research scientists the sun psychology Chief University ... and he's studies ... in he looked ESET score is conference and had the project ... intelligence and he basically the basis of those fourteen squares a fortune Hunter them over ... the chosen was twenty one nine peoples ... of the colleges ... they happen to include like our current Columbia ... also cute as it happens quite yet second it comes down to is that our deal I you know where I'd I just can't top it all right he's ... pretty smart guy was Ellis's Maxim that was a ... bucket and forty five percent of billionaire is run to the top one percent the smartest people in the U S and aam Basin not that this measurements ... of forty one percent of senators run to the top one percent fourteen percent of federal judges and ... just thirty nine percent of Fortune CE as I can on the other side the other two minute interview ... he says that's not necessarily the reason why the making of the ... year of a courthouse which people think ... aam and Slim's Steve's steep roads ... I he ever the course of twenty nine years has ... interviews from about twelve hundreds ... the multi millionaires and billionaires ... including ... well known people like Donald Trump in pound Ridge a single e I medicines and it read as ... I know that some of you may think and toughen harks back to in a very compassionate person with a very high IQ test on common sense and modest ... dry and not as notwithstanding the scary monster it was so let let's first look a little bit about this of people might say US official with trumpeter school ... well he went to the aam turns at the Wharton School pencil Univeristy Pennsylvania ... ALM so that was also in mind and the twenty nine ... listed said he got lucky a nice ... that the light ... actually those are both cases but see bold think that Trump is really smart ... because he says he has um a very ... he's interviewed him several times he says he has a very ... common ... good concentration spiny to really focus on something and he uses that as a ... measure of intelligence ... to Bowles as testable says that well you know he's in to get a lot a great raw facts you became billionaires and I think there are other things up I he ... your ability to concentrate ... on any ability to take risks I mean in your your your your appetite to work long hours not everybody ... has that I mean it just seems to be something intangible factor ... in an accident site that went the other but they're often does seem to be an intangible factor when you look at people who may be its hard ... part to qualify in part to cough always respected publications write exactly I would agree with us to really ... eat alot about the intelligence reports my feet you also care about emotional intelligence when buying tickets cost discuss that all that he and compete in the area I mentioned up ... there somebody who's really smart ... president Brock a bomb on you know he went to Harvard law school ... aam of course when he ... found recently in a very good gun control ... measures around but did not pop on the lot people ... said well ... you know ... maybe if he had use more emotional intelligence and more social skills in terms of ... him getting politicians one-on-one twisting their arms saying what can I do for you ... this is also ... is that there are lots of ways of measuring intelligence as well one might argue that bill but had more emotional intelligence in some ways and well Guiliani was extremely cars Monday that still has yet to see ... what Andre Carson between these two guys that you've got its pared down on MarketWatch dot com thanks to the high was a preset plan ...


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The city-county Office of Construction Code Enforcement has issued a $4.4 million mechanical permit for work on Nike Inc.'s North Memphis distribution center at 3100 New Frayser Blvd.
The permit was issued to S.A. Comunale Co. Inc., an Akron, Ohio-based "mechanical, fire protection and HVAC services company," according to its website.
It is one of what will likely be many permits filed for the $301 million project, and it follows a recent $3 million permit that calls for the installation of "industrial steel storage racks" by Elk Grove, Ill.-based Wynright Corp.
Nike in January paid $2.2 million for about 200 acres of vacant land in Frayser from Belz Investco GP for the distribution center.
Operating in the transaction as Nike TN Inc., the Beaverton, Ore.-based sports giant bought the land in two parcels – a 162.5-acre tract and a 38.4-acre tract, both north of Nike's 1.1 million-square-foot facility in Belz Enterprises Inc.'s Northridge Industrial Park.
The board of the Memphis and Shelby County Economic Development Growth Engine approved last October a 15-year payment-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOT) agreement with Nike for the $301 million project.
According to the approved PILOT, the expansion would retain 1,600 jobs and add 250 more once the expanded facility opens, said Willie Gregory, Nike director of Community and Business Relations.
The PILOT amounts to a $57.8 million tax break with a local tax benefit of $105.3 million in return.
Nike's 1,700 employees across Memphis are the company's second largest workforce in the U.S. behind only its Beaverton headquarters.
Source: The Daily News Online & Chandler Reports
– Daily News staff
The local economic development organization LaunchYourCity Inc. has rebranded itself as Start Co.
According to a release from the organization, the new name and identity better reflect the organization's offerings and values with a unified platform and mission. Along with that is a coming roll out of a redesigned website and new service offerings.
Start Co. will continue to operate Seed Hatchery, the 90-day mentor program that hosted its Investor Day May 16, and Upstart, which is a new accelerator program geared toward building women-led and owned startups.
The new name, brand and identity were developed by archer-malmo and its venture partner a-m ventures.
– Andy Meek
Mike Carpenter, the project manager for the city's Main Street to Main Street project, will become the executive director of the nonprofit Plough Foundation next month.
Carpenter joins the philanthropic foundation June 10 and will remain as a consultant to the city project for three months.
Carpenter is a former Shelby County commissioner.
The Main Street to Main Street project is the redevelopment of Main Street Memphis and Broadway Avenue in West Memphis, Ark., with a bicycle and pedestrian boardwalk on the Harahan rail bridge across the Mississippi River linking the two.
Construction on the first phases of the project is scheduled to begin later this year.
– Bill Dries
The University of Tennessee Health Science Center said Dr. Kathryn Schwarzenberger will lead the university's new Department of Dermatology in the College of Medicine.
Before joining UTHSC, Schwarzenberger was a professor in the Division of Dermatology at the University of Vermont College of Medicine. After completing her medical degree at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas, she completed residencies in both internal medicine and dermatology at Duke University and a fellowship in immunodermatology research at the National Cancer Institute Dermatology Branch.
– Jennifer Johnson Backer
John Rich will perform alongside Wynonna Judd, Larry the Cable Guy and his Big & Rich partner, Big Kenny at a June 4 concert that will benefit St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
Actress and special guest Lisa Rinna also will perform at the event, St. Jude Presents John Rich & Friends, which takes place at the Cannon Center for the Performing Arts. The concert will serve as the second annual concert tee off for the 2013 FedEx St. Jude Classic.
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital says proceeds from the concert, as well as the FedEx St. Jude Classic, benefit the hospital and its mission to provide exceptional care to children fighting cancer and other deadly diseases, while ensuring that no family ever pays St. Jude for anything.
Tickets range from $40 to $80 per person and can be ordered through Ticketmaster.
Arkansas' two U.S. senators are participating in an online discussion with small-business owners about the Internet and economic development.
U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor's office said he and Sen. John Boozman will participate in a Google Plus Hangout at 3:30 p.m. Monday. Talk Business editor Roby Brock will moderate the discussion.
Pryor's office said participants in the discussion will include officials with the Internet Association, the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce and the Arkansas Farm Bureau. It will also include the founder of the Bourbon and Boots online store and the owner of Rock Appliances and Services.
Pryor is a Democrat serving his second term. Boozman is a Republican serving his first term.
– The Associated Press
A measure of the U.S. economy's future health rose solidly in April, buoyed by a sharp rise in applications to build homes and a better job market.
The Conference Board said Friday that its index of leading indicators increased 0.6 percent last month to a reading of 95. That followed a 0.2 percent decline in March.
The index is intended to signal economic conditions three to six months out.
Conference Board economist Ken Goldstein said the index is 3.5 percent higher at an annual rate than it was six months ago, suggesting expansion for the economy.
Goldstein said that steady job gains and a recovering housing market are driving the economy and helping offset deep federal spending cuts that threaten growth.
The index is composed of 10 forward-pointing indicators. Strength in April came from the surge in building permits, a drop in applications for unemployment benefits and a rising stock market.
Holding the index back in April: Weaker consumer confidence and a decline in the average hours worked at U.S. factories.
A separate report Friday showed consumer confidence jumped to near a six-year high in early May. The University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index rose to 83.7, up from 76.4 in April.
Economists attributed the gain to record-high stock prices, cheaper gas and solid employment gains.
"Changes in confidence don't always filter through into changes in spending, but the omens are good," said Amna Asaf, an economist at Capital Economics.
The job market has also improved over the past six months. The economy has added an average of 208,000 jobs a month since November. That's up from only 138,000 a month in the previous six months.
Unemployment has fallen to a four-year low of 7.5 percent.
A rebound in housing, along with a limited supply of homes for sale, has lifted the construction industry.
Construction cooled off in April, as builders broke ground on fewer homes after topping the 1 million mark in March for the first time since 2008. But most of the decline was in apartment construction, which tends to vary sharply from month to month.
The most encouraging sign for the industry last month was that applications for new construction reached a five-year peak. That suggests the housing revival will be sustained.
Copyright 1995 -
by The Daily News Publishing Co. Inc. - All Rights Reserved


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Originally distributed by Columbia Pictures, the cartoon shorts produced by UPA (United Productions of America) from 1949 to 1959 were revolutionary, adopting the contemporary graphics of Modern design and offering non-traditional, provocative storytelling. The cartoons were popular with the public and the leading critics of the day praised them to the skies. Giving the animators at Disney, MGM and Warner Bros. a run for their money, UPA earned fifteen Oscar® nominations and three Academy Awards®.
The UPA studio founders had all been involved in the 1941 strike at Walt Disney Studio, and by the time of the 1948 contract with Columbia, UPA had produced several government, propaganda and industrial films. Studio head Stephen Bosustow had gathered a large staff of innovative artists to direct and design the work; several staffers were also former Disney artists. Part of the UPA philosophy was to emphasize the design element over actual animation. UPA cartoons featured a credit for artists who worked only on color design, for example.
Columbia Pictures insisted that the first few UPA cartoons include their long-running talking animal characters, the Fox and the Crow. UPA complied, even though they really wanted to break away from talking animal cartoons completely. When the first UPA cartoon, a Fox and Crow called Robin Hoodlum (1949), earned an Academy Award® nomination, Columbia executives gave the studio free reign. Aside from talking animals, the artists and story men at UPA also wanted to get away from traditional cartoon violence, or what they called "hurt gags." One of their first cartoons, made during the probation period with Columbia, was The Ragtime Bear, with a story by feature-film writer Millard Kaufman and artist John Hubley. It featured a Funny Animal to appease Columbia (the title character), but introduced a human character that reflected the direction that the studio wanted to go. Ironically, that character--the nearsighted Mr. Magoo--proved to be so popular with the public, that Columbia insisted that UPA produce many more Magoo cartoons. The studio artists would have been happier avoiding repetition; they preferred that every cartoon be different in style and subject matter from the last.
For almost a decade, until the beginning of the demise of the theatrical short subject as a desirable element of the exhibitor's nightly program, UPA turned out an amazingly varied slate of creative, innovative cartoon shorts. They challenged convention and influenced both popular culture and art and design for years to come.
The Ragtime Bear
Historically significant as the first Mr. Magoo cartoon, The Ragtime Bear (1949) is also one of UPA's funniest releases. Magoo would soon become UPA's signature character, going against the company policy to avoid repetition. The origins of the character are quite muddled, but the majority of the credit must go to screenwriter Millard Kaufman. Kaufman had gotten early writing assignments on industrial films at UPA before going on to pen such live-action features as Bad Day at Black Rock (1955) and Raintree County (1957). In addition to Kaufman, director John Hubley would later say that he based the Magoo look and manner after his gruff uncle, and that the animators of the short looked to W. C. Fields for inspiration.
Magoo's voice was provided by radio actor Jim Backus, who often mentioned that he based the character on his own father. In his book Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons, Leonard Maltin quotes Jerry Hausner (Backus' friend and the voice of Waldo) on the recording process of this first cartoon: "We went into the studio with two pages of dialogue. We read all of the speeches that had been written down. Then Hubley did something that no other animated cartoon director has ever done in my presence. He said, 'Let's do it again and ad-lib around the subject. Throw in any wild thoughts you might have.' We did another version of it. Backus began to go crazy and have a good time..." The impromptu asides became a beloved trademark of the character, and of Jim Backus as an actor, in the years to come.
In his essential history of UPA, When Magoo Flew: The Rise and Fall of Animation Studio UPA (Wesleyan, 2012), Adam Abraham quotes studio founder Bosustow, who later recalled, "I sent Ragtime Bear back to Columbia Pictures [in New York], and they said, 'Great, where's the next six or eight a year?'" The reluctant studio embarked on a series of cartoons featuring their breakout star.
Producer: Ed Gershman
Director: John Hubley
Story: Millard Kaufman
Design: William Hurtz
Color: Herb Klynn, Jules Engel
Music: Del Castillo
Animation: Art Babbitt, Pat Matthews, Rudy Larriva, Willy Pyle
Cast: Jim Backus (Mr. Magoo (voice, uncredited); Jerry Hausner (Waldo (voice, uncredited)
Gerald McBoing Boing
Now considered one of the greatest cartoon shorts ever made, Gerald McBoing Boing (1951) also put UPA and their revolutionary design sensibilities on the mainstream map. The story came from an unusual source for an animated film: a children's record. Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, was friends with UPA story man Phil Eastman and was invited to pitch a story idea. Geisel brought the Gerald McBoing Boing record to Steve Bosustow, who he had known in the days when they both worked on propaganda films for the Signal Corps during World war II. Bosustow bought the film rights to the story for five hundred dollars. The story was adapted by Eastman and Bill Scott with some clever character-building additions.
The story is clever, but what made Gerald McBoing Boing so fresh and new was the way the story was dramatized visually, with a bold approach to color, character design, backgrounds, and the very language of animation. Adam Abraham quotes designer Bill Hurtz, who recalled the thought process behind the modern designs he worked up with director Robert (Bobe) Cannon: "We thought we were really boiling it down: what can we get rid of? How elemental could it get?" Abraham describes some of the many visual innovations that are packed into the seven-minute cartoon: "In some instances, one scene does not cut to the next, as in typical motion-picture continuity; rather, Gerald remains still, and the setting changes around him. The most striking example of Cannon and Hurtz's linear pattern occurs near the end. In an image inspired by Carol Reed's 1948 feature The Fallen Idol, Gerald climbs a crooked staircase that leads nowhere. The scene dissolves, and Gerald continues his diagonal motion into his little bedroom. Completing this arc, he climbs out the window, into the blackness of night." Color styling is also experimental. Gerald's "flesh" tone always matches the background he is on, for example, and colors are sometimes splashed impressionistically, with little regard for staying "in the line."
Gerald McBoing Boing was released in December, 1950, and was a smash hit, reportedly playing simultaneously in three major New York City theaters. Soon, the cartoon became a major topic of discussion in both highbrow journals and the mainstream press. In March, 1951 the cartoon won the Academy Award® for best animated short subject, beating out MGM's Jerry's Cousin starring Tom and Jerry, and UPA's own Trouble Indemnity, the third Mr. Magoo.
Producer: Stephen Bosustow
Director: Robert Cannon
Story: Bill Scott, Phil Eastman (adaptation); Dr. Seuss (story)
Design: Bill Hurtz
Music: Gail Kubik
Color: Herb Klynn, Jules Engel
Animation: Bill Melendez, Rudy Larriva, Pet Matthews, Willis Pyle, Frank Smith
Cast: Marvin Miller (Narrator, voice)
Rooty Toot Toot
Rooty Toot Toot (1951) stands as one of the high points of UPA's output and as one of the most highly-praised seven-minute cartoons ever made. It is in no way a children's film; it deals with strictly adult characters and situations. Gerald McBoing Boing and The Ragtime Bear had performed very well at the box office, so Columbia approved a larger budget for UPA cartoons--they would now be budgeted at nearly $35,000 each. Meanwhile, John Hubley was anxious to make his own definitive statement at UPA (he directed the first Magoo cartoon but would soon hand the character over to others). Hubley took the new budget allowance and ran with it, pulling out all the stops to make a thoroughly Modern and graphically exciting update on the old "Frankie and Johnny" story of jealousy and murder. Rooty Toot Toot would go over schedule and budget, but it earned nearly as much critical and press attention as Gerald.
Hubley brought in a number of interesting collaborators on Rooty Toot Toot. Dancer Olga Lunick was hired to choreograph the ballet-style dance moves. There was no rotoscoping involved; her moves were only referenced by the artists and animators, not slavishly traced. Paul Julian designed the backgrounds and utilized some non-typical techniques; in his essential history of UPA, When Magoo Flew: The Rise and Fall of Animation Studio UPA (Wesleyan, 2012), Adam Abraham quotes Julian on one of them: "'I found a kind of oddly corroded gelatin roller - an ordinary print roller that had been pitted and pocked in some way, chemically.' With this device, he produced distressed-looking backgrounds that suited the sordid tale." In addition, Hubley and the studio brought on jazz musician Phil Moore to write the score. Moore had done orchestrations for many MGM musicals in the 1940s, but uncredited--this would be a rare on-screen credit for the black musician. Legendary animator Grim Natwick also joined the crew. Natwick had been active since the silent era and had designed and animated Betty Boop for the Fleischer Studios. He went on to work on such key films as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and Gulliver's Travels (1939). For Rooty Toot Toot Natwick animated the memorable shots of Nellie Bly on the witness stand.
Producer: John Hubley
Director: John Hubley
Story: John Hubley, Bill Scott
Color and Design: Paul Julian
Music: Phil Moore
Lyrics: Allen Alch
Choreography: Olga Lunick
Animation: Art Babbitt, Pat Matthews, Tom McDonald, Grim Natwick
Cast: Thurl Ravenscroft (Jonathan Bailey, Honest John the Crook, voice), Annette Warren (Frankie/Nelly Bly, voice)
The Unicorn in the Garden
The Unicorn in the Garden (1953) is one of the most fondly remembered cartoons of the UPA output, and it is one of the rare examples that was adapted from another artist's style. The Unicorn in the Garden is also the only completed bit of evidence of a long-held but unfulfilled dream at UPA to produce an entire feature film based on the works of noted humorist James Thurber.
As detailed by Adam Abraham, Steve Bosustow and UPA considered several properties for feature-length treatment, including Finian's Rainbow and Walt Kelly's Pogo comic strip, but the idea for a Thurber feature went the furthest; it was even announced to the press under titles like The Thurber Carnival and Men, Women and Dogs. The film would have included a mixture of several short stories done in a variety of styles, including live-action as well as animation. Producer John Houseman was attached to the project, but the team could not get major studio backing after Columbia passed on the idea.
The seven-minute The Unicorn in the Garden was then produced as a "pilot" of sorts for a larger feature. UPA bought the story rights for one thousand dollars and Bill Hurtz directed with an eye to replicating Thurber's loose, untrained pen-and-ink style of drawing. As with so many other famed UPA shorts, the humor is decidedly adult, dealing with husbands, wives, and "battle of the sexes" themes.
Producer: Stephen Bosustow
Director: William T. Hurtz
Story: James Thurber
Design and Color: Robert Dranko
Music: David Raksin
Animation: Phil Monroe, Rudy Larriva, Tom McDonald
Christopher Crumpet
The cartoons helmed by UPA director Robert (Bobe) Cannon often featured children in the lead parts; others who worked with Cannon would later say that the subject matter reflected the gentle nature of the man himself. In studio dealings he avoided conflict and he shied away from conflict in his cartoons as well. Christopher Crumpet (1953) was a popular entry concerning a boy turns into a chicken whenever he doesn't get his way. In his book Enchanted Drawings: The History of Animation (Wings Books, 1994), Charles Solomon writes that Cannon's sensitive approach to material is most often charming, "but the aversion to conflict sometimes becomes a weakness. When Christopher Crumpet refuses to demonstrate his metamorphic abilities before a witness, his father whines and begs and pleads, but never loses his temper. The audience tires of the intractable child and begins to root for the parent."
The UPA penchant for stylized design and bold color was an ideal playground for visualizing the "imaginary friend" world of children. As Adam Abraham writes in When Magoo Flew: The Rise and Fall of Animation Studio UPA (Wesleyan, 2012), "Here each background is reduced to a single shade. Whereas earlier cartoon characters may have been painted in eight or more different colors, Christopher appears all in yellow, with forelock of brazen red. The limited animation is daring as well: the Crumpets move in zigzag motion to imply depth, and Christopher's transformations are expressed not literally, but as a jumble of jagged lines."
The "imaginary friend" theme was one that the studio would return to often, including a direct sequel to this cartoon called Christopher Crumpet's Playmate (1955).
Producer: Stephen Bosustow
Director: Robert Cannon
Story: T. Hee, Robert Cannon
Design: T. Hee
Color: Jules Engel
Music: George Bruns
Animation: Bill Melendez, Frank Smith, Tom McDonald
Cast: Marvin Miller (Various, voice); Marian Richman (Various, voice)
Fudget's Budget
Household finance is the subject of Fudget's Budget (1954), directed by Robert Cannon. It is not a very likely topic for a one-reel cartoon short, but is by all odds one of the most abstract and visually stunning of the UPA cartoons. George and Irene Fudget bicker constantly over budgetary concerns, and eventually find themselves "underwater." Designer T. Hee depicts the pair, their kids, and all other characters and background elements as literal lines on a graph. That is, the mostly unchanging background is black graph paper, over which move the decidedly two-dimensional figures--when they turn sideways, they are single vertical lines!
The music (by George Bruns) is equally elemental, consisting only of a jaunty piano score. The colors are almost all primary; they must have absolutely popped on the big screen in 35mm. The result, narrated by Marvin Miller, is one of UPA's most accessible and enjoyable shorts.
T. Hee was another Disney veteran. Known for his caricatures, he first worked on Looney Tunes at Warner Bros., on cartoons such as The CooCoo Nut Grove (1936) which featured movie star parodies. At Disney he directed the "Dance of the Hours" segment in Fantasia (1940) and was a story man on The Reluctant Dragon (1941) and Make Mine Music (1946). At UPA he was most often paired with director Cannon as designer and/or story man--among their other collaborations were such superior cartoons as Ballet-Oop (1954), How Now Boing Boing (1954) and The Jaywalker (1956).
Producer: Stephen Bosustow
Director: Robert Cannon
Story: Tedd Pierce, T. Hee, Robt. Cannon
Design: T. Hee
Music: George Bruns
Animation: Frank Smith, Alan Zoslove, Gerald Rolf
Cast: Marvin Miller (Fudget/Narrator, voice)
The Tell-Tale Heart
The Tell-Tale Heart (1953) is one of the most unusual and memorable animated shorts produced by a major studio during the Golden Age of theatrical animation. The daring and expressive short begins with a rare text disclaimer: "The film that you are about to see is based on a story told a hundred years ago by America's greatest master of drama and suspense... This story is told through the eyes of a madman... who, like all of us, believed that he was sane." This spoiler both explains the point-of-view of the story for the dull-witted members of the audience as well as acting as an alert that the content was to be taken seriously, not humorously. In 1953 a dramatic cartoon was a rarity indeed.
The Tell-Tale Heart contains very little animation. It was designed by Paul Julian as a series of detailed, manic paintings and visually tells the story from the subjective view of the crazed man who murders an old man because of his "evil eye." The first-person narration is delivered by James Mason--an inspired choice--and writer Bill Scott does not take a single line directly from the story, though the language is very much in the Poe vein. The visuals are brought to life with sweeping camera moves and eerie light and shadows that are constantly in play.
When the short was near completion, it was decided that the studio should create a 3-D version. Stereoscopic films were at their height of popularity that year, as every major studio rushed to release features and shorts in the format. Disney, Paramount and Warner Bros. had produced cartoons in 3-D and Steve Bosustow decided this subject would be ideal and that the process would add to the eerie effect. Extra work was required, of course; as Adam Abraham writes in When Magoo Flew: The Rise and Fall of Animation Studio UPA (Wesleyan, 2012), "Paul Julian had to paint more backgrounds. 'I stayed up all night on a couple of occasions working out the parallaxes.'" The 3-D version of the film was shown in the UPA screening room, as many employees and family members later recalled, but unfortunately Columbia did not release The Tell-Tale Heart in Stereo and no 3-D elements have been discovered as of this writing.
The short received enormous press attention--it was written up in both Life and Time magazines in September of 1953.
Producer: Stephen Bosustow
Director: Ted Parmelee
Story: Edgar Allan Poe (story); Bill Scott, Fred Grable (story adaptation)
Design and Color: Paul Julian
Music: Boris Kremenliev
Animation: Pat Matthews
Cast: James Mason (Narrator, voice)
by John M. Miller
When Magoo Flew: The Rise and Fall of Animation Studio UPA, Adam Abraham, 2012, Wesleyan.
Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons, Leonard Maltin, 1987, Plume.
Enchanted Drawings: The History of Animation, Charles Solomon, 1994, Wings Books.


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Monday, November 27, 2006
Violence in Crime Fiction: The Forgotten Factor
It's a topic that feels to me as though it's been done to death. I have read listserves and forums long enough to see routine comments from people, about the fact that they won't read about the torture and murder of children, or book with rape. Someone from a forum once emailed me and said they were disgusted with Mo Hayder, because she'd written an extremely graphic and violent book while pregnant. I think it was Tokyo she was referring to. But the point is, not offended by the violence, but offended the author wrote it while pregnant.
You never know what it is that will offend readers.
I can even tell you more than one person expressed some misgivings about Cold Granite because of the murders of children in the book. And yet Stuart doesn't think he writes dark stuff.
When I think of Stuart's first book, I think of one scene that gave me a good laugh but I think of a lot of other scenes that were pretty grim.
In the intro to The Flood Rankin mentions Reader Response Criticism Theory – which basically states that it isn't what the writer was trying to say that's important, just what the reader got from the book. This theory infers one thing we all know: sometimes people see things in books that authors don't intend.
I happen to know some people who wouldn't let their children watch The Lion King because they thought it was too graphic. I have a really good friend who won't even watch the news. A Field of Darkness wouldn't get to me the same way a book like To The Power of Three would get to someone like her.
Face it. A woman who's just been raped isn't likely to find a book like Wire in the Blood to be an easy read. I think we can all understand that.
All of this to say that I believe violence is relative. And I believe that there are two key components that affect how people perceive the violence in books. One has to do with who the reader is. A friend of mine always asks for referrals. Bear in mind none of these friends I'm mentioning are mystery readers. They only read what I refer to them. When I make those lists I consider their threshold. One friend, who has young children, can't handle anything with violence against children. I respect that. It's enough that I've won her over to the likes of Rankin and McDermid. I'm not going to stick a book in front of her where young children are being killed in a graphic manner. Give her a few years. Then she'll probably want to read those books. (Joking…)
So, one key component is the reader. The other is who the victim is.
This connects to recent discussion on DorothyL about Joe Konrath's books, particularly the belief of some readers that the books contain excessive, offensive violence. Joe himself commented in response:
"I write just enough to set the scene, then let the reader fill in the blanks. Don't agree? Please try to point out one of these vivid descriptions of torture.
You'll find that it's really less vivid than you originally thought, and that your imagination made it worse than it actually was."
(Kevin's waiting for him to write a cozy called Shirley Temple, but I suspect that's not coming any time soon.)
I needed a diversion between edits of my own work this weekend, something to clear my head at night. I didn't think it was a good idea to watch a 'mystery' movie, so I picked something I hadn't seen for a while.
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.
I picked a movie with plenty of violence, battle scenes and some brutal deaths. Meanwhile, in the discussion on DorothyL most of the people commenting have been readers. Whether I agree or disagree, these are the ones who may pick up my work and dissect it. I am always curious about how they respond to different things. And some of them have been quite critical of violence in fiction.
Joe's response was also interesting. I completely agree with him about what the mind fills in being worse than what writers actually put down on the page much of the time.
In The Two Towers there is a fierce battle, the battle for Helm's Deep. The great moment is when the elves come, to honour their old allegiance with men and fight by their side once more. Haldir leads them.
But the battle does not go well. Helm's Deep is breached. King Theoden calls Aragorn to fall back to the Keep. Haldir is wounded. And then he is struck from behind.
You only see the Uruk Hai swinging the weapon down. You see Haldir's body lurch forward, presumably as the sword hits him. You see the look on his face as he falls, you see what he sees, the bodies of the other elves who've fallen in battle. You don't see the blood spatter or the wound.
And Aragorn reaches him just as he dies.
That is the only point in the movie that almost reduced me to tears in the theatre. It is by no means as graphic as when some people are skewered by spears, heads are severed, some are eaten by wargs. The truth is, there are a lot of points in this movie where more blood is shed, yet it is the scene with Haldir that affected me. Why?
Because I liked him.
I can think of similar examples in fiction. Val McDermid has written her share of rape scenes in her Tony Hill/Carol Jordan series. The extent of the mutilation of one character I really liked in The Wire in the Blood really bothered me. Of all of the rapes, it is the rape of Carol in one of the books that stays with me. The characters of Shaz and Carol weren't just objects that violence was done to. They were characters I cared about. I felt their pain in a different way.
Beyond crime fiction, how about my favourite of all of the Star Trek series, Deep Space Nine? In the last season there's an episode called The Siege of AR-558. Ezri Dax becomes friends with one officer, who is ultimately killed. The tension, the desperation, the very real stress on soldiers and the effect of the violence they'd seen on them. It's a rarity, because this is an episode where they're fighting a ground war, and there are aspects of this episode that make you think of classic war movies.
I remember watching that and feeling like someone had just punched me in the gut, because they'd put a real human face on the losses. Not just numbers of people killed in war, but people with names, hopes, dreams killed in a battle.
To me, this is one of the critical things we overlook when we're addressing the subject of violence in our fiction. It is not always about what we do and don't show. It is often about who the victim of the violence is.
It is my personal belief that when we care more about the characters, when we empathize with them, we feel any violation on a deeper level. And in situations like that we're inclined to infer more into the violence than the author necessarily writes or intends.
At the end of the day, each reader has the right to decide what goes too far for them. Each author must accept the fact that not everyone will like their work. There are some people who might like my first book who will not find my second book easy to take.
I have stated elsewhere that I write the level of violence that I believe is appropriate for the story I'm trying to tell. I do hold to the idea that less is usually more. The only thing that I take exception to is violence that, to me, reads as showy or unnecessarily gratuitous. And even I must say that applying that label is a highly personal thing. I mean, I've written my share of assaults, rape scenes and murders, but the one thing I've taken offense over recently was Gingerbread cookies in Nazi uniforms.
This is, ultimately, an issue where there is no right or wrong. Everyone will put that line in a different place. We aren't always going to agree with each other.
One just hopes we'll try to respect the author's right to produce the work they see fit… and the reader's choice to embrace it or reject it. However, the fact that this is such a subjective issue means that, while I think the stuffing has already been beaten out of this topic, undoubtedly it's one we'll continue to hear people discuss for years to come.
My question for you is, where's your line? Is there anything you won't write, or won't read?
24 comments:
A while back, someone (I think it was John Rickards) posted a list of things that readers said would make them not want to read a novel. The list had things like child murder, murder of gay people, murder of clergy, the killing of pets, etc. It was quite pathetic, the number of people who would shy away from a book if they knew a pet died in the story. If you ask Rickards about it, I'm sure he'd remember.
I remain a proud advocate of violence in crime fiction. Fourteen people and a cat get killed during the course of my novel, and I don't think any of those scenes are gratuitous.
- 9:29 a.m.
- Steven said...
Well, as you know my last book was about pedophiles. There isn't a single sex scene in the book, but PW still cited it for "deviant sexuality". That said, I don't think I would ever depict an actual rape scene (man, woman or child). Too intimate/painful.
I don't see the problem with killing off pets, certainly not in a story where humans are killed.
I don't like it when the people who are killed are not people I am forced to care/think about.
Frankly, I don't see the point to objecting to violence in a murder mystery. Rape is the one thing that might be even worse than murder.
Interestingly, I have the feeling that many of the people who might object to violence in books will watch CSI which gets pretty graphic with the aftermath of violence.
- 10:10 a.m.
My grandmother was convinced my cousin was "marked" because my aunt saw The Exorcist while pregnant. I haven't detected any devil horns on my cousin though.
People are weird, and I think my choice to stay away from these email lists is a good one. Shit happens in crime fiction. Sometimes it's bad shit, but hiding it behind a doily doesn't make it good.
- 11:06 a.m.
- Sandra Ruttan said...
Patrick, I knew there was discussion about this on John's forum. As to the issue of killing pets, it's definitely an element that offends a lot of people. When Val McDermid was in Calgary two years ago she talked about the TV version of Wire in the Blood and said they'd wanted to kill Carol's cat in an episode and she was the one who said they couldn't do that, they could make it look like the cat was dead, but she'd be banished in America if they killed the cat.
Steven, that's unreal. There's no sex in the book at all... You handle your subject matter with such sensitivity, never in a graphic way. And you're probably right about CSI.
Bill, the lists can be very helpful. At the very least, you end up with a bit of an appreciation for the kind of things that will potentially offend readers. And I think there's a certain wisdom in authors understanding that their work might not be suited for everyone.
I've thought about how I deal with my victims a fair bit recently, and wondered if I do enough to develop them. What I will say is that I'm paying more attention to that aspect of the book.
That said, it's also a bit overused, the idea of the personal connection between the detective and the victim, some relationship prompting the detective to act recklessly or defy protocols or whatever. That's one thing I've been trying to avoid.
- 11:35 a.m.
- angie said...
I'm not sure there are hard and fast rules for this - at least for me. I don't like animals getting killed, but that won't necessarily stop me from reading a book. (I might skim that part, though.) Cold Granite didn't bother me at all - mostly I remember the quirky, dark humor. And the steamed up car windows...there were an awful lot of steamed up/fogged up car windows and defrosters that couldn't keep up.
Having said that, I don't enjoy reading violence for the sake of violence - unless, of course, that's the point, and that's a whole 'nother ballgame. My biggest beef is something you touched on in your post. Real people suffer in real life. If you can't convey that in a novel, you're basically creating a poorly done graphic novel without the cool artwork. Boring. Souless. No thank you.
There's not much I wouldn't write about if it made sense for the story. However, I tend more to the "leave it up to the reader's imagination" school of thought. I've always been much more upset with what I imagine has happened than with graphic, blow-by-blow descriptions of violence.
- 11:48 a.m.
And yet I already know my work my might not be suited for some readers. Am I supposed to change what and how I write because some scold on a listserv might disapprove? I simply suggest that people who might be upset with darker subject matter look elsewhere.
- 1:02 p.m.
- Sandra Ruttan said...
First Bill, I suppose I was thinking more for me. It never occurred to me when I started writing what people would take offense to. What they'd ban an author for.
So, for me, it's been very insightful. I've gone through the shock, surprise, disbelief, blah blah... Now, I'm just interested to find out what people react to. Sometimes, as I tried to point out in my post (about writing while pregnant) it isn't even the content so much as the context.
Angie, I completely agree with you about real people suffering. And that victims shouldn't be people you don't care about. Well said.
- 1:15 p.m.
Is this a sign of my age? I have long been aware that there is someone out there who will be offended by . . . anything and everything. Honestly, I think there are many millions of people who get their energy and sense of meaning in life from the feeling of being offended.
I not offended by much, except for people who try to suppress the voices of others because what they have to say is "offensive." That gets my hackles up fast.
As a writer, I don't go out of my way to be "offensive." I just tell the stories I want to tell, in the way I think they need to be told. I know I'm bound to bother someone -- partly because lots of people are out there on the hunt for something to be bothered by so they can soapbox about it. But also because not everyone wants to confront stories the same way I do.
And that's fine. Cats will be solving crimes for as long as there are crimes, cats, and writers to write about them.
- 1:59 p.m.
- Sandra Ruttan said...
I guess the thing with me is, I've always just read books and enjoyed them, or not. And if I enjoy them, I tell others about them. That's been my way for years.
I never had a list of 'absolutely will not read'. I'm reluctant to try another Mo Hayder book, for example, but I fear creating an actual list of "will not read". I mean, if I read an author and don't like their stuff, I don't continue reading them. But in this particular case I feel the main reason would be the violence. And I have a hard time even accepting that myself, as a legit reason to not read someone, so I actually feel as though I should try again.
Okay, we have proof. I'm weird.
- 2:16 p.m.
- Karen Olson said...
Since I became a parent, I have a much harder time with reading about violent crimes against children. My friend Alison Gaylin's first book HIDE YOUR EYES was a tough read because of that, and when I told her, she responded that she'd written it before she had her daughter. It sounded like it would have been more difficult to write if she'd already been a parent.
That said, I've never put down a book by Karin Slaughter, despite the graphic violence against women in her novels.
- 3:44 p.m.
- JamesO said...
I've yet to read something that was so graphically unpleasant I put the book down (still looking, I guess), but I remember as a teenager walking into my local newsagents, and seeing a video magazine (this was pre-DVD days) on the lower shelves. I picked it up and flicked through a few pages of reviews for movies like Star Wars and other harmless stuff, then suddenly came across a full page ad for Driller Killer. If memory serves, it showed a crazed killer drilling a hole into his still-living victim's temple with an electric drill. Something about the ad made me feel physically sick, and I had to go outside for some fresh air.
I had the same feeling a few years ago, when flicking through the telly channels I chanced upon a 'hard-core' magician show where the performer did the sawing in half trick, only it was faked to go wrong and the poor victim died spewing blood from her mouth and twitching as the saw ripped through her vitals. (oops, sorry, a bit graphic there)
I've never liked slasher movies, seing people getting decapitated or otherwise mutilated, with loads of Kensington Gore flying around. Both of these incidents affected me because of their unexpectedness - if I'd known they were coming I'd have avoided them. And yet I can write scenes which are as dark and violent as you can imagine and they don't bother me at all. I can read far more graphic nastiness too, and I reckon it's because it is my imagination that is painting the pictures, and my imagination knows exactly how far it wants to pursue any given image. Film and television don't give you that luxury.
That said, I think it's the movie Privates on Parade (got to be a porn title, that) where for the first three quarters of the film the cast are playing around and laughing and bickering in a splendid comedy, and then at the end most of them get gunned down in a brutal and graphically-depicted attack. That shocked me, left me physically shaking, but didn't sicken me like the previous two.
I guess with writing, you just have to do what you feel is necessary for the story you're trying to tell. And if that offends some people, there's plenty more readers out there.
- 5:30 p.m.
- Daniel Hatadi said...
Violence for the sake of violence is just plain boring. I'll avoid books or movies like that, not because of the violence itself, but because it generally points to bad storytelling.
My line? I suppose I wouldn't be into reading hardcore erotica mixed with a lot of gratuitous violence.
It's a question of room separation and function: I like my violence in the lounge room or the kitchen (Daniel why didn't you do the dishes?!), followed by sex in the bedroom (Darling, I've done the dishes AND vacuumed).
Maybe I'm just a prude.
- 5:39 p.m.
- Daniel Hatadi said...
- This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
- 5:39 p.m.
- Sandra Ruttan said...
Karen, I think it would be a challenge, as a parent. Perhaps that's also why some women are far more sensitive about, well, who writes what book when they're pregnant. I don't know.
James, those are interesting examples. I suppose with that movie it would be because of the comic element, as well as the fact that you weren't prepared for it. I mean, you start a movie and it's one way. It would be like Father of the Bride and someone jumps out with a machine gun and kills everyone at the wedding or something. Incongruous.
That said, there are some manners of death that are nastier than others.
Okay, Daniel, a prude? Tee hee. Right. Your comment about rooms and erotica makes me think of a Shield episode... it might have been called cherrybusters or something. If you've seen it I don't have to say another word. If not, well, let's ask a new question. What defines kinky?
Because some of those guys were definitely not sexually...average, I'd say. For lack of a better word.
I don't like violence just for the sake of violence. If I feel that's the only reason it's been put in, I'm turned off.
But sex only in the bedroom? I thought that was only the rule after you had kids. ;)
- 6:57 p.m.
What bothers me about recent films is that horror filmmakers have lost sight of the fact that scaring people involves more than just grossing them out. It seems that some of you agree with me on that.
Isn't it interesting though, that nearly all of say that there is little or nothing that we won't read. It appears that what bothers us isn't the idea of violence, it's the visual proof of violence.
When you read a book, no matter how descriptive the author is, your imagination is in control of how the scene plays out for you. I think that perhaps that's why the few times I've been truly bothered by something I've read, it's been a true crime book. Knowing that what's being described really did happen somehow slaps the image home in a more visceral way than fiction does.
- 8:29 p.m.
- Sandra Ruttan said...
I agree about horror films. Most guys I know just laugh at slasher films because they're so unreal.
Now, that's an interesting comment about true crime. I think it would disturb me for the same reason.
You know what's funny? I never stated where my line is in the writing, and still haven't, really.
- 8:42 p.m.
- Daniel Hatadi said...
Aside from the bathroom, the bedroom's the only room we can lock the cats out of. And the bathroom has the kitty litter box. Not conducive to a romantic atmosphere, that.
- 9:36 p.m.
- Dr. Lisa said...
Just to break up the groupthink here, I think readers just have different levels of empathy, and if you are sensitive, you just don't *want* to read about rape and pet snuffs in your free time. If readers don't like something, that's their perogative, just like it's your perogative to write what you want. As a storyteller...your audience doesn't owe you their free time or their money if they don't enjoy stories about rape or animal/child killings.
Frankly, I find pet snuffs hackneyed and useless 96 percent of the time. It's cliche by now, bottom line. If you count the number of dogs that have died recently in movies, tv, and books..X-files, Signs, Secret Window; Fatal Attraction; Stephen King had a graphic scene in The Dead Zone...just to name four instances that pop into my head. Oh, and it's not new either: Rear Window killed a family pet.
When most writers use animal snuffs for mysteries/thrillers, it's usually just to show his/her perp is monster. Oh, lookit him/her--they killed a kitty! Monster! Villain! Well, come on. Like that hasn't been done a million times? It's almost inevitably a point of characterization--and as I said, one that has been done to death (get it--ha! to death, I slay me).
The animal isn't going to "out" or foil the villain; killing it doesn't move the plot forward usually in any appreciable way--although the use of the animal snuff in Rear Window was pretty clever. So as far as I am concerned, the action has to move the plot forward. If you have monster for a perp, you have to have a *really clever* monster with lots of suspense and twists and turns to keep me engaged. Otherwise, I'll leave it in the bookstore with the 100 other softcovers that have "atrocity of the day" written on them.
Sorry--just one customer's opinion.
- 10:45 p.m.
- Sandra Ruttan said...
Daniel, you're subjecting your cat to a life of censorship?
Dr. Lisa, I actually think you make a lot of good points. I've never killed an animal yet in fiction, that I can recall. And I don't have any particular plans to do so. I would never do it just to do it - it would have to be warranted.
And there's nothing there to apologize for. I think you've made excellent points. That is, I think, part of what makes some violence read as gratuitous. It's window dressing, precisely because it doesn't advance the plot in a meaningful way or do anything to develop the character.
Good points!
- 10:53 p.m.
- Daniel Hatadi said...
At least that way the cats will have a life.
- 11:19 p.m.
The groupthink? Condescend much?
You know what has been done even more than killing a pet? Killing some person. I mean, good grief, you can't read a murder mystery these days without someone being killed. How cliché. Talk about done to death.
- 10:19 a.m.
- JA Konrath said...
Coincidentally, I just blogged about this same topic.
Part of writing is to provoke emotion.
If you really want to see how much you're able to take, pick up a copy of Hogg by Samuel Delaney. It'll cost you a lot of money (it's out of print and worth around $100), but it will really make you question the meaning of 'too far.'
For something even more revolting, but not as thought provoking, read The Bighead by Edward Lee. Lee has his tongue in cheek (much like Ellis in American Psycho) but some of those images stick with you.
Justine by DeSade is every bit as revolting today as it was when it was first published.
I find Mo Hayder's stuff very hard to get through, as well as early Jack Ketchum (Girl Next Door, Right to Life.)
But I sort of knew what to expect before reading these books. In my case, readers look at a bright friendly cover and comparisons to Evanovich and think they're in for a romantic comedy. There is comedy, but there is also horror.
Expectations matter. Biting into a hot dog and tasting a chocolate bar would freak anyone out.
- 2:55 p.m.
- Sandra Ruttan said...
All I know is, it takes considerable talent to make people laugh. To be able to entertain people through comedy as well as make them recoil from pain in the same book is a skill. It's not something I feel is my strength, so I stand in awe of people who can hit the full range of emotional responses.
I look forward to reading your post Joe. Yes, you're right. Expectations also matter. Another important element for us to consider...
- 3:21 p.m.
- Dr. Lisa said...
Clearly, murders form the basis of crime fiction, but you can't conflate the defining story arc of a genre like crime fiction--murders and injustice--with the plot devices that push the arc forward.(Even if doing so makes you feel like you just scored off somebody who bruised your ego). Just because somebody is an avid reader of a genre doesn't mean you can't bore him/her if you use the same plot devices over and over; some writers--really special ones--got away with it (like Rex Stout; P.G. Wodehouse, etc.)
So the dead pet is one of those plot devices that says "lazy writer" when I read it. Sorry.
This is one of the challenges of genre fiction. You have your formula plots, and readers come looking to the genre for the standard entertainment value of those plots. But at the same time, it gets really hard not to repeat yourself and/or the greats in that tradition as a writer.
I suspect this need to do something different has led to the increasing "darkness" of the fiction. Ha! You carved up people? My villain carved up human babies! And puppies and baby chicks! And cheated on his SmogCheck!!!
- 3:59 p.m.