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Tuesday, October 02, 2007
A susceptible boy who came into contact with a magnetized tree fell at once into a crisis
I’m still reading Sarah Canary on the bus. (Well, I got off for a while, to blog. Then I got back on.)
There’s a nice bit where our heroine - if that is what she is - ends up in an insane asylum and our hero - if that is what he is - has to get her out. In the bits between one thing and the other, we are privy to the crackpot ramblings and intermittent good will of the resident alienist, Dr. Carr. (Caleb Carr reference?) It is rather droll.
Carr is a proponent of ‘earthquake’ cures, after a few of his patients are bounced out of bed, to complete recovery. He reads S. Weir Mitchell, but his budget doesn’t allow him to buy enough beef for the fat-and-blood cure (let alone build his earthquake chamber.) Pretty much all his institution can afford is the ‘get them addicted to opium’ cure, which also saves on food.
I was about to perform an experiment in animal magnetism,” Dr. Carr said with some excitement. His pale eyelashes fluttered. “Something I’m ordinarily reluctant to do since it can get out of hand so easily. You’ve heard of Mesmer’s group? The original public exhibition in Paris? No? There’s quite a good account in Prichard. Not only were the infirm magnetized with mixed results, but a number of natural objects as well. Trees, for example. When the experiment was repeated in the garden of one Dr. Franklin, a susceptible boy who came into contact with a magnetized tree fell at once into a crisis. He lost all consciousness. The hypnotist tried to argue that additional trees had become spontaneously magnetic, which had concentrated the effect. Balderdash. If trees had this ability, it would be worth your life to walk outdoors. The susceptible would always be fainting dead away. It was a naked attempt to disguise his own culpability. Truly irresponsible behavior on the part of the hypnotist. And ultimately tragic. Most of those involved in the French experiments were from the upper classes. Axed during the revolution. The people, that is. The hypnotists. The magnetized trees remain to this day. Is it too implausible to argue that some link between those trees and the madness that followed the Revolution might exist? Is it?”
This was the kind of question B.J. liked. “it isn’t,” he said firmly. He knew he was right.
B.J. is quite gifted at symbology, for which he is mocked by Dr. Carr. Later he tries his hand at narratology, with perhaps excessively fundamental results. Here is Chin, still hoping to be carried away for centuries by a ghost, per last night’s post.
“Have you ever heard of ghost lovers,” he said. He was still thinking about love and immortality.
“People who love ghosts,” B.J. asked.
“Ghosts who love people. Beautiful women who seduce you for a single night and when they leave, centuries have passed.”
“I’ve heard that story,” B.J. said. “Only it wasn’t beautiful women, it was dwarves. And it wasn’t centuries, but it was a very long time. And he wasn’t seduced, he bowled. But except for that it was the same story."
Not to be picky. Should B.J. be employing the Tolkienish ‘dwarves’, rather than ‘dwarfs’? In the 19th Century, did anyone tell stories about dwarves?
Comments
I think B.J. is referencing Washington Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle”, where Rip finds a group of “odd-looking personages playing at ninepins” in the hollow of a mountain. After watching the game and drinking some of their liquor he falls asleep, and what seems one night to him is twenty years in the real world ...
Yeah, Liza, I actually only realized that after posting. I don’t think I’ve ever read “Rip Van Winkle”. I sort of knew the plot, of course, but not the bit about bowling dwarfs. Checking now, Irving calls them ‘dwarfs’, not ‘dwarves’. So there is a bit of Tolkien-induced anachronism in B.J.’s talk. (So sue me, I’m a nerd and a pedant.)
’Dwarves’ is Tolkien, you’re right; the correct plural is dwarfs, but since most people encounter dwarf(ve)s in Tolkien in the first instance, it has assumed a sort of cultural ubiquity and therefore authority.
“In the 19th Century, did anyone tell stories about dwarves?“ Yes, many people did; both about dwarfs in the mythology-of-Northern-Europe sense (Wagner’s Ring, for instance) and dwarfs in the sinister human-or-are-they short person sense (Quilp in Old Curiosity Shop, for instance). These dwarfs are always, I’d hazard, evil though. So the question becomes: did anybody tell stories about nice dwarfs in the nineteenth-century? (Miss Mowcher I’m taking as a freakish exception).
At the risk of being even more of a nerd and a pedant, the OED does record the spelling “dwarves” before Tolkien, so it might not be a complete anachronism: there’s a use of the form “dwarves” by a “W Taylor” from 1818 (a year before the _Sketch Book_ containing “Rip Van Winkle” came out). And the wise and ever-trustworthy source Wikipedia sayeth, “The alternate plural dwarves has been recorded in the early 18th century, but was not generally accepted until used by philologist J. R. R. Tolkien in his fantasy novel The Hobbit.”
Were I dedicated, I would follow this up on EEBO or LION, but ... I’ll leave some other even larger nerd or pedant to take this further. (btw, my favorite variant of the word I found on OED was the adjective “dwarfer”.)
So, dwarfs probably would have made more sense, but I’m willing to cut BJ and his potentially anachronistic creator some slack.
Language Hat, referencing Language Log
John Lennon:
Snore Wife and Some Several Dwarts
Once upon upon in a dizney far away - say three hundred year agoal if you like - there lived in a sneaky forest some several dwarts or cretins; all named - Sleezy, Grumpty, Sneeky, Dog, Smirkey, Alice? Derick - and Wimpey. Anyway they all dug about in a diamond mind, which was rich beyond compere. Every day when they came hulme from wirk, they would sing a song - just like ordinary wirkers - the song went something like - ‘Yo, ho! Yo, ho! it’s off to wirk we go!’ - which is silly really considerable they were comeing hulme. (Perhaps ther was slight housework to be do.)
One day howitzer they (Dwarts) arrived home, at aprodestant six o’cloth, and who? - who do they find? - but only Snore Wife, asleep in Grumpty’s bed. He didn’t seem to mine. ‘Sambody’s been feeding my porrage!’ screams Wimpey, who was wearing a light blue pullover. Meanwife in a grand Carstle, not so a mile away, a womand is looging in her daily mirror shouting, ‘Mirror mirror on the wall, whom is de fairy in the land.’ which doesn’t even rhyme. ‘Cassandle!’ answers the mirror. ‘Chirsh O’Malley’ studders the womand who appears to be a Queen or a witch or an acorn.
http://www.languagehat.com/mt/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=1065
Liza: quite right. I bow my pedant head to the uber-pedant.