Friday Mystery Author: Kenneth Grahame

This week’s Friday Mystery Author (the first return installment after a three-week break) was Kenneth Grahame, from The Wind in the Willows, of course – specifically, from that first exuberant chapter on Spring and the River. The passage continues with the first meeting of Mole and the Water Rat:

He [the Mole] thought his happiness was complete when, as he meandered aimlessly along, suddenly he stood by the edge of a full-fed river. Never in his life had he seen a river before — this sleek, sinuous, full-bodied animal, chasing and chuckling, gripping things with a gurgle and leaving them with a laugh, to fling itself on fresh playmates that shook themselves free, and were caught and held again. All was a-shake and a-shiver — glints and gleams and sparkles, rustle and swirl, chatter and bubble. The Mole was bewitched, entranced, fascinated. By the side of the river he trotted as one trots, when very small, by the side of a man who holds one spell-bound by exciting stories; and when tired at last, he sat on the bank, while the river still chattered on to him, a babbling procession of the best stories in the world, sent from the heart of the earth to be told at last to the insatiable sea.

Friday Mystery Author: March 23, 2007

Friday Mystery Author returns after a three-week hiatus and much needed break. If you are new to this series, every Friday we post a selection from literature more or less obscure. If you recognize the author and title, let us know in the comments. If not, just say hello.

This week, in honor of spring:

Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing. It was small wonder, then, that he suddenly flung down his brush on the floor, said `Bother!’ and `O blow!’ and also `Hang spring-cleaning!’ and bolted out of the house without even waiting to put on his coat. Something up above was calling him imperiously, and he made for the steep little tunnel which answered in his case to the gravelled carriage-drive owned by animals whose residences are nearer to the sun and air. So he scraped and scratched and scrabbled and scrooged and then he scrooged again and scrabbled and scratched and scraped, working busily with his little paws and muttering to himself, `Up we go! Up we go!’ till at last, pop! his snout came out into the sunlight, and he found himself rolling in the warm grass of a great meadow.

Friday Mystery Author: Barbara Tuchman

This week’s Friday Mystery Author was Barbara Tuchman, and the passage (on the Dreyfus Affair) was from her tour de force, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War: 1890-1914. This was her fourth book, published in 1966, after The Zimmerman Telegram and The Guns of August had made her reputation. It covers a period of social ferment, indescribable political and moral passion, and dashed hopes. Ms. Tuchman conveys it all with relish and regret.

Jaures was buried on August 4, the day the war became general. Overhead the bells he had invoked at Basle tolled for him and all the world, “I summon the living, I mourn the dead.”

The title is from Poe.

Stop by on Friday for the next edition of Friday Mystery Author.

Friday Mystery Author: February 16, 2007

I have really gotten Friday Mystery Author off schedule. I’ll try to do better. As always, if you think recognize this passage, please post the title and author in the comments – or just say hello.

Six weeks later, on August 8, 1899, the retrial of Dreyfus by a new court-martial was scheduled to open in the garrison town of Rennes, a Catholic and aristcratic corner of traditionally Counter-Revolutionary Brittany. France quivered in expectation; as each week passed bringing the moment closer, the tension grew. The world’s eyes were turned on Rennes. All the important foreign newspapers sent their star correspondents. Lord Russell of Killowen, the Lord Chief Justice of England, came as an observer. All the leading figures in the Affair, hundreds of French journalists and important political, social, and literary figures crammed the town. The Secret File was brought from Paris in an iron box on an artillary caisson. No one anywhere talked of anything but the coming verdict. Acquittal would mean for the Dreyfusards vindication and last; for the Nationalists it would be lethal; an unimaginable blow not to be permitted. As if on order they returned to the theme of the first blackmail: Dreyfus or the Army. “A choice is to be made,” wrote Barres in the Journal; Rennes, he said, was the Rubicon. “If Dreyfus is innocent then seven Ministers of War are guilty and the last more than the first,” echoed Meyer in Le Gaulois. General Mercier, leaving for Rennes to appear as a witness, issued his Order of the Day: “Dreyfus will be condemned once more. For in this affair someone is certainly guilty and the guilty one is either him or me. As it is certainly not me, it is Dreyfus. … Dreyfus is a traitor and I shall prove it.”

At six o’clock on the morning of August 8 the Court convened with an audience of six hundred persons in the hall of the lycee, the only room in Rennes large enough to accomodate them. In the front row, next to former President Casimir-Perier, sat Mercier, his yellow lined face as expressionless as ever, and nearby, the widow of Colonel Henry in her long black mourning veil. Dignitaries, officers in uniform, ladies in light summer dresses and more than four hundred journalists filled the rows behind. Colonel Jouaust, presiding officer of the seven military judges, called out in a voice hoarse under the pressure of the moment, “Bring in the accused.”

Last week’s edition is here.

Friday Mystery Author: O. Henry

I am a day late and a dollar short with the answer to last week’s Friday Mystery Author, and I do apologize. After a week of not much, I blogged away Monday night and ran out of time to write this up.

This week’s passage was from a gem of a short story by O. Henry (William Sydney Porter), called “Friends in San Rosario.” I suppose it may be found in this collection.

Like many O. Henry stories, “Friends in San Rosario” features a Western setting late in the nineteenth century, and formerly rough and tumble characters now carrying forward the work of civilization and accommodating its rules – while abiding by earlier codes of behavior. According to Richard Zelade, this story was autobiographical – and resulted in a prison term for Mr. Porter.

Despite his many friends’ best intentions, Porter was destined to be a sacrificial victim for the changing times, the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong moment. Texas’s vast, formerly free ranges had been fenced in, and the feds intended to do the same to the state’s freewheeling bankers.

In prison, Mr. Porter launched his writing career and acquired the pen name O. Henry from a guard.

MORE: “Friends in San Rosario” was filmed in 1917.

Friday Mystery Author: February 9, 2007

Welcome to this week’s edition of Friday Mystery Author, in which we post a selection from literature (broadly defined) for the amusement of our readers, who may guess at the source of the excerpt (author and title) in the comments. Or, just say hello.

This newly-imported examiner was so different from Sam Turner. It had been Sam’s way to enter the bank with a shout, pass the cigars and tell the latest stories he had picked up on his rounds. His customary greeting to Dorsey had been, “Hello, Perry! Haven’t skipped out with the boodle yet, I see.” Turner’s way of counting the cash had been different too. He would finger the packages of bills in a tired kind of way, and then go into the vault and kick over a few sacks of silver, and the thing was done. Halves and quarters and dimes? Not for Sam Turner. “No chicken feed for me,” he would say when they were set before him. “I’m not in the agricultural department.” But, then, Turner was a Texan, an old friend of the bank’s president, and had known Dorsey since he was a baby.

While the examiner was counting the cash, Major Thomas B. Kingman – known to every one as “Major Tom” – the president of the First National, drove up to the side door with his old dun horse and buggy, and came inside. He saw the examiner busy with the money, and, going into the little “pony corral,” as he called it, in which his desk was railed off, he began to look over his letters.

Earlier, a little incident had occurred that even the sharp eyes of the examiner had failed to notice. When he had begun his work at the cash register, Mr. Edlinger had winked significantly at Roy Wilson, the youthful bank messenger, and nodded his head slightly toward the front door. Roy understood, got his hat and walked leisurely out, with his collector’s book under his arm. Once outside, he made a bee-line for the Stockmen’s National. That bank was also getting ready to open. No customers had, as yet, presented themselves.

Think you recognize this style? Let us know in the comments. Last week’s edition is here.

It has been a dry week for blogging here, and I appreciate everyone who has visited even while I’m otherwise occupied. This weekend, I should have a chance to get down my thoughts on corporate jets and other matters exercising the blogosphere. And stop by on Monday to find out this week’s Friday Mystery Author.

Friday Mystery Author: Herman Woulk

This week’s Friday Mystery Author passage was from Herman Woulk’s classic The Caine Mutiny. Mr. Woulk won the Pulitzer for this novel, though he might be better remembered for his The Winds of War and War and Remembrance.

Commander Queeg saluted the colors, and then saluted Harding. “Request permission to come aboard, sir,” he said politely.

“Permission granted.” Harding gave a bare flip of a salute.

The new captain smiled slightly and said, “My name is Queeg.” He held out his hand.

Harding stiffened, gulped, pulled up his belt, saluted again, and tried to return the handshake, but Queeg had put his hand up to return the salute, so that Harding grasped empty air. Then the handclasp was fumblingly accomplished…

UPDATE: Wrechard draws a parallel between The Caine Mutiny and the Edwards campaign bloggers.  Ultimately, though, Queeg was the hero of the story to Woulk…

Friday Mystery Author: February 2, 2007

Welcome to this week’s Friday Mystery Author. If you recognize this passage, take a guess at the author and title in the credits – or just say hello.

The opera had always been a wonderland of sound in which time stopped and the world disolved in pure beauty. On this night he thought Leporello was a coarse clown, the baritone a scratchy-throated old man, Zerlina a screechy amateur, and the whole plot a bore. He strained his eyes at his watch in the middle of his favorite arias. At last it was done. “Mother,” he said as they came out of the lobby to the slushy street, “do you mind if I go on the town by myself for a while? I’ll see you back home.”

Her face showed how well she understood, and how worried she was. “Willie – our last night?”

“I won’t be late, Mother.” He felt able to stuff her bodily into a taxicab if she argued. She must have known, because she signaled for a cab herself.

Stop by on Monday for the answer. Last week’s edition of Friday Mystery Author is here.

Friday Mystery Author: Colin Fletcher

This week’s mystery passage was from “the hiker’s bible:” The Complete Walker, by Colin Fletcher. This was a favorite book of mine in my boyhood; I enjoyed the energetic, cheerful, pragmatic prose, the thoroughgoing organization, as much as I enjoyed hiking, and indeed under Mr. Fletcher’s influence I relished assembling my kit before an expedition. I remember following his lead by tearing the labels off tea bags to save weight. Truly, as the Amazon reviewer says: “800+ pages of the most useful, precise information i’ve ever read anywhere … eloquent, realistic, CLEAR, and mildly humourous…”

Yet Mr. Fletcher is also capable of the following (from the book’s coda):

When I open my mind and let the memories spill out, I find a many-hued mosaic. I remember the odd excitement and the restricted yet infinitely open world I have moved through several times when I have clambered up – very late at night, and following the little pool from my flashlight beam – to the flat, grassy summit of the hill on which I wrote at last the opening chapter of this book.

Friday Mystery Author: January 26, 2007

Welcome to this week’s edition of Friday Mystery Author, in which we challenge all comers to identify the source (author and title) of a more or less obscure passage from literature – broadly defined.

After dark, you must always know exactly where the flashlight is. Otherwise, chaos. My flashlight spends the night in an easy-to-feel position in one bedside boot. And I have a rule that when it is in intermittent use, such as before and during dinner, I never let go my grasp on it without putting it in the pocket designated for the night (which pocket depends on what I’m wearing). This rule is so strict that I rarely break it more than three or four times a night.

Come to think of it, it might be worth tying the flashlight to a loop of nylon cord large enough to slip over your head.

For more on flashlights, see page 221.

This one is a little more unusual than the last few editions, perhaps, so if you don’t recognize it, just say hello. Last week’s edition is here and the answer is here.