Tom Sawyer and Charles Dickens

I have recently started on my way through that worthy, well-worn tome of English literature, David Copperfield by Mr. Charles Dickens. I have seen my way through "I am born," "I am sent away from home," "I try opium and really like it," etc. and I have found everything to be to my liking. Most overwhelming are the characters: they just keep coming at you, and each of them seems ready and willing to take a comfortable seat and tell you a story of his life as long as the present volume. It seems he (the author) could not help endowing endearing interest, mystery and magic into all his characters, no matter how minor.

Take William, for example, a waiter the young David meets on his way to boarding school. While dining at an inn along his way, and blushing all over from the grand attention shown him, the young master is easily taken in by this William. The ale in little Davey's half-pint, it turns out, is poisonous -- why, it already killed a "Mr. Topsawyer" about a week ago. And since the inn management does not like to see anything wasted, the only possibility is for William to drink it instead. He soon grows queasy -- or says he does -- but no matter: David is having chops and potatoes, the only thing in the world that can cure this kind of poisoning... Things continue in this manner until William is quite satiated with his meal and the reader likewise with this little bit of parlor trickery.

What caught my eye was the name: Mr. Topsawyer. Sounds an awful like Tom Sawyer, doesn't it? And William's little bit of trickery fit nicely into the mold now so epitomized by Twain's boyish rogue, especially his little turn with whitewashing the fence... I had to know more so I put on my "Junior History Detective" badge and dove into the Net.

First things first: David Copperfield, originally published in 1850, preceded Tom Sawyer by 26 years. The lives of Mr. Twain and Mr. Dickens over-lapped approximately 35 years, and most of those saw the (presumably eternally mustachioed) younger writer still in literary diapers. The two met exactly once -- and "met" is hardly the word I'd consider best: "Twain, writing as a special correspondent of the San Francisco Alta California in January 1868, filed this report after seeing a public reading by Dickens at the Steinway Hall in New York. Twain was 32 years old at the time, Dickens a very old 55." This bit of writing is certainly not Twain's best, but his obvious reverence for the older man -- seen through the playful mockery and only natural hero defacement -- leaves within the realm of the possible the idea that Twain based his character at least in part on Dickens's work.

The origin of Topsawyer: As is common enough knowledge, sawyer is another, more archaic name for a woodcutter. This old-fashioned profession went hand-in-band with the sawpit, "a pit over which lumber is positioned to be sawed with a long two-handled saw by two men, one standing above the timber and the other below." I am given to believe that the man standing in the pit was known as the bottom-sawyer and the one standing on the log was the top-sawyer. The top-sawyer seems to have had the nicer, much less dangerous position -- the phrase having the upper hand comes to mind -- which, by extension, he may have acquired through conniving means.

If this does not suit you, I have another lead. A note from an Oxford World's Classics edition of Nicholas Nickelby has this to say about the term top-sawyer: "Norfolk slang for a skilled timber man, who may earn double the wages of other workers; by extension a 'top-sawyer' refers to a master genius in any profession." And as Sawyer became a fairly common occupational surname in England and its former colonies, it is not difficult to imagine some of the best of these men earning the surname Topsawyer... Then, it is not hard to imagine Twain separating the name into two and changing one measly letter

The "real" Tom Sawyer: My research was further complicated by the discovery of the existence of the handsome bloke on the left. What you might call the "real" Tom Sawyer, this man is most remembered for having an adventurous life, as well as the good fortune of becoming acquainted with the great Mississippi author.

A typical wandering, Westward soul, Tom tried his hand at gold prospecting, and distinguished himself as a hero -- rescuing some ninety people from a burning ship just off the "Southern coast" -- before turning out a successful career as a fireman.

Certainly, this Tom seems the sort liable to be of interest to Mr. Twain -- and, one fancies, perhaps his name had just the right ring to it. But we can't be sure: "Twain scholars, including Barbara Schmidt of Tarleton University have been unable to verify any claim that Mark Twain named his book for this particular Tom Sawyer."

We can't be sure is the operative phrase for all of this. I am merely a junior detective, remember -- and, you can't forget, even top-sawyers make mistakes. This web could very well be entirely of my own making, constructed more out of willing than waying. So, please admire the art work -- but don't touch. Works of art like this are so very terribly fragile.

Harvey Pekar... Part 2

A lot of things happen when a person dies -- but, mostly, nothing happens. Harvey Pekar has been remembered, his life recounted in dozens of newspapers, yet no one has actually done anything about it.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer gave him a front page story, which lacked anything remarkable except for occurring in the only daily paper of the city Pekar lived and knew. (I was going to take the time to electronically scan the newspaper but luckily these days so many newspaper articles have an online counterpart.) This article is the headpiece, in my mind, for a long series occurring in papers about the world, telling the same basic story. Ha. Obits...

Below, I have collected a few more articles of more interest than the average obituary.

Jacob Heibrunn of The Huffington Post wrote an inspired piece, "The Collapse of Cleveland," in which he pulled together three seemingly unrelated events -- Pekar's death; the death of George Steinbrenner, Yankees owner and one-time Cleveland shipping magnate; and the exit of Lebron James, former Cavalier all-star and supposed god, for another team -- as a sort of base for apocalyptic conclusions obvious from the title.

The Washington Post, in their "Comic Riffs" perennial feature, paid more appropriate tribute, gathering quotes from some of Pekar's former collaborators and fellow members of the industry. Frank Stack: "I've heard him compared to Charles Bukowski, of course. But I think he was even more like an American Chekov. " *eh*...

Splash Page, MTV.com's comic-themed blog, featured an interview with Jeff Newelt, editor of "The Pekar Project," an online comics project that saw Pekar paired with a "quartet of artists." Of course, Pekar left many projects unfinished, and others that are finished but yet to come out, among them "a bunch of" comics for the project and a graphic novel, simply entitled Cleveland, intended for release in 2011. Newelt also spoke of writing a tribute comic himself, as well as the possibility of tribute comics from other artists and writers.

It also occurred to me that, with all this talk of a "great man" and so-and-so, perhaps some are left wondering: "What's 'is stories like?" The main American Splendor series, of course, can't be missed, but below I have collected and recounted most of his non-AS graphic novels...

Our Cancer Year, with Joyce Brabner and Frank Stack - "This is a story about a year when someone was sick, about a time when it seemed that the rest of the world was sick, too." Harvey's and his wife's trials with his cancer during the early nineties are juxtaposed against larger events, particularly the escalation of the Gulf War.

American Splendor: Our Movie Year - Harvey tells us what it was like to be a celebrity, of a sort. This book documents his life leading up to, and including the release of the well-received film adaptation of American Splendor. "Can he keep his everyman persona [and good looks] in the face of an award-winning movie based on his autobiographical comic book series? Happily, the answer is 'you bet.'"

The Quitter, with Dean Haspiel - A memoir of earlier years, from the little kid days, through his short-lived college experience, to his many menial jobs and his finally settling with -- more like grasping onto for dear life -- a government file clerk position. In short, it's the story of a kid who quit at everything and later kinda fell into becoming an icon of his city.

Ego & Hubris: The Michael Malice Story, with Gary Dumm - This book follows the entire life of one Michael Malice, a semi-successful business man who attributes his success to reading Ayn Rand. From my review: " Michael Malice is a real jerk, but I loved reading about his life. Even from a very early age he was unapologetically self-centered and terribly cocky. He hates it when other people "screw him over" but he seems to have no trouble returning the favor, even getting a couple of people fired through the course of the book.

His political views don't endear him to me either. He read Ayn Rand books and loved them, which should come as no surprise to anyone. I am not very familiar ...more Michael Malice is a real jerk, but I loved reading about his life." and "I think I'll just stick to my indifferent attempts at altruism, thankyouverymuch."

Macedonia, with Heather Roberson and Ed Piskor - This book follows a college student who dives into the history of modern-day Macedonia in an attempt to discover more about practical peace-making work. Never read it.

Students for a Democratic Society: A Graphic History - The story of a radical '60s era student activist group -- never read it.

The Beats - A hodgepodge of stories and artists, memoirs and more typical nonfiction comics. It starts with lengthy graphic biographies about Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Burroughs, then breaks down into a series of smaller of comics divulging both a more general history and, sometimes, a more specific angle -- "Beatnik Chicks," for example.

Studs Terkel's Working: A Graphic Adaptation - Another hodgepodge of writers and artists -- Pekar just sorta presided. It's the perfect book for him to adapt: a series of people talking frankly about their everyday working lives.

Harvey Pekar: a great man is dead

"I’m saddened to learn of the death today of Harvey Pekar, age seventy, author for thirty-four years of the comic book American Splendor..."

So. "Here's our guy..." In the post title I have labeled him a "great man," a personal title as full of sad irony as the title of his long-running series. "Great" is an adjective I am hard pressed to use to seriously describe anyone, but I will always be ready to admit that there was something special about Harvey Pekar. He was a man inherently outside the mainstream: ugly, neurotic, anti-social, "curmudgeonly," and probably smelly too. (Don't believe that last: I never met him.) He was a guy many probably felt sorry for, and whom others laughed at, as with his infamous appearances on Letterman. I, for my part, felt there was no other route but kinship.

I never met him, as I said, yet I still feel like I know him -- a peculiar side effect of autobiography, especially the quotidian variety (Harvey, you taught me that word) Pekar's work typified. He was a man I wanted to meet. I was going to -- at some book-warming event, or a kind of gallery showing -- but plans fell through that night and I ended up reading one of his comics instead. Maybe it was for the best... we'll never know. As it is he will always occupy a tender, endearing place with me, alongside other grumpy, seemingly unapproachable people.

And he was unapproachable, at least in his stories, at least to some. Man... you think Pekar himself was ugly... his writing is what nice guys call "vigorous" or "full of 'local color'" or "true to life," while craftily avoiding words like "boring" and "stiff," never mind "finely-crafted" or, simply, "gorgeous." His writing style and his character are both hard to like, but certainly they are equally hard to hate -- probably because they are so true, so full of sincerity. There are no intentional lies between the pages of American Splendor -- just an ordinary guy attempting earnestly to tell it like it is.

About his real life -- the parts never put on paper -- I can say nothing absolutely. Working with him was probably not always easy: his unswerving attitude towards his stuff caused some head butting with his artist collaborators throughout his career. His tendency to leave his work uncut and unedited, for example, peeved both artist (Gary Dumm, one of Pekar's long-time collaborators once complained to us, "There's no room for the art!") and reader ("Hey, mac, you got anything shorter, maybe?"). But in the end, Dumm, the artist found him to be "without fail a generous and helpful friend to me..." And Abe, the reader, is in the midst of accounting for himself.

Don't believe the news anchors: "Cleveland is my hometown." Chicago was taken -- Miami, too. Pekar was -- is -- the real king of Cleveland. He deserves more recognition, from both the comparatively highbrow, and the people "from off the streets of Cleveland" -- as American Splendor was originally subtitled. As it is, we'll simply have to pretend that the Harvey Award is in honor of him as well as the late, great Harvey Kurtzman. And we'll have to hope that the four or five of his books in every local library will reach dolefully empty hands and will maybe spark a tinder in just the right imagination. And hopefully someone can be conjured up to say: "This is our guy! I'm immensely proud of him." Oh, hell -- it's already done.

May he rest in peace.

5 Reasons Books Are Better Than Movies

There was a time, not so long ago, when an army of Internet minions was slavishly devoted to scientifically discovering the "Top 10 of..." just about anything. From "The 10 head-bangingyest metal songs of all time" to the more modest "Ten can't-miss pudding recipes" to the just plain strange "Top 10 places I've seen you, my darling" -- everyone's had the itch. But, somewhere between now and then, the collective attention span was unduly divided duly -- and half of ten is five. So, in regretful capitulation to the times here are the "5 Reasons Books Are Better Than Movies," a subject nevertheless near and dear to this blog's hearts and my own. And you'll let me know, won't you, dear Reader: is this post trite or recondite? (That's my new thing, see, meant to one day run in TV Guide alongside "Cheers and Jeers.") Please, please let me know. Now here's the list:

1 Books look good on the shelf - You can tell so much about a person, they say, from the books they have on their shelves. But what do you gain from perusing a movie collection? What, some guy has the third Godfather film but not the first two? He has the Star Wars Christmas special? Lame. Totally lame. But if he has the 60-volume set Great Books of the Western World? Class. Totally class.

2 Books burn better - All the hoopla surrounding the so-called "travesty" of book-burning is unfounded and unrealistic. Books burn at 451 degrees and humans only need 98.6 of that; so one book has the power to warm 4.574 people! Also: I can't help but think that the protagonist of the Jack London short story "To Build a Fire" would have been a-okay if he'd just had a copy of his own harrowing story within reach.

3 Some books are dangerous - I suppose you can kill someone with just about anything, but there is something beautifully appropriate about smashing a faceless enemy's face in with the complete works of Freud. I keep the standard two-volume set of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire on the bedside table at all times just in case -- just in case I get an opportunity to crash a burglar's head between those two meaty cymbals and finally prove the relevance of Roman history.

4 Some books are harmless - Sure, the books of #3 contain dangerous ideas, and are big and heavy to boot, but there is another breed. Surely there can be no harm in a good (or awful) paperback presented to the inmates of our prison system. A paperback is nearly useless as a blunt weapon, and paper is a poor material choice for building a shiv, while to many a DVD or VHS tape is just so much sharp and pointed plastic. If nothing else, there's always item #2.

5 Books sometimes smell good - This just in: "bookhuffer.com" is still available!