Chekhov’s Mistess

Reading Notes: Hobson’s Island by Stefan Themerson

I often find myself with stacks of books in my TBWA (to be written about) pile and like so many things if too much time passes they never get any of the attention here they deserve. I read a lot more than I manage to write about. In fact, I can pretty much say that if I’m not working, sleeping or a few other things, then I’m reading -  there are many who can vouch that assertion, including the guy whose car I once rear-ended as I was reading while driving. Now, I’m not so sure about writing about a book as I go along, but nonetheless, as formless and wrong as my opinions might be, I thought it best to start just that and see if the drippings add up to a pot of anything. So here’s my first stab at it:

SCMZZZZZZZ.jpg” style=“float:left;padding:0 5px 0 0;”/> First I have to say that one could do no better than to just spend their days reading books published by Dalkey Archive, stumbling through their catalog, reading at random. It’s like an alternative to the Western Canon and if you let yourself be lured by writers you may never have heard of you’ll find yourself the richer for it.

So who the hell is Stefan Themerson? As far as I knew before I read the preface of Hobson’s Island, he could have just been any writer sitting in a Park Slope Starbucks with his iMac and an MFA at hand. That was before I was intimidated by him. It turns out Mr. Themerson, who died in 1988, was a formidable intellect and avant-writer, publisher and filmmaker.

A quick Google brought me to Derik Badman’s site (is there anyone Derik hasn’t read?), a blog devoted to the man and The Themerson Archive (which I think might be sponsored by Dalkey Archive). Leave it to the Web to deprive a person of the idea of obscurity.

Themerson was born in 1910 in Poland but through the war years found himself in Paris and finally settled in London in the 40s. At some point he began writing in English and Hobson’s Island does not appear to be a translation. When his work was shunned by the London publishing establishment, he and his wife Franciszka started their own publishing company, called Gaberbocchus Press, which is the latinized version of Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwock. The name alone makes it sound brilliant to me. Besides Gaberbocchus Press, the couple made experimental films that “sent shockwaves through Poland” and lived a life of art and creativity.

I called Themerson a formidable intellect because he was friends with Bertrand Russel and “exchanged ideas with him in a long and erudite correspondence.” Associations aside, it’s apparent early on that Themerson’s writing is the writing of ideas. Of his many books it looks like Hobson’s Island was nearly his last and one could hope a culmination of a life of thought.

Expecting the dialectic I was instead greeted with entertaining writing and a good, fable-like story. The beginning of the book concerns the rescue of a dictatorial ruler (who is so far presented to us as a sympathetic character) who is sold, after nearly being hanged, by his rescuers for his weight in whiskey.  He’s on a ship whose philosophically minded Captain treats him well, gives him a new name and is taking him to an as yet unnamed place.

Ideas are never far from the surface, like when discussing the ruler’s supposed assassination, the Captain argues that while his hanging was not a physical truth it is an historical truth (because the public believes him to have been killed):

“You see sir, physical truths are caused by some events that took place in the past. Like the fact that the present position of a billiard ball depends on the way it was pushed in the past. It is just the opposite with historical truths. Historical truths are caused by some events in the future. Like the truth about miracles. the reality of miracles does not depend upon the chemical analysis of Bread, Wine and Blood. Nor does it depend on some historical facts of the past. It is the future beliefs that cause their historical truth.”

If you or anyone you know is a philosopher you will recognize this type of language where simple objects or thoughts can be mangled into submission – the submission being the feeble minded of us begging to have it explained once again or given time to have a drink and think about it some more.

But I don’t mean this to warn you off the book, the story is good and its philosophy is wrapped in a lilt.

One last note before I stop. You can’t read a book with Hobson in the title and not wonder if there’s a connection between that and “Hobson’s Choice,” which is free choice that is apparently no choice at all. Themerson doesn’t waste any time getting to this and right in the beginning the President couches his argument about being a ruthless ruler in that very concept. The passages are too long to quote, but I think it will be interesting to see how that idea plays out and if our so far sympathetic brutal ruler is proven wrong.

One more one last note is that the book begins with a cast of characters like in a play. I know from the preface that some of these characters may have been in previous Themerson books, but it also seems to suggest a certain complexity of relationships that knowing them in advance will help, or even that there is some relationship to The Tempest, where a ruler is sent off to an island and… well, we’ll see if that connection makes sense as I go along.

See also “Reading Stefan Themerson“ by Nicholas Wadley in Context and Dalkey’s catalog page on Themerson.

comments

I stumbled upon Themerson by accident, but through his films, not his books. I didn’t know he wrote—or anything other than make films—until now, which makes me wonder how many other people have created works that may be as good or better than what we deem the best, and have been forgotten, lost, or prematurely dismissed. What also makes me wonder is how many of these unknown figures are becoming more known because of the internet, and the possibility for mass cultural exchange: “Tell me about a writer in your village, and I’ll tell you about one in mine!”

    – Pacze Moj (06/22  at  06:21 PM)

For what it’s worth I have yet to read: To Kill a Mockingbird, John Updike, Philip Roth, Stephen King, and maybe one or two others…

    – Derik (06/22  at  10:27 PM)

Yeah, but Derik, you’ve read everybody that nobody has ever heard of

    – Bud Parr (06/22  at  11:49 PM)

Good point, so let me here rave a moment about Steve Tomasula. READ HIS BOOKS! I’m halfway through his Book of Portraiture and it is great.

    – Derik (06/23  at  09:28 AM)

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About this Post

• Posted by: Bud Parr
• Date: June 22, 2006
• Filed Under:
  Song of Myself: Diary

• Comments:4
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