The Order of the Secret Chefs: A Comment by Simon Sheridan

What is the point of narrative comedy: A reply to Ugo Bardi

From Simon Sheridan's blog

Recently, Ugo Bardi wrote a fine review of my second novel, The Order of the Secret Chiefs. There was one criticism Ugo made that I thought was unjustified but in an interesting way. Ugo made the point that the characters in the novel do not evolve but remain static. This would normally be a valid criticism. Any story which follows the Hero’s Journey pattern should have a denouement at the end where the protagonist transcends their old self and transforms into something new. However, comedy is the one genre where this is not true. To understand why, let’s first define some terms. I define a comedy as follows:

A story where the protagonist wins in spite of, or even because of, their vices.

We can contrast this with a tragedy:

A story where the protagonist loses in spite of, or even because of, their virtues.

The ur-novel of the modern West is also the ur-comedy of the modern West: Don Quixote. The protagonist, Alonso Quixano, is a fifty year old low level noble who is married and lives a comfortable life for the time. He decides to drop everything, call himself Don Quixote and go off on a grand adventure as a knight-errant. I hope it’s not a spoiler alert to say that Quixano “wins” in the end. Despite his vice – insanity – he makes it home safe and sound. What’s important to note is that Quixano has not evolved in any way. At the end of the story he is right back where he started and, although he renounces his previous actions, this is more of a social commentary on the part of Cervantes than a great revelation for the character.

Given that comedy is the genre where the protagonist wins in spite of their faults, it makes sense that the protagonist does not evolve. They have no need to. When things go well in life, we tend not to learn much. It’s mostly through pain and suffering that lessons get learned. This is one of the reasons why protagonists in comedy stories tend to finish where they started.

We see a similar pattern in what I consider to be the greatest comedic novels in the English language: the Jeeves books by P G Wodehouse. The protagonist, Bertie Wooster, is as clueless as Quixote. He is an inversion of the stereotypical English gentleman of the 1800s. Not for Bertie the gallant adventures of a Richard Francis Burton or squandering the family fortune on coke and hookers (I guess it was opium and hookers at that time) like many other young “gentlemen” of the age. Bertie is a wealthy man in his early twenties who could be playing the field, travelling or involved in affairs of state. Instead, he is wound up in trifling domestic disputes that get blown out of proportion through his own bungling. Fortunately, his trusty butler, Jeeves, is there to save the day. Jeeves must solve the problem while keeping the solution secret from Bertie who will only mess things up if he gets involved.

Like Quixote, what is going on in Bertie’s mind and what is actually happening in the real world are very different things and this drives the comedy in both books. There is nothing for Bertie to learn because he completely misunderstands what is going on. Because he doesn’t learn anything, he doesn’t evolve either. Again, we find that the protagonist in the comedy stays the same. The formula is neatly summed up in a line from another great comedy, The Big Lebowski: the Dude abides.

There is something else going on in Quixote and the Jeeves books that I think is interesting and relevant to larger social issues at the moment. Both Quixote and Bertie Wooster are anachronisms. Quixote has been reading too many old books and got himself riled up over a mythology about knights errant that was out of date even at that time. Wooster is an English gentleman of the old school at the time when that stereotype was fast going out of date and would be completely extinct after WW2. The fact that both characters are anachronisms is part of their charm. Both men are not just unwilling to conform to social expectations, they are completely unaware of them. The result is that they are not fitted for their world and must continually be rescued giving both of them an eternal childlike quality; two grown men who still believe in fairy tales. Another way to think about it is that they are out there in the real world acting as if the ideal in their mind were true and consistently ignoring all the feedback that it is not. This is in contrast to most of us who give up on whatever ideals we had in order to get by in society. There are strong parallels with Christ which Dostoevsky captured quite precisely in his fittingly-titled book, The Idiot.

What happens when we apply a standard comedic technique and invert this configuration? Instead of individuals who are running on an outdated social script, we make society the one which is running on an outdated social script. Then we change the individual from an idealist into a realist. Now it’s society forcing the individual to conform to an outdated, often absurd social script. This is still a source for comedy. I’m reminded of the Seinfeld episode where George is forced to eat a poisoned pie by his co-workers: “If you’re one of us, you’ll take a bite.” It’s also an excellent description of where our society is at right now. On a daily basis, we are expected to believe all kinds of outright nonsense; to eat all kinds of poisoned pie. The process was in place before corona and has only gone into hyperdrive since.

As I’m sure Ugo would agree, we are coming to the end of the line of our current social arrangements. The story could be a tragedy and there are plenty of people who want to view it as such. That is the driver of many of the apocalypse fantasies that float around these days. There are a lot of people who want to heroically go down with the ship. However, societies, like most things in nature, operate in cycles. The end of one cycle is also the beginning of another. So, another way to think about where we are right now is the beginning of a new cycle. That is where the protagonist of the comedy, the Fool, comes into the picture.

It is not without good reason that the Fool card is the first in the tarot deck. It symbolises among other things the beginning of a journey. Quixote was a fool. So was Bertie Wooster. We are all now fools in that we belong to a society running on an outdated script. We must search for a new script but this mission is also foolish. We can expect many failures so we’ll need our Sancho Panza to keep our spirits up and our Jeeves to keep us from our worst mistakes. Like Quixote, we have to metaphorically leave our comfortable home where everything is still functioning more or less and go out into the world looking for adventure. We have to do that knowing full well that most of what we try won’t succeed but with the fool’s assurance that it will be alright in the end and if it’s not alright, it’s not the end.

My Answer to Simon Sheridan

Interesting discussion, Simon. For some miracle, we find ourselves discussing about literature as if we were still living in the 1950s, the last great period of Western literature. Then, everything went down the drain, unfortunately. Or perhaps it was written in sympathetic ink on all the book covers of all novels. I discuss this point in a previous post of mine https://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2015/01/where-have-our-dreams-gone-death-of.html

Anyway, yes, you have an excellent point: comedy is a different genre than tragedy, and your novel falls straight in the former category. I must say that I have a personal penchant for the latter. As an example, I never liked the “Quixote” — I read it, but it seemed to me completely pointless. Jorge Luis Borges (whom I immensely admire) criticized it in the same way I could have criticized it: the protagonist goes through the story experiencing all sorts of disasters, never learning anything from them!

But I also understand your point on how the Quixote needs to be read as a piece of societal criticism, just like your novel does. Here, we go into a fundamental point: societies are all based on stories. For a certain time, our society (broadly defined as the “Western” one, including the USSR) expressed its story lines in the form of novels. And novels could be a powerful force for social change, think of “The Catcher in the rye” Or of “The Gulag Archipelago”And now?

We seem to have run out of stories, but I think we just ran out of a certain format of stories. We are still telling stories to each other but in a much more compact form — they have become the memes that move through the internet. In large part, they are generated by governments as propaganda. Think of the epic story of the “Weapons of Mass Destruction” in Iraq! It was a complete saga, including heroes battling and defeating a dragon called “Saddam.” Then, there were no WMDs, but who ever saw the treasure that the dragon Fafnir was said to keep in its cave? Nothing new, here, after all, the “Aeneid” that we rightly consider as a masterpiece of literature, was commissioned to Virgil by Octavianus as a piece of propaganda for his imperial rule.

And we move along. We’ll never stop dreaming, our dreams are our life.

The Order of the Secret Chiefs

 

What sense does it make to write a novel in the 21st century? As tools for expressing ideas, novel lost their usefulness at some moment during the second half of the 20th century, and from then on they were no more an art form of much significance. Maybe it was the TV, maybe the decline of literacy, maybe something else. Whatever it was, it had to happen because it happened.

Yet, it is still possible to write novels. I have been exploring a few modern attempts to do just that and the results are usually dismaying. Mostly, recent novels are hopelessly amateurish, some are so convoluted that only their authors can understand what they wanted to say. 

So, I read this novel by Simon Sheridan, Australian writer who blogs at http://simonsheridan.me/. I had been reading his post on the Covid epidemics and I was impressed by his capability of dissecting the myths surrounding the story. I also read his book "The Devouring Mother," also dedicated to the epidemics.  Sheridan is not a professional psychologist, but he has clearly delved in depth into Jungian psychology and myth examination. 

How about this book, "The Order of the Secret Chiefs?" Well, unlike most modern novels, it is clearly the work of a professional writer. Sheridan writes of himself that: 

I mostly write comedy and have a particular love of farce: tall stories with outrageous plots told in a realist style. My books are snappy and irreverent featuring everyday characters doing distinctly non-everyday things.

This paragraph describes well the "Secret Chiefs" novel. It is indeed snappy and irreverent. It moves fast in a realistic -- although wildly exaggerated modern world. The characters are clearly described, the dialog is fast-paced, and the story is full of quirks and showdowns. Professional, by all means, obviously influenced by modern screenplay writing. You can almost see in front of your eyes the movie that the novel could become. 

Then, as most modern fiction, Sheridan's novel has the defect of being somewhat shallow. A novel has this enormous advantage over a visual technique such as movies, that it can tell the story from different angles and in a depth that a movie can never reach. But this novel is mostly a movie or a comedy script, almost ready to be set on stage. 

The result is that characters behave as you would expect them to behave, but you never get more than a glimpse of what makes them move the way they do. The protagonist, the focal point of the story and the narrative "eye" is Adam Sampson, someone clearly looking for something, but he doesn't know what. And the readers don't either. The same is for the female counterpart of the protagonist, the Russian girl called Natashya. Sort of a femme fatale, surely sexy, but we never understand what she really wants or what she is trying to accomplish. 

By far the most lovely and endearing character is the smart and quick-witted Mrs. Mitchell, who enjoys playing the role of the Russian babushka, supposed to be Natashya's grandmother, without being Russian and without speaking a single word of Russian except "Nyet." Mrs. Mitchell is the only character that evolves, at least a little, as the story goes on. The other characters remain static. At the end, they are exactly what they were at the beginning. 

So, you arrive to the end of the novel with the feeling to have gone for a ride on the roller coaster of an amusement park. It was fun, sure, but what was the point? With the remarkable insight that Sheridan has, he probably understands that his novel mirrors our world: lots of noise and movement but, in the end, nothing changes. And so it goes. 

The Matriarch: A story told by a whale

A Story by Ugo Bardi


- Matriarch, Matriarch, where have you been? 

- We were searching for you! 

- Matriarch, are you there?

- Oh, children, where do you think I would go, as old as I am? I was just here, as I do all the time.

- Matriarch, we are glad that we found you
- Matriarch, we are coming from the edge of the great ocean.
- Matriarch, listen to us! Strange things are happening
- Matriarch, things never seen before!

- Children, children, I see that you are swimming so fast around me that you look like little fish. You make me feel confused. Calm down, children, what is that you want to tell me?

- Matriarch, the two-tails!...
- The two tails, matriarch! Something is happening to them....

- Children, calm down. What's happening to the two-tails? Tell me.

- They are dying matriarch!

- Many of them, they are all dying!

- Children, everything alive must die, sooner or later. But tell me more. What's happening?

- Matriarch, we were close to the edge of the water.
- Yes to the place where the great ocean fades.
- To the place where it becomes the-bottom-that's-out-of-the-water.

- You know you should not go there, children. It is dangerous!

- Matriarch, we know that.
- Matriarch, we are sorry, but.....
- You see, Matriarch, the black and white people told us about what was happening.

- The black and white people? What did they tell you?

- You know the black and white people, Matriarch. You know that they are strong.
- They can swim all the way to the edge of the water.
- And even climb out of the water, a little.

- I know, children. The black and white people are not so big as we are. But they are strong and powerful, and they can climb out of the water, a little. But that doesn't mean you should try to do that.

- Matriarch, we didn't try to do that.
- We didn't climb out of the water.
- There was no need to do that.
- We saw them in the water!

-  Whom did you see, children?

- The Two-Tails, matriarch. So many of them!

- Were they swimming in the water?

- No, Matriarch, they were not swimming.
- They were still, they were not swimming.
- They were dead, matriarch. So many of them. 
- So much blood, Matriarch, so much blood in the water.
- Matriarch, we had never seen anything like that.

- Is that true, children?

- Matriarch, it is true. So many of them!
- Yes. We had seen the two-tails swimming, sometimes.
- But never so many of them in the water!
- And, Matriarch, you can't believe, the big mouths. 
- Yes, the big mouths, Matriarch, they were all there!
- What a feast for them, Matriarch! 

- Oh, Children, what a sad story is this? The big mouths were eating the two-tails?

- Yes, Matriarch, you know that the big mouths eat everything.
- They eat fish and whales, and they even eat the two tails, when they can.
- The black and white people never do this. 

- I know that, children. The black and white people say that they have a pact with the two-tails. That they don't eat them, and so the two tails don't chase them.

- Matriarch, this we know. We know that the two-tails are strange.
- And that they kill us, they have those strange teeth that they can throw at us.
- Yes, they throw teeth at us from their floats. 
- Their floats are big. And they kill us. 
- We were not sorry to see so many two-tails dead in the water. Eaten by the big mouths.

- Children, children, you should not be happy to see any creature die. That's not the way of the Goddess of the sea.

- We know, Matriarch, we know. 
- Still, we couldn't feel sorry for the two-tails.
- But we felt worried. What we saw troubled us.
- The black and white people have big eyes. Good eyes. They told us that they could see even more two tails dead on the bottom-that's-out-of-the water.  
- Matriarch, we are troubled, because we had never seen so much death in the water,
- Matriarch, you know many things. What could have happened to the two tails? Can you tell us?

- Children, it is a strange story that you are telling me. And I am sorry to hear that so many two-tails have died because I cannot rejoice at the death of living creatures. But perhaps I know more than others of the people of the sea about them, because I am an old whale and you call me the matriarch, and there has to be a reason for that. And maybe I can tell you a story about the two-tails and maybe we can learn something from this story, both you and me.

- And so, children, you know that long ago there were many more whales in the sea than now. And many more fish, and many more sea creatures of all kinds. And some old whales are so old that they remember that time, even though many of the old ones of those times are not anymore with us, they are with the old ghosts at the bottom of the sea, where all of us must go. There are old stories that say that, in the old, old times, nobody ever had seen a two-tails in the sea, or maybe yes, just a few of them, because they can't swim so well even though they have two tails. They move their two tails in a strange way, making a lot of noise and yet they don't move fast. But that was how things were long, long ago.

- And then things changed, and those things we call floats started to appear. And it took some time for us to understand that those floats carried the two tails on top of them. Then, the two-tails started throwing their teeth at us. They had those teeth that were long and sharp. And many of us died, oh, so many! But you know this story, children, you heard it many times.

- We know this story, Matriarch, but who are the two-tails?  
- Why do they throw their teeth at us?
- Why do they kill us?

- This I cannot say for sure children, but maybe the two-tails eat us, and that would be according to the way things are in the world because it is the law of the sea that the big creatures eat the small creatures. But I can't understand how the two-tails killed so many of us and of other creatures of the sea that they nearly emptied the sea of living creatures. There are so few of us left and that's not a good thing, not even for the two-tails themselves. And maybe that the two-tails would never learn the ways of the Goddess of the sea.

- Children, what you told me made me think of something. And I have story about the two-tails to tell you, a story that I didn't tell many other whales and I think those whom I told it are now staying with the other ghosts at the bottom, and so I think you didn't hear it and you would like to hear it.

- Matriarch, you never told us this story. 
- Yes, Matriarch, we would love to hear it.
- Matriarch tell us this story!

-  Oh, it was some time ago, indeed. And, you see, I was young at that time, way younger than I am now and nobody called me Matriarch. And I was young enough that I liked to explore. And sometimes I went close to the end of the water. Maybe a little too close to be safe, but I was young and I loved to eat because I had to grow. So, I found a place where fish were truly abundant and it was at the end of a narrow body of water, a sort of a channel. Not so narrow that I couldn't swim in it, but I would wait at the end of it and wait for the fish to arrive. Plenty of fish for a young whale as I was.

- I went there often, and I learned when it was a good moment to find plenty of good fish. It had something to do with the Big White Circle in the sky, and the little fish would swim in an out of that channel when the Big White waxed. And so I knew when to go and I think the two-tails knew about me because some of them they would collect on the edge of the water and look at me. And I saluted them with my fin, and I splashed my tail. I thought it was a good thing to do, but maybe I shouldn't have done that. 

- And that went on for some time, and I had a good time with those fish and I put up some fat. And then, I think I grew a little too bold. I kept following the fish and I found myself swimming inside the channel, following them. It was a little narrow, and didn't feel so comfortable, but I thought there was nothing wrong in doing that. But, you know, children, that sometimes it is easy to get confused with our sounds. And that happens when you are close to the bottom-that-has-no-water. I think I had gotten too close to there.

- So, I was hearing my sounds coming back to me, but I couldn't find any direction where I could go. I got confused, I started swimming in circles. And in whatever direction I went, I got my sounds back, telling me that I couldn't go in that direction.

- That must have been terrible Matriarch
- You couldn't find the way to the open sea anymore?
- You could have died on the bottom-that-has-no-water, Matriarch

- Yes, children, this is why you should never get too close to the bottom-that-has-no-water. You know that sometimes one of us gets too close and then they can't get back to where they can swim. And I think it must be terrible, because you die away from the bottom of the ocean and your ghost can't join the ghosts of the ancestors, there. But that didn't happen to me. Of course not, because I am here!

- Yes, Matriarch, but did you find your way out of that narrow channel? 
- How did you do that?
- Tell us, Matriarch!

- Children, I told you that this story has to do with the two-tails, so let me keep going. And I told you that I was swimming in circles. And, I prayed the Goddess that she could help me and, at that moment I heard the sound of a float coming. Yes, one of the floats that carries the two-tails.

- I had always been careful to stay away from those floats as much as I could but it was coming straight toward me and I had no place to escape. And the float was coming. Then, children, the float got so close to me that I could see the head of a two-tails looking down at me. You know, they have those small heads that they can move in different directions. And they have those big eyes, looking forward all the time. I wonder how they can understand what happens around them if they can look only forward, but that's not for me to say.

- I had never seen a two-tails so close. They have a strange mouth, and this two-tails opened it up a little to show me her teeth. And I say her because I had this distinct sensation that this two-tails was female. Yes, a female two-tails - I am not sure of how I could say that, but I was sure of that. I didn't know what they mean when they show their teeth just a little, but it didn't seem to me that she wanted to bite me. Surely they are not like the big-mouths that eat anything. I wonder how the two-tails can eat enough to survive: one of us won't last a day with such a small mouth. But it seemed to me that the teeth she was showing to me was a friendly gesture. In some way, she wanted to tell me that she was not going to bite me, you see? It is like what we do something among friends when we pretend to hit them full force with the tail.

- So, this female two-tails spoke to me. Yes, I say that she spoke to me and we were so close that I could hear her, not so well, but I could hear her. Of course, none of us understands the language of the two-tails, but I was sure that whatever she was telling me, it was something said in kindness. And she leaned over the edge of her float and with one of her front fins, she touched me.

- Really, Matriarch?
- Did a two-tails speak to you?
- And a female two-tails?
- And she touched you?
- This is amazing, Matriarch!

- Yes, children, it was amazing. But what happened afterward was even more amazing. She went back inside her float and the float restarted making that throbbing noise, but slowly, and the float started moving. And she was moving her front fins in some ways as if she wanted to tell me something and I thought I understood what she was telling me. So, I started swimming close to the float, very close to it, and the female two-tails was looking at me and showing me her teeth. I think that the Goddess had really sent her. 

- Oh, that I was afraid, but I kept going, and I never moved too far away from that small float. And, truly, at a certain moment we were so close to the bottom that I felt it scraping my belly and I was afraid that I would be stuck there, and die there, and never see the land of the ancestors, at the bottom of the ocean. But that didn't happen. The bottom receded from me and I kept following the float and I saw we were in another channel, different than the one I had entered before. And on we went, until we were in the open ocean and I could swim free! And I swam away, but before doing that, I saluted the two-tails with my front fin, and she did the same with her front fin. And also the float turned around and went back toward the bottom-that-has-no-water.

- So, this two-tails saved you, Matriarch!
- That's amazing, truly. 
- The two-tails can be friends of the people of the sea?
- We can't believe that, Matriarch!

- Oh, children, there is more. There is more that you may not believe. I met again that female two-tails! Yes, I met her many more times. She would come out with her small float and I would find her and she would find me. We did it at night, usually, I think we both understood that if other two-tails were to see me, maybe they would try to kill me. It was strange, I never met a whale who would tell me having done something like that, becoming friend of a two-tails. But I would get close to the float, she would touch me with one of her front fins, and I would do the same with one of my front fins. I had to be careful, of course, she was so small! I didn't want to hurt her. Sometimes I was so happy to see her, that I splashed too close to her boat and I almost had it sinking. You know, when they sink the floats of the two-tails can't re-emerge. They go to the bottom and die.

- So, I got used to this two-tails, to that strange head of hers: those eyes always fixed forward, I have been always wondering how they see the world. They must miss so many things happening around them. With those small heads, how can they hear the sounds of the ocean? But that was how she was, and maybe she thought that I was strange, too. You see, we always tried to talk to each other, but we never could understand each other. All what we could do was to sing song for each other. Yes, singing. I don't think the two-tails can hear our songs when they are over the surface, but she would jump into the water close to me, and then she could hear my songs. I am sure about that because, she listened so intently. Funny, she could change her skin before jumping into the water! Before, her skin was soft and pink. But in water her skin was darker and harder, a little like our skin.  And also her face, she changed her eyes from two into one, but it was still pointed forward. But, can you believe that I learned some songs from this two-tails?

- Matriarch, that's why other whales say that your song are a little strange.
- That you sing a little differently.
- Is it because you learned these songs from a two-tails?
- We almost can't believe that, but we believe you. 
- Matriarch, tell us more, what happened of that female two-tails?

- Ah, children, what can I say? It was a sad story. One day, I was waiting for the female two-tails in the place where we sang songs together. And she wasn't arriving. I waited a little, I thought there was nothing wrong with that. Then, suddenly, I heard a big noise. It was one of those large floats, those that kill us, you know, children, those that throw their teeth at us. 

- Matriarch, really?

- But that big float came in place of the small one of your friend?

- And they were trying to kill you?

- Yes. They tried to kill me. And I was foolish enough that I waited: I thought that the female two-tails who was my friend was riding that float. Only after that it was close, I understood. Fortunately, I was young and strong. And I swam faster than I had ever swam in my life. They shot one of their big teeth at me, and it barely missed me. I felt the tooth bouncing away from my back. I saved myself by getting close to the bottom-that-has-no-water, I knew that those big floats don't like to go there. But I had learned from the two-tails of the little float how swim in that region. So, I made it. Children, I had never been so scared in my life. Blessed the Goddess who saved me. 

- What a story, Matriarch!

- The goddess truly protected you, Matriarch

- But the two-tails on the small float? The female one?

- The one who sang songs with you?

- For many years I never swam again in that place. You know, I thought that she had betrayed me. That she had told to other two-tails where we were meeting, and that they had been looking for me just there. But of that I can't be sure. Maybe not. Maybe it was something different. Maybe they just had seen where she was going. Who can say? Maybe she had died on the bottom-that-has-no-water. The last time I saw her, she seemed sad, and she didn't want to swim with me. But how could I know? I can only say that later, much later, sometimes I returned to that place, and waited for my two-tails friend to return. But I never saw her again. Maybe she is still there, on the bottom-that-has-no-water. But I don't think so, because it was many years ago those two-tails are short lived. And so is life. It is a long life of us, the whales, and we keep learning many things. 

- Matriarch, we are sorry to hear this. 

- We would have loved to hear the songs that your two-tail friend sang

- That I am afraid won't happen, children. But, about those songs, there is something that I wanted to tell you. You see, I never could really speak to this two-tails friend of mine. But I learned some of her songs. And I understood something about her and about what she was thinking. You see, there was a certain sadness about her song. A sadness that at the beginning I couldn't understand, but that now I think I do. She seemed to be worried about the future, about something terrible that was going to happen to her. And not just to her. To all the two-tails. 

- Matriarch, she was right. 

- So many two-tails have died

- We saw so many of them dead

- Yes, children. I am afraid she was right. Something very bad happened to the two-tails. And I am saddened by that.  

- Matriarch, maybe we are not so sad

- Matriarch, it is what they deserved

- Matriarch, that may mean that they will stop killing us with their long teeth

- But, children, I cannot be happy of the death of any creature. Yet, perhaps it was something that had to happen. Because they never learned the way of the Goddess and that they should have been more careful with killing so many creatures in the great Oceans. And they killed so many creatures that maybe they started killing each other. How can I say? Maybe some of them are still alive and they now understand what they were doing that was so wrong. But life keeps going in the great ocean and in the great bottom-that-has-no-water. And it will keep going on for a long, long, time for us, the people of the sea, and for the two-tails as well, perhaps. 

- Blessed be the Goddess, Matriarch

- She gives life to everything, Matriarch

- This we know, Matriarch.

- And so be it, children. Now keep swimming and remember the story I told you. One day you'll tell it to your children and that's the way of the Goddess who gives life to everything!

The Mystery of Michelina, the Italian Brigantessa

 

The story of the Italian Brigands who fought the Piedmontese army in the 1860s is little known outside Italy and even in Italy it is being rediscovered only now. One of the protagonists of the Brigands' war was Michelina De Cesare ( (1841-1868) known as La Brigantessa (the brigand woman). Over the years, she became an icon of martyrdom for the independence of Southern Italy. But her story is somewhat of a mystery: many things said about her just do not fit together. Who was she, exactly?

If you are not familiar with Italian history, what you need to know about the Southern Brigands is that Italy was turned into a single state in 1860s, after a successful campaign of the Northern Kingdom of Piedmont against the Kingdom of Naples. It was quick and brutal and the King of Naples fled after a token resistance. Then, the remnants of the Neapolitan army were left without leaders. Some of them took to the woods, trying to continue the fight against the Piedmontese invaders. Their attempt was doomed from the beginning: they had no money, no support, no allies. But their resistance lasted for about ten years until it was quelled by a brutal repression, aided by a propaganda campaign that painted them as bandits and murderers. All normal things in history.

But the insurrection of the 1860s had a characteristic that made it special: it was one of the first wars in history for which we have a photographic record. It was not the first: this record goes to the Crimean war, about 10 years before. But, in Crimea, photographers still didn't know very well how to deal with chronicling a war. All we have are stiff and uninteresting photos of battlefields and people in uniform. Instead, in the 1860s, photographers had learned a lot and they were injecting drama and interest in their photos. 

So, we have hundreds of photos of the protagonists of that desperate war. All were taken from the Piedmontese side: as far as we know, the brigands had no photographers. But the Piedmontese photographers delighted in showing the brigands. There was a brisk market for these photos. After that the brigands were captured, they were given back their weapons (obviously not loaded) and then posed with their guns as if they were still fighting. You can see an example in this picture -- these men are clearly posing for the photographer. Sometimes, they were shot immediately after that the picture was taken. 

There was also a streak of necrophilia in these photos: photos of dead brigands were popular and, apparently, appreciated. You see here the photo of a Piedmontese "Bersagliere," who pulls up the head of a dead brigand for a better portrait. These pictures were printed as postcards and sent by the Piedmontese soldiers to their families. 

And then, there were the brigantesse. The women of the brigands sometimes just followed their men in the woods, and sometimes they fought themselves. Also in this case, the Northern photographers loved to pose these exotic ladies with their (unloaded) weapons. They were rarely executed after capture, but sometimes killed in battle. On the left, we have the photo of two of them, identified as Arcangela Cotugno and Elisabetta Blasucci. They are clearly posing after having been captured. A more realistic photo is this one of Maria Capitanio, said to have been taken just after she was captured. She is wearing male clothes and she is clearly shocked and in distress. 

Finally, there was Michelina de Cesare. She may have been a real brigantessa, but she looks like a fashion model. 

She wears a beautiful dress while carrying a shotgun (a "scupetta"), a revolver, and a dagger. She is clearly posing, showing an appropriately truculent expression. Somehow, she doesn't look like a real brigantessa. She is too perfect, she has too many weapons. But there is more: a picture of her in death. 

This image is sad enough in itself, but if you search on the Web, you can find the full picture of Michelina stripped naked after having been killed. But something is wrong, here. 

The army report that we have about the death of Michelina says that in 1868 she was found by a Piedmontese patrol while she was trying to hide in the woods with her husband, Francesco Guerra. He was immediately killed in the ensuing fight. She was wounded but she ran away, and was shot dead shortly afterwards by another Piedmontese patrol. The report does not say what happened of her body.

You see what is the problem, here. If she was killed in the woods, who took the pictures of her posing as a brigantessa? Were they taken before she was captured? But would Michelina leave her refuge in the wood to risk posing for a Piedmontese photographer? Could it be that she was killed much later after being captured, and that there was time to pose and photograph her? At least unlikely, because she was reported to have been wounded, and she doesn't look sick or wounded in the photos. And, finally, is the dead woman really the same woman who poses with her weapons in the pictures of Michelina? Could be, but it is impossible to say that with certainty. 

My personal impression from what I could read is that there really was a historical Michelina de Cesare who married the brigand Francesco Guerra and was killed with him in the woods in 1868. And the dead woman in the picture is really her -- stripped naked and humiliated after death. But the yielding woman of the pictures is not Michelina. She is just someone who vaguely looks like the dead woman of the picture and who was hired to pose as Michelina. Possibly, it was an attempt to hide something that would not have been good for the image of the Piedmontese government, despite the necrophiliac tastes of the Northern Italian public. Or, more simply, it was a scam to make a little money on the brisk market of brigand pictures. 

We will never know for sure. But, whatever it happened, Michelina de Cesare was a brave fighter who died for something she believed was true and just. And we can remember her in this way. There is even a modern song in honor of Michelina. Her memory deserves nothing less than that.

Kamehameha: the Good King of Hawai'i -- A Personal Recollection

King Kamehameha 1st of Hawai'i (1736 - 1819). Of him, these words are remembered: "E 'oni wale no 'oukou i ku'u pono 'a'ole e pau." "Endless is the good that I have given to you to enjoy."

It all happened in 1998, when my wife, Grazia, received a letter from Hilo, Hawai'i. It was a time when people still wrote letters on paper, put them into an envelope, and shipped them at the Post Office. But the Internet already existed and the reason for that letter was that somebody in Hilo had seen my wife's website -- at that time she was dealing with statuary for a Florentine art gallery. 

The story told in the letter was that in Hilo there was a statue of King Kamehameha that had been made in Italy and then shipped there some years before. But a tsunami had swept the place where the statue was kept, still inside its crate. Of course, the statue had suffered little damage and, some years later, in 1997, it had been erected in the seaside park of the town, thanks to the efforts of a local committee. The problem was that all the papers about it had been lost and nobody knew who had made it except, vaguely, that it came from Italy.

For Grazia, it was not a problem to reconstruct the story.  The statue was cast in Italy in 1993 on a model created by the Italian artist Romeo Sandrin. Here is his page, and here an image of him:

The correspondence between Grazia and the Hilo statuary committee led to a trip all the way to there for the two of us (In the meantime, I had also been invited to give a talk in a conference on electron spectroscopy in Maui). And so we went: possibly the longest trip we ever took since the Hawai'ian islands are more or less on the opposite side of Earth from Italy. Of that long plane trip I remember the sensation of being born on a plane, having lived most of my life on a plane, and having eaten plane food all of my life. But we arrived there, and we saw the statue: here it is!! King Kamehameha in Hilo as interpreted by Mr. Sandrin. 

We stayed in Hilo for a week, experiencing the traditional Hawai'ian hospitality, in many ways not unlike the Italian traditions. It was still a time when digital photos were not common, but perhaps it is best to avoid the deluge of imagery that's the rule nowadays. We took pictures, of course, but they must be buried somewhere in some box. It doesn't matter. In my mind, I remember a Hawai'ian friend placing a flower in my wife's hair and calling her "Hawai'ian maiden." Worth the whole trip.

The Statuary of King Kamehameha

(this text was written in 1998 and published in a blog that does not exist anymore. It is republished on "Chimeras" with some modifications.)

Kamehameha was born in secret and buried in secret. But the life he lived was one of courage, wisdom, and justice. It was he who brought together the separate island chiefdoms, uniting them into one Hawaiian kingdom. Under his leadership, the people lived a peaceful and productive life.

(from "Kamehameha the Great", by Julie Stewart Williams, 1992)

The only portrait we have of king Kamehameha of Hawai'i was painted by Louis Choris, the official artist of the Rurick, a Russian exploring ship that landed in Kailua, Kona in November 1816. Another, similar, portrait was made by the same artist that year. Both are presently at the Honolulu Academy of Art. But those portraits are not the way Kamehameha is normally represented. It is more like this: 

When Thomas Gould modeled the first Kamehameha statue, back in 1878, he made no attempt to portray the "real" Kamehameha. Rather, he produced an idealized figure of distinct Caucasian features. It may be that a truly Polynesian face could not fit the aesthetic ideals of Gould's times, or maybe Gould himself had mastered the Hawaiian concept of Aloha, and that therefore he considered that the actual race of the king was a matter of no importance. Be as it may, the subsequent replicas of the statue, although never exactly identical to the original, have maintained Caucasian features. Conversely, other artists felt that they could approach the subject in a freer manner, and attempted to show a more Hawai'ian Kamehameha.  

Gould was a "neo-classical" artist, and it is not surprising that he found inspiration in Greek/Roman stauary for his Kamehameha. The actual source is clearly the "Prima Porta" statue of Octavianus Augustus, the Roman Emperor who reigned from 27 BC to 14 AD. This statue is at present at the Vatican museum, in Rome, Italy and is an ancient marble copy of an earlier statue in bronze, cast perhaps in 25 AD. Gould must have selected this statue because the majestically cast figure of the Roman emperor seemed to him suitable for portraying the Hawaiian monarch, and also perhaps because of a certain similarity in the histories of Augustus and of Kamehameha. Both had a turbulent time at the beginning, but afterwards they reigned for a long time in peace. Gould reproduced the general features of the Roman statue, including the weapon held in the left hand to indicate that battles and wars are over. However, with a slight turning upwards of the right hand's palm, he changed Augustus gesture of command into a gentler one of gift giving, or receiving, in the true Hawaiian Aloha spirit.

The statue stands at present at Kamehameha's birthplace in Kohala, Hawai'i. It was cast in Italy in 1879 and erected in the early 1880s. The initial idea was to erect the statue in downtown Honolulu, but a strange turn of events caused it to be placed where it is now. Here is the story as described by A. Grove Day in his "Hawaii and its people" (1953)

When the statue was being modeled, the residents of Kohala argued that it should be erected in Kamehameha's homeland, rather than in Honolulu as the legislative act provided. "You will see," they predicted; "the statue will still come to Kohala". The statue was shipped on the German bark "G.F. Haendel" of Bremen in September, 1880. The ship caught fire and sank off the Falkland Islands at the tip of South America. The statue was salvaged by a junk dealer and set up for sale on the beach at Port Stanley, but it found no buyer until the "Earl of Dalhousie" touched there on its way to Honolulu with a shipload of Portuguese laborers. Captain Jarvis risked £ 100 of his money and bought the statue. When he arrived in Honolulu, he sold it to the government for £ 175. A replica had been bought with insurance money and set up in Honolulu, and so the original was erected in Kohala. Thus the king returned to his birthplace after all.

A replica of this statue was erected in erected in Ohau in 19th century is probably the best known of the statues of Kamehameha. It stands in front of Ali'iolani Hale in Honolulu. In 1969 another replica of was cast and placed in the National gallery in Washington. To date, Kamehameha is the only king to have been honored in this way. The statue was commissioned to the American artist Ortho Fairbanks and it was cast in Florence, Italy, by Aldo Marinelli, owner of Galleria Frilli (where my wife was working in 1998).

Gould's effort was a spectacular success. Even though, as we said, he made no attempt of an actual portrait, his statue has become the image of Kamehameha, one that even the casual tourist just landed in Honolulu can immediately recognize. This success is a tribute to Gould, and also to the unknown artist who modeled Augustus' statue two thousand years ago. However, whereas the Roman emperor looks a bit stiff and formal in his pose, the Hawaiian monarch is just perfectly at ease as he stands. The contrast of the shining clothes with the dark, muscular body creates a spectacular effect, and the king radiates a tremendous air of strength, power, and even a certain masculine sensuality. The figure with pointed hat, golden cloak, spear, and raised arm appears everywhere in Hawai'i as statues, portraits, stained glass windows, postal stamps, street signs, and T-shirts, almost as pervasively as Santa Claus in December in mainland US. Wherever they stand, the large bronze Kamehameha statues dominate the Hawaiian landscape and, in some respects, even the mind of the onlookers.

Our Land Shall not be Touched: The Brigand Song

 

Italians at their best: proud, defiant, and skilled singers (and handsome ladies, as well!). This song is titled "Brigante se More" (We die as brigands). It celebrates the unsuccessful resistance of the Neapolitan guerrilla fighters who tried to contrast the Northern Armies in the 1860s. Sung in the Neapolitan dialect, it was written by Eugenio Bennato in modern times, but following the rhythm and the meaning of ancient songs. It is a sad song that tells of desperate people who died for their land. They were not heroes, many of them were true bandits, some may have been true patriots: wars are never one-sided stories. We remember them as part of the human struggle against immense forces that always crush the weak and reward the strong, no matter who is right and who is wrong.

Musically, this is perhaps a better version. Also this one. Less spectacular singers, though.

 

Brigante se More

 

Amme pusate chitarre e tammure
Pecchè sta musica s'ha da cagnà
Simme brigant' e facimme paura
E ca sch'uppetta vulimme cantà
E ca sch'uppetta vulimme cantà

 

E mo cantam' 'sta nova canzone
Tutta la gente se l'ha da 'mparà
Nun ce ne fott' do' re Burbone
A terra è a nosta e nun s'ha da tuccà
(A terra è a nosta e nun s'ha da tuccà oh ah)

 

Tutt' e païse da Bas' l' cat'
Se so' scetat' e mo stann' a luttà
Pure a Calabbria mo s' è arravutat'
E 'stu nemic' o facimm' tremmà
(E 'stu nemic' o facimm' tremmà ah ah ah)

 

Chi ha vist' o lupo e s' è mise paur'
Nun sape buon qual'è 'a verità
O ver' lup' ca magn' e creatur'
È o piemuntese c'avimm' 'a caccià
(È o piemuntese c'avimm' 'a caccià eh ah)

 

Femm' na bell' ca rat' lu cor'
Se nu brigant' vulit' salvà
Nun u' cercat' scurdat'v' o nome
Chi ce fa a guerra nun tien' a pietà
(Chi ce fa a guerra nun tien' a pietà)

 

'Omm' s' nasc' brigant' s' mor'
Ma fin' all'utm' avimm' a sparà
E se murim' menat' nu fior'
È 'na bestemmia pe' 'sta libertà
(È' na bestemmia pe' 'sta libertà)

 

We dropped our guitars and our drums

Because this music needs to change

We are brigands and we scare people

And we want to sing with our shotgun 

And we want to sing with our shotgun

 

And now we sing this new song

Everyone needs to learn it

We don't give fuck of the Bourbon King

It is our land and nobody can touch it

It is our land and nobody can touch it

All the villages of Basilicata

Woke up and now are figthing

Even Calabria now is revolting

And our enemies tremble

And our enemies tremble

 

If you saw a wolf and you were scared

You don't know what the truth is

The true wolf eats children

It is the Piedmontese we must chase away

It is the Piedmontese we must chase away

 

Beutiful women who give us your heart

If you want to save a brigand

Try to forget his name

Those who fight us have no mercy

Those who fight us have no mercy

 

We are born men, we die brigands

But we continue shooting up to the last moment

And if we die, bring a flower

And a curse for this freedom

And a curse for this freedom

 

The Most Beautiful Poem Ever Written

 

“Only in silence the word,
Only in dark the light,
Only in dying life:
Bright the hawk's flight
On the empty sky.

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018)

Commenting on these five lines would only diminish their power. So, just read the poem and wonder for a moment how it could be that someone could write such a powerful thing. As a note, though, they are part of the creation of a whole world called "Earthsea." The power of creation mostly belongs to women, and Ursula Le Guin used it in full.  You can learn more about that here.