cont'd ...

And here's another one I just remembered:

One Saturday evening in mid June a very important Celebratory
Dinner was held at the famous Sheraton Hotel in Phoenix,
Arizona to honour the various American Indian tribes. The
Chiefs of the various tribes attended, all in their splendid
costumes, with full feathered headgear, et cetera.
Many famous celebrities had been invited as guests to this
event, and among them was the famous American comedian,
Billy Crystal.

Well, the way Billy tells the story, he found himself sitting
at the dinner table, next to one of the feathered Indian
Chiefs, and feeling somewhat uncomfortable, Billy tells us,
"I didn't know how to talk to this guy. The only thing that
I knew about American Indians was what I had seen in
American Western movies. So all night during dinner, I spoke
like "Tonto" to this guy, you know:

"You pass 'em butter.
You pass 'em bread.
You like 'em have more wine?"

And so on."

This went on all night until it came to "speech-time."
This guy stood up and made the most eloquent speech
I'd ever heard in the English language. Sheer poetry.
When he'd finished, he sat
back down next to me, turned to me with a sweet smile and asked:

"You like 'em speech?"

Dear Lexi,

As an Australian the name Billy Crystal just seems to jar and it will for you too now that I have mentioned it ;).

Just arrive back in range and thought I might indulge in a few words on Suskind.

It was admittedly with a little trepidation I delved back into Perfume yesterday, after all it has been many years since I last visited and I was worried the exuberance of youth may have elevated it then past its worth.

I am happy to report that, in my opinion, while appreciating there is a lack of polish in some of the writing (totally forgivable in a first novel, in fact even a touch charming), it held up exceedingly well.

I was a bit unsure how to proceed with an examination of the novel without being boring to others who might not have read it. For me the answers lies in Lexi's quote "So many questions". Questions are mainly universal, it is the answers that expose our differences. As ybgirp points out the question 'Is there a God' has produced over 20,000 answers thus far. For me a thread is most enjoyable when questions cause interesting digressions to occur like the one in play now.

To Perfume.

Firstly a little bit about the author. Suskind studied Medieval and Modern History at the University of Munich where his classes included Latin, Greek and Theology. Wikipedia says "he is probably the most well-known contemporary German artist in the world". Interestingly the entry also relates he lives reclusively and has withdrawn from the literary scene in German and no longer grants interviews or permits photographs.

There's a long tradition of Gothic writing in Germany where the genre is called ’Schauerroman’ (shudder novel). Very literal folk. To quote Wikipedia again "The works were often more horrific and violent than the traditional English Gothic novel".

A favourite Gothic novelist of my youth was Edgar Allen Poe and Wikipedia again informs us that "his critics complained about his "German" tales, to which he replied "That terror is not of Germany, but of the soul"."

Cont...

Cont...

I do wonder what he would have made of the Holocaust.

Suskind leaves us with little doubt we are about to read a Gothic tale. The full title is ’Perfume - The anatomy of a murderer.' and the opening line sets the tenor immediately;

"In eighteenth century France there lived a man who was one of the most gifted and abominable personages in an era that knew no lack of gifted and abominable personages".

Why does it sometimes seem those who are extraordinarily gifted in one area seem to lack in another, often vital to their social acceptance? Or is it that the rest of us, aware of and perhaps feeling threatened by their differences, then treat them in different ways, excluding them from the familial exchanges that that help us to develop emotionally and socially?

Do the physical appearances of people (even their smell) dictate how others treat them?

For instance if the lads Yabby told us about all had goofy grins, protruding ears, slouching statutes, and slow diction (genetic), how much would those around them tend to treat them as a little backward, not deserving of the teacher's fullest attention in class, not included in the more technical discussions with their fathers, given tasks that don't tax them intellectually? (environment).

I think how others treat us is incredibly important to how we regard ourselves and therefore how we develop.
 

Dear csteele,

I agree with your last statement. It is important how
others treat us. It does impact on how we see ourselves
and does affect our development. I am still on my own
road of discovery. Everything is relative, everything has its
own story, and everyone has obstacles to overcome. They are
our greatest teachers. Each of us goes through transitions
and transformations. As a little girl, I was shy.
I wasn't comfortable with my own ideas, never believing
they were worthy of being heard. As I grew older,
I was afraid ot my own strength and worried that if I showed
too much - it would make me less attractive to men, or a
threat to women. I am finally beginning to realise that the
only path to happiness is to really be all that you can be.

Also I feel that the people that we encounter on our journey
through life also help shape us into the people we become
(and still hope to be). Every relationship is a gift. And we
can learn so much from each of them. Look at the great gifts
I've been given just by sharing cyberspace with so many
wonderful people. ;-)

Dear Lexi,

My eldest daughter is currently studying psychology at uni. As an elective she has taken a subject on children's literature. The conversation around the dinner table tonight was about the tale of Little Red Riding Hood and how it has changed from the original. It has gone from both the grandmother and the girl being eaten then to the girl escaping though the help of the strong axeman to the final example given: Roald Dahl's take with his second last verse being;

The small girl smiles. One eyelid flickers.
She whips a pistol from her knickers.
She aims it at the creature's head,
And bang bang bang, she shoots him dead.

I then read your post and it seemed to fit nicely with the last offering.

Tales like Little Red Riding Hood were certainly the precursors to the Gothic genre. Probably more so in this case as one of the more defining ingredients of a proper Gothic offering is the presence of a virginal maiden.

Suskind is really doing Gothic on a completely over the top manner, laying it on with thick brush strokes, seemingly determined to go that extra mile.

Take Genouille's birth place. Christ's may well have been humble enough but this was, we are told, in the foulest location  in France, the capital Paris. "And in turn there was a spot in Paris under the sway of particularly fiendish stench: between the rue aux Fers and the rue de la Ferronnerie, the Cimetiere des Innocencts to be exact." where for "eight hundred years, day in, day out, corpses by the dozens had been carted here and stacked into long ditches."

It was here among the offal of a fish mongers stall Genouille was born, "on the most putrid spot in the whole kingdom".

Cont...

Cont...

But why crank it up so much?

I do like the quote from Apolloiuns about the slave from around 600 BCE who gave us such classics as the Tortoise and the Hare and The Boy who cried Wolf, one Aesop with his moral fables.

"Then, too, he was really more attached to truth than the poets are; for the latter do violence to their own stories in order to make them probable; but he by announcing a story which everyone knows not to be true, told the truth by the very fact that he did not claim to be relating real events.".

It appears to be so true of Suskind.

I'm wondering what the younger Lexi thought of the Little Red Hood tale. Do you remember?