Hungry, and Proud of It
By Dougy Big Gulp
These
stories have no socially redeeming virtues. No social conscience, that is. They
are simply tales of blind and hungry beggars who made good. You get hungry
beggars and blind beggars in all the great literature. The work with
Scheherazade in it, for instance. A
Thousand and One Nights. Great Expectations. Yes, I think of Magwich as a
beggar, don’t you? He catches Pip, tips him upside down until the boy sees the
steeple and sky underneath themselves, and then sends him home with dire
warnings to bring him “wittals.” He’s so hungry, is why, of course. He’s not mean.
He makes good in the end, but he wasn’t blind, was he? And, in “The Pardoner’s
Tale,” you’ve got the Pardoner who gets rich by his begging. None of them are
blind. In Treasure Island, though,
the beggar, if he can be called that since he’s a pirate, is not exactly a
beggar but he acts like one, tapping his cane, calling out in a whining voice,
and then when the horses are about to run him down, just before his death, he
runs back and forth across the road calling for his old friend to help him now.
Bill. Of course, they don’t, being pirates and all. He turns the wrong way at
the last second and runs right under the thundering hooves.
I like Robinson Crusoe, too, don’t you? The way Friday begs for his life and Crusoe sees it all unfolding before him with such a sense of Christian pride and duty. He kills the one cannibal and then kills the second one, too, who has fallen behind in the race to catch Friday whom they hope to bring back to the laughing crowd at the campfire and eat. They eat the other prisoners they have brought with them after sending some emissaries to find out what happened to the first two scouts, all of whom Crusoe finishes off. And the part I like the best is that then, in the middle of their feast, Crusoe shoots and kills almost all of them. He’s brave and trustworthy and courageous and that’s what I like about him. And I like the beginning, too, with the prodigal son who goes against his father’s wishes to sail on adventures and make his fortune. He gets caught up in a series of storms that almost kill him and prays that if he ever reaches land he will never sail again. When the storm abates and he is calm once more he forgets the promise made in each of his crises and finally is shipwrecked on that island off the Mosquito Coast where he spends thirty years paying for his early willfulness. The Protestant God is a tough one, boy. He makes you pay through the nose for any sins, especially disrespecting your parents and having pre or extramarital sex. Anyways, I like the way Crusoe comes back to the island as an older man after being rescued, coming home, finding that his tobacco crops have made him immeasurably rich, kindly paying off the cook or servant or house owner who kept his papers for him, and, all of this like Job, praises God for his good fortune in the end. When he returns to that island of his marooning (God marooned him there), he is a changed man. He has troubles with wolves, too, going around by land (to avoid sailing), where was it, through some forest and over some winter mountain pass where a thousand of them attack his entourage and just about succeed in wiping them out. I’ve always liked the story of Dives, too. Hungrily gathering crumbs under his master’s table. When the old man dies he goes to hell and when Dives dies he goes to heaven and the old rich man implores him from below to give him even one drop of water. See, water was not the issue in the earth part of this story, but food was. Not a morsel of extra sustenance did that miser provide. Then, when he dies, it is not food he needs but water. An ironic twist. And in Kim there were beggars everywhere but I don’t recall any specific story of begging. The whole book was conceived around a begging atmosphere. The tone is lighthearted and begging does not constitute sorrow but a culture. A begging culture. Young Kim travels with that mullah who is on the lookout for a certain magic river, which, if they find it, will make him young again. They travel, and not episodically so much as dramatically. They bump into ner-do-wells and shysters who neatly steal, finagle, bilge, outsmart, lie, cheat, nip, trip up, outsmart, wangle, sneak, connive, pinch, pilfer, press, hoodwink, slink, trick, pickpocket, lift, cradulate, cavort and extort with joyful results and a wonderful sense of lightness of being. All ends well, with Kim finding his parents and enrolling in school. Like Huck Finn, this is an adventure story. Unlike it, Huck starts off domesticated and at home and later goes travelling, while Kim starts off travelling and then ends up home. So, beggars, class, make a fascinating topic. Like mice in beer bottles. Tomorrow we’ll study piracy literature. Wednesday? Right, Wednesday, not tomorrow.
I like Robinson Crusoe, too, don’t you? The way Friday begs for his life and Crusoe sees it all unfolding before him with such a sense of Christian pride and duty. He kills the one cannibal and then kills the second one, too, who has fallen behind in the race to catch Friday whom they hope to bring back to the laughing crowd at the campfire and eat. They eat the other prisoners they have brought with them after sending some emissaries to find out what happened to the first two scouts, all of whom Crusoe finishes off. And the part I like the best is that then, in the middle of their feast, Crusoe shoots and kills almost all of them. He’s brave and trustworthy and courageous and that’s what I like about him. And I like the beginning, too, with the prodigal son who goes against his father’s wishes to sail on adventures and make his fortune. He gets caught up in a series of storms that almost kill him and prays that if he ever reaches land he will never sail again. When the storm abates and he is calm once more he forgets the promise made in each of his crises and finally is shipwrecked on that island off the Mosquito Coast where he spends thirty years paying for his early willfulness. The Protestant God is a tough one, boy. He makes you pay through the nose for any sins, especially disrespecting your parents and having pre or extramarital sex. Anyways, I like the way Crusoe comes back to the island as an older man after being rescued, coming home, finding that his tobacco crops have made him immeasurably rich, kindly paying off the cook or servant or house owner who kept his papers for him, and, all of this like Job, praises God for his good fortune in the end. When he returns to that island of his marooning (God marooned him there), he is a changed man. He has troubles with wolves, too, going around by land (to avoid sailing), where was it, through some forest and over some winter mountain pass where a thousand of them attack his entourage and just about succeed in wiping them out. I’ve always liked the story of Dives, too. Hungrily gathering crumbs under his master’s table. When the old man dies he goes to hell and when Dives dies he goes to heaven and the old rich man implores him from below to give him even one drop of water. See, water was not the issue in the earth part of this story, but food was. Not a morsel of extra sustenance did that miser provide. Then, when he dies, it is not food he needs but water. An ironic twist. And in Kim there were beggars everywhere but I don’t recall any specific story of begging. The whole book was conceived around a begging atmosphere. The tone is lighthearted and begging does not constitute sorrow but a culture. A begging culture. Young Kim travels with that mullah who is on the lookout for a certain magic river, which, if they find it, will make him young again. They travel, and not episodically so much as dramatically. They bump into ner-do-wells and shysters who neatly steal, finagle, bilge, outsmart, lie, cheat, nip, trip up, outsmart, wangle, sneak, connive, pinch, pilfer, press, hoodwink, slink, trick, pickpocket, lift, cradulate, cavort and extort with joyful results and a wonderful sense of lightness of being. All ends well, with Kim finding his parents and enrolling in school. Like Huck Finn, this is an adventure story. Unlike it, Huck starts off domesticated and at home and later goes travelling, while Kim starts off travelling and then ends up home. So, beggars, class, make a fascinating topic. Like mice in beer bottles. Tomorrow we’ll study piracy literature. Wednesday? Right, Wednesday, not tomorrow.
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