Herzog by Saul Bellow

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 As a result, there may be some references that seem out of date. 

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This one was an interesting journey. I’ve read some Bellow before, and seemed to have kind of a mixed reaction to him. Henderson the Rain King was memorable, but neither Dangling Man or The Adventures of Augie March were. Looking back on Herzog, I think it’s going to wind up in the same category as Catch-22. I wasn’t sure I was enjoying it while I was reading it, but now that it’s done I sure am glad I read it. And I sure dog-eared enough of the pages. It started with stumbling across passages like this one:

Not everyone threatened with a crackup can manage to go to Europe for relief. Most people have to keep on working; they report daily, they still ride the subway. Or else they drink, they go to the movies and sit there suffering.

And this one:

He saw twenty paces away the white soft face and independent look of a woman in a shining black straw hat which held her head in depth and eyes that even in the signal-dotted obscurity reached him with a force she could never be aware of. Those eyes might be blue, perhaps green, even gray—he would never know. But they were bitch eyes, that was certain. They expressed a sort of female arrogance which had an immediate sexual power over him; he experienced it again that very moment—a round face, the clear gaze of pale bitch eyes, a pair of proud legs.

And I think to myself, this guy has been inside my head. These are thoughts I’ve had myself, and here they are printed in this forty-year old book. So I keep reading, suddenly interested in this guy Herzog, this guy whose thoughts are revealed in scribbled letters to people, living and dead. What does Herzog think of Nietzsche’s theories of God and man? We don’t have to ask because Herzog writes Nietzsche a letter explaining his thoughts in great detail. And what about the way his ex-wife played him for a patsy, or the way his psychiatrist seemed to be in on the deal. Same answers there, letters to both of them that never get sent.

But we mustn’t forget how quickly the visions of genius become the canned goods of the intellectuals. The canned sauerkraut of Spengler’s “Prussian Socialism,” the commonplaces of the Wasteland outlook, the cheap mental stimulants of Alienation, the cant and rant of pipsqueaks about Inauthenticity and Forlornness.

This in a letter to one of his fellow professors, and the following in a letter to the Monsignor who had helped shepherd his ex-wife towards Catholicism:

One way or another the no doubt mad idea entered my mind that my own actions had historic importance, and this (fantasy?) made it appear that people who harmed me were interfering with an important experiment.

It’s an interesting device, putting the narrative very close to Herzog’s inner voice, so close that the slips from the narrator’s third person to Herzog’s first person are sometimes jarring, sometimes unnoticed. It was also interesting to see Herzog’s backstory unfold through a series of interactions and letters with other characters in the story—his new love interest, the woman he cheated on his first wife with, the man and best friend with whom his second wife cheated on him. In fact, the book is mostly backstory, character development and philosophical rambling until about two-thirds through when the plot actually begins.

And shortly after the plot does begin, Herzog finds himself a spectator in a courtroom where the following trial is going on.

A young couple, a woman and the man she had been living with in a slum hotel, uptown, were being tried for the murder of her son, a child of three. She had had the boy by another man who deserted her, said the lawyer in his presentation. Herzog observed how gray and elderly all these lawyers were, people of another generation and a different circle of life—tolerant, comfortable people. The defendants could be identified by their looks and clothing. The man wore a stained and frayed zipper jacket and she, a redheaded woman, with a wide ruddy face, had on a brown print house dress. Both sat stolid, to all appearances unmoved by the testimony, he with his low sideburns and blond mustache, she with blunt freckled cheekbones and long, hidden eyes.

I’m going to quote this passage at length, because I find it fascinating on multiple levels, and also because I think it has a lot to say about what Herzog the novel is all about. This section is mentioned kind of in passing in some of the critical reviews of the novel that I’ve read, which probably means that I’m off base, but I think it is significant.

She came from Trenton, born lame. Her father was a garage mechanic. She had a fourth-grade education, I.Q. 94. An older brother was the favorite; she was neglected. Unattractive, sullen, clumsy, wearing an orthopedic boot, she became delinquent at an early age. Her record was before the court, the lawyer went on, even, mild and pleasant. An angry uncontrollable girl, from first grade. There were affidavits from teachers. There were also medical and psychiatric records, and a neurological report to which the lawyer particularly wished to call the court’s attention. This showed his client had been diagnosed by encephalogram as having a brain lesion capable of altering her behavior radically. She was known to have violent epileptoid fits of rage; her tolerance for emotions controlled from the affected lobe was known to be very low. Because she was a poor crippled creature, she had often been molested, later sexually abused by adolescent boys. Indeed, her file in children’s court was very thick. Her mother loathed her, had refused to attend the trial, was quoted as saying, “This is no kid of mine. We wash our hands of her.” The defendant was made pregnant at nineteen by a married man who lived with her several months, then went back to his wife and family. She refused to give the child for adoption, lived for a while in Trenton with it, and then moved to Flushing, where she met the other defendant, at the time employed as porter in a lunchroom on Columbus Avenue, and decided to live with him at the Montcalme Hotel on 103rd street—Herzog had often passed the place. You could smell the misery of it from the street; its black stink flowed out through open windows—bedding, garbage, disinfectant, roach killer. His mouth was dry and he sat forward, straining to hear.

This is an unpleasant story, start to finish. But who is to blame? Interesting that the scene is a court of law, where such concepts like liability and justice are supposed to have meaning. And notice how Herzog is consumed by the story, when everyone else, even the defendants, seem unaffected.

The medical examiner was on the stand. Had he seen the dead child? Yes. Did he have a report to make? He did. He gave the date and circumstances of the examination. A hefty, bald, solemn man with fleshy and deliberate lips, he held his notes in both hands like a singer—the experienced, professional witness. The child, he said, was normally formed but seemed to have suffered from malnutrition. There were signs of incipient rickets, the teeth were already quite carious, but this was sometimes a symptom that the mother had had toxemia in pregnancy. Were any unusual marks visible on the child’s body? Yes, the little boy had apparently been beaten. Once, or repeatedly? In his opinion, often beaten. The scalp was torn. There were unusually heavy bruises on the back and legs. The shins were discolored. Where were the bruises heaviest? On the belly, and especially in the region of the genitals, where the boy seemed to have been beaten with something capable of breaking the skin, perhaps a metal buckle or the heel of a woman’s shoe. “And what internal findings did you make?” the prosecutor went on. There were two broken ribs, one an older break. The more recent one had done some damage to the lung. The boy’s liver had been ruptured. The hemorrhage caused by this may have been the immediate cause of death. There was also a brain injury. “In your opinion, then, the child died violently?” “This is my opinion. The liver injury would have been enough.”

All this seemed to Herzog exceptionally low-pitched. All—the lawyers, the jury, the mother, her tough friend, the judge—behaved with much restraint, extremely well controlled and quiet-spoken. Such calm—inversely proportionate to the murder? he was thinking. Judge, jury, lawyers and the accused, all looked utterly unemotional. And he himself? He sat in his new madras coat and held his hard straw hat. He gripped his hat strongly and felt sick at heart. The ragged edge of the straw made marks on his fingers.

Why does this speak to me so? Because I’m a father with a three-year old child? That’s certainly part of it, but I think I would see the horror in this simple tale even if I wasn’t. Like Herzog, I’m on the edge of my seat, dreading to hear any more. And it is simple, the story, simple in its construction and simple in its telling. Having the abbreviated facts revealed in the style of a court drama is an effective way to pack a lot of information into a relatively few words. It’s also a good way to accentuate the things that are missing—the passions, emotions and frustrations of the lives being described. They are, of course, the real story here, the complicated side of this simple recitation of facts—and they are, of course, ultimately more difficult to write about.

A witness was sworn, a solid-looking man of thirty-five or so, in a stylish oxford gray summer suit, of Madison Avenue cut. His face was round, full, jowly, but his head had little height above the ears and was further flattened by his butch haircut. He made very good gestures, pulling up his trouser legs as he sat, freeing his shirt cuffs and leaning forward to answer questions with measured, earnest, masculine politeness. His eyes were dark. You could see his scalp furrow as he frowned, weighing his answers. He identified himself as a salesman in the storm-window business, screens and storm windows. Herzog knew what he meant—aluminum sashes with triple tracks: he had read the ads. The witness lived in Flushing. Did he know the accused woman? She was asked to stand, and she did, a short hobbling figure, dark-red hair frizzy, the long eyes recessed, skin freckled, lips thick and dun-colored. Yes, he knew her, she had lived in his house eight months ago, not exactly employed by him, no, she was a distant cousin of his wife, who felt sorry for her and gave her a room—he had built a small apartment in the attic; separate bathroom, air-conditioner. She was asked to help with housework, naturally, but she also took off and left the boy for days at a time. Did he ever know her to mistreat the child? The kid was never clean. You never wanted to hold him on your lap. He had a cold sore, and his wife at last put salve on it, as the mother would not. The child was quiet, undemanding, clung to its mother, a frightened little boy, and he had a bad smell. Could the witness further describe the mother’s attitude? Well, on the road, they were driving to visit the grandmother and stopped at Howard Johnson’s. Everyone ordered. She had a barbecued beef sandwich and when it came began to eat and fed the child nothing. Then he himself (indignant) gave the boy some of his meat and gravy.

I fail to understand! thought Herzog, as this good man, jowls silently moving, got off the stand. I fail to…but this is the difficulty with people who spend their lives in humane studies and therefore imagine once cruelty has been described in books it is ended. Of course he really knew better—understood that human beings would not live so as to be understood by the Herzogs. Why should they?

And there it is. Human beings would not live so as to be understood by the Herzogs. That’s the essence of writing, isn’t it? That last, uncrossable chasm between fiction and reality. Obscure it as much as you like with your scintillating prose, there are certain things about real life that you will never be able to portray accurately in your fiction, because they are not the kind of things you will ever be able to understand.

But he had not time to think of this. The next witness was already sworn, the clerk at the Montcalme; a bachelor in his fifties; slack lips, large creases, damaged cheeks, hair that looked touched up, voice deep and melancholy, with a sinking rhythm to every sentence. The sentences sank down, down, until the last words were lost in rumbling syllables. An alcoholic once, judged Herzog from the look of his skin, and there was a certain faggotty prissiness in his speech, too. He said he had kept and eye on this “unfortunate pair.” They rented a housekeeping room. The woman drew Relief money. The man had no occupation. The police came a few times to ask about him. And the boy, could he tell the court anything about him? Mostly that the child cried a lot. Tenants complained, and when he investigated he found the kid was kept shut in a closet. For discipline, was what the defendant told him. But towards the end the boy cried less. On the day of his death, however, there was a lot of noise. He heard something falling, and shrieks from the third floor. Both the mother and the boy were screaming. Someone was fooling with the elevator, so he ran upstairs. Knocked at the door, but she was screaming too loud to hear. So he opened and stepped in. Would he tell the court what he saw? He saw the woman with the boy in her arms. He thought she was hugging him, but to his astonishment she threw him from her with both arms. He was hurled against the wall. This made the noise he had been hearing below. Was anyone else present? Yes, the other defendant was lying on the bed, smoking. And was the child now screaming? No, at this time he was lying silently on the floor. Did the clerk then speak? He said he was frightened by the look of the woman, her swollen face. She turned red, crimson, and screamed with all her might, and she stamped her foot, the one with the built-up heel, he noticed, and he was afraid she would go for his eyes with her nails. He then went to call the police. Soon the man came downstairs. He explained that her boy was a problem child. She could not toilet-train him. He drove her wild sometimes the way he dirtied himself. And the crying all night! So they were talking when the squad car came. And found the child dead? Yes, he was dead when they arrived.

“Cross-examination?” said the bench. The defense lawyer waived examination with a movement of long white fingers, and the judge said, “You may step down. That will be all.”

When the witness stood, Herzog stood up, too. He had to move, had to go. Again he wondered whether he was going to come down with sickness. Or was it the terror of the child that had gotten into him? Anyway, he felt stifled, as if the valves of his heart were not closing and the blood were going back into his lungs. He walked heavily and quickly. Turning once in the aisle, he saw only the lean gray head of the judge, whose lips silently moved as he read one of his documents.

Or was it the terror of the child that had gotten into him? Can you imagine the terror that child must have felt? Can I? Can Herzog? Can anyone? He was three, raised from infancy by a mentally retarded woman, and kept in a closet. What kind of world is it in which the person you feel the most instinctual love for—your mother—is also the person that most represents fear, terror, shame and pain? What could he understand at three? What could he understand but what Bellow will soon describe as the monstrousness of life, and understand it better than any author ever could. And in spite of all that, he is not real. He is a fictional character in a quickly sketched anecdote.

Reaching the corridor, he said to himself, “Oh my God!” and in trying to speak discovered an acrid fluid in his mouth that had to be swallowed. Then stepping away from the door he stumbled into a woman with a cane. Black-browed, her hair very black though she was middle-aged, she pointed downward with the cane, instead of speaking. He saw that she wore a cast with metal clogs on the foot and that her toenails were painted. Then getting down the loathsome taste, he said, “I’m sorry.” He had a sick repulsive headache, piercing and ugly. He felt as if he had gotten too close to a fire and scalded his lungs. She did not speak at all but was not ready to let him off. Her eyes, prominent, severe, still kept him standing, identifying him thoroughly, fully, deeply, as a fool. Again—silently—Thou fool! In the red-striped jacket, the hat tucked under his arm, hair uncombed, eyes swollen, he waited for her to go. When she left at last, going, cane, cast, clogs, down the speckled corridor, he concentrated. With all his might—mind and heart—he tried to obtain something for the murdered child. But what? How? He pressed himself with intensity, but “all his might” could get nothing for the buried boy. Herzog experienced nothing but his own human feelings, in which he found nothing of use. What if he felt moved to cry? Or pray? He pressed hand to hand. And what did he feel? Why he felt himself—his own trembling hands, and eyes that stung. And what was there in modern, post…post-Christian America to pray for? Justice—justice and mercy? And pray away the monstrousness of life, the wicked dream it was? He opened his mouth to relieve the pressure he felt. He was wrung, and wrung again, and wrung again, again.

The child screamed, clung, but with both arms the girl hurled it against the wall. On her legs was ruddy hair. And her lover, too, with long jaws and zooty sideburns, watching on the bed. Lying down to copulate, and standing up to kill. Some kill, then cry. Others, not even that.

I think Bellow packed a lot into this little tale to help him illustrate that kind of world he saw and the difficulty he had as an intellectual in dealing with it in his fiction. Herzog is tormented by the existentialism of life, the need to derive meaning from one’s own circumstances and on one’s own terms. He struggles mightily with this, and is intimidated by the ease with which others seem to master themselves and their surroundings.

A man may say, ‘From now on I’m going to speak the truth.’ But the truth hears him and runs away and hides before he’s even done speaking. There is something funny about the human condition, and civilized intelligence makes fun of its own ideas.

“A man” is, of course, Herzog, who wants there to be absolute truth in the universe but is becoming more and more convinced that there isn’t.

It all goes back to those German existentialists who tell you how good dread is for you, how it saves you from distraction and gives you your freedom and makes you authentic. God is no more. But Death is. That’s their story. And we live in a hedonistic world in which happiness is set up on a mechanical model. All you have to do is open your fly and grasp happiness. And so these other theorists introduce the tension of guilt and dread as a corrective. But human life is far subtler than any of its models, even these ingenious German models. Do we need to study theories of fear and anguish?

In the world Bellow describes in his courtroom story, theories of fear and anguish are superfluous. With such horror in the world, why is anyone postulating on its intrinsic meaning? And this final thought from very late in the book, about the pursuit of absolute truth and its role in shaping our society.

In the seventeenth century the passionate search for absolute truth stopped so that mankind might transform the world. Something practical was done with thought. The mental became also the real. Relief from the pursuit of absolutes made life pleasant. Only a small class of fanatical intellectuals, professionals, still chased after these absolutes. But our revolutions, including nuclear terror, return the metaphysical dimension to us. All practical activity has reached this culmination: everything may go now, civilization, history, meaning, nature. Everything!

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

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

FARCHRIST TALES

BOOK THREE:

THE UNDERGOD

The first real spell Roystnof taught me was called shocking grasp, and I learned it on the day of the Festival of Whiteshine. Roystnof called it a potent but simple spell and, even though I had been studying magic on and off for six years, it took me the entire morning and some of the afternoon to master it. I remember how exhausted I was after I had finally cast it correctly on a wooden chair, how exhausted and triumphant I felt. It was a powerful spell and for the first time in my life I felt like a real wizard, like I deserved to be Roystnof’s apprentice. When I think about it, it was really one of the happiest times of my life, feeling closer to Roystnof than perhaps ever before or since.

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Brisbane went right to bed when he got back to his chamber, tired even though he had slept most of the day. In the morning he told Smurch he did intend to challenge Tornestor in the pug-trolang. The half-ork was overjoyed at the news and it took Brisbane several minutes to calm him down enough to get some useful information out of him. Brisbane wanted to know how he was expected to go about it, what rituals he was supposed to follow, and what manners he needed to observe.

He found out it was relatively simple. All he had to was issue his masokom before the evening draknel, as Wister had done to him, and if the Sumak accepted his challenge, battle to decide the chief of the clan would follow the meal. Technically, Tornestor could not refuse the masokom—to do so would be a sign of weakness, but he could name one of his Sums—which were what the orks with the red stripes on their sleeves were called—to fight in his place. This was allowed and it was meant to prevent daily challenges against a Sumak until he lost a fluke contest to an ork with lesser combat skills.

Smurch seemed to think this was what Tornestor would do in response to Brisbane’s challenge. If Brisbane defeated one of Tornestor’s Sums—who were named Bronsop and Riltik—then Tornestor would be forced to face Brisbane the next day in the pug-trolang. Of course, if the Sumak was sure he could defeat Brisbane, he just might accept the challenge outright.

Brisbane spent the day, as usual, with Ternosh, trying to master the use of orkish magic. He still had had no success and was beginning to wonder if he would ever get the hang of it. Ternosh was a good and patient teacher, but there seemed to be something missing from Brisbane’s internal makeup, something that kept him from channeling his inner force of magic into these strange orkish paths.

It no longer mattered to Brisbane, however. He was getting out of here in one or two days, depending on Tornestor’s decision about his masokom. Angelika had more or less promised him that. But he could not let Ternosh catch onto his plan, so he worked as hard as ever on the orkish spells. He wanted to keep it secret from the Grumak mainly because he wasn’t sure how Ternosh would react. Brisbane supposed there was the chance Ternosh would accept it, figuring this mad try for domination of the clan was the mission Gruumsh had sent him here for, but Brisbane thought the chances of that were slim. If Ternosh believed Gruumsh One-Eye had sent him here to become the new Sumak of the clan, why had the Grumak put up such a fuss when Wister had challenged him? If Brisbane was destined to become the clan’s first human Sumak, then surely no ork with the combat skills of Wister could have stood in his way.

No, Brisbane didn’t want Ternosh to know about his plan because he was afraid the Grumak would be able to stop it somehow, like he had tried to do with Wister. Brisbane thought the best policy would be to keep it secret from everyone until that night’s draknel, when he would announce his intentions to everyone present as he issued the masokom to Tornestor, and that was just what he did.

The day passed and when evening arrived, Brisbane calmly went to the banquet chamber as he had done every other night. Every other night except the night before, when he had been too sick on incense smoke to attend. He took his usual seat, now on the right of Ternosh since the death of Grum Wister, and said a pleasant good evening to the Grumak. He poured himself a tankard of ale and, sipping it slowly, listened to the conversations running around the table and waited for Sumak Tornestor to enter the chamber.

Brisbane did not have to wait long. Tornestor soon arrived with his faithful Sums walking behind him. Brisbane watched him carefully as he strode into the chamber and took his seat at the banquet table. He was again struck by the sheer size of the ork, and he could not deny the swirling of fear in his bowels when he thought about what he was going to do. Defeating Wister had been easy. It had taken him a while to decide to strike the Grum down, but there had been no real test in the area of combat. Brisbane was sure Tornestor would be a much different story. He was the leader of the clan, by definition, the best warrior they had. Whereas Wister had spent most of his time in his work chamber honing his magical skills, Tornestor had been fighting his way up through the ranks of orkish society, sharpening his skills with his blade.

Tornestor, after taking his seat, addressed the crowd at the table. “Welcome, klatru of the Red Eye Clan, to this evening’s draknel. Before the meal is served, does anyone have anything to say?”

Silence ran around the table as Brisbane slowly rose to his feet.

Angelika, help me.

—Strength, Brisbane. You have the strength to persevere.—

“Grum Brisbane,” Tornestor said in his scratchy voice. “You wish to invoke your right of statement?”

Brisbane quietly cleared his throat. “I do.” All eyes around the table were on him.

“You may speak, Grum Brisbane.”

Here goes. “I wish to issue a masokom, Sumak Tornestor.”

This caused a certain amount of mumbling to murmur around the table. Ternosh looked up at him with a glaring red eye but Brisbane did his best to ignore the Grumak.

Tornestor held up his hands to bring silence back to the chamber. “It is your right to do so. Who do you wish to challenge?”

There was a moment when Brisbane seemed to feel the air crystallize around him and the others in the chamber, freezing the scene like a diorama in the collection of some observing god. In this moment he saw the detail of his surroundings to an almost impossible degree. The folds in the black garments of the orks, the beads of moisture on the tankards of cold ale, the chipped and rough edges on Tornestor’s claw-like fingernails—it was all preserved in Brisbane’s memory as if he had been standing at the table, waiting to issue his challenge, for all time.

“You, Sumak Tornestor.”

The uproar that followed was comprised mostly of cries of shock and surprise, but mixed in were a few unmistakable guffaws of laughter. Ternosh leapt to his feet and stood impatiently, waiting for Tornestor to notice him. There was no change in expression on the face of the Sumak, but both Bronsop and Riltik began to study Brisbane with a pair of nearly carnivorous stares.

Tornestor again raised his hands for silence. “Brother,” he said to the Grumak. “Sit down.”

“But Tornestor—”

“Ternosh, sit down!” The voice echoed through the chamber, repeating the order over and over again.

At the outpouring of his brother’s anger, Ternosh slowly sat down.

Tornestor turned to face Brisbane. “Grum Brisbane,” he said in a tone under his control. “Normally I would ask the reason for the issuing of a masokom, but as you have challenged the Sumak, there can only be one reason for it. You intend to rule this clan. Before I decide to accept the masokom myself or to defer it to one of my Sums, tell me one thing. Is this why Gruumsh One-Eye has sent you among us? To depose me? Have I displeased him in some manner?”

Brisbane was tempted to say yes, to say that was just what he had been sent here for. Yes, Tornestor. Gruumsh One-Eye himself has sent me here to kill you and when you are dead your god will squash out your existence under the heel of his massive boot. Yes, Tornestor, I am your death. Brisbane was tempted to say this, but in the end, he did not.

“Who do I fight today?” was all Brisbane did say, deliberately ignoring the Sumak’s question. “You or one of your Sums?”

Tornestor’s lips snarled, exposing his sharp teeth. “You are wise, Grum Brisbane. Wise, or foolish. After the draknel is finished, you will meet Bronsop in the pug-trolang.” He clapped his hands twice and immediately servants carrying food entered the chamber.

Brisbane sat down as the personal conversations resumed around the table and the draknel was served.

“Is it true?” Ternosh asked him quietly. “Is this indeed why Gruumsh sent you here?”

Brisbane looked the Grumak right in the eye. “Eat your meal, Ternosh. Eat your meal and leave me alone.

Ternosh let out a harumph and turned back to his plate, being heaped with food by a servant. “Well,” the Grumak said to himself. “I guess I’ll find out soon enough, won’t I?”

The draknel passed very slowly for Brisbane. After everyone’s plate had been filled, he waited with them all for Tornestor to dig in so they could eat. The chief seemed to wait an unusually long period of time that night, probably in a token attempt to further show his dominance in the wake of Brisbane’s masokom. Brisbane didn’t care. Let him milk it for as much as he could. He would not be milking it for much longer.

As he had done before his battle with Wister, Brisbane did not overstuff himself with food and limited himself to only one tankard of ale. He wasn’t sure which of the orks on either side of Tornestor was Bronsop, but throughout the draknel, the one on the Sumak’s right kept staring at him, so he assumed that was the one. Whenever he caught the red-striped ork looking at him, Brisbane forced the most vicious glare he could to his face. He wasn’t going to let the ork intimidate him.

—He is not your match, Brisbane. You can defeat him.—

I know I can, Angelika. I have to.

When the meal was finally finished, and the servants had cleared the table, Tornestor rose to his feet.

“Gentlemen,” he said formally. “In the tradition handed down through generations, a tradition begun in the time Gruumsh One-Eye himself walked the earth, a challenge, a masokom, has been issued by one of us against another. The reason for this masokom is clear. Are there any here who would deny my right to name Sum Bronsop to accept the challenge in my stead?”

The table experienced an uneasy silence.

“Then let us move to the pug-trolang, the pit of combat, to settle this masokom before our own eyes.”

Then they were all up and moving out of the banquet chamber. Tornestor and his two Sums led the way and Ternosh and Brisbane brought up the rear. The procession made its way down the short, dark corridor and emerged into the chamber of the pug-trolang. The klatru quickly took their places around the pit, all except Brisbane and the red-striped Bronsop, who began to arm themselves with pieces of the armory that was the outer wall of the chamber.

Brisbane watched Bronsop for a little while. The ork was about his size and extremely hairy. He chose a metal breastplate from the wall, as well as a crest-shaped shield and a thick, heavy scimitar. He saw Brisbane watching him suit up, but ignored the human completely. When he was finished, Bronsop marched to the edge of the pit and dropped himself down.

Brisbane turned his attention to the armor and weapons. He chose a black chainmail shirt that hung down to his knees and a large circular shield, as usual, black and emblazoned with a great red eye. He searched for the same sword he had used against Wister and, eventually, he found it. He twirled it around in his right hand, marveling again at its perfect balance, and prepared to set off for the pug-trolang.

But just before he walked away from the wall, his eyes caught sight of a single black helmet, propped up on the end of a spear. He took it immediately and placed it on his head. It had a metal faceguard, with two wide slits to see through. Brisbane could not imagine the orks getting much use out of it; the orkish head being generally larger than the human one. Fully armed and protected, Brisbane then made his way to the pug-trolang and dropped himself down.

He took his place opposite and facing Bronsop and actively engaged in the staring match that seemed to be a ritual at this stage of the game. He did not watch Ternosh over by the pedestal—

and Angelika

—conjure up the Demosk and he did not watch Tornestor rise to his feet when the time came to start the battle. He watched Bronsop. And Bronsop watched him.

The incense smoke again stayed mostly above the floor of the pug-trolang. Brisbane could still smell the pungent orange odor of it, and it brought back unpleasant memories of the sacrifice of Amanda. But he pushed these thoughts aside, he had to, and concentrated solely on how to defeat Bronsop.

—Yes. That’s right, Brisbane. For Amanda. He deserves to die for what happened to Amanda.—

Angelika, stay out if it.

—But our vengeance, what about our vengeance? We must make them pay.—

I’m doing it, aren’t I?

—Yes. Yes, Brisbane, you are.—

The Demosk made its appearance, ghostly and eyeless, but Brisbane did not look at it. He heard Ternosh inform it of the reason it had been summoned and he heard the Demosk say it was ready to witness to masokom.

“Then we are ready,” Tornestor said to the smoke-filled room. “Bronsop?”

The ork did not take his eyes off Brisbane. “Yes, Lord?”

“Kill him.”

Bronsop smiled. “That I will, Lord.”

“Begin!” Tornestor called out.

The klatru roared in support and excitement as Bronsop charged at Brisbane. The charge was quick and strong, and when Brisbane tried to push it aside like he had done so easily to Wister, Bronsop fought it, pivoting back against Brisbane’s thrust and scored a strike on Brisbane’s chainmail. Brisbane brought his shield down to protect himself as he found himself toe to toe with a warrior of considerable skill.

—Careful, Brisbane. Do not leave yourself foolishly open.—

Brisbane traded a few ineffectual blows against their shields with the ork, each gauging the comparative skill of the other. Brisbane did not know what Bronsop thought of him, but Brisbane could not help but be impressed with the Sum. Unlike Wister, his blows were quick and powerful, his balance was perfect, and his use of his shield was near expert. For a moment, Brisbane experienced a sinking feeling that perhaps he would not be able to defeat Bronsop.

—Brisbane! Do not poison your mind so. Of course you can defeat him. If you do not destroy this monster, you will never win me back. Remember that.—

If I can’t defeat him, Angelika, I’ll be dead.

—Yes, and dead you cannot wield me. You must win.—

Bronsop tried a swipe at his legs, but Brisbane had read it in the ork’s movements and skipped over the blade as it passed by. Stooped over like he was, Brisbane tried to bring his sword down on top of Bronsop’s head, but the ork’s shield came up and caught the blow.

He’s good, Angelika. He’s good.

—He is skilled, Brisbane, but you are better.—

But he is good.

—Fine. Perhaps there will be no nonsense this time.—

What do you mean by that?

The crowd roared as Bronsop unleashed a savage blow on Brisbane’s upraised shield that drove the human down onto one knee. Brisbane quickly rolled across the ground and struck out at the ork’s unprotected legs. He hit with a shallow cut along one of Bronsop’s shins and bounced up again to his feet. The crowd let out a cry of displeasure and the Sum, bloodied, backed out of combat.

—You refused to fight the one called Wister for so long because he was no warrior. Since this creature is much better, perhaps you won’t have the same reluctance.—

We’ll see, Angelika.

Bronsop stood away, looking at Brisbane with a shocked look of amazement. The wound certainly was hurting him and was bleeding quite a bit, but it was only superficial. Brisbane had not yet won. The ork charged back into combat with a cry of rage.

But now Brisbane had the advantage. It was the right leg he had hit and Bronsop was obviously favoring it. Brisbane concentrated his attack so the Sum had to pivot on his wounded leg in order to repel him. It also happened to be Bronsop’s weaker side, his shield being in his left hand, and that gave Brisbane yet another advantage.

—Good. We’ve got him now. Don’t rush it. Wait for him to open up.—

Angelika, leave me alone.

—Vengeance, Brisbane. It must be your constant objective. You must destroy this evil.—

Bronsop was getting desperate. The loss of blood was beginning to affect him. If he did not end this battle soon he would pass out. Brisbane saw this, and he stayed on the defensive, waiting for Bronsop to get sloppy. They parried for a while, Brisbane attacking the Sum’s weak side just enough to keep him from launching an all-out attack. Once, Brisbane hit him on the breastplate, nearly hard enough to knock the Sum off his feet.

—Now, Brisbane. End this creature’s life. Destroy him and only Tornestor stands between you and me.—

Not yet, Angelika.

Brisbane was watching Bronsop carefully. He knew the ork was going to have to go for everything sooner or later. That was what he was waiting for.

Eventually, it happened. After patiently waiting through the growing dissatisfaction in the crowd and the constant urgings of Angelika to hurry up and end the battle, Bronsop finally swung out in his final move of desperation. It almost worked. It was a high, quick-moving swipe to the head that, had it hit where it had been aimed, might have shattered Brisbane’s skull inside his helmet and certainly knocked him unconscious. But Brisbane had seen it coming and, at the last second, was able to duck just enough to turn the smashing blow to the side of his head into a glancing blow off the top of his helmet. The swing turned Bronsop halfway around and, for a moment, he tottered on the edge of losing his balance.

—Now, Brisbane!—

The breastplate still hung on the ork, protecting his body from any sword thrust, but his sword arm, circled by the red stripe on his sleeve, hovered in front of Brisbane’s sight, completely open and unshielded. Dazed a little from the glancing blow to his head, Brisbane brought his sword down hard on the exposed arm, between the elbow and the shoulder, and cleanly severed it from Bronsop’s body. The arm, with the scimitar still clenched in its claw-like hand, fell to the floor of the pug-trolang with a spurt of blood.

The crowd of orks let out a shocked gasp as Bronsop dropped to his knees in front of Brisbane, his shield hanging limply on his left side and a river of red running down his right. The ork looked up at Brisbane with a grimace of pain on his face so twisted it seemed like a grin. Silence fell over the pit of combat as Brisbane locked eyes with his dying adversary.

—Finish him, Brisbane. Send him back to his evil maker. Vengeance is ours!—

Brisbane looked closely at Bronsop as the ork’s mouth began to work in a silent imitation of speech. His lips formed two words over and over again, but it wasn’t until the ork was able to force some air through his vocal chords that Brisbane could make them out.

“…kill…me…”

Brisbane nodded. Swiftly, he brought his sword across and struck Bronsop’s neck, removing his head from his body. The head bounced off to the side and the body slumped lifelessly forward.

—It is done. Praise Grecolus for his wisdom and Brisbane for his courage.—

“Grum Brisbane has defeated Sum Bronsop,” the Demosk said. “Do you require anything else of me, Grumak Ternosh?”

Ternosh was slow in responding. “No.”

Brisbane looked up at the orks around the edges of the pit after the Demosk had vanished and the smoke had begun to dissipate. They all wore looks of muted surprise on their faces and they were all frozen as if they had been turned to stone. Brisbane’s gaze fell upon Ternosh and then slowly swept around the ring until he was looking at Tornestor. The Sumak was looking at him as well, but the look on his face was not one of surprise. It was one of hatred.

“Tomorrow,” Brisbane said, giving life to the scene. “Prepare yourself, Tornestor, for tomorrow we meet in the pug-trolang.”

The Sumak said nothing. He slowly got out of his stone chair and, after giving Brisbane another long and measured glare, turned and stalked quickly from the chamber.

Brisbane looked down at the remains of Bronsop as the others filed out of the cave. In three separate parts, the body lay there like a bloody tribute to an angry god. It occurred to Brisbane that to the orks and to Angelika, that was exactly what it was. In fact, only Brisbane, who was the one who had actually performed the sacrifice, didn’t believe the event was related to any god in any way. The orks had just seen one of their own be sent onto his ultimate reward, the eternal battlefield of Gruumsh One-Eye. Angelika had just seen another monster destroyed in Grecolus’ holy mission for the destruction of evil. Brisbane had just killed an intelligent being to get his sword back. And tomorrow, he was going to have to do it again. He had trouble deciding which one of them was the craziest.

“Brisbane?”

Brisbane looked up at the edge of the pug-trolang and saw Ternosh standing there. “What?”

“Is this why Gruumsh sent you here? To become our new Sumak?”

Brisbane shook his head in slow frustration. “What do you think, Ternosh?”

“I think he did,” Ternosh said without hesitation. “After what I just saw, I think he must have.”

“Help me out of this pit.”

Ternosh did.

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

Work of Art by Sinclair Lewis

The title of this lesser-known Sinclair Lewis novel is an invitation into the theme it seems determined to explore -- namely…

What is an art, what is a profession, what is a business, what is a job? Is a man who runs a great grocery store like Park & Tilford, Acker, Charles, or the gr. dept of Macy’s just a business man, while anybody who makes smart pictures of girls is artist, and doc or lawyer who thinks about nothing but making money a professional and cranky old prof who goes on handing out same lectures yr after yr a scholar and not just a white collar job?

These words are written by our protagonist, Myron Weagle, in a notebook he keeps to help him work out the details of his life’s work and vision. It’s a telling entry, since Myron very much views his life and profession -- that of a hotelier -- as every bit a “work of art” as those products of sensuality and indulgence to which his society more commonly applies that term.

Using this as his narrative frame, Lewis digs deep into the world of hotel management, showing both its beauty and its vulgarity in turn.

The Hotel Westward Ho!, to the eyes of Myron Weagle, was a palace. The Westward, as its habitues called it, had six hundred and fifty bedrooms, and in 1905 was one of the six largest hotels in the world. It was new, built in 1900, and had the benefit not only of Byzantine, Moorish, and Gothic architecture, but also of the room telephones, elevators, and telautographs of America.

Before Myron reported to Mark Elphinstone -- the offices of the whole Elphinstone chain were in the Westward -- he stopped to adore the facade of the new cathedral in which he was to serve altar. There were fifteen stories of brown sandstone, pleasingly diversified with balconies, gray marble plaques, and small pink marble pillars, all rising to minarets of corroded green copper and huge Moorish brick turrets shaped like hexagonal pears. The building’s glory was its main entrance: the golden archway above authentic red porphyry pilasters from Syria, shadowed by the carriage awning of glass and gilded iron. The lobby was two stories high, floored with pink marble, wainscoted with yellow marble, supported with pillars of marble pink and yellow and green and black. Above the wainscoting was a frieze (painted by one of the best firms of commercial painters in New York) showing the development of New York from the Dutch, through the English, Irish, and Jews, to the Italians: a fine and lively incitement to American patriotism. The elevator doors were of bronze -- rather like the doors of St. Peter’s in miniature. The cafe and barroom at one side of the lobby was lined with green marble, and full of tapestries, silver medallions, carved oak cabinets, carved ivory chessmen under glass, a carved oak ceiling, onyx-topped tables, teak tables, Flemish oak tables, English oak tables, French iron tables from the boulevards, sporting prints, a gilded harp draped with a silken scarf, a portrait of Mark Elphinstone draped with a Shriner’s sash, a photograph of Oscar of the Waldorf inscribed “To my friend M.E.,” tufted leather chairs, curved oak chairs, gilded bamboo chairs, and lights -- a glory and miracle of lights -- ceiling clusters of lights, lights peeping out of mauve glass lilies, lights in a large horseshoe formation on the wall, lights and lights and lights behind the glass ware that upreared like fairy stalagmites behind the bar,

“Good gracious, what a room! Why it’s like -- it’s like King Edward’s own palace!” said Myron.

That’s the beauty -- the outward face. But behind it, always, is the meager and vulgar commonness that makes the beauty possible.

But Myron had seen, as yet, only what a guest might see. The inner shrine was the world behind the green baize doors at the ends of corridors; the world of the real hotel makers -- the engine room, large enough to heat and light a city, the shops of upholsterers and carpenters and plumbers, thousands of sheets, tablecloths, and sets of silver and glass and china, mounds of stationary and report blanks, detectives, paymasters, tailors, printers, musicians, florists, cooks, girls who did nothing all day save prepare salads, men who did nothing but open oysters and clams, gardes manger who did nothing but prepare cold meat and find use for scraps, assistant storekeepers who received (and save on written order would not issue to the clamorous cooks) everything from five hundredweight of sugar to a single vial of rosewater; and all the office world: bookkeepers, auditors, telephone girls, telautograph operators, and all the other workers rarely seen by the guest, to whom the personnel of a hotel if composed only of clerks, bellboys, elevator operators, waiters, and the affable cigar-stand clerk.

The whole great hotel was to be torn down, as antiquated, by 1929.

It reminds me in some ways of my own fiction in Dragons -- about the colossal waste that must occur behind the scenes to present the wondrous illusion to the hotel guest -- but more than that it is, of course, a reflection of art itself -- or at least the process of making art. To create the thing of beauty there must be a whole lot of sordid messiness, essential, but often scrubbed away and kept out of the pristine halls and corridors of the art museum.

And in that regard we are also given the foil of Myron’s brother Ora. Ora is a writer -- although admittedly a bit of a dilettante -- who, here, cooks up a story to give him an excuse to shack up with a woman he meets and impetuously admires at one of Myron’s hotels.

The day after that Ora saw Tansy Quill.

She was bustling down a corridor, fresh in a new linen uniform, inspecting rooms. The pile of towels on her arm did not seem to belong to a servant, for they were of the shining new linen which Myron had purchased to replace the wormy old towels provided by Fred Barrow.

“Lord, what a picture! Swell-looking dinge. Who is she?” Ora demanded of Myron.

“Assistant housekeeper -- Miss Quill, Miss Tansy Quill.”

“Introduce me!”

“I will not! You keep away from Tansy!”

But that night Myron saw his brother ambling through the grounds with Tansy, and heard from him, from a distance, wailing “---yes, a hard-working poet, just an impractical poet---” and “---agree with you; old Myron, the finest, keenest mind I’ve ever---”

Worry about Ora’s intentions towards Tansy quenched half Myron’s pleasure in receiving from Mark Elphinstone, early in April, the letter for which he had prayed:

“Dear Weagle: When you close up the Tippecanoe, come see me in New York. I’ll have something for you to do, don’t know just what yet, depends on our talk, come see me as soon as you arrive.”

He tried to get Ora to go north with him, but Ora announced, “No, I think I’ll stay here awhile -- maybe till June. I’ve found a cabin on the Island that I can rent for ten dollars a month. Swell place to write. I have an idea for a long story about the big swamp here -- it’s full of atmosphere -- thousands of square miles of gloomy cypresses and wild orange trees, and secret waterways and moccasins and panthers and a hidden refuge for niggers escaped from the chain gang, and their Queen -- a marvelous colored wench. By golly, I’ll give the world the first real psychology of the Negro in love and in trouble! To say nothing of the grand atmosphere. And of course right here is the place to get all the dope!”

“But there isn’t any thousand miles of swamp here! The biggest one within fifteen miles is about four acres. And I doubt if there’s a panther within two hundred miles. And you don’t know a thing about the psychology of Negroes.”

“Oh, hell, that just goes to show you don’t understand! If you’ve got a trained eye for observation, you can see all you want in four acres -- or half an acre. And Tansy Quill has promised to help me with the psychology. She’s quite a bright girl, for a chambermaid. Now don’t go scowling. You’ve got a dirty mind! Typical Puritan, you are -- always seeing wrong where there ain’t any! Tansy and I are just friends. Oh, say, could you possibly let me have a hundred dollars to see me through till I finish my big story? Send it back the minute I get my check. You know how I am: I always pay my debts.”

This leads us into the novel’s Chapter 14, which I’m going to transcribe here in its entirety, both because it struck me powerfully when I read it and because it is ultimately about what it actually is like to write something -- not on a lark, like Ora at first intends, but as a compulsive matter to determines either one’s madness or one’s sanity.

When Myron left for New York and Ora had moved to his little cracker cottage, with its scant table, bed, and two chairs, the theory was that Tansy was merely coming in to cook for him. She was an orphan, living with an indifferent uncle who let her drift as she would, and one night of relaxed indolence, it was too much trouble to go home, and she rested content beside him on the corn-husk bed, and was glad in the morning when he (for he did have that genius) was neither ashamed nor irritable.

She worshipped him, then, and Myron in him.

And he was happy in her, till he felt that he had explored her soul and come out on the other side, through the jungle to a shore facing new lands which he must enter. No staid settler was he, he meditated, but an explorer always.

Despair was sickening him, for he could not write, nor could Tansy give him wherewith to write.

The story of swamp and crouching Negroes among the rotting cypresses which he had seen, definite as rock, when he had boasted of it to Myron, had crumbled day by day. He had nothing there, he realized, save one flaring chromo in his mind -- no fable, no people, no truth.

Tansy gave him nothing new for his story. She knew no more about the voodoo or the slavery of the dark quarter of her ancestors than Ora knew about the history of Jonathan Edwards and Israel Putnam of Connecticut; she knew no more about swamps and poisonous moccasins and fevers and hidden cabins of refuge than he did about tobacco-curing in the Connecticut Valley. Both of them, the white hackwriter and the part-white chambermaid, had about the same hash of American public-school knowledge: a little memory of Longfellow and Whittier and Poe; the opinion that Lee and Grant had, in vague forgotten ways, shown themselves to be excellent generals; the facts that the square root of four was two, that the chemical symbol of water was H2O, that Beethoven was a widely esteemed musician, and that the United States was (1) the greatest nation in the world and (2) as a residence for sensitive souls like theirs, the most inferior nation in the world.

Out of this knowledge she picked items for the cultured chatter for which, all her life, while she had made beds and scrubbed out toilets and washed dishes, she had longed. She said excitedly, “Boy, dear, don’t you think that Justice is the most important thing we all have to work for -- even more than Beauty?” and “Doesn’t it just frighten you, how real Stephen Crane makes things when he writes?”

And he was bored. Her talk was just near enough to that of the more nearly literate of the Happy Hearts group to make him lonely for them. Had he been quite alone, he might have survived and been content, listening uninterrupted to the voices of his own self-praise, but she only tantalized him with memories.

He was so lonely for his fellow hack writers. And a familiar, dependable saloon around the corner! And a jolly burlekew show on the Bowery!

Here, in the evening, you could stay home, or go watch the Holy Rollers, shouting in their tabernacle roofed with palm leaves, and that was all you could do.

He hated the view from his cabin door, though it had been utter enchantment, at first: fishing-boats on the pewter surface of Pontevedra Inlet, poinsettias seen through the veil of Spanish moss, a log cabin set in arching cypresses.

It was so still -- and the stillness was insulted by Tansy’s loquacity as she stirred a hateful pot of beans.

He did not hear her. He was in despair. He could not write. The hundred dollars from Myron would be gone. He was in disgrace with that old devil, the editor of ‘Yankee Doodle,’ jumping his neck for just doing a little plagiarism like everybody else. He was marooned ‘way off here,’ a million miles from New York. And he could not write. What the devil would he do?

“Boy dear, do you like Frank Norris’s ‘The Octopus?’ Such a time I had borrowing it. I was just dreadfully broken then -- I was washing dishes at an orphanage! Did you like it?”

Ora drawled evenly, quite clearly, “Like hell! I only like decent Northern beefsteak -- and a little silence. Even you might occasionally note that I’m trying to plan a story, and keep your mouth shut!”

She stood so helplessly hurt, a hurt child, with idiotic quivering mouth and beseeching eyes, that he hated her. He stamped out and did not return for the lunch she had been cooking. She was gone, when he came back at five, after a wretched afternoon of planless crawling through the heat, and he was a little distressed. But that evening she crept back again, crawling to him like a bewildered dog which does not know why it has been beaten, and he hated her for her meekness. He was a man who merited tall proud women!

“Oh, for God’s sake don’t act like a slave -- like your damn ancestors!” he snarled, assuring himself that he didn’t really mean it, that he was much kinder than he sounded. “Or if you have got to show up the nigger in you, why the hell don’t you go out and get me some dope for my escaped slave in the swamp story, like I’ve asked you?”

He could scarcely hear her wail as she fled from the cabin. It was less a sound than a vibration in air.

He was ashamed -- also hungry. He would apologize handsomely when she came back. Nobody could ever say that he failed to own up when he had been in the wrong, even just a little in the wrong!

She did not come back, all night, nor all the next day. Toward evening he was slightly anxious and skulked about the log quarters where she lived with her uncle. He would have seen her if she had been there, easily enough, her uncle’s dwelling had but two shallow rooms.

He was worried now, and bilious with his own cooking. He could not sleep, and he flung up from his pallet when, after midnight, he heard a long moaning outside.

He huddled in his doorway to watch a procession of Negroes, lighted by pitch-pine torches and kerosene lanterns that threw maniac shadows on the writhing moss hanging from the live-oaks, on cypress trunks and the metallic leaves of scrub palmettos. They were bearing an old pine door, sticky with dry manure, on which, draped in the earthy jacket of a field hand, was the body of a woman whose long black hair dripped water.

He burst out, to demand, “My God, what is it?”

The foremost Negro, powerful as Hercules and humble as a slave, his molded black muscles shining greasily in the torchlight, muttered, “It’s dat culled gal, Tansy, dat cook for you, boss. She’s done got drowned. Reckon she must of caught her ankle in a cypress root and fell in de swamp. Get you another cook, boss? Ah got a smart sister.”

It was dreadful that none of them blamed him, none of them were interested enough in him to consider that he might be to blame. He must go unshriven, ignored or despised by these primitive people whom he had made his brothers.

He tramped the floor in horror. He stopped. His eyes bulged. “Saints above!” he whispered, in awe at the wings of inspiration. He charged on his typewriter, and banged it from one in the morning till dawn, when he arose, staggering, to make coffee.

Thus he began his novel ‘Black Slumber.’

He finished it in two and a half weeks, in first draft. He was so absorbed that no life existed beyond the edge of his vision. He wrote all afternoon, all night, living on coffee, bread on a smeary plate, cigarettes, and white mule; unbathed, unshaven, his shirt collar gray-black. He roused from his frenzy only to telegraph Myron, in New York: “For heaven’s sake send me hundred fifty dollars at once really writing nearly finished novel been lazy before but not come across gloriously bless you old brother.”

He got the money. He finished the tale.

It was the story of Tansy Quill -- told from the side of Tansy, and relentlessly punishing her swine of a white lover. Ora gave her the grandeur of an ocean wave. He wept real tears, the while his ceaseless clattering fingers brought to life her sitting amid hog-slop, longing for the simple culture that was the birthright of any white girl, the cowardly sneering of her lover, and the torchlight among the live-oaks as they bore her home dead.

“How wonderfully impersonal a real genius can be!” he breathed.

He shaved, got very drunk, and took the manuscript to New York, revising it all the way up in a day coach.

It was published and had enormous critical success and no sale. He became a hackwriter again, and never again did he write anything so honest, or financially so unnecessary, as ‘Black Slumber.’

Within six months he had almost forgotten there was such a place as Tippecanoe, such a person as Tansy, and he was more or less contentedly ghostwriting the memoirs of a rich dowager, and mocking at Myron for his simple-hearted glee in being on the staff of that gaudy New York hotel, the Westward Ho! Only when he was drunk, and his friend, Wilson Ketch, the author of Westerns, had left him to himself, did he again rise to such impersonality as to mutter something about dogs and their vomit.

Black Slumber is Ora’s Work of Art, painfully birthed out of meanness and desperation, the way all such works of art must ever be. The story of its creation reveals a deep and disturbing truth about the nature of inspiration and genius, and provides a stark contrast to the Work of Art that is Myron’s life and its dedicated sense of sublime success. 

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

March by Geraldine Brooks

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. 

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Having never read Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, I can’t tell how much more this novel would’ve revealed to me if I had, but I certainly enjoyed it nonetheless.

This is the story of the Little Women’s father, who evidently spent much of that novel away from them, and the things he experienced as a chaplain in the Civil War. It is extremely well researched and authentically written. Told in the first person, the voice is undeniably one of a 19th century abolitionist, and it is rich in the details associated with everyday life in that era. On top of that, it is an engaging and thoughtful narrative, with a main character whom I truly came to care about and think of as a real person.

March struggles through much of the novel, struggles with the slaveholding society he finds himself amidst and struggles with his own feelings of inadequacy and undeserved blessing. Again, I don’t know what kind of novel Little Women is, but I know it is often recommended for young girls, so I speculate that March finds himself dealing with issues that are totally out of the ken of his family back into Concord, New Hampshire.

In fact, we see this disconnect very clearly late in the novel when the point of view switches without warning to March’s wife, who comes down to visit her husband in a Washington hospital after he is shot and takes grievously ill. With her husband unconscious, she has to piece together what happened to him and what he has been doing from the few mementos that are still in his possession and from the reluctant lips of a nurse and former slave who knew him from the time before he was married. She jumps to a series of mistaken conclusions, only a few of which are unjustified, but perfectly sensible from the perspective of the world she lives in. The life of an abolitionist in the North is, forgive the pun, much more black and white than the swirling gray mess that war and slavery can cause.

March has acted in the best interests of those around him throughout his experience in the war, and has formed loving bonds with several, living and dead, because of the trials they had suffered together. He blames himself for their deaths, and wants to return to the fight in order to have a chance to redeem himself from those miserable failures. His wife understands none of this, and berates him almost savagely, not just for the bonds he had formed while away from her, but even more so for his desire to rekindle them rather than return with her to their family.

In many ways, the scene reminds me of the one in Huckleberry Finn, when Tom Sawyer appears at the end of the novel, playing his usual games and tricks, and Huck is no longer capable of seeing the fun and frivolity in what appears to him to be matters of gravity and importance. In his time away from Tom, Huck has grown out of that childish phase, and in March’s time away from his family, he has grown, too, grown in ways his wife cannot possibly understand.

This book won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2006, and I choose it for that reason. After listening to The Road by Cormac McCarthy (this one was an audiobook, too) I’ve decided to read or listen to all the Pulitzer Prize winning novels. Something tells me I’m going to enjoy them all.

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

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

FARCHRIST TALES

BOOK THREE:

THE UNDERGOD

My arrival in Queensburg is memorable for two important reasons. It was the first time I had been in a town larger than the village I had grown up in, and it was the first time I had seen a woman as lovely as Allison Stargazer. I remember seeing her in the town square on the eve of the Festival of Whiteshine, raised up on that platform, preaching her message of good news to those assembled. I remember going to visit her the next day with Nog, and the old man named Skinner she had healed before my eyes. I remember how beautiful I thought she was and how that beauty seemed to squeeze my heart, dissolving my hope and making the rest of the world seem ugly in comparison. At that time, I had no idea how close we would become and, if someone had told me we would eventually love each other, I would have laughed in their face. I don’t see how such a vision could possibly have loved someone as simple as me and, after everything that has happened, I sometimes wish she never had.

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After a dreamless slumber of indeterminate length, Brisbane awoke in his personal chamber, safely tucked under many blankets in his makeshift bed. Disorientation was his first sensation, a dizzying moment when he could not recall anything, and the only thing he could wonder was why his bedroom was so damp. But that soon passed and the reality of where he was and what he had done to get there came crashing in on him. For a long time he just laid there with his eyes closed, wishing it all away and wishing he was back with his friends.

Almost fearfully, he opened his mind to Angelika.

—I am here, young Brisbane. I have been awaiting your call.—

That’s it, Angelika. I’m done. I’ve been patient and I’ve been strong and now I want out. I’m not going to be part of another one of those ceremonies.

The memory of what he had done chewed away at him like a ravenous animal. He could rationalize it as much as he liked, telling himself he hadn’t actually cut the woman and it wasn’t his fault she had been captured, but it all came down to one simple fact. Brisbane had done nothing to try and save her. Perhaps responsible was too strong a word to describe the way he felt about her death, but it certainly wasn’t far from the mark.

—Brisbane. I am not sure I like your tone.—

Like my tone? What do you mean?

—You sound so defeated. I assure you, our position is far from dismal. The hardest part is past, true, but you can still destroy it all if you start rushing things.—

Look, Angelika, I’ve had enough. I’d just like to leave here with my life.

—What about the way those monsters treated you? They’ve beaten, imprisoned, and humiliated you. Are you willing to forgive them for that?—

Yes. Yes, I am.

—Then what about Amanda? What about what those butchers did to her? She was an innocent who gave her life so you could complete your mission here. Are you going to forget about that? Are you going to let her death serve no purpose?—

My mission? Brisbane thought.

—Your mission of vengeance. Why do you think Grecolus allowed these heathens to capture you? He wants you to destroy the entire clan.—

The entire clan? How can I possibly destroy the entire clan? There must be hundreds of orks here.

—The pug-trolang, Brisbane. That is the answer. With the pug-trolang you can destroy the entire clan and win me back. The pug-trolang.—

Angelika, leave me alone.

—The pug-trolang, Brisbane. You must use their barbaric customs against them.—

What do you expect me to do? Brisbane thought. Fight them all one by one in that accursed pit?

—Not all. Just one. Defeat Tornestor and you defeat them all. Defeat Tornestor and you can take me back.—

What do you mean? How can I get you back?

—Tornestor and the pug-trolang. Your path has been set. If you can defeat him, the clan will be destroyed and Grecolus’ will shall be done. If you can defeat him, you will win me back and your will shall be done. Two questions with the same answer. Tornestor and the pug-trolang.—

Angelika? Wait, I don’t understand.

But her presence was gone and Brisbane was left alone in the darkness. He felt like he was on the verge of understanding what she had been talking about, but there was some essential piece missing. What she had said about Grecolus giving him a mission of vengeance was just Angelika’s way of interpreting what had happened to him, Brisbane was sure, but she had said his quest to retrieve her had the same answer as Grecolus’ mission. In his mind, if Angelika wanted to think he was serving Grecolus’ purposes, that was fine with him, as long as he got her back and got away from the Clan of the Red Eye.

Brisbane thought about it. Given what he knew about the pug-trolang, if he was able to defeat Tornestor in that pit, he would be forced to take the ork’s place as clan chief. But how would that help him destroy the clan? As their chief, he could order them to all kill themselves, but what chance was there that they would obey such an order? The orks were loyal, certainly, but they were not crazy. Besides, Brisbane didn’t think they would accept him as their Sumak even if he could defeat Tornestor. They barely tolerated him now as their Grum. How much would their hatred of him intensify if he became their leader?

And how would defeating Tornestor win him Angelika? The Sumak had given her as a gift to Gruumsh One-Eye, believing her to have magical powers. No mortal was ever to touch her again. Indeed, his fear of the clan’s violent reaction had kept Brisbane from just sneaking into the chamber one night and taking her outright. As Sumak, would he have any more right to her than he did now as Grum? Brisbane did not think so.

But still, there was something about the way Angelika said things that made them almost impossible to disbelieve. Brisbane did not fully understand it, but the persuasion was certainly there. He had asked her many times just how she knew what she knew, and she had always had the same simple answer for him. She knew. And up until now, that had always been enough.

“Jack?” he called out, wanting to get some fresh information from a more reliable source.

There was a short pause and then the curtain was drawn back to reveal Smurch’s dark shape. “Just a minute,” he said and then let the curtain fall back into place.

Brisbane threw off some of his covers and sat on the edge of the mattress. He still had the remnant of a terrific headache. “Jack?”

Soon the half-ork re-entered the chamber with a large tray which he set on the table in the center of the room. He quickly lit the oil lantern and Brisbane could see the tray was full of food.

He suddenly realized how hungry he was. Brisbane felt like he hadn’t eaten in a week. “How long have I been asleep?”

Smurch adjusted the lamp to its brightest intensity. “All day,” he said. “You slept right through draknel. Grumak Ternosh said it would be all right if I kept some cold leftovers for you. Are you hungry?”

“Yes,” Brisbane said over his growling stomach.

Smurch brought the tray over to Brisbane and set it across his knees. Brisbane quickly began to make a sandwich with some cold meat and bread.

“Have a seat,” Brisbane said. “I want to talk to you.”

Smurch sat next to him on the bed. “There are some things I think I should tell you, too.”

“Like what?” Brisbane said, taking a gigantic bite out of his sandwich.

“Well,” Smurch said evasively. “It has to do with your standing in the clan.”

“What about it?” Brisbane asked through a mouthful of food.

“It seems you have lost a lot of face. I overheard at tonight’s draknel that most of the klatru see you as sickly because of the way the incense smoke affected you. Ternosh tried to explain it wasn’t your fault, that it was just because you are human and the smoke effects you differently. That didn’t seem to help any, though.”

“Swell,” Brisbane said. Now they had an even lower opinion of him. His odds of carrying out Angelika’s plan, whatever that really was, probably just passed out of betting range. “Anything else?” he asked.

“No, that’s it, Gil.”

Somehow, having Smurch call him Gil took some of the sting out of the news. “Well,” Brisbane said. “There isn’t a whole lot I can do about it, so, forget them. I’ve got something more important to worry about.”

“Oh?” Smurch said. “What’s that?”

Brisbane took another bite of his sandwich and cleared his mouth before he went on. “Needless to say, Jack, I don’t want you to repeat this conversation to anyone. Okay?”

“Okay, Gil.”

“Do you know the sword that was taken from me when I was captured? The one Tornestor has given as a gift to Gruumsh One-Eye?”

Smurch nodded. “Yes.”

“I want it back.”

Smurch did not look easy about Brisbane’s demand. “It is forbidden,” the half-ork said. “The clan would never let you touch it and live.”

Brisbane shook his head. “I know that. I don’t plan on stealing it. I need to know if I can obtain it in some rightful manner.”

Smurch looked puzzled. “Like what?”

“That’s what I want to find out from you,” Brisbane said. “Is there any way for anyone to take something back that has been given as a gift to Gruumsh One-Eye?”

Smurch shook his head. “There’s no way I know of. Maybe Ternosh knows some way. At least he could ask his Demosk about it.”

Brisbane grimaced. “I’d really rather not go to Ternosh with this.”

“Why not?”

Brisbane swallowed some more of his sandwich. “Because once I do get her—I mean, once I get my sword back, I plan on leaving the clan forever.”

“You can’t do that,” Smurch said hurriedly.

“Oh yes I can.”

“But what about your mission here?”

Brisbane experienced a strange feeling of doubling. For a moment he thought Smurch was somehow talking about his mission as described by Angelika, but then he realized the half-ork meant the mission the clan believed Gruumsh One-Eye had sent him here to complete.

“Jack,” Brisbane said quietly. “You know how I feel about that. Gruumsh did not send me here.”

“But that’s what Ternosh said the Demosk said.”

“Well, do you believe everything Ternosh says?”

Smurch looked shocked. “Yes, of course I do. Why would he lie? He’s the clan’s Grumak.”

“Look,” Brisbane said, clearing his mouth of food again. “There’s no point in arguing this. You believe Gruumsh sent me here because it is what your Demosk said and you believe the Demosk is the mouthpiece of your god. I’m not trying to change your mind about that. You can believe anything you want, but don’t be surprised when I don’t act according to your expectations. I don’t believe Gruumsh sent me here because, frankly, I don’t believe your god really exists. I’m not living in your clan because it is the will of any god. I’m here due to an almost unbelievable chain of coincidences.”

Smurch eyed him suspiciously. “What do you mean, ‘mouthpiece of my god?’”

Brisbane’s shoulders slumped, knowing Smurch hadn’t heard anything he had said after those words. “Never mind. Are you going to help me or not?”

“Am I still your servant?”

Brisbane hated that question. Even though he had gotten Smurch to call him Gil in private like this, the half-ork still considered himself first and foremost Brisbane’s servant. The problem was, of course, Brisbane in no way considered himself Smurch’s master.

“In the eyes of the clan,” Brisbane said conditionally, “yes.”

“Then I have no choice,” Smurch said. “I must help you.”

This was not exactly the kind of assistance Brisbane wanted, but he realized it was the best help he was going to get. He asked Smurch to rack his brains for any way for someone to rightfully take back a gift to Gruumsh One-Eye. The half-ork thought about it long and hard but, in the end, had to report there was no way he knew of or could imagine.

“What about the Sumak?” Brisbane asked.

“What about him?”

“Well, he formally gave the gift in the first place, didn’t he?”

“Yes,” Smurch said.

“So, couldn’t he take it back if he wanted?”

“No! That would be sacrilege of the highest order. Tornestor would be immediately removed from power and probably killed.”

Brisbane pondered his position. “Well, what if you got a new Sumak?”

“I’m not sure I understand what you mean.”

“If Tornestor was defeated and a new Sumak took his place, would the new chief be able to take back Tornestor’s gift?” Angelika had said the problem would be solved if Brisbane defeated Tornestor in the pug-trolang.

Smurch shook his head. “I doubt it. The situation has never happened before. The new Sumak could probably order it, but he would most likely be challenged immediately after doing so.”

In other words, not unless you wanted to fight them all. That’s not what Angelika had said. Defeat one and you defeat them all, but, according to Smurch, if Brisbane defeated Tornestor and took the sword back, the klatru would challenge his authority and he would be locked in combat until one of them killed him. What exactly did Angelika mean?

“Say,” Smurch said. “You don’t plan on challenging Tornestor to become Sumak, do you?”

Brisbane nodded. “I was thinking about it.”

The half-ork leapt to his feet. “That’s great! When are you going to issue the masokom?”

This was not the reaction Brisbane had expected. He put the tray, with considerably less food on it now than when Smurch first brought it in, beside him on the bed and looked questioningly up at the half-ork.

“You’re happy to hear that?”

“Yes,” Smurch said. “I am your servant. The more power you gain in the clan, the happier I am for you.”

“Jack, the only reason I would challenge Tornestor would be to get my sword back. And once I do that, I’m leaving any way I can. If becoming Sumak won’t allow me to take her back, I won’t issue any masokom.”

“Her?”

Swell. Brisbane knew he was going to slip sooner or later. He did not want to try and explain who and what Angelika was to Smurch. It would just confuse things too much. You see Jack, it’s like this. My sword is named Angelika and she can talk to me inside my head and I can talk to her there, too. She’s a holy sword, said to bear the enchantment of Grecolus, and even though I don’t believe in my own god, she’s one hell of a weapon and I want to use her again in combat. I use her to protect myself and my friends and she uses me to destroy evil. It’s kind of complicated. You see, Long ago the priests of Grecolus were wizards and they forged Angelika and gave her a magical identity, intent on destroying all of Grecolus’ enemies. Now, the priests have abandoned magic, claiming it to be a tool of Damaleous and Angelika is kind of an outcast. She still wants to destroy evil, but no faithful warrior would carry her in combat because they would believe she was a source of evil and corruption disguised as a holy sword. I don’t believe she’s either holy or demonic, simply magical, and when I am armed with her I feel invincible. Get it?

“Never mind,” Brisbane said.

“Well,” Smurch said. “I really don’t believe you becoming Sumak would give you the right to the sword. So, does that mean you won’t be challenging Tornestor?”

“I don’t know,” Brisbane said. “I guess I still need to think about it.”

Smurch didn’t think it would work but Angelika had sounded so sure, so certain. Defeat Tornestor in the pug-trolang and everything else will fall into place. The clan will somehow be destroyed; that was what she wanted. And he would somehow get Angelika back; that was what he wanted. Wasn’t it?

Brisbane rose to his feet. “I’m going for a walk.”

“A walk?” Smurch asked. “By yourself?”

“Yes,” Brisbane said. “I need some fresh air and a chance to think this through. Is that all right?”

Smurch nodded quickly. “Oh, yes, fine, fine. Shall I wait here for your return?”

“Yeah,” Brisbane said and then gloomily left his chamber. He began to make his way through the complex twists and turns of the orkish lair, retracing the path he had memorized to the surface. It was late, many hours after the draknel, and the corridors and chambers he passed through were empty, all of the klatru sleeping soundly after gorging themselves on their only meal of the day. Even servant activity was absent, as the only chance they seemed to get to rest was when their masters were doing the same.

Soon, Brisbane found himself at the cave’s entrance, staring up into the night sky. It was a clear night and the stars and moons shone down, illuminating the camp in a pale imitation of sunlight. The circus wagons holding the prisoners, now reduced in number to two, stood on his left, just as he had last seen them, but on his right, he was surprised to see no trace of the cluster of orks that usually slept around the campfire there. It did not even appear as if a fire had been built tonight, the circular pit lined with stones containing only cold and dark ashes.

The air was clear and crisp up here, compared to the dankness of it in the caves, and Brisbane inhaled it deeply. He could smell on it the odor of the prisoners, musky and earthen as they squatted in cages of their own filth. He had been in there once

—when was that? oh it seems so long ago—

but only for a short time. Brisbane was not sure how long the merchants had already been in their cages, but given the cycle of orkish sacrifice to Gruumsh, he knew one of them only had another month to live in those conditions. The other, two.

He did not want to linger by the prisoners, the memory of what he had done to Amanda was too fresh in his mind, and he did not think he would be able to stomach their blank eyes on him. To say nothing about what would happen should one of them try to speak to him. Brisbane remembered Amanda begging for his help and the tone of her voice sat like a predator on the edge of his sanity. To hear that tone of voice coming from one of the merchants, after what he had done, would surely drive Brisbane mad.

So Brisbane quickly walked past the wagons, his gaze averted and his steps quick. He was sure one of them would scream out an accusation at him, freezing him in his tracks and stopping his heart. But no such vocalizations were made, the prisoners sleeping like most of their captors, and Brisbane was quickly past them and out into the settlement.

He began to walk among the dark tents, not heading for the perimeter, but strolling along in a slow curve that would keep him inside the camp and within sight of the hill that bore the entrance to the ork’s underground lair. He walked in a kind of stupor, his mind more on his future actions than his strides.

What should he do? He had been here so long and still he desperately wanted to leave and get back to the people he knew. Shortwhiskers, Roystnof, Stargazer—it was as if they existed only in dreams now, as if they were the ones who had fallen from that mountain top and had left him alone on that rainy peak. At times, Brisbane would think he would give his very life—now, all that was left of his things—just to drink one last mug of ale with Nog Shortwhiskers, or learn one more spell from Roystnof, or even to kiss Allison Stargazer for one last time. And yet, there were things holding him here. There was Ternosh’s claim of his mission here, hanging like an axe over his head, ready to fall the moment he betrayed it. There was that, real and compelling, but more importantly, there was Angelika’s pull on his will and her power over his heart.

Brisbane had admittedly not thought much about the strange force Angelika seemed to be able to use on him. It was always too much a part of him to analyze too closely. It was as if he did what she told him to do, but he did it in such a way that he believed it to be his idea. But lately, he had been sensing a growing distance between what she told him to do and what he actually did.

The battle with Wister, Brisbane remembered, was where this gap seemed to have been the widest. Before the battle, he had gladly killed each time Angelika had demanded it of him. The demon in the basement of the shrine, the orks on the bank of the Mystic River, the ettins in the mountain cave—each time it had felt right to combat them, to fight them to the death and revel in their defeat. But with Wister, for the first time, Brisbane questioned the directive Angelika gave him. It did not seem right that time, not at all. It had seemed downright wrong. Wister had been no warrior, and he did not attack Brisbane by stealth or surprise, fighting over something as petty as a campsite or a sack of gold coins. In his society, Wister was something like a lord, and he was fighting honorably for his standing in the community. Angelika had condemned him for that, but Brisbane could not.

The questioning of Angelika’s judgment had been new, but the result of the combat had not been. Brisbane had ended up killing Wister anyway, not in the way Angelika had wanted, but he had killed the ork all the same. Wister had known he had been bested by Brisbane, even though Brisbane had not used all his combat skills against the ork, and Wister had ended Brisbane’s indecision about killing him in the most efficient manner. After Wister had bared his chest and Brisbane had plunged his sword into his heart, Angelika had praised Brisbane for his courage, but Brisbane had seen nothing praiseworthy about it. To him, the whole affair seemed horribly sad and his victory over Wister had a decidedly bitter taste to it.

To Angelika, it was another step on the road to the destruction of all evil, a step to be celebrated with holy words and promises of further revenge against the eternal adversary that had corrupted the very fabric of nature. To Brisbane, there was no thrill of revenge closing on an enemy. In killing Wister, he had avenged nothing, nothing the orks might have done to him or his fellow man, nothing. All he had done was to take the Grum’s life when that life had become unbearable to him. Brisbane was sure some of the klatru would say Brisbane had shown Wister mercy.

But even with these new doubts about Angelika and the place of her purpose in his life, Brisbane knew he was not ready to leave her behind. Walking through the sleeping camp under the immense sky, Brisbane could almost feel like he was free, like he could just walk over the crest of the next hill, and then the next, and the next, until he had left Angelika and the Clan of the Red Eye behind him forever. He could almost believe this but not quite. He knew he would never be free of the clan until he had Angelika back in his grasp, and he knew he would probably never be free of Angelika. How had Roundtower ever given her up so easily? When the day came that Angelika left Brisbane for a greater warrior, as she was sure to do eventually, he did not see how he could let her go with such grace. When she was gone, he would look back on this time among the Orks of the Red Eye and go stark raving mad.

And so, as he had secretly expected, the decision had already been made for him. Brisbane would have to follow Angelika’s advice, no matter how little sense he could make out of it. As he turned and began to make his way back to the cave mouth, he knew he would have to challenge Tornestor to trial by combat in the pug-trolang and, if he won, he would have to hope Angelika was right and everything turned out the way he wanted. If he lost, it certainly wouldn’t matter how things turned out.

Before he made it back to the cave he found out why there had been no black-clad orks around the campfire beside the circus wagons. Over the crest of one of the hills that surrounded the small valley in which the ork encampment sat came a band of orks, back from a raid they had just brought down upon an unsuspecting caravan of merchant wagons.

Brisbane watched them march into the camp, leading two mule carts laden with all sorts of items of use and tribute. There must have been two dozen orks in the party, all in mismatched black armor, some holding onto the reins of captured horses and some holding onto the bonds of captured humans. They brought the whole procession to the center of the camp, before the cave mouth, and quickly began to sort through their booty. The humans, three more of them, all men, they locked up in the circus wagons, and the two horses, one white and one black, they staked to the ground with a short tether tied to their bridles.

Brisbane did his best to avoid them, taking a very scenic route back to the cave, but he could not help hearing some of their comments as he made his way around them. They all spoke orkish, being members of the lower class, and although Brisbane’s knowledge of that language was still sketchy, he was able to decipher enough of it to draw some conclusions.

It had been a good haul, the wagons containing such important items as armor, weapons, fabrics, and ale. The humans were, of course, to be kept for sacrifices and many felt Ternosh would be happy to hear they now had a five-month supply. The horses, Brisbane discovered with some revulsion, were to be carved up for their meat and preserved in the small strips he had been fed while he had been Vrak’s prisoner. All the returning orks were happy with the results of the raid and most felt the eye of Grummsh had watched over them in their good fortune.

Brisbane, with a final thought wondering how the King could let this kind of thing go on in his kingdom, turned away from the scene and went back into the underground lair.

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