Time to Take the Cure

Years ago I saw a movie called The Road to Wellville starring Matthew Broderick as Dr. John Harvey Kellogg.  Yes, one half of the Kellogg team that brought us corn flakes.  I remember cringing at several scenes as Dr. Kellogg treated patients at his sanatorium with all sorts of terrifying cures.  A bit of follow-up reading revealed that the movie wasn't far from the truth.  In the 1870's, Dr. Kellogg did indeed open a sanatorium in Battle Creek, Michigan where he inflicted all manner of tortures on his "guests".  Treatments ran the gamut from extreme enemas (you can picture that any way you'd like) to amputation as a cure for 'self abuse."  Ironically, his facility was a favorite spot for the very rich  seeking an end to their ills.

In 2004, Milwaukee novelist and playwright, Ludmilla Bollow, published Dr. Zastro's Sanitarium For the Ailments of Women, providing me with an equal dose of skin crawlies jeebees.  Poor little Yana, being treated by Phillipe Zastrow with hypnosis sessions and electromagnetic shocks, quickly finds herself longing for the very emotional tingling she had hoped to eliminate from her life.  Who know these places and these methods really existed?

Now, thanks to Erica Janik, producer and editor of WPR's Wisconsin Life series, the facts have been gathered in the informative, enlightening, and yes, frequently creepy, book pictured above.  Janik looks at the myriad of experimental treatments that rose as alternatives to bleeding, blistering, and induced vomiting and sweating.  She talks about the variations of "water cures" including tightly wrapping patients in wet sheets to squeeze sickness out.  Then there are the magnetic cures and  the "Thought" cure.  This is interesting - similar to  the "Think "method of learning to play an instrument developed  by flim-flam man Harold Hill in The Music Man.  In this leap of faith cure, "diseased" thoughts are magically replaced with "healthy" thoughts resulting in a healthy body.   

Silly as these may seem, Janik assets that many of these innovations are precursors to practical, medical wisdom still used today.  Frequent baths.  Regular exercise.  Eight glasses of water a day.  All that, and more, Janik says grew out of early holistic therapies.  If it all sounds goofy, just remember, Louisa May Alcott believed in homeopathy.  We all know that she hovered on the fringes of transcendentalism - one of the richest movements in American literature - but I guess Alcott died eventually anyway, so skeptics, there's your antithesis.  

Whether you choose to read this book for it's historic significance, or just for a afternoon spent trolling the bizarre - check it out.

Thanks for stopping by.

Yes, this is Saturday and this is Monday's Fine Print on a Monday post.  My Monday schedule has changed so you might be finding Fine Print on the Saturday before the anticipated Monday, or on the Tuesday after, or on the Monday itself depending on how things go on Saturday and Sunday.  Confused? Don't be, It's only a blog post and so basically, Fine Print on a Monday will appear with some degree of irregularity between Saturday and Tuesday of any given week.

Bird Watching Anyone?

I have a vague recollection of reading this book, or at least starting it once before.  No matter.  For some reason, I expected not to like it, but since I promised to read down the pile of books on my living room floor, I committed to this one to start.

Mr. Malik, the story's protagonist, reminds me so much of Major Pettigrew in Major Pettigrew's Last Stand. He is charming, witty, astute, classy, reserved...so very British.  This isn't simply a love story, nor is it a treasure trove of information on unique ornithological sightings.  Tucked neatly within the competition that pits Mr. Malik against  Harry Khan for the right to invite Rose Mbitwa to the Hunt Club ball are tales of Kenyan people who thrive despite corruption, violence and poverty.

I especially enjoyed the narrator who interrupts the story form time to time and warns the reader that all may not be as it seems, or to share some tidbit about life in Nairobi.  He (the narrator just sounds like a "he" to me) possesses a wicked sense of humor - again very British.  I could just imagine him sharing one of his poshly clever lines, and then, smugly satisfied with his offering, chuckling to himself even if no one else caught the joke.

Atop the first page of each chapter you'll find a tiny line drawing of an African bird - gentle and whimsical like the novel itself.  You don't have to like birds to enjoy this book.  The cover compares it to The #1 Ladies Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith.  I sure would like to see Mr., Malik and   Smith's unpredictable Mma Ronotswe get together.

Thanks for stopping by.

The Dogger Blogger Returns

Since You-Know-Who is at it again - too busy watching the Olympics and futzing with Heart-A-Rama - I have commandeered the blog this week.  Note the updated selfie.  Pensive, isn't it?  Much better than that silly thing with the Groucho gear plastered all over my face.  

I had a bout of illness in the past weeks, giving me time to read the novel you see here.  There's nothing better than a good love story, and just in time for Valentine's Day, too.  Henry is a nice little boy who brings Charley home to be his bestie.  Henry gets to do everything with Charley.  He gets to walk him, he gets to feed him, and he gets to play with him.  But his parents say that Charley can't sleep with Henry.  Oh, that Henry.  When Charley cries on his first night, Henry walks him around the house.  He lifts him up to peer out the window and look at the moon.  They sing together.  Love. Love.  Love.  I won't reveal where Henry's parents find Charley the next morning, but, let me tell you, it took me three whole nights before I made my way into a bed that was bigger, softer and warmer than  the one YKW stupidly thought I'd sleep in.

YKW has a couple projects in the works, I think.  Her New Year's resolution was to write one haiku a day. You know, a haiku is just three lines, seventeen syllables in all.  Well, guess what?  She's now twelve days behind.  I have also seen great piles of books appearing from everywhere.  Over the years they have slipped beneath beds, in closets, under chairs, in the refrigerator.  They all have bookmarks in them.  I am guessing that she plans to finally knock them off before buying and reading anything new.  We'll see how that goes. This is a list of some of those dusty, bent up books that are now neatly piled on the floor next to my favorite blanket.

A Guide to Birds of South Africa

The French Lieutenant's woman

Berlin Stories

High Wind in Jamaica

Persian Pickle Club

Kate

Readers Companion to Cuba

The Book of God

The Scarlet Feather

I'll be watching that pile which is crowding my personal space.  If it doesn't begin to shrink, I know exactly what to do.

Barks to you.

GB (Mrs. George Burns) the Blogging Doggy

A Retro Read

You can't deny the similarities between Donleavy's cover and the poster art for the 70 hit film, The Graduate.  But, the similarities don't end there.  The Graduate, based on a 1963 novel by Charles Webb, and the "Beastly" book fall into the sub-genre of picaresque novels.  Neither strictly adheres to the pure definition or style which originated in 16th century Spain, but they're close enough.  In episodic bursts of bawdiness and sentimentality, both books follow the adventures of roguish youths in existential searches.  In both cases, the search mostly boils down to sex - but some ethos and pathos creep in between the lurid scenes..

In my college "History of the Novel" class, we read Joseph Andrews by Henry Fielding.  I recall being the only person in class not appalled by the story.  I thought that odd at the time since my class was filled with students who were regular class skippers who preferred cussing over sheepshead in the lounge to discussing any piece of literature that wasn't jammed with pages of fast paced dialogue.  I figure they were pretending to be alarmed in order to garner much needed brownie points from the elderly, but brilliant literature scholar - who just happened to be a nun.  But, Sr. Salome was cool.  She enjoyed that I smirked and nodded my head in recognition of double meanings.  She and I enjoyed Joseph Andrews and then she suggested novels of similar ilk to me.  Don Quixote.  Catcher in the Rye.  Tom Jones.  I can't say I enjoyed all of them, but she did a great job of selling me on the style.

So....Balthazar made me a little uncomfortable at time, especially when the proper little 12 year-old boy dives head first into an affair with his 24 year-old nanny.  Thankfully the author didn't get too detailed, but Donleavy is a master of innuendo, so the intent is there for sure.  Hi unique narrative style, certainly experimental in 1968, proved to be tedious at times.  Fragments.  Weird punctuation.  Internal narration.   Voice mixing.  Too much.  Cormac McCarthy pulled off the fragmented narration in The Road with greater dexteruty and purpose.

The book made me laugh at times but mostly, I kept my fingers crossed that Balthazar and his sidekick, Beefy, would stay clear of the law.  These boys were living on the edge as they searched - B for love and, ironically, Beefy for spirituality.  I'm not sure if I would recommend this book.  Have to let it settle in for awhile.

In the meantime - I might grab a not yet published book for this week.  

Heart-A-Rama auditions this Thursday at 7:00 and Sunday at 1:00 at the Capitol Civic Centre.