Wimsey

The first time I read Gaudy Night, finishing it was like waking amid the flotsam and jetsam of my former self. 

That’s what I wrote at the time: “Gaudy Night has left me wrecked on the shore.”  When I picked it up again last week, I noticed that my copy had no creases down the spine—meaning I hadn’t once set it down, open, to mark my place.  I barreled through it.  Sleep was no option for me.

            The Intergalactic Coffeeship hasn’t given a book review yet, but Gaudy Night is worthy of being the first.  It’s the penultimate Lord Peter Wimsey mystery, a series written by the British author Dorothy L. Sayers.  I recommend the Wimsey novels to anyone with a taste for well-developed characters, witty dialogue, and period detail.  They were written from 1922 to (roughly) 1938—between the wars.

Gaudy Night isn’t really the same species of novel as Sayers’ other books, though.  Rather than sticking with the loquacious, penetrating, and impeccably dressed Lord Peter, the story follows the actions of one Harriet Vane—a detective novelist who, a few books earlier, had been tried for murdering her lover and acquitted only because of Wimsey’s powers of deduction. 

The books follow real time; Lord Peter spends the next five years asking Harriet to marry him, and being categorically refused.  Harriet Vane is both a necessarily independent woman, and a completely disillusioned one.  In Gaudy Night, she returns for the first time in a decade to her alma mater, a women’s college in Oxford (rather humorously named ‘Shrewsbury’).  Shrewsbury has been under siege by a “poison pen”—someone who leaves violent sexual drawings around the school at night.  Viewing Harriet as a kind of detective, the dons of Shrewsbury plead for her intervention—so Harriet sets out to disentangle the evidence and catch the poltergeist.

Personally, I find mystery and romance to be the easiest plot-types to read.  I know this isn’t universally the case—but Gaudy Night has both.  Furthermore, it’s a respectful and complex look at the social position of British women in the 1930s.  The story is, in one way, about Harriet’s quest to discover if she can get married and be independent.  Would marriage necessarily entail a sacrifice?  Is Wimsey enamored of her, or only of an idea of her that he's created in his head?  The writing is precise; it grasps concepts that I haven’t otherwise encountered in any books published before the 70s.

Here’s an example.  Lord Peter Wimsey is talking with the Warden of Shrewsbury.  She says, “But probably you are not specially interested in all this question of women’s education.”

Lord Peter replies, “Is it still a question?  It ought not to be.  I hope you are not going to ask me whether I approve of women’s doing this and that.”

“Why not?” asks the Warden.

“You should not imply that I have any right either to approve or disapprove.”

&

Harriet Vane decides, midway through the novel, that she wants to write a book about “actual human beings.”  Given the fact that Dorothy Sayers, like her leading lady, is a mystery novelist, I’m tempted to take this as Ms. Sayers’ reflection on her own writing.  She certainly does herself a disservice—Lord Peter Wimsey is simultaneously endearing and intimidating, and no flat character could be both.  With his monocle and dapper suits, his love of wine, penchant for quotation, and the guilt he feels about sending criminals to the gallows, he cuts an unforgettable figure.

            Gaudy Night, though, has more scope than Sayers’ other mysteries, and certainly more audacity.  If I was going to teach a class on the most under-read (but deserving) literature of the 20th century, I would assign Gaudy Night right before Cold Comfort Farm.  The novel’s only problem, I think, is an excess of scholarliness: Miss Vane’s emotions are described in such articulate and thorough detail that the narrative occasionally becomes surreal.  She remains a solid character, though—a character whose struggles are familiar to anyone who’s tried to decide between personal ideals and the expectations of society.  

Don’t think the novel is all somber reflections, though: at points, it’s a comedy of manners worthy of Jane Austen.  At other instances, Gaudy Night is chillingly prescient: the specter of the Nazis and World War II are looming on the horizon. 

You can find the works of Dorothy L. Sayers in the mystery section of most bookstores (except, for some reason, in Canada).  One word of advice: read the novel Have His Carcase before Gaudy Night.  It is hilarious, gripping, and sets the scene.

I Happen to Like New York

On the counter of the convenience store sat two items: a bottle opener, and tube of Neosporin. 

As any reader of detective fiction knows, objects can tell stories just as well as words (and with much less dithering).  These items most assuredly told a story: a tale of imprudence and woe.  A tale of liquor and high spirits.  A tale involving Greg’s inability to get through Earth Girls Are Easy without being at least slightly drunk.  A tale involving our lack of the proper tool to access said liquor, and our misguided (but enthusiastic) plan to go at the bottle caps with bare hands.

A tale about New York.

&

We ate breakfast in a Hungarian coffeeshop, then walked across the street to the world’s largest cathedral.

We saw Phantom of the Opera on Broadway, and the Upright Citizens Brigade improv troupe on West 26th.

We randomly stumbled upon the Jewish deli where Jerry and the gang schmooze in Seinfeld, and almost collided with the comedian Louis C.K. outside the David Letterman Theater.

We had gelato in Greenwich Village, and margaritas at Harry’s Burritos.

Here are the only generalizations I’ll make about New York: it was a town of friendly strangers, surprising restaurants, amazing public transportation, a careful respect for diversity, and a delightful variety of bookstores.  Carmen and I got to drag Greg to half a dozen bookstores; Greg, in recompense, was perfectly happy dragging the two of us across the city on a quest for the perfect cookie.

Greg and I flew in separately (so I only know this by hearsay)—but, as his plane began to circle down, the businessman at his side whispered, “F*** you, New York!”

I must say, sir, I disagree.

            It was hot as blazes, though.  It was August; we would have been fools to expect any different.  We stayed with Carmen in her thick-walled apartment in the Bronx.  Each night, I was faced with a brooding question: should I leave the windows open and get bitten everywhere by mosquitoes—or close them, and wake up at six am., parched and exhausted and wonky with sweat?

Defeated by humidity, surrendering to our need for air conditioning, we ended up getting a hotel room for a few nights.  The inn was in a nice, leafy location near Central Park and the Natural History Museum—but the room was so tiny that the only place to sit, beside the bed, was the toilet.  I felt as if we’d chugged Alice’s “Drink Me” potion and were rapidly becoming too large for the furnishings.  Greg couldn’t fit in the closet even by turning sideways.

Good old New York.

&

This is one of my favorite memories:

We were searching for someplace to eat breakfast (pushing our way through the sea of tourists in Times Square), when we noticed a restaurant called The Starlight Diner.  “With Singing Wait-Staff!” it announced on its marquee.  Not knowing quite what to expect, we crossed the threshold—and were confronted with the aspect of a waiter with a microphone, running between the booths and belting out the song, “Shout!”

“What is this place?” I asked in hushed tones.

A man at a nearby table answered, “A heck of a good time.”

            “Hey-ey-yey-yey!” our waiter sang.

It turned out that the marquee had been blunt: there was in actuality, singing wait-staff.  We deduced that this was where the people who wanted to perform on Broadway started their careers.  As waiters and waitresses, they were fairly surly; but man—did they rock those solos. 

&

One afternoon when it was just Carmen and I, we were slumped on a bench in Washington Square Park, debating what to do with ourselves.  One of us finally admitted, “Well, I think we have to go to Coney Island.”

The idea had been put into our heads in the subway—there were posters everywhere declaring, “The fun is back!” above montages of roller coasters.  With the impetuousness of true adventurers, we set out. 

Public transportation in New York is astoundingly accessible—especially compared to L.A., where 60% of the real estate is devoted, in one manner or another, to private automobiles (if you’ll forgive a conceit, to having the ability to get out of L.A.).   In New York, trains screech underground.  Greg repeatedly compared the subway to teleportation.

It took us an hour to ride the subway to Coney Island.

            It took us about an hour to ascertain, staring at the mess of slipshod and unappealing carnival rides, that the fun was not back.

            But we stuck our feet in the Atlantic, and complimented each other on our guts and whimsy.

&

On our last Sunday before leaving, Carmen took Greg and me to Central Park.  We sat on boulders, watching a practice baseball game.  Bandstand music wafted from behind us on the hot breeze.  Before us were American elms, and above them rose the blue towers of the city.

I’ve never felt more proud to be from these United States. 

&

My town is a one-horse town (or its modern equivalent—it only had one stoplight for most of the time I was growing up).  I tell you this because knowing the perspective of a travel writer can help the reader understand what she notices, and what she’s forced to overlook.

            My town is a one-horse town in Northern California.  A small place.  A pit stop in the wine country.  New York, now: New York is so big that its bureaus have their own accents. 

I’m a compulsive note-taker.  While I was in New York, my pages stayed blank. 

Small places hold out moments of pure idiosyncrasy to the traveler--a stranger's smirk, a piece of graffiti, an abandoned CD.  It seemed as though the gigantic city, by contrast, didn’t allow anything so precise.  I was overwhelmed.  Pleased—but overwhelmed.  It wasn’t until I was sitting on a plane in Minneapolis, streams of water crossing the porthole window in zigzag paths, a mosquito bite on my finger slowly becoming infected, and lightning creaking the world outside, that my faculty of description came awake.

I’ve skirted around this post for two months, gathering up and sorting through my impressions.  In the end, all I can say is that I got a taste, this trip, of how New York can inspire passionate devotion.  I’ve been humming the words of a Cole Porter song while writing this:

“I happen to like New York; I happen to like this burg,

And when I have to give the world a last farewell,
And the undertaker starts to ring my funeral bell,
I don't want to go to heaven, don't want to go to hell.
I happen to like New York.”

Mouseland: Part 2

Greg first learned about Club 33 on an internet list titled, “10 Places You Can’t Go.”  It’s a secret restaurant in Disneyland’s New Orleans Square, located within the suite Walt Disney once used to wine and dine corporate sponsors.  The reason for its exclusivity: club members pay annual stipends of $3, 275.  As if this wasn't ludicrous enough, there's an initiation fee of $10,000.  The membership list has a fourteen year wait.

Being Greg, his first reaction was to pine bitterly for this forbidden temple.  When we went to Disneyland with our friends Evan and Geoff last April, we even located Club 33’s entranceway: a nondescript green door next to the Pirates of the Caribbean gift shop, embossed only by a bronze placard reading “33 Royal Street” and a hidden intercom.  Evan had to be volubly dissuaded from using the intercom and trying to bluff his way inside.  We left, moseying with defeat.

Little did Greg suspect that, two weeks later, one of his classmates was going to lean over her desk and say, “Hey, a bunch of us are going to Club 33 this weekend.  Want to come?”

He’s a lucky guy.

&

When we pulled into the parking lot that morning, a kid leaped from the van next to us and smacked the front of Greg’s car, yelling, “Disneylaaand!”

            Because of our reservations with Club 33, we got into the park for free (that being the central reason I’d been persuaded to go).  We spent the day with a group of Greg’s classmates, ambling around in plainclothes.  When it came evening, Greg and I headed back to the parking lot.  Trying to change into a dress in the sizzling leather car, I almost wept with frustration.

            Finally coiffed properly, we passed back into the park, the staff members on security giving our fancy duds glances of amusement.  We met up with Greg’s classmates in an alleyway of New Orleans Square, witnessed a guy proposing to his girlfriend (to which she responded, “Oh God, no!” before saying yes), and were finally buzzed into the lobby. 

Club 33 might be the only place in the park where the staff doesn’t automatically smile.  “Would you like to take the stairs, or use the French lift?” the hostess asked solemnly.

We were shepherded into an ornate, mahogany room with animal heads on the wall and stuffed birds in glass cases.  I later learned that this was called the “Trophy Room.”

Our table had two servers: a corpulent, affable, completely insincere one who explained the menu—and a younger one, who, it became clear over the course of the evening, wasn’t allowed to speak.  He poured Evian into our glasses and cleared away bespattered forks.  Whenever I thanked him, he nodded, lips un-twitching. 

As Greg put it, we didn’t just have waiters at Club 33: we had “waiters and minions.”

The menu itself was a flabbergasting item largely in French—most likely to convince guests to order “The Vintner”, a five course meal complete with duck jerky (excuse me, “compote”) and “artisan cheeses.”  ‘Vintner’ was certainly the easiest thing to say.  All the other options came with adjectives: “Alaskan Line Caught Sablefish,” “Pan Roasted Filet of Chateaubriand,” “Viking Village Day Boat Scallop.”

Club 33 is the only place in Disneyland that serves alcohol.  We ordered the cheapest wine on the menu. 

I spent the first half of the meal wondering whether I should wear my jacket or hang it on the back of my chair (the temperature in the Trophy Room was on the edge of nippy), and the second half wondering if it would be polite for me to get up and use the bathroom.  The bathroom, oddly enough, turned out to be the most interesting aspect of the club: the porcelain toilet was encased in a woven pink basket. 

It almost didn’t flush.

My overall assessment of Club 33: it was bland.  The atmosphere was constricted, the food mediocre.  At the end of the meal, we paid in a leaning tower of cash.  We left, and rode Buzz Lightyear’s Astroblasters, shootin’ lasers at alien overlords in our fancy clothes.

&

Coda:

“Hang on to your children, ‘cause this here’s the wildest ride in the wilderness!”

‘Wilderness.’  What an archaic and interesting word.  It pops up in the iconic beginning of the Big Thunder Mountain roller coaster, when a disembodied hillbilly gives the safety instructions.  When I was a toddler and my family went to Disneyworld, we stayed in an area called “Fort Wilderness.”  There’s a home video of me jumping around our cabin in my altogether, singing about the seven dwarfs. 

That aside, I think this word ‘wilderness’ is at the heart of Disney’s theme park success.  ‘Wilderness’ is a romantic word; a romanticized word.  It’s an idea of the natural environment as only mildly dangerous.  It calls to mind the ridiculously stereotyped statues of Native Americans that line Disneyland’s “Rivers of America.”

‘Wilderness’ is a place to have adventures, to be gently but never thoroughly scared: rather like Disneyland itself. 

The danger of a wilderness is that you can forget it isn't real.

I delight in contrived, idiosyncratic, funky worlds.  Because of Disney, I’ve been told by a robotic singing carrot to eat more vegetables.  I like robotic singing carrots, and I really do like Robot Lincoln. 

None of this, however, is anything more than a human construction: a dream.  A dream built of concrete, and plaster, and microchips.

I fell in love with science fiction because it, of all literary modes, leads people to think about the nonhuman—to think about the truly wild, the truly Other experience of life.  There’s nothing about Disneyland that points to (or respects) the reality of our interconnectedness with other species.  I can't think of anything ecologically sound about Disneyland, or healthy--I wouldn’t jump into that green water for five hundred dollars.  And those mice would never survive in the wild (no matter how well they can sing).

Perhaps this will clarify my point of view:

My family took another journey to Disneyworld when I was sixteen.  I was totally excited about the theme park—but, in retrospect, my favorite part of the trip was the drive out of the airport.  That was the only time I got to see indigenous Florida trees.