1928: Gay-Neck The Story of a Pigeon by Dhan Gopal Mukerji

Well, I must say that I sat down to read this book with more than usual enthusiasm. Why? Because I am one of the very few people who absolutely love the bird that some people have erroneously called the "rat with wing." Where other people see disease-ridden pests, I see noble individuals with personality and charisma.

I'm reminded of Mike Tyson's story that his first fight started when a neighborhood kid ripped the head off his favorite pigeon and threw it in his face. Tyson recently created a miniseries about his love for the birds, called Taking on Tyson. When PETA objected (I almost said "inevitably objected," but that would be snarky, wouldn't it?) they had an interesting point. PETA Vice President Lisa Lange: "If Mike Tyson truly loved birds, he would fight for their protection - not force them into a 'race' that tears them away from their families and subjects them to injuries, exhaustion and death."

Gay-Neck covers some of this same territory, only instead of depending only on the voice of the pigeon-fancier, it also contains first-person accounts from the pigeon hero himself. The primary narrator of this novel is a young man living in Calcutta. He is a dedicated pigeon fancier who takes pride in treating his racing and carrier pigeons with the utmost care. A good portion of the novel details this boy's growing knowledge of pigeons and of wildlife in general. But through all the story the narrative is driven by the gem of his pigeon flock, Gay-Neck. And through Gay-Neck's story, we are given an objective look at humanity.

For the first portion of the book, Gay-Neck must learn to avoid natural predators such as hawks and eagles. There is a great deal of animals devouring other animals, all culminating in Gay-Neck remarking, "Why is there so much killing and inflicting of pain by birds and beasts on one another? I don't think all of you men hurt each other. Do you?" He is given his answer not too much later when he is enlisted in the war as a messenger. Gay-Neck serves his country and his master bravely, but he seems to be aware that the cause is somewhat dubious. When the soldiers tell him he has saved the day by delivering his message, he thinks, "but there was no day in sight. It was a darkening gray sky under which death coiled and screamed like a dragon, and crushed all in its grip." All Gay-Neck knows of the war is the constant noise of the machine guns and the need to flee from the great Machine-Eagles, or airplanes, that eventually manage to shoot his leg and wing. When he surveys the wreckage, he sees that "even rats and field mice did not manage to escape: dozens of them had been slaughtered and cut to pieces."

I see a similar motif here to Smoky the Cowhorse, even down to the difficult ramifications of the animal-human relationship. In Smoky, Clint considered himself Smoky's friend, but this "friendship" resulted in years of suffering for the horse. Here, Gay-Neck's loyalty to his master repeatedly puts his life in danger and results in grievous injuries. This narrator seems possibly more aware that it may be unfair to drag animals into human conflict. I am reminded of the third post I made on this blog, where I quoted Hugh Lofting on how it seemed unfair that we expected horses to carry us into war but did not give them even remotely the same medical treatment that we gave to human soldiers.

These last few posts may have sounded a little radical to some. But I'll assure you, I'm not advocating abolishing the domestication of pets, or making universal health care available to animals. I have two cats who live with me who, I flatter myself, enjoy their life with me much more than they would a life on the streets. I simply think it's important to consider such a common portrayal of the human-animal relationship to see whether it is constructive or destructive. Maybe I'll have more time to consider it in the future - there certainly have been a lot of animal books so far.

1927: Smoky the Cowhorse by Will James

I told you we'd be seeing more of the "animal friend" motif, and here we are, reading the biography of a horse.

Smoky is basically Black beauty's country cousin. He is born on the range, a wild horse. When he's four years old, he's corralled and "broken" by a cowboy who develops a deep affection and respect for him. He is then stolen and taken across the border to Mexico where he is mistreated and eventually becomes a bronco in a rodeo show. When the fight goes out of him, he's sold to a horse rental stable that works him to the bone, renting him out to over-enthusiastic boys from dawn until well after dusk. When his health fails him, he is sold as chicken meat, then to a vegetable deliverer who starves him and whips him. When he is all but dead, the cowboy who first fell in love with him discovers him, takes him back to his ranch, and restores him to health. Presumably Smoky is able to squeeze in a couple of years of retirement before his death.

I recognized two distinct issues relating to the motif of the "animal friend" in this novel. First, I noted throughout the book the idea that animals exist only to serve human beings. The second is more of a question, and that is whether we can rightly call a relationship a friendship if it involves an institutional imbalance of power.

When Smoky is young, he roams the range freely, facing dangers and occasional hardships. But then he catches the eye of Clint, the cowboy, and the narrator tells us that "his time for usefulness had come." When he was young, he "didn't know he was on this earth for the purpose of the human and that if he did throw one man another would climb him till finally he'd have to give in." Far from condemning this fact, the narrator seems sentimental about the process of breaking wild horses, calling the relationship a "friendship" and imagining the fond feelings the horse might have for his master.

If we knew only of Smoky's early years, we might be tempted to agree. Clint doesn't abuse him, after all, and it is the policy of the ranch to release the horses after several years of service, allowing them to enjoy a pleasant retirement on the range. But Smoky, as I mentioned, is stolen from Clint, and his new master is not nearly as beneficent toward his animals. This new master beats Smoky almost to the point of killing him, and when he's unable to break his spirit, he sells him to a rodeo where Smoky is driven mad several times a day for an audience of spectators. Likewise the owner of the rental stable, while not an evil man, places profit before the health of his animals, and the vegetable man is even worse - he buys horses who are on death's doorstep because it is cheaper to let them starve than to actually maintain healthy animals.

Smoky's story could easily serve as a parable for slavery; despite his noble qualities and his intelligence (which the author takes labors to emphasize) he is considered property, and is ultimately considered valuable based on his extrinsic value rather than his intrinsic value. That is, he is not worth anything for his own sake, but only for the sake of his usefulness to humanity. As in slavery, the problem is not how one particular master treats Smoky, but that the institution provides for an imbalance of power, leaving the treatment of horses up to personal taste. Clint treats Smoky kindly and with respect, but by the standards of the law, the next master is within his rights to drive Smoky until he is just a bag of bones. The cowboys who do believe in treating animals well are dependent on a member of the humane society to come by and chastise animal abusers. As in slavery, it seems to me that there is no such thing as a "good" master when there is the possibility of a cruel master.

I suppose I will continue this topic next week. For now, I will leave the question open: can the relationship between Smoky and his captor really be called "friendship" when Smoky is, by his master's standards, property?

1926: Shen of the Sea by Arthur Bowie Chrisman

It's interesting that two very similar books were awarded the Newbery two years in a row. Like Tales from the Silver Lands, Shen of the Sea is also a collection of folk tales, only its tales come from China instead of South America. Also like last week's book, these tales were recounted by a man who was not in fact Chinese, just as Charles Finger was not actually from South America. They even both ended their lives in Arkansas. Strange ...

Despite their similarities, though, I think I liked Tales from Silver Lands a little better. There was nothing particularly wrong with Shen of the Sea, although the rampant sexism was a little hard to ignore (excessive amounts of wives per husband, comments about women being beheaded for defending their country, that sort of thing).

There was one thing that I found entertaining, though. It seems that parents doting over misbehaving offspring is a universal cultural experience. There are two separate stories in this book in which a father seems oblivious to his son's faults - laziness in one case, extreme naughtiness in the other. The funny thing is, in each case, the child in question is inadvertently responsible for a great invention - either of printing or of gunpowder. It reminds me of all the stories my grandma tells me about my dad, how naughty he was and how much grief he caused them. At the end of the story, no matter how much burning or pillaging is involved, she inevitably sighs and says what a precious little boy he was. He turned out ok, of course - although he hasn't invented something like gunpowder or the printing press. I suppose there's always still time for that.

1925: Tales from Silver Lands by Charles Finger

This is what Wikipedia has to say about this week's book:

"Tales from Silver Lands is a book by Charles Finger that won the Newbery Medal in 1925. The book is a collection of nineteen folktales of the native populations of Central and South America, including a 'just-so story' describing how rabbits and rats got their tails."

That's it. It has a little more to say about Charles Finger, but not much. He was born in England, traveled extensively, and finally settled in the Ozarks, Kansas. It's not much to go by. In fact, as one of my side projects for this week, I think I'll take it upon myself to add a little to the Wikipedia entry. It pains me to see such a delightful book given such little space on the vast planes of the internet - after all, internet realty is free.

But despite the general lack of information about this book, we can learn a lot of things from the book itself. The book was rife with evil witches, imprisoned maidens, and beasts transformed into humans and vice versa. The story mentioned in the Wikipedia stub, the 'just-so story' called "A Tale of Three Tales," is probably one of the least remarkable. If you want to read just one or two selections from the book, I might recommend "The Tale of the Lazy People." It's toward the end of the book, but I enjoyed it very much - possibly because I just spent a weekend with a friend who is taking a class on socialism and was alert to the evils of capitalism. I also enjoyed the story of the noble and gentle huanacos, who stand sentinel on the ridges of the mountains ("The Tale of the Gentle Folk").

I think I will mention only one topic in depth, and that was one I discovered with the interests of an eco-critic in mind. The stories in this book are very positive about nature; good characters are in touch with nature and can often speak the language of the beasts and plants. But there was one rather troubling aspect, and that was the recurring appearance of the "animal companion" - that is, an animal who is supposedly "friends" with a human and accompanies him or her on adventures. The animals in many of these stories help humans by building, carrying messages, and fighting on their behalf. In the first story, they even help the protagonists cut down the forest - the one in which the animals themselves (used to ) live! And we're told that after this little feet of irony "all things in the forest were glad."

This got me thinking about animal "friends" and how they always seem to get the short end of the stick. Think about it. How often do stories feature a human with an animal companion where the animal ends up sacrificing itself for its human friend? And when was the last time you read a story where a human sacrificed his or her life so that the animal companion could go on and have a happy ending? This is one of the reasons Old Yeller upset me when I was younger - poor Old Yeller defended his master to the death, and what did he get in return? He got rabies and a bullet to the head. Alas.

I was just rereading So You Want to be a Wizard in preparation for the next chapter in my book, and the same thought occurred to me then. Kit and Nita travel to an alternate Manhattan in which the dominant form of life is sentient automobiles. Kit helps one of these feral cars (the mouse removing the thorn from the lion's paw) and in return the car defends him - and loses its life in the process. The thing that seemed strange was how predictable I found this sequence of events. Why else would Kit befriend a wild creature but so that it would come to his aid later?

I have a feeling I'll be exploring this idea some more in the future, especially as the next couple of Newbery books feature a wild horse and a pigeon war hero as their protagonists. And at the same time, as I do research for my chapter on religion and eco-ethics (for which I reread Duane's Wizard novels, among others), I have been encountering questions of the power dynamic between humans and animals over and over again. For now I suppose I'll leave the issue open, and welcome anyone who has a response.

1924: The Dark Frigate by Charles Boardman Hawes

Perhaps some of you have thought to yourself that the last couple of posts on this blog were a bit on the long side. Perhaps you did a bit of skimming, brushed up on your speed reading skills. If so, you will probably enjoy this post, because it is fairly short.

Why is it so short? As my poor husband (whom I constantly pursue around our apartment enthusing about remote and uninteresting topics) will tell you, I didn't particularly enjoy this book. This may be because I'm not as versed in maritime adventure stories as I should be. But I think it might mostly be because of certain unavoidable comparisons I drew between The Dark Frigate and Treasure Island. They are both maritime coming-of-age adventure stories, but Treasure Island is much more famous than The Dark Frigate ... and for very good reason. Let me describe my impressions, and those of you who have read the book can defend it if you like.

I spent the entire book trying to picture the main character, and I never quite managed to form a mental image. As far as I could tell, he is young but of indeterminate age; slim but strong enough to fight off opponents twice his size; handsome enough to be instantly propositioned by whatever woman he encounters; and very honest-looking, even when he's caught doing something dishonest.

Each time another character meets this boy, they instantly like and trust him. He gets promoted faster than his peers, befriended by his rivals, spared by the hangman ... and all, as far as I could tell, because they "instantly liked the look of him." The first person he meets, a Scottish smithy, becomes so enamored of him that he seems to want to adopt him on the spot; but alas, he has to settle for staying up all night and forging him a dagger and with an ivory handle and a loving inscription. By the end of the book, his good looks and mysterious je ne sais pas get him an inheritance from a wealthy landowner - not to mention the man's alluring daughter.

Perhaps you feel I am being unfair. You might argue that it is a tradition of this genre to weight the dice in favor of the protagonist. But for a coming-of-age story, this book was missing something vital: a coming-of-age. Sure, the character ages throughout the book. Sure he has many experiences, both exciting and traumatizing. But I cannot see that he changed much at all through the whole book. His struggles are purely external, meaning that though he observes many lawless activities taking place and feels vague disapproval, he never acts. Perhaps this is a mistake on the part of the author, who was generous with the fist-fights and nautical terms but a little skimpy on the internal development. All we get to see of the main character are his actions and reactions. When his ship is shanghaied by ruthless pirates, he tut-tuts at the carnage and then joins up with the new captain hoping to make a few bucks. While he does eventually slip away because "an honest man can go so far in the company of rogues and no farther," this is only after he's taken part in a few unsuccessful ventures and sees there's nothing to be gained by sticking around. The only time he draws a clear moral line is when he refuses to testify in court against the murdering pirates out of some sense of honor among thieves. This doesn't make him a very good citizen, but it turns out that he made the right choice, because of all the pirates he alone escapes the noose, having impressed the jury with his honesty (and his awe-inspiring face).

In conclusion, I felt no sympathy or interest in the main character. He begins the book with superhuman strength and a magical face, and ends the book in exactly the same state. Where's the fun in that? Its similarity to Treasure Island only drew attention to the comparative flatness of its characters. Oh, and one more thing. Before I end this post, I will make one parting shot: the main character's name is Phil. Phil?

But I will say no more.