The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris

This post was originally published on a now-retired blog that I maintained from roughly 2005 to 2013. As a result, there may be some references that seem out of date. 

+ + + 

I remember admiring Theodore Roosevelt after reading H. W. Brands’ treatment of his life in TR: The Last Romantic. That book, and one of its key chapters, even inspired me to write my River of Doubt short story about famous fathers and less-famous sons and how an individual’s strength of character can sometimes become so all encompassing that it takes the place of the human person that gives it life.

Well, I’m a bit less admiring of Roosevelt after reading Morris’ treatment of him in The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. Brands and Morris are both skilled biographers, but they have different interpretations of TR’s underlying character, and given the life experiences that I’ve had between the two readings (I finished Brands in late 1998), I find Morris’ portrayal disturbing in several fundamental ways.

Essentially, what comes through more strongly in Morris’ treatment is Roosevelt’s jingoistic Americanism, and his belief that Americans as a people and as a nation were destined for greatness through imperial expansion.

In describing Roosevelt’s participation as a featured speaker at the Independence Day 1886 celebration in the small town of Dickinson, Dakota Territory, Morris says:

With all his boyish soul, he loved and revered the Fourth of July. The flags, the floats, the brass bands—even Thomas Jefferson’s prose somehow thrilled him. This particular Independence Day (the first ever held in Western Dakota) found him feeling especially patriotic. He was filled, not only with the spirit of Manifest Destiny, but with “the real and healthy democracy of the round-up.” The completion of another book, the modest success of his two ranches, his fame as the captor of Redhead Finnegan, the joyful thought of his impending remarriage, all conspired further to elevate his mood. These things, plus the sight of hundreds of serious, sunburned faces turned his way, brought out the best and the worst in him—his genuine love for America and Americans, and his vainglorious tendency to preach.

The book Morris refers to was a biography of Thomas Hart Benton, one of the first senators from the state of Missouri, and a strong proponent (like Roosevelt) of American expansion.

The most controversial chapter of the book is that devoted to Benton’s doctrine of westward expansion, which Roosevelt defines as “our manifest destiny to swallow up the land of all adjoining nations who were too weak to withstand us.” The “Oregon” of the 1840s—an enormous wilderness stretching west from the Rockies, and north from California to Alaska—was a prize that both the United States and Britain were entitled to share. But the “arrogant attitude” of Senator Benton, in claiming most of it, “was more than justified by the destiny of the great Republic; and it would have been well for all America if we had insisted even more than we did upon the extension northward of our boundaries.” Warming to his theme, Roosevelt declares that “Columbia, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba would, as States of the American Union, hold positions incomparably more important, grander and more dignified than…as provincial dependencies of a foreign power…No foot of soil to which we have any title in the Northwest should have been given up; we were the people who could use it best, and we ought to have taken it all.”

I think at one time my eye would have simply glossed over some of these phrases, but now they seem to jump out at me—“…swallow up the land of all adjoining nations who were too weak to withstand us...” and “…justified by the destiny of the great Republic…” seem especially egregious and indicative of Roosevelt’s unabashed “might makes right” and “we’re better than everyone else” style of Americanism.

I’m sometimes embarrassed to admit how long it takes me to learn the lessons of history—how often my eye glosses over words that contain fundamental context and understanding. As a quick aside, read this short passage about Roosevelt’s experiences in the Badlands of Dakota Territory:

Here, for thousands of square miles around, were juicy pastures, sheltered bottoms, and open stretches of range whose ability to support countless thousands of bovine animals had been demonstrated over the centuries. Now that the buffalo and red men were on their way out, cattle and white men could move in.

Forever I thought the buffalo were slaughtered mostly for sport, but this book’s analysis of the spirit of empire and colonization that pervaded Roosevelt’s thinking and that of his time has shown me that this can’t possibly be true.

Thomas Hart Benton was not the only book Roosevelt wrote. Indeed, Roosevelt was, among many other things, a published author of some note, and these themes show up again and again in his books. One critic, reading Roosevelt’s History of the City of New York, said this:

“Mr. Roosevelt preaches too much. He lays down the singular proposition that a feeling of broad, radical, intense Americanism is necessary if good work is to be done in any direction…The sooner we get over talking about ‘American’ systems of philosophy, and ethics, and art, and devote ourselves to what is true, and right, and beautiful, the sooner we shall shake off our provincialism.”

Probably nowhere is this chest-beating Americanism more prevalent than in Roosevelt’s campaign for, participation in, and myth-making triumph in the Spanish-American War. He was Assistant Secretary of the Navy at the time, serving in the first McKinley Administration, and did about everything he could to maneuver the country into the war, including ordering (probably without the authority to do so) the Navy to annex the Philippines as some kind of protection against global domination with Spain. When war with Spain in Cuba eventually came, Roosevelt immediately resigned his position with the Navy and went on to lead a regiment in two of the most famous battles of the war.

And it was, of course, in Cuba and on San Juan Hill where the myth of Teddy Roosevelt was finally and forever enshrined in people’s memory. One eyewitness described Roosevelt’s performance like this:

Perhaps a dozen of Roosevelt’s men had passed into the thicket before he did. Then he stepped across the wire himself, and, from that instant, became the most magnificent soldier I have ever seen. It was as if that barbed-wire strand had formed a dividing line in his life, and that when he stepped across it he left behind him in the bridle path all those unadmirable and conspicuous traits which have so often caused him to be justly criticized in civic life, and found on the other side of it, in that Cuban thicket, the coolness, the calm judgment, the towering heroism, which made him, perhaps, the most admired and best beloved of all Americans in Cuba.

Talk about writing for posterity. It’s hard for me to believe this is an accurate depiction of thoughts that took place during the battle, untinted by the knowledge of Roosevelt’s subsequently meteoric rise from retired Army colonel to the Governorship of New York, the Vice Presidency, and the Presidency.

But let that pass. What I don’t like most is Roosevelt’s own attitude about the war, his special role in it, and what he evidently felt it had released him to do.

For Roosevelt himself, the “crowded hour” atop San Juan Heights had been one of absolute fulfillment. “I would rather have led that charge…than served three terms in the U.S. Senate.” And he would rather die from yellow fever as a result than never to have charged at all. “Should the worst come to the worst I am quite content to go now and to leave my children at least an honorable name,” he told Henry Cabot Lodge. “And old man, if I do go, I do wish you would get that Medal of Honor for me anyhow, as I should awfully like the children to have it, and I think I earned it.”

With fulfillment came purgation. Bellicose poisons had been breeding in him since infancy. During recent years the strain had grown virulent, clouding his mind and souring the natural sweetness of his temperament. But at last he had had his bloodletting. He had fought a war and killed a man. He had “driven the Spaniard from the New World.” Theodore Roosevelt was at last, incongruously but wholeheartedly, a man of peace.

One can’t help but wonder how much of American history would have been different if Roosevelt could have found a less bloodthirsty way of proving his own manhood to his own satisfaction. Indeed, this equation of manliness and bravado seems cemented in who Roosevelt was.

…his tirades on the currently fashionable topic—became alarmingly harsh. “What matters a few broken bones to the glories of inter-collegiate sport?” he cried at a Harvard Club dinner. (Meanwhile, not far away in hospital, the latest victim of football savagery lay paralyzed for life.) He declared publicly that he would “disinherit” any son of his who refused to play college games. And in private, through clenched teeth: “I would rather one of them should die than have them grow up as a weakling.”

Of course, Roosevelt’s youngest son, Quentin, was killed as an early Air Force pilot in World War I, charging off to prove his manhood in the same fashion his father had and, true to form, Roosevelt, although mortified with sadness, was as proud as he could be.

But despite these shortcomings, as the force of Roosevelt’s character shines through in Morris’ prose as well as it did in Brands’, it attains a certain and never-ending buoyancy that I do find appealing. This is from Morris’ prologue:

Theodore Roosevelt is a man of such overwhelming physical impact that he stamps himself immediately on the consciousness. “Do you know the two most wonderful things I have seen in your country?” says the English statesman John Morely. “Niagara Falls and the President of the United States, both great wonders of nature!” Their common quality, which photographs and paintings fail to capture, is a perpetual flow of torrential energy, a sense of motion even in stillness. Both are physically thrilling to be near.

And his bookishness is also something that cannot be failed to be mentioned. This extended passage concludes Morris’ rich prologue, which is constructed as a snapshot of Roosevelt’s activities on a particular day in his Presidency—New Year’s Day, 1907.

Later in the afternoon, the President, his wife, and five of his six children are seen cantering off for a ride in the country. Although reporters cannot follow him through the rest of the day, enough is known of Roosevelt’s domestic habits to predict its events with some accuracy. Returning for tea, which he will swig from an outsize cup, Roosevelt will take advantage of the holiday quietness of his dark-green office to do some writing. Besides being President of the United States, he is also a professional author. The Elkhorn Edition of The Works of Theodore Roosevelt, just published, comprises twenty-three volumes of history, natural history, biography, political philosophy, and essays. At least two of his books, The Naval War of 1812 and the four-volume Winning of the West, are considered definitive by serious historians. He is also the author of many scientific articles and literary reviews, not to mention an estimated total of fifty thousand letters—the latest twenty-five of which he dashed off this morning.

In the early evening the President will escort his family to No. 1733 N Street, where his elder sister Bamie will serve chocolate and whipped cream and champagne. After returning to the White House, the younger Roosevelts will be forcibly romped into bed, and the elder given permission to roller-skate for an hour in the basement. As quietness settles down over the Presidential apartments, Roosevelt and his wife will sit by the fire in the Prince of Wales Room and read to each other. At about ten o’clock the First Lady will rise and kiss her husband good night. He will continue to read in the light of a student lamp, peering through his one good eye (the other almost blind) at the book held inches from his nose, flicking over the pages at a rate of two or three a minute.

This is the time of day he loves best. “Reading with me is a disease.” He succumbs to it so totally—on the heaving deck of the Presidential yacht in the middle of a cyclone, between whistle-stops on a campaign trip, even while waiting for his carriage at the front door—that he cannot hear his own name being spoken. Nothing short of a thump on the back will regain his attention. Asked to summarize the book he has been leafing through with such apparent haste, he will do so in minute detail, often quoting the actual text.

The President manages to get through at least one book a day even when he is busy. Owen Wister has lent him a book shortly before a full evening’s entertainment at the White House, and been astonished to hear a complete review of it over breakfast. “Somewhere between six one evening and eight-thirty next morning, beside his dressing and his dinner and his guests and his sleep, he had read a volume of three-hundred-and-odd pages, and missed nothing of significance that it contained.

On evenings like this, when he has no official entertaining to do, Roosevelt will read two or three books entire. His appetite for titles is omnivorous and insatiable, ranging from the Histories of Thucydides to the Tales of Uncle Remus. Reading as he has explained to Trevelyan, is for him the purest imaginative therapy. In the past year alone, Roosevelt has devoured all the novels of Trollope, the complete works of De Quincey, a Life of Saint Patrick, the prose works of Milton and Tacitus (“until I could stand them no longer”), Samuel Dill’s Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius, the seafaring yarns of Jacobs, the poetry of Scott, Poe, and Longfellow, a German novel called Jöhn Uhl, “a most satisfactorily lurid Man-eating Lion story,” and Foulke’s Life of Oliver P. Morton, not to mention at least five hundred other volumes on subjects ranging from tropical flora to Italian naval history.

The richness of Roosevelt’s knowledge causes a continuous process of cross-fertilization to go on in his mind. Standing with candle in hand at a baptismal service in Santa Fe, he reflects that his ancestors, and those of the child’s Mexican father, “doubtless fought in the Netherlands in the days of Alva and Parma.” Watching a group of American sailors joke about bedbugs in the Navy, he is reminded of the freedom of comment traditionally allowed to Roman legionnaires after battle. Trying to persuade Congress to adopt a system of simplified spelling in Government documents, he unself-consciously cites a treatise on the subject published in the time of Cromwell.

Tonight the President will bury himself, perhaps, in two volumes Mrs. Lodge has just sent him for review: Gissing’s Charles Dickens, A Critical Study, and The Greek View of Life, by Lowes Dickinson. He will be struck, as he peruses the latter, by interesting parallels between the Periclean attitude toward women and that of present-day Japan, and will make a mental note to write to Mrs. Lodge about it. He may also read, with alternate approval and disapproval, two articles on Mormonism in the latest issue of Outlook. A five-thousand-word essay on “The Ancient Irish Sagas” in this month’s Century magazine will not detain him long, since he is himself the author. His method of reading periodicals is somewhat unusual: each page, as he comes to the end of it, is torn out and thrown onto the floor. When both magazines have been thus reduced to a pile of crumpled paper, Roosevelt will leap from his rocking-chair and march down the corridor. Slowing his pace at the door of the presidential suite, he will tiptoe in, brush the famous teeth with only a moderate amount of noise, and pull on his blue-striped pajamas. Beside his pillow he will deposit a large, precautionary revolver. His last act, after turning down the lamp and climbing into bed, will be to unclip his pince-nez and rub the reddened bridge of his nose. Then, there being nothing further to do, Theodore Roosevelt will energetically fall asleep.

Theodore Roosevelt, for whatever faults I may wish to find in his political philosophy, was a reader and a writer—and he continually sought to expand his knowledge and understand his world. This devotion exposed him to a collection of ideas almost unique to someone of his day, teetering as he was on the cusp of the 20th century, and it gave him a kind of eternal optimism for the progress of the human species.

“At no period of the world’s history,” says Roosevelt, “has life been so full of interest, and of possibilities of excitement and enjoyment.” Science has revolutionized industry; Darwin has revolutionized thought; the globe’s waste spaces are being settled and seeded. A man of ambition has unique opportunities to build, explore, conquer, and transform. He can taste “the fearful joy” of grappling with large political and administrative problems. “If he is observant, he notes all around him the play of vaster forces than have ever before been exerted, working, half blindly, half under control, to bring about immeasurable results.”

It almost humanistic, this perspective, mixed as it is with Roosevelt’s own brand of individualism and imperialism. It seems clear to me that his constant reading and the consciousness expanding that came with it seasoned his views in a strange and forward-looking way, but unfortunately couldn’t quite redeem them.

During his years as a rancher, Roosevelt had acquired plenty of anti-Indian prejudice, strangely at odds with his enlightened attitude to blacks. But his research into the great Indian military heroes for The Winning of the West had done much to moderate this. Now, touring Pine Ridge and Crow Creek on behalf of the Great White Father, he looked on the red man not as an adversary but as a ward of the state, whom it was his duty to protect.

Roosevelt describes his view like this:

Here we have a group of beings who are not able to protect themselves; who are groping toward civilization out of the darkness of heredity and ingrained barbarism, and to whom, theoretically, we are supposed to be holding out a helping hand. They are utterly unable to protect themselves. They are credulous and easily duped by a bad agent, and they are susceptible of remarkable improvement when the agent is a good man, thoroughly efficient and thoroughly practical. To the Indians the workings of the spoils system at the agencies is a curse and an outrage…it must mean that the painful road leading upward from savagery is rendered infinitely more difficult and infinitely more stony for the poor feet trying to tread it.

This innate sense, that the American Indian represents the savage and barbarism, and that the European immigrant and their descendants represent civilization and progress, is ubiquitous in Roosevelt’s thinking, as it remains in the thinking of many today. His multi-volume epic, The Winning of the West, is absolutely rife with it—in fact, seems to depend on it for its narrative cohesion. In it, Roosevelt says things like:

During the past three centuries the spread of the English-speaking peoples over the world’s waste spaces had been not only the most striking feature in the world’s history, but also the event of all others most far-reaching in its importance.

He assails the “warped, perverse, and silly morality” that would preserve the American continent “for the use of a few scattered savage tribes, whose life was but a few degrees less meaningless, squalid, and ferocious than that of the wild beasts with whom they held joint ownership.”

And concludes that:

The most ultimately righteous of all wars is a war with savages, though it is apt to be also the most terrible and inhuman. The rude, fierce settler who drove the savage from the land lays all civilized mankind under a debt to him. American and Indian, Boer and Zulu, Cossack and Tartar, New Zealander and Maori—in each case the victor, horrible though many of his deeds are, has laid deep the foundations for the future greatness of a mighty people…it is of incalculable importance that America, Australia, and Siberia should pass out of the hands of their red, black, and yellow aboriginal owners, and become the heritage of the dominant world races.

They say one should not judge historical figures by the standards of modern times, but I’m not sure that’s what I’m doing when I find myself recoiling at these words. There were plenty who criticized Roosevelt for these views in his own time.

But Morris, like the good biographer he is, stops short of casting judgment, and rather allows his subject to hang—for good or bad—by his own thoughts and deeds. The most profound chapter in the book is the 18th—called The Universe Spinner—which focuses more than most on Roosevelt’s worldview, juxtaposing it against his participation in the festivities associated with the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. Morris writes:

Grover Cleveland’s adjectives on Opening Day—splendid, magnificent, grand, vast—were no different from those Roosevelt himself had lavished on America in all his books. The symbolism of the flags, and of the little Spanish admiral dwarfed by a three-hundred pound American President, was pleasing to him, but not revelatory. Nine years before, in his Fourth of July oration to the cowboys of Dickinson, he had hoped “to see the day when not a foot of American soil will be held by any European power,” and instinct told him that that day was fast approaching. When it came, it would bring out what some consider his best, what others consider the worst in him. This overriding impulse has been given many names: Jingoism, Nationalism, Imperialism, Chauvinism, even Fascism and Racism. Roosevelt preferred to use the simple and to him beautiful word Americanism.

+ + +

This post appeared on Eric Lanke's blog, an association executive and author. You can contact him at eric.lanke@gmail.com.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

FARCHRIST TALES

BOOK TWO:

THE FORGOTTEN TEMPLE

The King’s School for Boys was what some people would call a stark, cold, and unfriendly place. But to Gildegarde Brisbane II, in the years between the ages of six and sixteen, it was home. Many boys found it hard to deal with the strict regulations, the driving and sometimes seemingly cruel schoolmasters, and the endlessly tedious assignments and exams. But to young Brisbane, this was all icing on his cake of faithful service to Grecolus. He excelled in most of his duties and subjects and, indeed, in the areas in which he performed less admirably, it was not due to any lack of effort. The other boys made fun of him there, as boys are wont to do, but Brisbane never let it bother him. He never said it to their faces, but he knew they teased them because they were jealous of the special relationship he shared with their creator.

+ + +

Four days before the end of Farchrist Year 105, Gildegarde Brisbane celebrated his nineteenth birthday. His friends held a small dinner party in his honor, and it was at this occasion that Allison Stargazer met Roystnof and Illzeezad Dantrius for the first time.

Shortwhiskers had gone to see Stargazer at her cottage a week before to deliver the invitation and to discuss whatever was left hanging after their brief conversation in The Lazy Dragon. Now that Brisbane knew a little more about Stargazer’s past, he felt he could make some fairly good guesses at what they had talked about.

First and foremost, Brisbane was sure they had a long and detailed discussion about Illzeezad Dantrius. Stargazer had said she had heard Shortwhiskers speak of him, but that was before Brisbane knew of Stargazer’s part in the expedition to Dragon’s Peak, and now Brisbane figured that that was just a lie for his benefit. If Stargazer had known Dantrius personally, and felt the same way about him that Shortwhiskers did, the dwarf probably had to do quite a bit of talking to get her to come to a dinner party at which Dantrius would be in unfortunate attendance.

Secondly, Brisbane supposed Shortwhiskers would tell Stargazer that he had told Brisbane about her past. Shortwhiskers had said she probably wouldn’t mind if just Brisbane knew, and Brisbane hoped that was true. He hadn’t told anyone about it and certainly had no intentions of doing so.

Finally, Brisbane hoped Shortwhiskers had in some way explained Roystnof and his magic to Stargazer. Roystnof, after all, was not a servant of Damaleous. His magic power came from his own will and there was no reason why Stargazer should take any offense to it. Brisbane hoped the dwarf had tried to convince her of this, but if Stargazer was like any other Grecolus-fearing faithful Brisbane knew, the dwarf would have little luck.

But whatever it was that Shortwhiskers and Stargazer had talked about at their private meeting, Stargazer had accepted the invitation to dinner. Brisbane was happy for that if for nothing else. She arrived at their little rental cabin as the sun was nearing the tops of the trees and Brisbane met her in the front yard.

“Welcome,” Brisbane said as he offered a hand to her and helped her up the front steps. Her grip was strong but there seemed to be almost no pull against his arm.

“Thank you,” Stargazer said. “And happy birthday.” She stood on her tiptoes and kissed Brisbane on the cheek.

Brisbane tried not to blush. “Thank you,” he said. “Would you like to come inside and meet everyone?” He offered the question as gently as he could.

Stargazer folded her arms under her bosom. “The time must come, I suppose.” She bowed her head and mumbled some words to herself. When she looked back up, Brisbane realized she had been praying. “I am ready,” she said.

Brisbane opened the front door and led Stargazer into the large living room of their rented cabin. A warm fire crackled in the fireplace and seated in the warm glow, in overstuffed chairs, were Shortwhiskers, Roystnof, and Dantrius.

All three men got to their feet as Stargazer entered the room. Shortwhiskers quickly crossed the room in an attempt to greet her first. The two exchanged a few words as Brisbane stood by and watched the expressions on the faces of Roystnof and Dantrius.

“Thank you for coming, Allison,” Shortwhiskers said. “I was worried you wouldn’t.”

“I came because you asked me to, Nog,” Stargazer said. “And to celebrate Gil’s birthday. I did not pick the guest list, nor was it my place to do so.”

“Yes,” Shortwhiskers said uneasily. “Well, I hope things go a little better than that. If everyone acts so formally, I may be asleep by the second course.”

Shortwhiskers got a smile out of Stargazer on that one and he took the opportunity to guide her over to meet the two wizards.

“Allison Stargazer,” Shortwhiskers said. “I would like you to meet Roystnof and Illzeezad Dantrius.”

Stargazer approached Roystnof first. The wizard was dressed in his usual black and red but in no way did his appearance give away his magical powers. His van dyke had recently been trimmed and his hair neatly combed.

“Miss Stargazer,” Roystnof said as he bowed a little. “Nog has told me much about you. I am glad to finally make your acquaintance.”

Stargazer nodded. “Nog has told me about you too, sir. I would be interested in hearing your views on the shrine you discovered on your last expedition.”

Roystnof smiled royally. “It would be my pleasure.”

Stargazer then turned to Dantrius. The mage was dressed neatly and still smelled of the soaps with which he had bathed. His long black hair framed his cracked face, gouged with the fingers of erosion, and his icy blue eyes glared out from under rough brows.

“Well,” Dantrius said. “This has been quite a little reunion for me, hasn’t it? First the Dwarven Ambassador and now the High Priestess. One could even say that young Brisbane there represents the figure of his grandfather, the Knight. I don’t think, however, that the Prince or anyone representing him will be able to make an appearance.”

Brisbane was surprised at the frankness of Dantrius’ comments, revealing as he had that he knew Stargazer had been the high priestess on the expedition to Dragon’s Peak. Did that prove what Shortwhiskers had said about him, about his role in those events? Brisbane wasn’t sure, but he now knew that everyone in the room, with the exception of Roystnof, knew the whole story of that doomed expedition.

Stargazer spoke softly. “Nog has told me that you are a sorcerer, Dantrius.”

“Sorcerer?” Dantrius replied, seeming shocked. “I fear Mister Ambassador pays me too great a compliment. I can do some minor tricks, yes, but a sorcerer? No, I don’t believe so.”

“It didn’t surprise me,” Stargazer said, ignoring his protestations of innocence. “I was dismayed that someone could deceive the King so, but I was not at all surprised to find out you were serving evil forces.”

Dantrius allowed a pained expression to pass over his face. “It’s nothing to hold against me, Your Matriarchy. Ideological opposites are not as different as they may seem on the surface.”

“Your kind disgusts me,” Stargazer said grimly.

Dantrius smiled. “And here I was hoping you would favor me with a dance later this evening.”

Shortwhiskers cut in. “Perhaps we should move into the dining room and begin our dinner. Before someone completely loses their appetite.”

Brisbane presented himself next to Stargazer and hooked out an elbow. Stargazer gave Dantrius a cold stare and then turned, slipping a hand inside Brisbane’s arm. He led her into the dining room.

Brisbane showed Stargazer to her chair and sat down next to her. Shortwhiskers came in and sat on the other side of Stargazer, followed by Roystnof and Dantrius, who took their seats on the other side of the table.

Shortwhiskers picked up a small bell set at his place and rang it. Shortly, a man dressed in white, hired for the occasion, came in through the swinging door that led to the kitchen, welcomed all the guests, and recited off the menu for the evening. He then went off to fetch the first course, returning soon with a tray cluttered with five bowls of thick broccoli soup. He placed a bowl in front of each guest.

Brisbane was reaching for his spoon when he saw Stargazer out of the corner of his eye bow her head and fold her hands in her lap. He quickly brought his own hands to his lap and, for the first time in many months, he offered the small ritual prayer of grace to Grecolus.

When he had finished the mental recitation, Brisbane was ready to eat, but he kept his hands folded because he noticed that Stargazer had not yet finished her prayer. He wondered what she could still be praying about, but then remembered what Shortwhiskers had said about her.

She worships Grecolus in the old ways.

Brisbane knew nothing about this. He thought the rites and rituals he had been taught were the way Grecolus had been worshipped since creation and had no knowledge of any other kind.

She’s a healer, Brisbane heard Shortwhiskers’ voice echo in his head. Claims her power comes from Grecolus himself.

Power. That’s what Shortwhiskers had said. Her power. Brisbane had originally thought the dwarf was referring to her medical skills, but now he was not so sure. He remembered the scene when Stargazer had healed (used her power on) the old man, Skinner. It had been like she was casting a spell, hadn’t it? She had placed her hands on his abdomen, moved them about, and chanted in an unfamiliar tongue. What was there about that process that could realistically take away pain? Nothing. But Skinner had relaxed and he had looked better. It was as if Stargazer had taken away his pain by magic.

Stargazer finished her prayer and began to eat her soup. Brisbane quickly followed and let his ponderings go for another time. He knew he would have to find a time to ask her about it eventually. What was the difference between what she did for Skinner and what Roystnof did with his red book?

“Nog tells me,” Stargazer suddenly said pointedly to Roystnof, “that you found Dantrius as a stone statue in some mysterious garden south of here. The victim of a basilisk?”

Roystnof put his soup spoon down. “Yes.”

“And that you, through your use of magic, restored him to the form present with us this evening.”

Roystnof nodded. “This is true.”

Stargazer returned her attention to her soup bowl for a moment. All around the table everyone enjoyed a few spoonfuls of the fine soup. There was some kind of cheese in it with which Brisbane was not familiar.

“He also tells me,” Stargazer went on, “that inside the shrine you discovered, you encountered some kind of demon, a demon that withstood attacks from both Nog and from Ignatius Roundtower. He says that it was your magic that helped Gil finally destroy the creature.”

“Again, true,” Roystnof said. “Without my slow spell, I fear the demon would have been too much for Gil to handle.”

“I see,” Stargazer said. “And just why did you choose that particular spell? Couldn’t you have brought some sort of fireball down on its head or something? I mean, it seems like such a minor act against such a powerful adversary.” Her voice was subtle and suggestive.

Roystnof considered Stargazer’s words for some time. “Listen, Miss Stargazer, I know what you must think about me and my magic and, frankly, I don’t care. But I’m not going to sit here and listen to you speculate about my motives. I used the spell I thought most helpful in the situation. I helped destroy that demon because it was endangering the lives of my friends. Now, you can speculate to yourself all you want, but you will never come closer to the truth than that.”

Silence fell around the table. Brisbane looked at Roystnof’s angry face and felt a resurgence of the love and respect he felt for his friend. Shortwhiskers kept his eyes switching between Stargazer and Roystnof. Dantrius slurped his soup.

“I’m sorry,” Stargazer said finally. “It was not my place. You surprised me with your passion.”

Roystnof accepted the woman’s apology and the rest of the soup was finished in silence. The hired man came in to take the dishes and returned with salad plates for all of them.

“Roystnof,” Stargazer said, starting the conversation again. “I hope Nog has told you that I plan to accompany you when you set out again in the spring.”

“He has,” Roystnof said.

“For personal reasons,” Stargazer continued, “I am very interested in the shrine you discovered. Nog has told me about it in his words, but I would very much like to hear it described in yours.”

“It was rather plain, really,” Roystnof said after chewing the crisp lettuce. “A cube of stone made out of great slabs of rock. Inside were the rotted remains of what I took to be kneeling benches and a faded mural.”

“A mural?” Stargazer asked.

“Yes,” Roystnof said. “A pair of giant hands parting a cloudbank. Quite a striking image, actually. The basement was completely empty except for the demon we found. I have no idea what the space was once used for.”

“The demon,” Stargazer said. “How do you suppose it got there?”

“Somebody conjured it up,” Roystnof said matter-of-factly. “The pentagram was still on the wall.”

“The pentagram, yes,” Stargazer said. “Do you have any idea who might have conjured such a beast in such a holy place?”

“No,” Roystnof said. “It could have been most anyone.”

Stargazer turned her attention to Dantrius. The pale man held a cherry tomato poked on the end of his fork and was eyeing it dubiously.

“What were you doing in the garden, Dantrius?” Stargazer asked. “What were you doing at that shrine?”

Brisbane held a forkful of lettuce halfway between his plate and his mouth. This was a question he was very interested in hearing answered. It was something he wanted to know, something he had wanted to know since Roystnof had first transformed Dantrius from stone to flesh. The rest of the guests seemed equally anxious to hear the mage’s answer.

Dantrius smiled. “Exploring,” he said simply. “The basilisk trapped me before I could even enter the shrine.” He placed the tomato in his mouth and slowly drew the fork out from between his lips.

“When were you there?” Stargazer asked insistently. “How soon was it after you had left the King’s court?”

“That’s my business,” Dantrius said. “But because it is of no consequence, I will tell you anyway. It was almost immediately. When I left the King’s employ, I started to travel south, searching for friendlier environs. I had been trapped as a stone statue in that garden for nearly the entire intervening time between then and now. There is precious little mischief I could have perpetrated.”

“I’m sure,” Stargazer said uneasily.

Dantrius suddenly stood. “But please, could we dispense with this interrogation session?” He lifted his glass which, at this time, was only filled with water. “We are here to celebrate the birthday of our dear friend, Gildegarde. I would like to propose a toast in his honor.”

The others suspiciously reached for their glasses and held them in front of themselves.

Dantrius cleared his throat. “Here is to young Gildegarde Brisbane. May his life be better than ours have been and longer than the wisest man’s.” Dantrius took a ceremonial drink from his cup, sat back down, and returned to his salad.

All around the table, glasses were brought forward, and uncertain sips were taken.

The rest of the dinner was mostly uneventful, although the food was delicious. The main course was a sumptuous pork roast with potatoes and gravy and steamed carrots. For dessert, they were served the richest chocolate cake with a scoop of immaculate vanilla ice cream. Brisbane’s appetite seemed unstoppable and he devoured helping after helping. The others seemed to nearly gorge themselves as well, except for Stargazer who, although she ate a little bit of everything brought to her, she never seemed to clean her plate.

When the dinner was over, they all retired to the living room to let the hired man and his crew clean up the mess and wrap up the leftovers. Brisbane was hoping for some friendly conversation around the fireplace, but as the others found comfortable chairs, Stargazer drew him aside and said she thought it would be best if she left.

Brisbane did not argue, although he really wanted her to stay. He asked her if she would like him to walk her home and she said that that would be very nice. Brisbane told the others they were leaving and they quickly set out.

It was full dark when they stepped outside, the sun having set a while ago. Stargazer drew her coat around her frame and they marched off, away from town and in the direction of her cottages.

“I had a fine time tonight, Gil,” Stargazer said, her breath puffing visibly out of her mouth. “Regardless of what happened with Roystnof and Dantrius. It was a wonderful dinner party.”

“I’m sorry we can’t all get along,” Brisbane said. “It would make things much easier in the spring.”

“Yes,” Stargazer agreed. “It would.”

“Allison?”

“Yes, Gil?”

Brisbane was afraid to ask the question. “Do you really believe all magic-users are servants of the Evil One?”

“It is what the scriptures tell us,” Stargazer said without pause. “Magic is the tool of Damaleous to turn people away from Grecolus.”

Brisbane was working up the courage to ask her about her healing skills but, before he could get it out, Stargazer asked him a question.

“Where do you think they get their powers from?”

There was something about the way she had said the word they. Brisbane knew she was not referring to all wizards in general. He knew she was talking specifically about Roystnof and Dantrius.

“As far as Dantrius goes,” Brisbane said, “you may be right. It wouldn’t surprise me for a minute if he was worshipping Damaleous. But Roystnof? No, I can’t believe that about him. I’ve known him since I was twelve and never have I seen any evidence of it. And if he can do magic without worshipping Damaleous, what does that say about where magic really comes from?”

“Careful, Gil,” Stargazer warned. “You’re coming close to blasphemy. I know how you feel about Roystnof; Nog told me about your relationship with him. You think of him as an older brother, or perhaps even as a father figure. This worried me at first, but now I see he is a man of character, regardless of his religious beliefs, and that he had not corrupted you.”

Warning lights were going off in Brisbane’s head. Evidently, Shortwhiskers had not told Stargazer about Brisbane’s short-term apprenticeship to Roystnof, and she as yet had not seen the medallion Brisbane wore behind his tunic. If either of these were made known to her, Brisbane had the impression that Stargazer would have nothing more to do with him. As Brisbane did not want that to happen, he decided it was a necessary deception. Besides, neither he nor Roystnof was really worshipping Damaleous anyway, so it wasn’t really a lie. It was just something he wasn’t telling her.

“I did not mean to call the scriptures wrong,” Brisbane said truthfully. “I just have no proof that they are correct.”

“That is why you need faith, Gil.”

They were nearing Stargazer’s cottages. The one she lived in was dark, but the one where she tended to the sick and injured of Queensburg was lighted. Brisbane walked her up to the door of the latter.

Stargazer turned to face him. “There are a few I want to check on before I turn in,” she said, taking both of Brisbane’s hands in hers. “Thank you for walking me back, Gil. Your gentlemanly manners are impeccable.”

Brisbane shrugged. “It seems to come naturally to me. Especially for someone as ladylike as you.” Even while he was saying it, Brisbane couldn’t believe how lame it sounded.

Stargazer stood on her tiptoes and kissed Brisbane on the cheek for the second time that night. “Happy birthday,” she whispered in his ear and for a second her hushed and throaty voice in his ear reminded him of how Angelika’s seductive voice sounded in his head.

Stargazer broke away from him. “Come and see me again. Soon.”

“I will,” Brisbane said.

Stargazer smiled.

She likes me, Brisbane thought. By Grecolus, she really likes me. She’s giving me the benefit of the doubt with Roy because she likes me. She wants me to be good. She doesn’t want to believe I would worship Damaleous.

Stargazer turned and entered the cottage. She gave Brisbane a little wave goodbye before she shut the door.

Brisbane just about ran home.

+ + +

This post appeared on Eric Lanke's blog, an association executive and author. You can contact him at eric.lanke@gmail.com.

Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi

Azar Nafisi is an Iranian woman and a professor of English Literature. Reading Lolita in Tehran is her memoir of the time after the Islamic Revolution when she and a small group of her female students continued to study the books they loved in a kind of secret book club she hosted in her home.

As such, it is appropriately more a story of these women than these books, but my favorite part was the way she framed the events of their lives, and the revolution and society going on around them, through the famous characters in the novels they were reading.

Through this technique, it is easy to see Humbert Humbert in Lolita as a representative of the repressed Islamist yearning for his own freedom, and it is easy to see Daisy Miller in that Henry James classic as the embodiment of the woman they all wished to be.

But who is the “great” Jay Gatsby? And who is Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice? With them, I was unable to make any significant connections. 

+ + +

This post appeared on Eric Lanke's blog, an association executive and author. You can contact him at eric.lanke@gmail.com.

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

This post was originally published on a now-retired blog that I maintained from roughly 2005 to 2013. As a result, there may be some references that seem out of date. 

+ + + 

I’m not in the habit of tooting my own horn, but I am really happy with the entry I wrote on Brave New World after listening to it years ago as an audiobook.

From December 6, 2004:

The next audiobook after The Handmaid’s Tale and another dystopic vision of the future. I can’t say I enjoyed it as much as My Antonia or The Moon and Sixpence, but I believe I will add it to my get and read again list anyway. It’s a classic, after all, and its vision of the future is stark and compelling. In fact, now that I think on it, I realize that it’s the vision that is worth revisiting, and not so much the story.

There were really two things here that, although taken to a ridiculous extreme, reflect poorly on our present society and make me wonder how truly close we are to that Brave New World. The first is the idea of conditioning. In BNW, people believe what they believe because it has been conditioned into them, a conscious part of their education as well as reinforced ad infinitum during their periods of sleep. Hypnopedia is what Huxley calls it. But even in our own society, absent subliminal messages played repeatedly in our sleep, I wonder how much of what we believe we believe because we have been “conditioned” to think a certain way. “People believe in God because they have been conditioned to believe in God,” Mustapha Mond famously says, but he also questions the philosopher who said that philosophy is the practice of coming up with bad reasons to believe what we believe intrinsically. “As if people believe anything intrinsically.” That will make you think. Do we know or believe anything apart from what our environment has taught us? Can we? How is that different from being conditioned to believe a certain thing?

The second is the idea of consumption. In BNW, to consume commercially-produced products is more than patriotic, it is a sign of good citizenship. To mend clothes that have torn or fix things that have broken—rather than getting new ones—is seen as antisocial and wrong. After all, consumption drives the economy, keeps people employed, and therefore gives purpose to a thousand otherwise meaningless tasks and the people that perform them. And all of the “approved” forms of recreation require elaborate and expensive equipment to participate in. There’s nothing you can do by yourself (with a pen and a piece of paper, for example). Everything requires a group and the latest in an unending chain of upgraded tools and devices. Again, I see this as different from our own society only in degree, not in basic premise.

I also like the way Huxley brought in the title. John is a “savage” raised by Indians on a reservation where the rules of BNW don’t apply. He is given a book of Shakespeare’s plays which he reads voraciously and basically memorizes. Like Miranda upon seeing men from across the sea, he quotes, “Oh, brave new world that contains men such as these,” when he finally meets men from the BNW society.

The last part of the book is an interesting analysis of how the world of Shakespeare cannot co-exist with the Brave New World. BNW has eliminated all forms of human passion by declaring that everyone belongs to everyone else, and abolishing the family unit as the basis of society. Babies are born in test tubes and children are raised in conditioning centers. No one has a wife to cheat on or a lover to pine for. No one has a child to care for or a brother to compete against. For the BNWers, it is the ultimate expression of human happiness because there is no war, crime, or strife of any kind, and people spend eight hours a day making positive contributions to society and then take a recreational drug (called soma in the novel) and have sex with each other as much as they want. For John the Savage, it’s a world turned upside down and, after an initial fascination, a decidedly insidious one. He much prefers the human passions of Shakespeare, even if they too frequently lead to heartache, betrayal, and death.

There’s much more to say about this book—the caste system in which embryos are nurtured or neglected from the very beginning to produce the right number of geniuses to keep innovation moving forward and the right number of morons to keep the machines running, for example—but again, almost none of it is about the story. It’s almost all about the premise. Bernard Marx is no Winston Smith, and there isn’t a time when we care about him as much as we do the other.

I’m not sure there’s much new substance I could add to that, although having now read it in hard copy, I’ve made notes on several dog-eared pages, and that gives me a prime opportunity to cite several passages from the text itself that expound on one of the novel’s main themes—conditioning.

The Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning perhaps says it best on page 15:

“And that,” put in the Director sententiously, “that is the secret of happiness and virtue—liking what you’ve got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their unescapable social destiny.”

The whole opening section of the novel is, in fact, an introduction to the way BNW develops and conditions its children to fulfill the social destiny that’s been determined for them. It’s a conditioning that Bernard Marx and then John the Savage rebel against, the first from within and the second from without the construct of that conditioning itself.

I say at the very bottom of my previous entry that Bernard Marx is not Winston Smith, and what I mean by that is that Marx never captures the reader’s compassion and fealty the way Smith does, even though they are both fighting against the inhuman machinations that control their societies. Marx is ultimately not BNW’s protagonist, the way Smith is 1984’s. In BNW, that honor ultimately goes to John the Savage, but Huxley allows us to flirt with Marx for a while before introducing his novel’s real conflict.

Marx’s most endearing scene, for me, is when he speaks out against his conditioning, in language his love interest Lenina (similarly, no Julia) can’t hope to understand.

On their way back across the Channel, Bernard insisted on stopping his propeller and hovering on his helicopter screws within a hundred feet of the waves. The weather had taken a change for the worse; a south-westerly wind had sprung up, the sky was cloudy.

“Look,” he commanded.

“But it’s horrible,” said Lenina, shrinking back from the window. She was appalled by the rushing emptiness of the night, by the black foam-flecked water heaving beneath them, by the pale face of the moon, so haggard and distracted among the hastening clouds. “Let’s turn on the radio. Quick!” She reached for the dialing knob on the dashboard and turned it at random.

“…skies are blue inside of you,” sang sixteen tremoloing falsettos, “the weather’s always…”

Then a hiccough and silence. Bernard had switched off the current.

“I want to look at the sea in peace,” he said. “One can’t even look with that beastly noise going on.”

“But it’s lovely. And I don’t want to look.”

“But I do,” he insisted. “It makes me feel as though…” he hesitated, searching for words with which to express himself, “as though I were more me, if you see what I mean. More on my own, not so completely a part of something else. Not just a cell in the social body. Doesn’t it make you feel like that, Lenina?”

But Lenina was crying. “It’s horrible, it’s horrible,” she kept repeating. “And how can you talk like that about not wanting to be part of the social body? After all, every one works for every one else. We can’t do without any one. Even Epsilons…”

“Yes, I know,” said Bernard derisively. “‘Even Epsilons are useful’! So am I. And I damned well wish I weren’t!”

Lenina was shocked by his blasphemy. “Bernard!” She protested in a voice of amazed distress. “How can you?”

In a different key, “How can I?” he repeated meditatively. “No, the real problem is: How is it that I can’t, or rather—because, after all, I know quite well why I can’t—what would it be like if I could, if I were free—not enslaved by my conditioning.”

“But, Bernard, you’re saying the most awful things.”

“Don’t you wish you were free, Lenina?”

“I don’t know what you mean. I am free. Free to have the most wonderful time. Everybody’s happy nowadays.”

He laughed. “Yes, ‘Everybody’s happy nowadays.’ We begin giving the children that at five. But wouldn’t you like to be free to be happy in some other way, Lenina? In your own way, for example; not in everybody else’s way?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she repeated.

Indeed, Lenina doesn’t. She has never had any reason to question her conditioning. To her, Bernard’s pining for something other than what he has been conditioned for is unnatural, almost obscene. But when they visit the savage reservation together, we see in Lenina’s reaction to that society’s sights and sounds both a horror of things different and a deep abiding understanding of at least one basic element of all human culture.

Lenina liked the drums. Shutting her eyes she abandoned herself to their soft repeated thunder, allowed it to invade her consciousness more and more completely, till at last there was nothing left in the world but that one deep pulse of sound. It reminded her reassuringly of the synthetic noises made at Solidarity Services and Ford’s Day celebrations. “Orgy-porgy,” she whispered to herself. These drums beat out just the same rhythms.

There was a sudden startling burst of singing—hundreds of male voices crying out fiercely in harsh and metallic unison. A few long notes and silence, the thunderous silence of the drums; then shrill, in a neighing treble, the women’s answer. Then again the drums; and once more the men’s deep savage affirmation of their manhood.

Queer—yes. The place was queer, so was the music, so were the clothes and the goiters and the skin diseases and the old people. But the performance itself—there seemed to be nothing especially queer about that.

“It reminds me of a lower-caste Community Sing,” she told Bernard.

And as I said before, it is Marx’s and Lenina’s introduction to John the Savage and his society that provides the vehicle for the ultimate conflict in the novel—not the one between Marx and his conditioning, but the one between the controlled, stable society of BNW and the random, myth-believing society of the savage reservation. Both societies are flawed—in neither one do the citizens embrace the truths of their existence. And it is only World Controller Mustapha Mond—our antagonist—who is in a position to understand the price that is paid to make the Brave New World possible.

In a scene reminiscent of Smith’s truth revealing encounter with O’Brien, John asks Mond why there can’t be things like Shakespeare’s Othello in his society.

“Because our world is not the same as Othello’s world. You can’t make flivvers without steel—and you can’t make tragedies without social instability. The world’s stable now. People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can’t get. They’re well off; they’re safe; they’re never ill; they’re not afraid of death; they’re blissfully ignorant of passion and old age; they’re plagued with no mothers or fathers; they’ve got no wives, or children, or lovers to feel strongly about; they’re so conditioned that they practically can’t help behaving as they ought to behave. And if anything should go wrong, there’s soma. Which you go and chuck out of the window in the name of liberty, Mr. Savage. Liberty!” He laughed. “Expecting Deltas to know what liberty is! And now expecting them to understand Othello! My good boy!”

The Savage was silent for a little. “All the same,” he insisted obstinately, “Othello’s good, Othello’s better than those feelies.”

“Of course it is,” the Controller agreed. “But that’s the price we have to pay for stability. You’ve got to choose between happiness and what people used to call high art. We’ve sacrificed the high art. We have the feelies and the scent organ instead.”

This is the section in which Mustapha Mond famously says, “People believe in God because they’ve been conditioned to believe in God,” but that sentiment seems at odds with this thesis, which Mond presents just two pages prior.

“That sickness is old age; and a horrible disease it is. They say that it is the fear of death and of what comes after death that makes men turn to religion as they advance in years. But my own experience has given me the conviction that, quite apart from any such terrors or imaginings, the religious sentiment tends to develop as we grow older; to develop because, as the passions grow calm, as the fancy and sensibilities are less excited and less excitable, our reason becomes less troubled in its working, less obscured by the images, desires and distractions, in which it used to be absorbed; whereupon God emerges as from behind a cloud; our soul feels, sees, turns toward the source of all light; turns naturally and inevitably; for now that all that gave the world of sensations its life and charms has begun to leak away from us, now that phenomenal existence is no more bolstered up by impressions from within or from without, we feel the need to lean on something that abides, something that will never play us false—a reality, an absolute and everlasting truth. Yes, we inevitably turn to God; for this religious sentiment is of its nature so pure, so delightful to the soul that experiences it, that it makes up to us for all our other losses.”

I can’t tell if Huxley is trying to say something permanent about God here—if he does and doesn’t actually believe that God is an ultimate and transcendent truth of our existence. He seems to smash the idea with Mond’s more famous line two pages later, but the rest of the discussion seems to argue that God is something Mond has to protect the BNWers from, like Shakespeare, in order to have the happiness and stability they seek.

One final point. John the Savage seems to hold his own throughout this climactic discussion with Mond, and we the contemporary reader, who feel more affinity for John’s Shakespeare than Mond’s feelies, wish John to succeed, want him to destroy this unfeeling Brave New World if he can. But John doesn’t, and after his banishment, we see that perhaps our fealty to his savage predilections was misplaced.

John is ultimately tortured by the ideals of his savage world, and he actually flogs himself as punishment for sullying the purity he seeks to maintain. Pledged to holding sacred and constant the memory of his dead mother, Linda, the memory and carnal desires associated with an unfulfilled encounter with Lenina cause him to quite lose his mind.

“Strumpet! Strumpet!” he shouted at every blow as though it were Lenina (and how frantically, without knowing it, he wished it were), white, warm, scented, infamous Lenina that he was flogging thus. “Strumpet!” And then, in a voice of despair, “Oh, Linda, forgive me. Forgive me, God. I’m bad. I’m wicked. I’m…No, no, you strumpet, you strumpet!”

It makes you wonder which side you’re supposed to fall on. Ultimately, I realize that the choice of the Savage is no better than the choice we face as the reader. Which society should we embrace? The one based on the passions of our distant past, or on the calculated happiness of our stable future? And if we choose neither extreme, an even larger question looms. How do we ensure that we walk the correct and delicate line between them when others will invariably want to pull our society in one direction or the other?

+ + +

This post appeared on Eric Lanke's blog, an association executive and author. You can contact him at eric.lanke@gmail.com.