Told Felt Sensed

An old Master shows the way…

Bardelys felt bad for Stephenie Meyer.

For the past few days, he had been mourning her first novel, Twilight. He had so wanted to enjoy it, all the more since it was first in a series of (so far) four novels. If only Twilight had been wonderful fun, Bardelys would have had another three volumes to look forward to reading.

Alas.

Not that he should exactly feel bad for Meyer, who was doing very well with sales of the four books, and would, he felt sure, get at least Twilight made into a movie, which would mean some real money for her.

No, he felt bad that she had botched the tale so badly.

By one of those coincidences that are more synchronicity than accident, however, the same week Bardelys had lost hope for Twilight he had watched a marvelous 1935 MGM movie called Trouble for Two. This was a light, Ruritanian fantasy adapted from Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella, Story of the Young Man with the Cream Tarts (the first in the ‘Suicide Club’ story cycle, reprinted together in Stevenson’s The New Arabian Nights and available online from http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page as narab10.txt). And Bardelys had so enjoyed the script, and the performances, that he had been encouraged to search out and download this very gutenberg.net edition, and read it…

Now, it was a tale of contrasts, to go from Twilight to Story of the Young Man with the Cream Tarts. But from the start, Bardelys had to admit it was unfair to compare novice Meyer with Stevenson, writing at the top of his form, a veteran, master talesman.

In some ways, the two were of a kind. Cream Tarts was just as ‘fake’ as Twilight which forced Bardelys to conclude that fake tales were no invention of his own time. And yet, Stevenson did not make any pretense of depth of feeling or presentation of anything important; the very title he had chosen pointed up the silliness of his own tale, and showed Bardelys that Stevenson had intended the tale as a light, insubstantial snack, like the very cream tart that the young man ‘crushed’ nine into his mouth, in order to finish his last night’s silliness to dine with the Prince Florizel of Bohemia.

But there was something in the tale that went beyond this, and taught Bardelys something new.

At the climax of the tale of the Tarts, the Prince steps out of a building in the heart of London near the river, well after midnight, on his way to meet the man who is going to murder him. This the Prince has agreed to, even staked his honor and pledged his word upon. He knows he goes to his death, and that he had played an utterly foolish part to get himself into this predicament, from which there can be no honorable evasion.

Now, what happens next?

Bardelys was disappointed at what Stevenson does. Straight away, almost as soon as the Prince’s shoes touch the sidewalk, out come three men from a cab, muscle the prince within, and save his life.

Stevenson, the great talesman, highlighted the sudden shift in his hero’s fortunes, the twist or reversal, as his main aim for the tale at this point. Therefore he went to it as swiftly as he could, to make it as surprising to his audience as possible.

Poe, on the other hand, or Hugo (or any of the great Romantic authors) would have held the saviors back, and made the Prince walk down the street, toward the next block where he had been told he would meet his murderer, with further instructions. Every step would be accounted for, as the Prince feels terror, remorse, fear, regret, casts a thousand imprecations upon his own folly, but undertakes to meet his fate bravely and honorably — for he is no coward. That is to say, the Romantics would highlight the hero’s emotions, his feelings, and examine the moral and sentimental basis of them. Only at the end of the street, opposite the very corner where the Prince had been told his murderer would be awaiting him, would Poe or Hugo have rushed on-scene the cab with the three men to save him.

A modern talesman, what would he do? Well, let us say his interest is built upon the example of the movies (the dominant form of talesmanship today). So he would have highlighted the physical sensations the Prince undergoes. The crunch of his shoes upon the pavement, the chill damp in the late night London fog, the silence of the square, and his own physical manifestations of fear, sweat, trembling, heart beat. And then, the murderer would have appeared: more suspense … and in a fit of uncontrollable self-preservation, the Prince would fight back against his murderer, in a violent struggle — a pitched battle — while the other cab comes rushing on — and at last the salvation from the three assistants, not, however, before the Prince (being a hero after all) had assured himself the upper hand and eventual victory in the battle.

So we have three branches, or ways to approach a tale at this juncture: as a tale (with an emphasis on the ups and downs and twists and turns of the narrative) or as an examination of feelings (with an emphasis on the sentimental and moral path of the hero, and an indication of the philosophical notions underpinning them, perhaps) or as a physical experience.

To treat it as a tale, as Stevenson did, leaves us in the audience at a slight remove from the event. To treat it as an examination of feelings or as a physical experience immerses us in the tale and hopes that we will identify with Prince Florizel as a dream-self. But to stress his sentimental and moral reactions is to treat him and us as moral beings, while to stress his physical predicament is to treat him and us as animals.

Yes, that might be the sorriest remark of all, Bardelys thought, sighing. Today’s tales consider us as mere animals, and do not address our other parts.

(Composed on keyboard Monday, August 18, 2008)