travel

You know the old saying that inside a fat person is a thin person trying to get out? The same could be said of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Marble Faun: an enchanting gothic romance trapped inside a wordy travelogue.

A rough count from the Gutenberg plain text version of the book yields over 140,000 words, the vast majority of which is exposition. The characters and plot are crushed under the weight of filler.

An example. The beginning of Chapter 5, "Miriam's Studio". I will put any mention of a character actually saying or doing something in bold.

The courtyard and staircase of a palace built three hundred years ago are a peculiar feature of modern Rome, and interest the stranger more than many things of which he has heard loftier descriptions. You pass through the grand breadth and height of a squalid entrance-way, and perhaps see a range of dusky pillars, forming a sort of cloister round the court, and in the intervals, from pillar to pillar, are strewn fragments of antique statues, headless and legless torsos, and busts that have invariably lost what it might be well if living men could lay aside in that unfragrant atmosphere--the nose. Bas-reliefs, the spoil of some far older palace, are set in the surrounding walls, every stone of which has been ravished from the Coliseum, or any other imperial ruin which earlier barbarism had not already levelled with the earth. Between two of the pillars, moreover, stands an old sarcophagus without its lid, and with all its more prominently projecting sculptures broken off; perhaps it once held famous dust, and the bony framework of some historic man, although now only a receptacle for the rubbish of the courtyard, and a half-worn broom.

In the centre of the court, under the blue Italian sky, and with the hundred windows of the vast palace gazing down upon it from four sides, appears a fountain. It brims over from one stone basin to another, or gushes from a Naiad's urn, or spurts its many little jets from the mouths of nameless monsters, which were merely grotesque and artificial when Bernini, or whoever was their unnatural father, first produced them; but now the patches of moss, the tufts of grass, the trailing maiden-hair, and all sorts of verdant weeds that thrive in the cracks and crevices of moist marble, tell us that Nature takes the fountain back into her great heart, and cherishes it as kindly as if it were a woodland spring. And hark, the pleasant murmur, the gurgle, the plash! You might hear just those tinkling sounds from any tiny waterfall in the forest, though here they gain a delicious pathos from the stately echoes that reverberate their natural language. So the fountain is not altogether glad, after all its three centuries at play!

In one of the angles of the courtyard, a pillared doorway gives access to the staircase, with its spacious breadth of low marble steps, up which, in former times, have gone the princes and cardinals of the great Roman family who built this palace. Or they have come down, with still grander and loftier mien, on their way to the Vatican or the Quirinal, there to put off their scarlet hats in exchange for the triple crown. But, in fine, all these illustrious personages have gone down their hereditary staircase for the last time, leaving it to be the thoroughfare of ambassadors, English noblemen, American millionnaires, artists, tradesmen, washerwomen, and people of every degree,--all of whom find such gilded and marble-panelled saloons as their pomp and luxury demand, or such homely garrets as their necessity can pay for, within this one multifarious abode. Only, in not a single nook of the palace (built for splendor, and the accommodation of a vast retinue, but with no vision of a happy fireside or any mode of domestic enjoyment) does the humblest or the haughtiest occupant find comfort.

Up such a staircase, on the morning after the scene at the sculpture gallery, sprang the light foot of Donatello. He ascended from story to story, passing lofty doorways, set within rich frames of sculptured marble, and climbing unweariedly upward, until the glories of the first piano and the elegance of the middle height were exchanged for a sort of Alpine region, cold and naked in its aspect. Steps of rough stone, rude wooden balustrades, a brick pavement in the passages, a dingy whitewash on the walls; these were here the palatial features. Finally, he paused before an oaken door, on which was pinned a card, bearing the name of Miriam Schaefer, artist in oils. Here Donatello knocked, and the door immediately fell somewhat ajar; its latch having been pulled up by means of a string on the inside. Passing through a little anteroom, he found himself in Miriam's presence.

Did you skip over the first three paragraphs, or perhaps the whole thing? I don't blame you. And this was a mild example. At times, not only would The Marble Faun's story disappear, the characters themselves faded into obscurity in drawn-out "discussions" of art, philosophy, religion, etc. -- and I put "discussions" in quotes, because no person has ever spoken that way in normal conversation ever. They became Hawthorne sock puppets.

If we take the (rounding up) 40 bold words above as representative of the whole novel, the overall ~750 words would give us 5% of the passage being story. Being kind, let's quadruple that to 20% of the novel, giving us a spiffy 28,000-word gothic novella. And as interested as I am in art, history, and philosophy, I would probably give a boring 100,000-word treatise on Italian religious art history a miss.

Despite all this, I stuck with the book, telling myself that it really was a matter of expectation -- I had been led to believe this was something other than what it turned out to be. I am sure there are people out there who would love The Marble Faun. But as for me, I had to pull out all my mad speed-reading skillz to make it to the end.

This is the second time a Hawthorne work has thrown me for a loop, the thoroughly irrelevant and boring "Custom-House" introduction to The Scarlet Letter (which I loved) being the first. Perhaps something for me to keep in mind when I get around to The House of the Seven Gables or whatever of his stories winds up being the next one.

For an attempt at putting the massive tome in some sort of perspective, see Anthony Halderman's site.

Closing a bunch of tabs. This was a particularly good couple of days for cool things to link to.

Jacket Copy: "Balloon boy story is right out of Edgar Allan Poe"

The Balloon Boy story may have been a hoax, but it if was, the Heene family is in good company. No less than Edgar Allan Poe had an entirely fictional account of a balloon voyage published in 1844 in the Sun newspaper.

A.V. Club Interview: "Alton Brown"

There have been [topics they wanted to do a show on but couldn't] and there are, and most of those have to do with boundaries set by what Food Network wants to show and doesn’t want to show. You know, they’re not gonna let me do a show about rabbit, because they don’t want to think about killing the little bunnies. There probably won’t be a Good Eats episode on, you know, anything glandular.

LA Galaxy Blog: "Landon Donovan Named Honda Player of the Year and Player of the Decade"

In addition to being named the Player of the Year, Donovan was also named the Honda Player of the Decade. This honor comes as little surprise as he had won the Player of the Year award in six (2002, 2003, 2004, 2007, 2008, 2009) of the last 10 years.

BBC Sport: "Republic face France in play-offs"

The Republic of Ireland will have to beat former World Cup winners France over two legs if they are to make it to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

Giovanni Trapattoni's side drew the 1998 champions for the play-offs to be played on 14 and 18 November and will play at home first.

Cyclelicious: "Bikes On Board: Stuttgart cog railroad"

German commuter trains have rush hour restrictions for bikes on board that many Americans who travel by train and bike are familiar with. "Die Zacke" cog railroad between Marienplatz in South Stuttgart to Degerloch, however, features this fantastic platform just for bikes.

BBC News: "At the centre of time"

Without it international travel would be in turmoil and calling friends in faraway places at the right time impossible. Exactly 125 years after the Greenwich Meridian line was drawn, how and why did Britain become the centre of time?

San Bernardino Sun: "Mayor unveils two-story globe design for SBIA"

A spiffy two-story world globe was unveiled Monday at San Bernardino International Airport as a symbol of world travel and sophistication in the city's plans.

The 19-foot objet d'art sits inside a 30-foot-wide fountain in front of the soon-to-be-completed passenger terminal on Leland Norton Way, said Steve Silver of TranSystems, who designed and engineered the globe.

NY Times: "One Reporter’s Lonely Beat, Witnessing Executions "

Of all the consequences of shrinking newsrooms, one of the oddest is this: Fewer journalists are available to watch people die. But Michael Graczyk has witnessed more than 300 deaths, and many of those were people he had come to know.

Jacket Copy: "Happy birthday, Ursula K. Leguin"

Today is Ursula K. Le Guin's 80th birthday. The multiple-award-winning writer is best known for "The Wizard of Earthsea" and is thought of for her science fiction, although she has crossed many boundaries.

[...] "I'm following Tolkien's prescription for fantasy creation. You are making a world out of words, and the only thing that's going to hold it together is its inner consistency.

"Writing science fiction and fantasy allow you to back off a little bit, to try to find the problems that always come back, that we never solve. Like gender relations, war -- once there's more than 50 of us living in one place we seem to have war.

If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger, There'd Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats: "Heroes of American Literature #17"

John Steinbeck smoking and reading.

Phew! That's it. And Firefox should be feeling leaner as well. :)

Veteran columnist Paul Oberjuerge recently lost his decades-old job with the San Bernardino Sun, but thanks to a spontaneous decision to head to Paris for a few weeks, he and his wife (and fellow journalist) Leah have both landed new reporting gigs. Which might not be that interesting, except their jobs are in Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates and "cosmopolitan metropolis" (as Wikipedia describes it) on the Persian Gulf.

This being the 21st Century, both Paul and Leah are blogging their experiences. Paul's posts are at his oberjuerge.com blog, while Leah's are at Blogspot, where she was covering her Asia trip, but now serves as Adventures in Abu Dhabi.

It's cool getting both of their descriptions. Here's Paul's, "Day 1: We Meet with Friends from Europe", to compare with Leah's "The Long and Winding Road".

Carl Sagan - 'A Glorious Dawn' ft Stephen Hawking (Cosmos Remixed)

A musical tribute to two great men of science. Carl Sagan and his cosmologist companion Stephen Hawking present: A Glorious Dawn - Cosmos remixed. Almost all samples and footage taken from Carl Sagan's Cosmos and Stephen Hawking's Universe series.

Download video and MP3 here: http://www.colorpulsemusic.com/youtube.html

I have to get out on a trail, even if it's only a few miles -- I'm starting to get twitchy. :)

Meanwhile, Alex McInturff is off on a real adventure.

"Stanford grad student walking 320 miles in John Muir's footsteps"

Alex McInturff, a 23-year-old earth sciences student, finds that much has changed as he retraces the conservationist's trek from San Francisco to Yosemite Valley in 1868.

McInturff, walking through Central California, says his spirits began to lift once he hit the Sierra foothills. The mountain range that changed Muir’s life 141 years ago hasn’t lost its magic. “Returning to the forest today, I rediscovered the freedom I love about walking, which was lost a little in the San Joaquin,” McInturff wrote on his blog.

Not sure how they managed to mangle his blog California Transect's URL so badly in the online version of the article, but it should be muirwalk.blogspot.com. Alex describes himself and his journey thusly:

On April 6, Alex McInturff is setting off to retrace Muir's path across California. Alex is a master's student in the Earth Systems Program in the School of Earth Sciences at Stanford University. He has been researching the history of and current state of conservation in California in conjunction with the Bill Lane Center for the American West and our collaborator iMapData. Alex envisions his own walk as a way to examine the history, current state, and future prospects of a wide range of conservation efforts on public and private lands, across a telling transect of California, from urban areas, through suburbs and parks, across the large parks and ranches of the Coast Range, the irrigated industrial agriculture of the Central Valley, Kesterson Wildlife Refuge, up the Merced River, across the Don Pedro Reservoir and Lake McClure, through historical mining towns, and national forests to Yosemite National Park.

I'll definitely be adding his blog to my RSS reader.

Check these guys out -- a very cool project planned that they're just starting out on.

The Path Less Pedaled is an exploration of what it means to live outside the lines. In March 2009, Laura Crawford and Russ Roca made the decision to drop out of the status quo and find others around the world who have done the same. Paring down their lives to just what will fit on two bicycles, Laura and Russ are embarking on an extended bike tour throughout the US and beyond – with the goal of connecting with and collecting the stories of people who followed a calling to live their lives in unique ways. Through photos, interviews, sketches, hand-bound books, and an extensive web presence, Laura (an art jewelry maker) and Russ (a photographer) will compile example after example of lives less ordinary – independent artisans and makers, small business proprietors, community activists and more.

Via Cyclelicious

The always-entertaining Strange Maps posted a spiffy entry about a 2005 map that shows how to duplicate Phileas Fogg's [Around the World](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Around_the_World_in_Eighty_Days_(book)) feat in only 42 days. Jules Verne would be thrilled, I bet.

It’s still possible to travel around the world without airborne transportation, of course. And here also the travel times have greatly diminished since Phileas Fogg’s era. This map is a proposal for a round the world trip, only travelling by boat and train (as Fogg did), starting at and ending in New York. The trip would only take 42 days.

See "309 - Around the World at Twice the Speed of Fogg".

Also, a belated happy birthday to HG Wells, who turned 142 on Sunday.