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truepennyFatsis, Stefan. Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive SCRABBLE Players. New York: Penguin, 2002.
Stewart, George R. Ordeal by Hunger: The Story of the Donner Party. 1936. 2nd ed. 1960. Lincoln, NB: Bison-University of Nebraska Press, 1986.
Word Freak is an enjoyable book. Not too deep, and I could do with a little less of Fatsis's "goggling at the sideshow freaks" attitude. Perhaps this is because I recognize a number of similarities between the subculture of competitive SCRABBLE and the subculture of science fiction pro-/fandom, and, yeah, the jokes get old. On the other hand, I do very much like the way he charts his own descent (or ascent, depending on how you want to look at it) from relatively ordinary journalist to SCRABBLE geek. He's not a geek at the start of the book (which makes it a little disconcerting to read, if you are a geek), but he is one by the end.
Ordeal by Hunger is, um. "Dated" is the kindest word I can think of. The naivete of Stewart's racism is almost charming--except for the part where it makes me want to throw the book across the room. He's also prone to sentimentality about the heroism of the men of the party and the pathos to be milked from the plight of the women and children, and I object to the explicit trivializing of the children's experiences and equally explicit privileging of the men's: "There is the story, for instance, of how little Eliza Donner cried herself to sleep that next night because Miller had promised her a piece of loaf sugar if she would walk a certain distance, and then had harshly told her that there was no sugar. And then how, the morning after, he would have beaten her because she would not walk, if Foster and Eddy had not peremptorily stopped him. But after all, this is only the pathos of childhood, not the tragedy of strong men in the struggle with death. And before we judge Miller too harshly, we must recall his heroism when on the night of the storm he labored with McCutcheon to keep the fire going. The man had been in the snow for nearly three weeks, and had been to the lake twice; if his nerves were frayed out, we may forgive him." (201). Eliza Donner was three years old and had been trapped in increasingly desperate, grotesque, and outright horrific situations for nearly six months. I can do the math, even if Stewart can't. Also, if we go by his own definition--"the tragedy of strong men in the struggle against death"--I think Eliza's mother, Tamsen Donner, deserves far more attention than he gives her. There's no excitement or romance to Tamsen Donner's heroism; Stewart is really not interested in the people who stayed in the camp by Truckee Lake, only in those who crossed the pass, and thus Tamsen Donner, who refused more than once to make the journey because she would not leave her dying husband, is mostly off his radar. And her death, mysterious and grotesque as it is--she survived everything only to die and be eaten by Keseberg (who very possibly murdered her) less than a month before he was taken out--seems to me every bit as tragic (if we must assign a valuation to such things) as that of Stanton, who made it safely to California twice and died because he came back to help the rest of the party.
But honestly, I object to the imposition of narrative values onto history. Making it into a story--particularly making it into the story of "strong men in the struggle against death"--obscures the truth. Eighty-seven people were trapped on the wrong side of the pass. Forty-two of them (by my count) were children under 18 (and thirty of those forty-two were under 12), and one of the most dreadful aspects of the situation is what happened to those children as their parents either died or left them behind--or in the case of the little Donner girls, tried to send them ahead. Neglect and starvation were the best they could hope for without their parents' protection (and at least one parent turned against her own child before she herself died), and some of them didn't even get that much, such as Harriet McCutchen, age 1:
And notice the way Stewart dehumanizes Harriet McCutchen (he never calls her by name except in the roster of the Donner Party appended on pp. 291-2, behind both his narrative and the primary documents). He applies Victorian sentimentality to children where he can; where he can't, he treats them as almost sub-sentient. Unimportant.
And, yes, many of these problems are due to this being a book written in 1936, and, yes, I will be looking for more recent scholarly work. But this is a good object lesson in the distortions created by the insistence on creating a narrative out of history, especially a narrative with value-judgments inherent in its structure, and in the distortions created by the patriarchal bias that says Men Are Important. I don't for a moment deny that the men's experience is as important as the women's or as important as the children's. I just deny that some animals are more equal than others.
Stewart, George R. Ordeal by Hunger: The Story of the Donner Party. 1936. 2nd ed. 1960. Lincoln, NB: Bison-University of Nebraska Press, 1986.
Word Freak is an enjoyable book. Not too deep, and I could do with a little less of Fatsis's "goggling at the sideshow freaks" attitude. Perhaps this is because I recognize a number of similarities between the subculture of competitive SCRABBLE and the subculture of science fiction pro-/fandom, and, yeah, the jokes get old. On the other hand, I do very much like the way he charts his own descent (or ascent, depending on how you want to look at it) from relatively ordinary journalist to SCRABBLE geek. He's not a geek at the start of the book (which makes it a little disconcerting to read, if you are a geek), but he is one by the end.
Ordeal by Hunger is, um. "Dated" is the kindest word I can think of. The naivete of Stewart's racism is almost charming--except for the part where it makes me want to throw the book across the room. He's also prone to sentimentality about the heroism of the men of the party and the pathos to be milked from the plight of the women and children, and I object to the explicit trivializing of the children's experiences and equally explicit privileging of the men's: "There is the story, for instance, of how little Eliza Donner cried herself to sleep that next night because Miller had promised her a piece of loaf sugar if she would walk a certain distance, and then had harshly told her that there was no sugar. And then how, the morning after, he would have beaten her because she would not walk, if Foster and Eddy had not peremptorily stopped him. But after all, this is only the pathos of childhood, not the tragedy of strong men in the struggle with death. And before we judge Miller too harshly, we must recall his heroism when on the night of the storm he labored with McCutcheon to keep the fire going. The man had been in the snow for nearly three weeks, and had been to the lake twice; if his nerves were frayed out, we may forgive him." (201). Eliza Donner was three years old and had been trapped in increasingly desperate, grotesque, and outright horrific situations for nearly six months. I can do the math, even if Stewart can't. Also, if we go by his own definition--"the tragedy of strong men in the struggle against death"--I think Eliza's mother, Tamsen Donner, deserves far more attention than he gives her. There's no excitement or romance to Tamsen Donner's heroism; Stewart is really not interested in the people who stayed in the camp by Truckee Lake, only in those who crossed the pass, and thus Tamsen Donner, who refused more than once to make the journey because she would not leave her dying husband, is mostly off his radar. And her death, mysterious and grotesque as it is--she survived everything only to die and be eaten by Keseberg (who very possibly murdered her) less than a month before he was taken out--seems to me every bit as tragic (if we must assign a valuation to such things) as that of Stanton, who made it safely to California twice and died because he came back to help the rest of the party.
But honestly, I object to the imposition of narrative values onto history. Making it into a story--particularly making it into the story of "strong men in the struggle against death"--obscures the truth. Eighty-seven people were trapped on the wrong side of the pass. Forty-two of them (by my count) were children under 18 (and thirty of those forty-two were under 12), and one of the most dreadful aspects of the situation is what happened to those children as their parents either died or left them behind--or in the case of the little Donner girls, tried to send them ahead. Neglect and starvation were the best they could hope for without their parents' protection (and at least one parent turned against her own child before she herself died), and some of them didn't even get that much, such as Harriet McCutchen, age 1:
Seared into her [Patty Reed's] memory was the plight of the McCutchen baby, after its mother had departed with the snowshoers: 'When the lice (pardon me, sir) were literally eating it up alive. It had scratched, broken the skin over its little bones.'
The adults in the cabin, apparently recognizing the child's fate, but with euthanasia not part of their philosophy, tied its hands down so that it could no longer scratch, and let it cry until the crying ceased.
(244)
And notice the way Stewart dehumanizes Harriet McCutchen (he never calls her by name except in the roster of the Donner Party appended on pp. 291-2, behind both his narrative and the primary documents). He applies Victorian sentimentality to children where he can; where he can't, he treats them as almost sub-sentient. Unimportant.
And, yes, many of these problems are due to this being a book written in 1936, and, yes, I will be looking for more recent scholarly work. But this is a good object lesson in the distortions created by the insistence on creating a narrative out of history, especially a narrative with value-judgments inherent in its structure, and in the distortions created by the patriarchal bias that says Men Are Important. I don't for a moment deny that the men's experience is as important as the women's or as important as the children's. I just deny that some animals are more equal than others.
