Reading the Past

by Doctor Science

The largest project we have to do, to become actually moved in, is to unpack and then cull our book collection. Yesterday I opened a box containing a set of old hardcover books, the Complete Stories of O. Henry, stamped as having belonged to Mr. Dr. Science's grandfather. "I wonder if these are worth anything," I said to myself, and opened up a random volume to find publishing details to put into abebooks.

The volume was Roads of Destiny, and this is the frontispiece, the first thing I saw:

Cut for racial epithets that were, apparently, quality humor in 1917.

"The old medical outrage … had a nigger along."

Welp. That was ... unexpectedly squelchy, like walking barefoot in the dark and stepping in something your pet left behind.

I find myself looking at this, and honestly being unable to follow the thought processes that led the publisher (Doubleday) or the artist ("White") to decide that this would be the best illustration for this volume. Was the selling point "Southern humor for New Yorkers", letting mostly-Northern readers laugh at both white Southerners and negroes? Did this bother anyone, North or South?

The story illustrated, "Two Renegades", is about a Yankee who gets himself into trouble with the law in Panama, and is bailed out by the pictured doctor using Confederate currency. The "O. Henry twist" is too obvious, and there's nothing else in the story worth one's neurons.

While trying to figure out which story it was, I happened to read "The Guardian of the Accolade". This is a very peculiar story, because it seems to me as though O.Henry is writing Southern humor with a twist ending -- but about characters from Faulkner, and their tragedy and complexity keeps showing around the edges.

"The Guardian of the Accolade" is Uncle Bushrod, a former slave who continues to work for his ex-enslavers, the Weymouth family and the Weymouth Bank.

Uncle Bushrod was the bank's trusted porter, messenger, vassal, and guardian. He carried a key to the vault, just as Mr. Robert and Mr. William did. Sometimes there was ten, fifteen, or twenty thousand dollars in sacked silver stacked on the vault floor. It was safe with Uncle Bushrod. He was a Weymouth in heart, honesty, and pride.

O. Henry doesn't appear to understand how peculiar this is, and how quickly the future (Faulkner-tutored) reader will conclude that Bushrod is a Weymouth by blood, as well.

I won't spoil the ending -- you might as well get the good parts of an O. Henry story, if possible -- but I don't really feel as though it wraps up the story, either. In the parallel-universe Faulkner version, there's still a question whether the Bank or the family will survive. Will there be a happy(-ish) ending, where Bushrod ends up with the money? Or will it go the Full Faulkner, with Bank, family, town, blacks, whites, and all, going down in mutually inevitable destruction?

But that story is for another imagination, and O. Henry's works are in the public domain. As for our books, fortunately this collection is what booksellers call binding copies, and not worth binding -- the paper is brown, the print blurred. I'll ask Mr. Dr., but I think I'd feel better just tossing it out or even using it for kindling, along with everything it represents.

Comments

[wj]

Unpacking boxes after moving is just the worst. I've still got a few boxes which haven't been dealt with from our last move. In 1996.

But culling books? I haven't even managed to convince myself to cull my college textbooks. Which even I realize is crazy. But throw out a book???? Shudder!

[joel hanes]

I'm with wj.

I still have the virulently-racist O'Brien Silver Chief, Dog Of The North books that we dug out of my grandparents' house when I was 8 or so. Could not part with them.

And the smell of decaying paper is the scent of heaven.

OTOH, I did toss the Auel Clan of the Cave Bear series the day after I read Elizabeth Marshall Thomas's superb Reindeer Moon.

[cleek]

we're still unpacking. and by the time we've finished that, it will will be time to collect all the empty boxes from storage, re-pack them, move again, and then empty out the Pod and the two storage units.

books... Mrs hates that i would prefer to keep books around. yes, i'd even like to keep books that i've already read! maybe even a couple that i haven't yet read and maybe never will! yes, even now that i have a Kindle! yes! my father was an English teacher; i grew up surrounded by books of all kinds! i like them!

but, in the spirit of marital harmony, my books are going away.

the things we do for love.

[cleek]

exitalico!

[Mooseking]

When my (at the time) girlfriend and I moved in together, we broke our friends. 2 apartments of books, mine all on the second floor... we were limp noodles by the end of the day.

Trying to move both apartments in a day was a similar miscalculation...

[russell]

"Cut for racial epithets that were, apparently, quality humor in 1917."

an uncle of mine has a songbook from the early 20th C. that includes hits like "Levi the sheenie".

it was a different time. thankfully.

[wj]

The question that always intrudes in my mind, when observing the cringe-worthy (to us) behaviors that were unremarkable in the past is: what about us? What things that we do and say today will have those a hundred (or even just 50) years from now shaking their heads?

I'm not thinking so much of the things which, although not uncommon, already have a lot of us wincing. I'm thinking more of the stuff which seems totally normal to pretty much all of us.

[liberal japonicus]

Keeping books will probably be high on the list, wj.

Want to shake yourself of the habit, try a couple of transoceanic moves...

[Tony P.]

wj,

My hope is that 100 (if not 50) years from now, our posterity will cringe at public piety: that any politician who plays up "faith" will be treated as a crank; that "Under God" might still be in the Pledge of Allegiance, and "In God We Trust" might still be on the currency, but only because it's not worth the bother to remove them.

--TP

[Girl from the North Country]

Hear hear. Or, as the case may be, Amen.

[cleek]

and there will be sidewalks on both sides of streets!

[wj]

I'd settle for people rediscovering the simple idea that, where there are no sidewalks, you should walk facing traffic. (Seen too many kids hereabouts who don't know.

Worse, their parents (who apparently fear to let their kids walk alone t blocks to school) don't know enough to do so either. Talk about being unclear what real threats are in their environment!

[hairshirthedonist]

Scalia's dead.

[hairshirthedonist]

http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2016/02/supreme_court_justice_antonin.html

[Nombrilisme Vide]

Well, as we all know the Republican Congress is all about straight-shooting and up-or-down confirmation votes... what odds are y'all giving on no Senate confirmation for a replacement before the election/inauguration?

[Countme-In]

So I guess we will have only 8 Justices until January, 2017, and if a Democrat is elected President, until 2021 at the earliest, given that Congress and governance died 8 years ago.

Crazy eights. Given the renunciators, nullifiers, and batsh*tters wanting a constitutional convention to let us ignore the Court's rulings altogether according to In God We Trust, maybe the other 8 justices will croak in the meantime and we can do away with at least one branch of government, with the other two to follow in short order.

I can't wait. It'll be fun .. each individual ruling his own God-given boundaries by the gun in loose affiliations of militia madness, as the pigf%ckers desire.

Obama should nominate Donald Trump to replace Scalia just to f&ck things up permanently, since they already are.

[Ugh]

Well. Just in case things weren't turned up to 11 already.

[Marty]

Pelican brief

[Hartmut]

Is it still (or yet) too late to nominate Anita Hill for the vacancy?

My first reaction to hsh's post was 'wishful thinking?', then 'at last!' and finally 'how?'. Sorry, no tears from my side.
I agree that it is doubtful that Obama will get a replacment in. Although it would be tempting to say 'all the more reason to have the next (hopefully not GOP/TP) president put him on SCOTUS' but I know that this is not a good idea. Not because he would be in any way unqualified but because he would have to recuse himself from far too many cases involving his own acts as POTUS.

How long until it will be claimed that Scalia got assassinated by Obama (with Hillary as his tool of course)?

[Ugh]

There's more than 11 months until the next POTUS takes office. Obama gets this appointment methinks.

[Countme-In]

True, briefly, the usual suspects will turn up with pelicans standing on their heads and accuse Obama of Supreme murder.

In Texas, no less.

With the gun that Hillary used to off Vince Foster because he surprised her in a lesbian tryst with her Muslim right-hand woman under the White House Christmas tree from which all the dildos and butt plugs were well-hung.

Start your committees, a&shole Freedom Caucus. Ryan will hold his palms up and say, hey, there's nothing I can do. We must give all banshee voices a hearing.

The above is word for word the content of Donald Trump's press release regarding Scalia's timely passing.

Cruz and Death Panel will twit their paranoia shortly as well.

There will be calls for coup/junta-like behavior from the military against the White House.

Every sentence from one-star Obama-hating generals will begin with "Mandrake ....."