Some more random Ricketts info

After being sick this weekend and spending way too much time laying on the couch cleaning off the DVR (savor that season finale of L&O: Criminal Intent--Jeff Goldblum is leaving), I am finally back to Beyond the Outer Shores. Parts of it are slow going. I know a LOT about the Western coast of Vancouver Island, from Victoria-right across the Juan de Fuca Strait from Washington-to the northern inlet factory town of Port Alice. I know a little too much. The author is from the village of Ucluelet on Vancouver Island so he is doubtless thrilled about his local connection to Ricketts. I understand and I think it's sweet. But pages and pages of Ricketts hopping on and off of freighters in every village on the island's coast and collecting sea slugs............zzz. I nodded off.  I appreciate the history of Pacific ecology (although I wonder if Tamm is so enamored of Ricketts that he overstates his role) but that is not the attraction of the book for me. Obviously, it's Ricketts and Steinbeck and, to a lesser extent, Joseph Campbell.

I did learn that Ricketts gave his bemused approval to Cannery Row before it was published but its success was a small disaster for him. He wasn't a celebrity. He was a modest thoughtful sort concerned with making the world a better place. In fact, he fretted over it. Having people drive by and gawk at him and, in one instance, having a stranger oafishly trespass into his living quarters and demand a tour and have to be forced out was hard on him and his by that point rocky relationship with his girlfriend, Toni. Even when on his collecting tours to remote Vancouver in 1945 and 46, he still found people who had read the book and were elated to meet the real Doc.

Completely unrelated but I learned that butterflies were once (at least in Restoration England) considered symbols of witchcraft. Whenever anyone tries to defend religion as this inerrant well of positivity, I think of goofy ass shit like this.

BTW, the Juan de Fuca Strait was named for a Greek navigator who supposedly found it on a Spanish expedition in the 16th century. Yeah, the name doesn't sound Greek. That is the Spanished up version of it. He named the Strait of Anian. It's questionable that he actually explored it. It marks the international boundary between the US and Canada and is the Pacific outlet for both the Puget Sound and the Strait of Georgia.

Some more thoughts on Red Square

Martin Cruz Smith knows how to create a compelling female character. He even says in the interview in the back that Polina, the forensic specialist, nearly takes over the novel like the woman in Polar Star did (like in life, I don't remember character's names in books once I've finished.) I also really like the German cop Peter and the Russian emigre Stas.

Poor Jaak, Renko's murdered partner, was Estonian. Estonia declared Soviet occupation illegal on March 30, 1990. Lithuania declared its independence earlier that month. Latvia would do so in May. Lithuania was blockaded by the Soviets and some of its citizens were killed in protests. Not sure about Estonia. I need to read Lenin's Tomb after this book. Jaak comments that Estonians are treated the best in the Union and complain the most.

Red Square takes place in August 1991. Not a coincidence of timing since the Soviet Union was breaking up around Renko's ears. Actually Smith published this in 1992 so it was breaking up around his ears as he wrote it.

Peter refers to an East German as an Ossie. Apparently this is a Wall-era term used to described GDR residents. Osten is the German word for east, appropriately. Further Googling tells me this term can be perceived as rude and is best avoided.

I like how at the art show Irina compares smuggled art relics like to emigres "with the unlikely stories that survivors have of being stuffed in false bottoms or hidden behind wallpaper."

There is indeed a Malevich painting called "Red Square" (full title: "Red Square: Painterly Realism of a Peasant Woman in Two Dimensions.") It was painted in 1915. I can't say I get the hoopla but the guy sure had a hard life. About all I know is that he founded Suprematism. The Wikipedia page has the self portrait mentioned in the book. He also was Ukranian.

A great line from Martin Cruz Smith

Not liking Red Square quite as much as Polar Star but I do like it. I don't know how Smith learned so much about the Soviet Union. Apparently he studied journalism at UPenn and now lives in California.

Here is a great line about Renko's visit to Berlin where he hadn't been since the wall came down (the official date for the wall coming down is 11/9/89):

"The advantage of the Soviet model was that construction and upkeep were kept to a minimum, so Soviet memories tended to be excellent."


Renko is like the East German protesters prior to the fall of the wall shouting "Wir bleiben hier" ("We're not leaving.") 


In other random news, Charles Dickens died when he was only 58. And apparently, Barnaby Rudge is not a page-turner per the NY Review of Books.

Beyond the outer shores part the first

So far I am loving this book about Ed Ricketts and his friendship with John Steinbeck (and to a lesser but also important extent, Joseph Campbell.) Some things I have learned thus far:

• Steinbeck was very traumatized by the success and controversy surrounding The Grapes of Wrath. 
• He and Joseph Campbell never became friends due to an attraction between Steinbeck's wife at the time (Carol) and Campbell. They never had an affair exactly but they did make out. Campbell, btw, was quite the look evidently back in his day. 
• Ricketts' book Between Pacific Tides was looked down upon by the academic mainstream and it took years for him to get published. It was one of the first biology books (for the Pacific anyways) that grouped fauna according to ecosystem instead of taxonomy. It is one of Stanford U Press's best selling titles.
• In regard to the success of Grapes and the War, Steinbeck wrote in a letter to a friend "There is so much confusion now-emotional hysteria which passes for thought and blind faith which passes for analysis." Relevant? And totally worth stealing? Affirmative times two.

Because is it a journey or a journal?

This blog name is probably horrendous. But since I'm just writing it for my own amusement, fuck it.