Undaunted Courage--Stephen Ambrose

I pondered briefly giving this 4 stars, rather than 5, because of how long it took me to get through it.  But then I realized it took so long because of its amazing thoroughness.  Every single thing--every mile of the trip, every nuance of the time, every Native tribe they encountered, every possible outlook of every important decision that Lewis and Clark (and Thomas Jefferson) made--was given quick but thorough room in this book.  I understand the time, and Thomas Jefferson, better than I had before.  It is a brilliant book of a different time, an era that we will never revisit.  It is a miracle that every man but one of the Corps of Discovery returned from this three-year adventure.

The last few pages are a vastly different chronicle of a man who was perhaps the victim of Thomas Jefferson's biggest political mistake--the appointment of Meriwether Lewis as Governor of the Louisiana Territory, a position for which Lewis was horrifically, and very obviously, unsuited.  He would have been better off sent on another expedition, or given a job at the famous Philadelphia museums of the time, chronicling his discoveries and getting his journals published.  It took him over a year to even get to Louisiana after he was appointed Governor of the Territory.  He went insane there--instances of emotional and mental imbalances occurred throughout his life, but seemed to oddly disappear while exploring the Territory.  Possibly he had advanced malaria.  Medications he took for that may have reacted badly with the alcohol and other drugs he heavily consumed.  He seemed rather like Poe when he drank--some sort of reaction besides basic drunkenness apparently occurred.  Then he committed suicide in bizarre fashion, just a couple of years after his return from the expedition--with the journals still on him.  One of the greatest mysteries of the time is why this man, who was willing to give his life for the journals while in the Territory, and who was desperate for money after his return, never really even tried to have his journals published.  The publication would have brought him even more riches and fame than he had received upon his return.

A mystery of a very mysterious man.  And so the book is heavily recommended, but beware that it is a breathtakingly thorough work that will take some time to get through.  It will be well worth it.

We're All Characters for Someone Else's Fiction

Photo: Grave of Wilkie Collins, from his Wikipedia page.


As I read books of real-life people from the past--both non-fiction and historical fiction--I've been wondering lately how the descendents of these real-life characters feel about how they're being portrayed.  For example:

--In Undaunted Courage, Meriwether Lewis is depicted as a manic-depressive, or, at best, a sometimes-unreliable depressive and melancholic.  This is as of page 300 or so.  I know that later the book will tackle his really violent suicide, and I know that the author, Stephen Ambrose, will go into greater detail about how Thomas Jefferson wrote about Lewis' manic depression; about how his father and other family members suffered from it, and showed characteristics of it; about how Lewis tended to shun socializing, sometimes, but at other times was a manic socializer; and about how his moods, frankly, ran the gamut from A to B in just a few days.  As great an outdoorsman as he was, he is depicted as, honestly, a bit of a nut when he wasn't exploring.  He was uncontrollably impulsive in everything--especially financial and emotional--when he wasn't exploring; when he was exploring, he was as meticulous and reliable and thorough--and brilliant--as one can be.  Very resourceful when in the middle of the Missouri River, or the Rocky Mountains, but he often couldn't function normally in the middle of society.

How could his descendents, if any, be taking this?  Isn't it absurd, in a way, that we must bear a thought not only of how we are to be perceived in our own lifetime, but also hundreds of years afterwards?  His outrageous suicide will be described for all the world to see.  The most personal, in some ways, of all acts, will be the least personal thing about him when the book is fully read.  And before we say that we are not as famous as he, and so don't have to worry, I should point out that his exploring companions are also mentioned by name.  More than one was a deserter (It was considered an army expedition, so they were technically AWOL, brought up on charges and put on trial by Lewis and Clarke, etc.)  They drank too much; got lusty for the female Native Americans; were at times cowardly; at others, gossipy.  You get the idea.  All for the world to see, including their descendents.  And they are important to no one in the literary world outside of Stephen Ambrose.  Yet, on this expedition, we know all about them.

In Dan Simmons' Drood, we learn that Dickens and Wilkie Collins unabashedly cheated on their wives all the time.  Dickens lusted after a girl younger than half his age; Collins is constantly described as piggish, and overweight, and full of himself, and he lusted after everyone, especially widows and prostitutes.  He says he had a light meal, and that meal is described as a feast for five or more--but it was "a light meal" to him.  So he was overweight and didn't seem to know it.  He was unreliable in terms of his own character, and his own weight.  All this took place just 140 years ago; there's surely someone of his lineage alive today.  What could they be thinking?  And who's Wilkie Collins outside of literary enthusiasts today?  The Moonstone, anyone? 

I looked up all of the things these two were said to have done in the real world, and it's all true.  Their characterizations are not made up for the sake of selling copies.  I take a little umbrage against this today because it already seems as if nothing is ever private anymore.  Someone can type something bad about you, and post it, and it's on the internet forever.  Numbers we call, people we email, sites we go on--everything has an electronic trail and is forever if it's electronic.  (Detectives call it our electronic fingerprint, just as we have an environmental fingerprint in terms of the energy we use, and a consumer or economic fingerprint in terms of the goods that we purchase and/or consume.)

We are all characters for someone else's fiction--now, and 140 years from now.  That's always been the case--"All the world's a stage," after all, and Shakespeare said that circa 1600, over 410 years ago--but that has never seemed more the case than it is today.

My gorge rises at it.  Though I myself have never done anything so wrong to worry about it, we're all far from perfect, and it's the point of the thing.  That's my biggest misgiving of historical fiction and nonfiction: Even the best-written of them contain elements of the unforgiveably slanderous "unauthorized" biographies.

Two Books and A Rejection

A few quick things about what I'm reading:

Undaunted Courage

It is amazing what these guys could do in the outdoors.  Make cabins, make canoes, hike thousands of miles, ride the rapids, cross the Rocky Mountains and the Bitterroot Mountains, make peace with the Native Americans they found, document every new species of animal and plant, coordinate their location by the stars, write all this in their journals, kill all their food, skin and cook all their food, cure the sick and injured--and face their fears of the unknown.  All of this, for years.  Away from their families and friends.  Despite all this, Meriwether Lewis, after conquering all of these obstacles, after camping on the Pacific, took a look at his life and didn't like what he saw.  Said he hadn't accomplished enough, done enough for the general good.  Considered himself a failure.  (Stephen Ambrose, the dedicated author, concludes that Lewis had been a manic-depressive.)  I cannot imagine this; I'm proud of myself when I walk a few blocks with my greyhound.  There probably aren't a hundred people in the country today who could do what Lewis and Clark and their men did.  I'm almost 300 pages in.

Drood

Author Dan Simmons has created an already-moody (after just 30 pages) telling of the last few years of Charles Dickens' life, as told to us in an unpublished document penned by contemporary author (and still known amongst English majors) Wilkie Collins.  Very atmospheric, and shockingly good writing.  A very memorable scene in the beginning: It's well-known that Dickens was in a train wreck five years or so before he died, and that his much-younger mistress and her mother--and not his wife--were with him on the train.  He got out of the carnage mostly unscathed--although headaches, backaches, and what we know now are PTSD-related symptoms dogged him the rest of his life--but the people he saw and tended to would remain with him, buried undead in his psyche, until he died.  The description of these people, and their severed arms, sliced-open heads, fractured skulls--and the mysterious Drood (who could've whispered his name as "Dread"), who was but a shadow with a long black cape, two slits in a skull that passed as his nose, and razor-sharp little teeth--was extremely well-done and clearly in my head as I type this.  It is this writing, this atmosphere, and this narrative sophistication that helped this novel sell well and become Dan Simmons' breakout work.  (Though his previous, The Terror, also garnered great reviews.)

I recommend both of these books highly.  I usually read one non-fiction and one fiction work at the same time.  You're not always in the mood to read just one type all the time, right?

Upon my research today, I came upon these two tidbits from two separate agents' websites:

--Query with SASE...No snail mail.
--Prefers to read material exclusively...Only responds if interested.

And I received the shortest rejection ever just under an hour ago: "Not for me--thanks anyway."