Difference between revisions of "The Businessman"
(Created page with "These are notes for '''''The Businessman: A Tale of Terror''''' (1984), the first book in Thomas M. Disch's series of fantasy/horror novels now known as ''Supernatural Min...") |
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* John Berryman, poet, deceased. | * John Berryman, poet, deceased. | ||
* Adah Mencken, poet, deceased. | * Adah Mencken, poet, deceased. | ||
| + | |||
| + | == Epigram == | ||
| + | |||
| + | The only citation I can find for this alleged Eisenhower quote about "the issue" being spiritual is the 1956 historical work ''The Crucial Decade''<ref>Goldman, Eric F. ''The Crucial Decade: America, 1945-1955''. Retrieved from [https://archive.org/stream/crucialdecadeame006464mbp/crucialdecadeame006464mbp_djvu.txt archive.org]. New York: Knopf, 1956.</ref>, which places it in quotation marks near a mention of Eisenhower, but doesn't clearly indicate whether he said it or in what context. | ||
== Chapter 1 == | == Chapter 1 == | ||
| + | |||
| + | === spiritual analog of sight === | ||
| + | Wm. Alston 2014, on Poulain 1950, on "The Ven. Louis du Pont, Meditations, Introduction" - "five interior acts corresponding to these senses ... with which it perceives the invisible and delectable things of Almighty God" | ||
=== The worms crawl in === | === The worms crawl in === | ||
| − | + | "The Worms Crawl In" or "{{wp|The Hearse Song}}" is at least as old as World War I. There are many variations, all of which describe processes of bodily decay in comically gruesome detail—as Disch alludes to in chapter 4 ("the liquifying tissues of her dead body ... entered upon some new and more drastic stage of disintegration"). | |
| + | |||
| + | == Chapter 2 == | ||
| + | |||
| + | === Glandier === | ||
| + | Glandier has never been a common last name in the US. In French, it's an archaic synonym for ''glandifère'', meaning "having glands or bearing fruit", and also the name of a rural area in northwestern France. | ||
| + | |||
| + | == Chapter 3 == | ||
| + | |||
| + | === the belted suit from Dayton's === | ||
| + | A Minnesota-based [[wikipedia:Dayton's|chain of department stores]]. | ||
== Chapter 4 == | == Chapter 4 == | ||
| Line 23: | Line 40: | ||
== Chapter 5 == | == Chapter 5 == | ||
| + | |||
| + | === I wish they'd wear habits ... And do the mass in Latin again === | ||
| + | The use of local languages rather than Latin for the liturgy, and the use of plain clothes by religious orders, became common after the {{wp|Second Vatican Council}}. | ||
=== a corner lot on Calumet Avenue === | === a corner lot on Calumet Avenue === | ||
| Line 28: | Line 48: | ||
=== The Roman matron who said that her children were her jewels === | === The Roman matron who said that her children were her jewels === | ||
| − | === Fabulon === | + | === encased in Fabulon === |
| + | A brand of polyurethane varnish. | ||
== Chapter 6 == | == Chapter 6 == | ||
=== M chalked on the back of his jacket === | === M chalked on the back of his jacket === | ||
| + | A reference to Fritz Lang's ''[[wikipedia:M (1931 film)|M]]'', in which this chalk initial is used to identify a serial killer. | ||
== Chapter 7 == | == Chapter 7 == | ||
=== The singer, Giselle McKenzie === | === The singer, Giselle McKenzie === | ||
| + | A misspelling of {{w|Gisele MacKenzie}}. Perhaps not coincidentally, Giselle (with two Ls) is also the name of a [[wikipedia:Giselle|19th century ballet]] whose dead title character returns as a ghost to protect her unfaithful lover from other, less merciful ghosts. | ||
== Chapter 8 == | == Chapter 8 == | ||
| + | |||
| + | "bloodroot, bluet, and bridal wreath" | ||
=== ''And These Thy Gifts'' by Claire Cullen === | === ''And These Thy Gifts'' by Claire Cullen === | ||
| Line 44: | Line 69: | ||
== Chapter 9 == | == Chapter 9 == | ||
| − | === | + | === I've come here to sell you something === |
| + | During Disch's childhood in Fairmont, Minnesota, he had a similar job selling "MagnaPad magnetic potholders, which I was able to exhibit without even being invited into the kitchen by hanging the potholder right on the screen door"; his sales career ended when he "stopped being a cute little kid who could charm bored housewives and had become a pimply and not-so-charming teenager".<ref>{{cite Disch child}}</ref> | ||
== Chapter 10 == | == Chapter 10 == | ||
=== The fiction of John Norman === | === The fiction of John Norman === | ||
| + | {{wp|John Norman}} (real name John Lange) wrote 34 ''Gor'' novels, which have inspired a specific subculture among BDSM "lifestyle" practitioners. | ||
| + | |||
| + | Disch discussed Gor briefly in his critical study ''The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of'', arguing that while Norman's work had no great literary value, it might have been taken more seriously if it were simply kinky erotica like ''The Story of O'' rather than kinky ''science fiction'' erotica—and that this might be considered partly a class issue since Norman's writing, like most pulp, was "addressed to a Budweiser audience" (although conflating class and cultural preference in this way doesn’t really apply to Robert Glandier, who is uncouth but not working-class). | ||
| + | |||
| + | This is one of only two mentions of science fiction—Disch's own main genre—in the Supernatural Minnesota novels, and they're both heavily ironic (for the other, see ''The Priest''). If Norman weren't a real writer, one might suspect he was Disch's {{w|Kilgore Trout}}, a worst-case parody of his own artistic aspirations: like Disch he's a well-educated Midwesterner who settled in New York, and is famously cranky and combative about the politics of the SF genre<ref>Norman, John. [http://www.locusmag.com/2001/Departments/Letters10Norman.html "Letters (14 October 2001)"]. In ''Locus Online''. Retrieved August 25, 2017.</ref>—but he's extremely prolific and successful, and has found a large following by catering to heterosexual power fantasies. In the satirical cosmology of Disch's Minnesota series, there's (almost) no justice... so of course the only science fiction fan we meet is the worst person ever, and he mostly just reads Gor books. | ||
== Chapter 11 == | == Chapter 11 == | ||
=== I am going to kill you === | === I am going to kill you === | ||
| + | |||
| + | == Chapter 13 == | ||
| + | |||
| + | === "Black Magic," and then "Blue Skies" === | ||
| + | |||
| + | === Erle Stanley Gardner === | ||
== Chapter 14 == | == Chapter 14 == | ||
=== she soared upward in her freedom === | === she soared upward in her freedom === | ||
| + | |||
| + | == Chapter 16 == | ||
| + | |||
| + | === The Gold Diggers of 1980 === | ||
| + | A joke on the Busby Berkeley musical film ''{{w[|Gold Diggers of 1933}}'' (and its several sequels). Disch was fond of this title: in his later novel ''On Wings of Song'', there's a mid-21st-century film called ''Gold-Diggers of 1984''. | ||
| + | |||
| + | == Chapter 19 == | ||
| + | |||
| + | === elms you used to see shading Calumet Avenue in the days before the blight === | ||
| + | Dutch elm disease arrived in Minnesota in the early 1960s [https://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/handle/11299/151957/History%20of%20Dutch%20Elm%20Disease%20in%20Minnesota.pdf?sequence=1] and wiped out most of the elm trees in Minneapolis over the next 20 years. | ||
== Chapter 21 == | == Chapter 21 == | ||
Revision as of 01:47, 25 August 2017
These are notes for The Businessman: A Tale of Terror (1984), the first book in Thomas M. Disch's series of fantasy/horror novels now known as Supernatural Minnesota.
Major characters
- Robert Glandier,
- Giselle Glandier, Robert's ex-wie, deceased.
- Joy-Ann Anker, Giselle's mother.
- Bing Anker, Giselle's brother.
- John Berryman, poet, deceased.
- Adah Mencken, poet, deceased.
Epigram
The only citation I can find for this alleged Eisenhower quote about "the issue" being spiritual is the 1956 historical work The Crucial Decade[1], which places it in quotation marks near a mention of Eisenhower, but doesn't clearly indicate whether he said it or in what context.
Chapter 1
spiritual analog of sight
Wm. Alston 2014, on Poulain 1950, on "The Ven. Louis du Pont, Meditations, Introduction" - "five interior acts corresponding to these senses ... with which it perceives the invisible and delectable things of Almighty God"
The worms crawl in
"The Worms Crawl In" or "The Hearse Song" is at least as old as World War I. There are many variations, all of which describe processes of bodily decay in comically gruesome detail—as Disch alludes to in chapter 4 ("the liquifying tissues of her dead body ... entered upon some new and more drastic stage of disintegration").
Chapter 2
Glandier
Glandier has never been a common last name in the US. In French, it's an archaic synonym for glandifère, meaning "having glands or bearing fruit", and also the name of a rural area in northwestern France.
Chapter 3
the belted suit from Dayton's
A Minnesota-based chain of department stores.
Chapter 4
Some derelict on Hennepin Avenue
Hennepin runs through many neighborhoods in Minneapolis, so it's unclear where this derelict would be found.
Chapter 5
I wish they'd wear habits ... And do the mass in Latin again
The use of local languages rather than Latin for the liturgy, and the use of plain clothes by religious orders, became common after the Second Vatican Council.
a corner lot on Calumet Avenue
The Roman matron who said that her children were her jewels
encased in Fabulon
A brand of polyurethane varnish.
Chapter 6
M chalked on the back of his jacket
A reference to Fritz Lang's M, in which this chalk initial is used to identify a serial killer.
Chapter 7
The singer, Giselle McKenzie
A misspelling of Template:W. Perhaps not coincidentally, Giselle (with two Ls) is also the name of a 19th century ballet whose dead title character returns as a ghost to protect her unfaithful lover from other, less merciful ghosts.
Chapter 8
"bloodroot, bluet, and bridal wreath"
And These Thy Gifts by Claire Cullen
Chapter 9
I've come here to sell you something
During Disch's childhood in Fairmont, Minnesota, he had a similar job selling "MagnaPad magnetic potholders, which I was able to exhibit without even being invited into the kitchen by hanging the potholder right on the screen door"; his sales career ended when he "stopped being a cute little kid who could charm bored housewives and had become a pimply and not-so-charming teenager".[2]
Chapter 10
The fiction of John Norman
John Norman (real name John Lange) wrote 34 Gor novels, which have inspired a specific subculture among BDSM "lifestyle" practitioners.
Disch discussed Gor briefly in his critical study The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of, arguing that while Norman's work had no great literary value, it might have been taken more seriously if it were simply kinky erotica like The Story of O rather than kinky science fiction erotica—and that this might be considered partly a class issue since Norman's writing, like most pulp, was "addressed to a Budweiser audience" (although conflating class and cultural preference in this way doesn’t really apply to Robert Glandier, who is uncouth but not working-class).
This is one of only two mentions of science fiction—Disch's own main genre—in the Supernatural Minnesota novels, and they're both heavily ironic (for the other, see The Priest). If Norman weren't a real writer, one might suspect he was Disch's Template:W, a worst-case parody of his own artistic aspirations: like Disch he's a well-educated Midwesterner who settled in New York, and is famously cranky and combative about the politics of the SF genre[3]—but he's extremely prolific and successful, and has found a large following by catering to heterosexual power fantasies. In the satirical cosmology of Disch's Minnesota series, there's (almost) no justice... so of course the only science fiction fan we meet is the worst person ever, and he mostly just reads Gor books.
Chapter 11
I am going to kill you
Chapter 13
"Black Magic," and then "Blue Skies"
Erle Stanley Gardner
Chapter 14
she soared upward in her freedom
Chapter 16
The Gold Diggers of 1980
A joke on the Busby Berkeley musical film {{w[|Gold Diggers of 1933}} (and its several sequels). Disch was fond of this title: in his later novel On Wings of Song, there's a mid-21st-century film called Gold-Diggers of 1984.
Chapter 19
elms you used to see shading Calumet Avenue in the days before the blight
Dutch elm disease arrived in Minnesota in the early 1960s [1] and wiped out most of the elm trees in Minneapolis over the next 20 years.
Chapter 21
its cocoon of Munsingwear
Get yourself a bottle of Geritol
- ↑ Goldman, Eric F. The Crucial Decade: America, 1945-1955. Retrieved from archive.org. New York: Knopf, 1956.
- ↑ Disch, Thomas M. "My Life as a Child". In Something about the Author Autobiography Series, ed. Joyce Nakamura, vol. 15 (1993). Gale. ISBN 0810344645
- ↑ Norman, John. "Letters (14 October 2001)". In Locus Online. Retrieved August 25, 2017.