The Not So Jungle Book
Mr. Kipling's (no, fans of Jessie, I'm talking about the English author, NOT Ravi's pet Asian monitor water lizard! Who turns out to be Mrs. Kipling later anyway) birthday was the day before New Year's Eve, so the youngest recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature was 41 when he received it. (I'm 43, so I can't bust that ceiling darn it!) The youngest person to ever receive the Nobel Prize in any category was last year's Nobel Peace Prize Malala Yousafazi, the 17-year-old who stood up for girls' right to an education in Taliban-dominated (or at least strongly Taliban-influenced) Pakistan and suffered for it. I love the vignette how she had to be called out of her chemistry class to be told she'd won!
Alas, I Am Malala her autobiography hasn't quite made my finished reading list. (I started it but got lost.) Yet. But The Jungle, Upton Sinclair's 1906 novel better known for its leading to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act in the United States than its outright depiction of immigrant life that borders on barely eking out an existence in Packingtown (apparently someplace on the outskirts of Chicago) and the life of one such man who loses his family to starvation, depredation, and exploitation. The rise and fall and roughly evening out of Jurgis -- pronounced YOOR-gis, by the way -- in early twentieth century America is a stretch. But Sinclair meant to be shocking, not literary.
Whether L. Frank Baum meant to be literary and not shocking with his last completed story set in Oz, 1919's The Magic of Oz, is open to debate. From what I remember of the next book (Glinda of Oz, 1920) that Baum started but didn't finish -- that was left to a successor author after he died, and it shows -- you're left with more mechanics than magic and more questions than answers. I think I re-read Magic a few years ago, but I'm not sure. On their way to prepare a present for Ozma the ruler of Oz's birthday party, Dorothy and the Wizard find themselves in a forest where a takeover of Oz is being planned by one of their oldest foes.
Ruggedo the former Nome King is perhaps the closest thing Dorothy, Ozma, Glinda, the Wizard and the rest have to an arch-enemy as he appears in more than one book, and this time he tries to get the talking beasts of Oz -- in another jungle, no less, but it's called a forest here -- on his side by manipulating a boy who knows a secret art of transformation by speaking a single word. The likelihood you and I will be able to say Pyrzqxgl right and affect such a transformation on ourselves or others is low to none, but by all means keep trying. Just remember to make whatever you become able to speak.
As I did when I went after work to pick up Sarah and Jeffrey at my in-laws Robert and Sharon's house last night; they'd gotten in from the DAV reunion in Albuquerque about five that afternoon and said they noticed how crazy it had gotten in there and they'd no idea where some of the stuff came from! Reminds me of a Parade magazine article I read Sunday about how when you get home from vacation you DO notice things different, whether something's moved or not, because you're used to your house and after a few days it just looks different to you. Just as ours did when Martha, Sarah, Jeffrey, and I got home from our trip the last week before school started. Didn't take long to mess that up, but WE WILL KEEP IT CLEAN.
It really is a jungle out there, David
Alas, I Am Malala her autobiography hasn't quite made my finished reading list. (I started it but got lost.) Yet. But The Jungle, Upton Sinclair's 1906 novel better known for its leading to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act in the United States than its outright depiction of immigrant life that borders on barely eking out an existence in Packingtown (apparently someplace on the outskirts of Chicago) and the life of one such man who loses his family to starvation, depredation, and exploitation. The rise and fall and roughly evening out of Jurgis -- pronounced YOOR-gis, by the way -- in early twentieth century America is a stretch. But Sinclair meant to be shocking, not literary.
Whether L. Frank Baum meant to be literary and not shocking with his last completed story set in Oz, 1919's The Magic of Oz, is open to debate. From what I remember of the next book (Glinda of Oz, 1920) that Baum started but didn't finish -- that was left to a successor author after he died, and it shows -- you're left with more mechanics than magic and more questions than answers. I think I re-read Magic a few years ago, but I'm not sure. On their way to prepare a present for Ozma the ruler of Oz's birthday party, Dorothy and the Wizard find themselves in a forest where a takeover of Oz is being planned by one of their oldest foes.
Ruggedo the former Nome King is perhaps the closest thing Dorothy, Ozma, Glinda, the Wizard and the rest have to an arch-enemy as he appears in more than one book, and this time he tries to get the talking beasts of Oz -- in another jungle, no less, but it's called a forest here -- on his side by manipulating a boy who knows a secret art of transformation by speaking a single word. The likelihood you and I will be able to say Pyrzqxgl right and affect such a transformation on ourselves or others is low to none, but by all means keep trying. Just remember to make whatever you become able to speak.
As I did when I went after work to pick up Sarah and Jeffrey at my in-laws Robert and Sharon's house last night; they'd gotten in from the DAV reunion in Albuquerque about five that afternoon and said they noticed how crazy it had gotten in there and they'd no idea where some of the stuff came from! Reminds me of a Parade magazine article I read Sunday about how when you get home from vacation you DO notice things different, whether something's moved or not, because you're used to your house and after a few days it just looks different to you. Just as ours did when Martha, Sarah, Jeffrey, and I got home from our trip the last week before school started. Didn't take long to mess that up, but WE WILL KEEP IT CLEAN.
It really is a jungle out there, David
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