A little piece of a puzzle, or is it?
Dear Word Clouders,
Thank you for your encouraging comments about my essay ‘A jigsaw puzzle’ which I posted in ‘critiques‘ several weeks ago. The idea came to me in flash, and a whole novel appeared in my mind. (I think the idea is a novel although it would be totally based on fact.)
This particular idea might seem rather daft, but it evolved - or was generated - out of what I had been researching; the lives of an ordinary Victorian journalists. I am reading Gissing’s ‘New Grub Street’ and the journalist I am concerned with might be similar to the character of Milvain, the successful writer. A similar journalist writing today might be Ian Hislop. I mentioned the' past being visible in the present' and he is a more likely candidate than myself as I am not a journalist, and I am not a published writer - though there is a genetic link to the journalist; he is a great-great grandfather of mine.
I now seem to have crash-landed, which is annoying, in that I have enough ideas to continue the project. I wonder if my crash landing might be associated with bi-polar-disorder as I can recognise the symptoms? But this is beside the point and, as you can see, I can put pen to paper.
Ms Whisks has, indirectly, pointed out something which could be associated with the point at which I stopped writing. I had found some of the journalist’s early published articles and realized they were factually based. The next piece of the puzzle was going to be about Galveston in about 1842 and I tried to lead up to this by introducing a history of Texas. Mind you, the main piece of this section of puzzle is set in England - A talk given by the journalist in a London public library.
Now. I start this piece of the puzzle with a the journalist’s description of Galveston and link it up to facts. He writes “The first building which presents itself to your right hand as you leave the wharf is the warehouse of Messrs. M'Kinney and Williams, before which you will generally perceive a most excellent fellow of the name of Hudson, marking cotton bales.’
I have the facts - got from the ‘Internet ‘ - ‘The first commercial wharves in Galveston were built by Ephraim W. McLean, who established his Kuhn's Wharf at the foot of Eighteenth Street in 1839. Samuel May Williams and Thomas McKinney opened their wharf at Twenty-fourth and Galveston Channel the same year’
But alarm bells should have started ringing and they did not. In my essay I had mentioned ‘untruths’ ‘You will generally perceive a most excellent fellow of the name of Hudson, making cottonbales’
Cotton Bales? Old Man River? What colour is Hudson? Is he black? Looking at web sites connected with Galveston, slavery is seldom mentioned. But Lafiite, the pirate king, traded in slaves? Slavery is not something I had connected with Texas and it is not something, apparently, Texans connect with Texas either?
Do I leave this piece out of the puzzle? I can introduce the theme, as racism was an issue at that time, and is mentioned by the journalist. I could also follow it up later. The journalist wrote a story for the popular press in which a Comanchee tribe attack the house of some settlers and the hero is the black slave. This is some ten years before ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ I would have thought the slave would have taken the side of the Comanchee’s? The slave is also portrayed as a comic character. This doesn’t really work and I suspect was due to Charles Dickens, It is amazing how he influenced his whole generation. My inclination is to put the piece in, with the description of Galveston, but this would change the whole tenor of the book and suggest a political dimension and one that was unfavourable to Texans.
I found a few reviews of the journalist’s talk in the library and, although this is in reported speech, the journalist gives a very favourable and - pro-Texan - account of the Battle of Tabisco. So you see, there are contradictions here.
If I leave this piece of the puzzle out, I am making an ‘untruth’. There was an interesting TV programme about this, in which a Harvard Professor discussed Kant’s ‘Categorical Imperative’ He further discussed under what conditions it is possible to use what we call ‘a white lie’
What to do? The sun has started to shine and I think I will go for a walk along the Darenth Valley when I should be typing away. Why should I think this? Perhaps it is habit?
.
7 Comments
Texas was a Confederate State and ceceeded from the Union over issues of states rights of self determination. One of those issues was slavery. Although it was not a widely established practice it was legal to own slaves in Texas.
James McPhereson has written the definative history on the subject and won a Pulitizer prize for his work "Battle Cry of Freeedom". It is an astonishingly well written book an includes very objective observations of bothe sides' points of view of the conflict. IT may remove some of you inhibitions about the topic.
Another approach may be to try and mention it in the setting without making a judgement on it. Treat it as a matter of fact, like the weather and let readers insert their own morality on it. Ignoring bad weather or bad history does not change it.
Inevitably when you write about emotive subjects, people will take offense at your condemnation/agreement/ambivenlance to the issue so you will not win that one.
I say write it all out while your thoughts are complete on the subject and then edit it later. I find it is easy to cut than to add.
I wouldn't worry too much about the categorical imperative either.
I watched a film of 'the Alamo' last night - not the John Wayne version. Slaves were given small parts, and it was mentioned that they would be free men under Mexican rule. The film was rather ambiguous as to whether slaves stayed to fight, or departed under a white flag. Some departed, some did not. The way the journalist describes Texas at the time does fit in with the way Texans are portrayed in the film - anarchy reigns. I found no mention, in his writing, of the Alamo' - but I only have what I can find, which doesn't mean that he didn't - but his description of the succeeding battle between Houston and Santa Anna conforms to the accepted view. The journalist has muddied the waters completely in that he writes both as a spectator and participant in the events. He states that he joined the Mexican Navy and his description of ;The Archer' -a ship beached in Galveston Harbour, and Houston's betrayal of the navy seems accurately reported. The names he mentions exist too. I don't know where I got Mexican Pete from -it seems to be Mexican Thompson - and Captain Simton are real people. The journalist reports a story told to him by Captain Simpton. The Captain changes the name of a ship of the Texas Navy and embarks on a smuggling operation with Mexican tribes. Mexican Thompson and the crew are captured. Mexican Thompson is executed by firing squad and it is ambiguous as to whether the crew are are slaughtered. The story is probably true.
I e,mailed libraries in Texas about the Texan Navy connection, but they did not reply.
I can follow though the political arguments as the journalist was better known for reporting the French revolution of 1848 - he was an eye-witness, and later he became involved in a bizarre enterprise suggesting the restoration of a Greek Empire - at the time of the Boer War.
P.S Some articles on the 'Internet' suggest that Texas joined the union in order that they might keep slaves - they would lose this right under Mexican rule - a likely outcome if Texas did not join. Taking this view,slavery seems to have been a main cause of the establishment of the Rebublic, But I think I will steer well away from this particular view.
I feel the best writing, is where you're writing just for yourself in the belief that nobody will read it; or writing to a close friend who won't judge you. From this, truth springs; and truth is compelling. Once you start to write for 'the public' something shifts and it's easy to lose the public. I don't mean this particularly for you, btw - it's a general observation. If you're brave, if you say what you think or have found out regardless of the consequences, then often people will read, people will think, and more will empathise and agree with you than you'd expect. For much writing to succeed, you have to trust your readership, that they're as bright as you and as reasonable.
Sorry if this sounds like a sermon - I have to remind myself of this often.
Why exactly do you want to leave out the slavery connection? It's interesting, it's controversial, it's history.
One of the things that made your original post so compelling, is that you wrote without artifice - as though you were writing what interested you and it mattered not whether anyone else was interested too - you trusted us.
Go on, be bold. *I'd* like to hear the full picture, not the sanitised version.
Replied to message with another history lesson. feel free to post it here if you wish.
Your book is set during amazing times so it needs a bold approach to do it justice. Seems almost any action could be jusitfied if it was doen for the right cause.
Good luck with it all and try not to sabotage yourslf as so many of us are capable of doing. They are voices from the past.
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