It's a busy time of year on our property, with brush clearing and rototilling and planting and mowing and on and on, so much so that in recent days, I have not been able to get to reading until past 10. One night, I stayed up until 2, which is something for this old doter who never makes it to midnight on New Year's Eve, but it is more because of the book than anything else. It's one of those that you have to keep reading, stretching for the ending that you hope, you know will be satisfying.
No, it is not a mystery or thriller, but a non-fiction book, The Whipping Boy, by Allen Kurzweil, about the author tracking down, 30 years and more later, the boy who made his life miserable at a boarding school in Switzerland when the author was 10-11 years old. It is a fascinating psychological peek into obsession and loss. It is also a thriller of its own as all roads, at first, lead nowhere, the former bully and classmate having seemingly disappeared, even as he came from an upper-middle class family in Manila. But then the trail gets hot: he finds that the bully, Caesar Augustus (real name - all names are real, for the author concluded that no one would believe the story if he invented or changed anything) was working as a shill (front man) for an international "banking firm" that was finally revealed to be an elaborate hoax formed to separate people, mostly legitimate, from their money as they attempted to get backing for their dream enterprises.
It could have been a movie. The head of the "trust" claimed to be a prince and the 74th Grand Master of the Malta; his wife, a descendant of another European royal family (apparently, that was true). He was aided by a Colonel and a Baron, both shown to have extremely prosaic roots in the working class, and so on. They dressed elaborately, met at the finest hotels around the world, and were able to con some very prestigious institutions into providing legitimacy by their hire. And at the bottom of the pyramid was Caesar, who would get three years in jail in the State of California for it all.
But the author was not satisfied; he had to meet the man, to find if, as Caesar had said at his trial, he was conned himself, and that he, through his troublesome childhood, had himslef long been a victim. "Cry me a river" one can hear the author say, but he must find out. Through subterfuge, he manages to meet his nemesis as only a former classmate, to discuss the good 'ol days. He meets with him again a year later. In both, so far, Caesar is found to be a somewhat pathetic character who believes that he has had to struggle in a world that has handed him such adversity.
At this point, I am at the middle of the second meeting, and I do not know how it will turn out. Is Caesar only continuing his con, or does he really believe that he is a victim rather than a crook and a bully? Nearing the end, I will find out tonight. But a bigger question is raised about the author himself - why? Why this obsession? Some of it has to do with the purposeful loss of his watch by the bully, the watch an important reminder to the young boy of his father who died when Allen was only 4. But the other episodes of bullying, which the author describes as torture - heck, I thought, I got worse than that from the older neighborhood boys and relatives than he did, all of whom I am now on good to very good terms with. This bullying, as the author calls it, was something younger boys of my time expected from older boys - and the reason we steered clear of them. I believe I pulled a few mean tricks on my younger brother as well, by which he responded with appropriate revenge. All gone. The memories are still there, but the animosities are long gone, for the obvious reason that we have grown up. We are different now, as most people are with maturation.
In that, there is something dark about the author himself. Perhaps the last pages will resolve everything, but nothing will explain away this now-40 year obsession. Claims the author: 'there was never a week that went by where something did not remind me of Caesar.' (my approximation). For over 30 years!
Last night, the Simpsons had an episode, oddly, on bullying. The town of Springfield passes an ill-thought ordinance against bullying, and soon half the town is in jail, or forced therapy. During this time, Homer continues to abuse his neighbor, Ned Flanders, who is a fundamentalist Christian that must always forgive, as Jesus commanded. Yet his two boys see how he is bullied by Homer, and have a collective dream about Jesus. Here, bullies have stolen Jesus's halo, and are passing it back and forth over Jesus's head, until it lands on a rooftop. Jesus meekly asks his "Father" to forgive the bullies, and the Father grumbles, "why did I have such a wimp for a son?"
But we know Jesus was no wimp - in fact, he was scary-harsh, calling the Scribes and Pharisees hypocrites and vipers to their faces. He upended the tables in the Temple and even admonished his mother for having him turn water into wine at the wedding in Canna. What would Jesus do? We can never really know, although many think they know, but what is certain is that Jesus demanded that grievances were to be resolved quickly and let go, one way or another. In this book's case, the grievance could never be resolved as it could in a village of that era. True, but has this painful memory of humiliation and need for revenge done well by the author? Of course, the book might be a big hit, but that was never behind the grudge. Rather, it was a grinding pain rooted in the loss of his father and of his own sense of humiliation. He feels he can only be made whole by confronting the bully whose image has tortured him for most of his life.
What a burden. Maybe, in the end, the author will realize this, but I don't think so. I think he will be relieved to find that his nemesis was an evil person, after all, and his incarceration and failure in life the measure of the author's revenge. Except that it took nearly half a century to get there.
Many of the directives of the spiritually wise seem to be ridiculous or wimpy, but in practice, they do more than meets the eye. Mark Twain, in Huckleberry Finn, wrote of the feud along the Mississippi and how young boys shot each other for the mere fact that the other belonged to the wrong clan. The "incident" that started the whole mess was long lost to the constant need to avenge the latest deed of revenge. Forever, it would seem, just as it is now in Palestine. What a waste. FK
No, it is not a mystery or thriller, but a non-fiction book, The Whipping Boy, by Allen Kurzweil, about the author tracking down, 30 years and more later, the boy who made his life miserable at a boarding school in Switzerland when the author was 10-11 years old. It is a fascinating psychological peek into obsession and loss. It is also a thriller of its own as all roads, at first, lead nowhere, the former bully and classmate having seemingly disappeared, even as he came from an upper-middle class family in Manila. But then the trail gets hot: he finds that the bully, Caesar Augustus (real name - all names are real, for the author concluded that no one would believe the story if he invented or changed anything) was working as a shill (front man) for an international "banking firm" that was finally revealed to be an elaborate hoax formed to separate people, mostly legitimate, from their money as they attempted to get backing for their dream enterprises.
It could have been a movie. The head of the "trust" claimed to be a prince and the 74th Grand Master of the Malta; his wife, a descendant of another European royal family (apparently, that was true). He was aided by a Colonel and a Baron, both shown to have extremely prosaic roots in the working class, and so on. They dressed elaborately, met at the finest hotels around the world, and were able to con some very prestigious institutions into providing legitimacy by their hire. And at the bottom of the pyramid was Caesar, who would get three years in jail in the State of California for it all.
But the author was not satisfied; he had to meet the man, to find if, as Caesar had said at his trial, he was conned himself, and that he, through his troublesome childhood, had himslef long been a victim. "Cry me a river" one can hear the author say, but he must find out. Through subterfuge, he manages to meet his nemesis as only a former classmate, to discuss the good 'ol days. He meets with him again a year later. In both, so far, Caesar is found to be a somewhat pathetic character who believes that he has had to struggle in a world that has handed him such adversity.
At this point, I am at the middle of the second meeting, and I do not know how it will turn out. Is Caesar only continuing his con, or does he really believe that he is a victim rather than a crook and a bully? Nearing the end, I will find out tonight. But a bigger question is raised about the author himself - why? Why this obsession? Some of it has to do with the purposeful loss of his watch by the bully, the watch an important reminder to the young boy of his father who died when Allen was only 4. But the other episodes of bullying, which the author describes as torture - heck, I thought, I got worse than that from the older neighborhood boys and relatives than he did, all of whom I am now on good to very good terms with. This bullying, as the author calls it, was something younger boys of my time expected from older boys - and the reason we steered clear of them. I believe I pulled a few mean tricks on my younger brother as well, by which he responded with appropriate revenge. All gone. The memories are still there, but the animosities are long gone, for the obvious reason that we have grown up. We are different now, as most people are with maturation.
In that, there is something dark about the author himself. Perhaps the last pages will resolve everything, but nothing will explain away this now-40 year obsession. Claims the author: 'there was never a week that went by where something did not remind me of Caesar.' (my approximation). For over 30 years!
Last night, the Simpsons had an episode, oddly, on bullying. The town of Springfield passes an ill-thought ordinance against bullying, and soon half the town is in jail, or forced therapy. During this time, Homer continues to abuse his neighbor, Ned Flanders, who is a fundamentalist Christian that must always forgive, as Jesus commanded. Yet his two boys see how he is bullied by Homer, and have a collective dream about Jesus. Here, bullies have stolen Jesus's halo, and are passing it back and forth over Jesus's head, until it lands on a rooftop. Jesus meekly asks his "Father" to forgive the bullies, and the Father grumbles, "why did I have such a wimp for a son?"
But we know Jesus was no wimp - in fact, he was scary-harsh, calling the Scribes and Pharisees hypocrites and vipers to their faces. He upended the tables in the Temple and even admonished his mother for having him turn water into wine at the wedding in Canna. What would Jesus do? We can never really know, although many think they know, but what is certain is that Jesus demanded that grievances were to be resolved quickly and let go, one way or another. In this book's case, the grievance could never be resolved as it could in a village of that era. True, but has this painful memory of humiliation and need for revenge done well by the author? Of course, the book might be a big hit, but that was never behind the grudge. Rather, it was a grinding pain rooted in the loss of his father and of his own sense of humiliation. He feels he can only be made whole by confronting the bully whose image has tortured him for most of his life.
What a burden. Maybe, in the end, the author will realize this, but I don't think so. I think he will be relieved to find that his nemesis was an evil person, after all, and his incarceration and failure in life the measure of the author's revenge. Except that it took nearly half a century to get there.
Many of the directives of the spiritually wise seem to be ridiculous or wimpy, but in practice, they do more than meets the eye. Mark Twain, in Huckleberry Finn, wrote of the feud along the Mississippi and how young boys shot each other for the mere fact that the other belonged to the wrong clan. The "incident" that started the whole mess was long lost to the constant need to avenge the latest deed of revenge. Forever, it would seem, just as it is now in Palestine. What a waste. FK
RSS Feed