Saturday, May 23, 2020




A STRANGE DISCOVERY,  by Charles Romyn Dake, 1849-1899

A few followers of this blog may recall that some months ago i wrote about a Jules Verne sequel to Edgar Allan Poe's "A Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket";  well, this is another one.  Charles Dake was a homeopathic physician in middle America and this pastiche concerns the experiences of a narrator (who remains anonymous) in the U.S. after he receives a behest from his deceased father in Newcastle, England and travels to this country to sell some land.  The year is 1877.  While staying in a hotel, the Loomis House, in Bellevue, Illinois, he becomes acquainted with two doctors.  One is Dr. Bainbridge, a gentle, competent physician with a quiet approach to patient care, and the other is Dr. Castleton, a riotous, opinionated, self-aggrandized polymath who has, according to his own lights, never been wrong about anything.  Through his association with these two, the narrator learns about one of their vic, uh, patients, who lives in a tumble-down cabin several miles from town named Dirk Peters.  Peters was apparently the former companion of Pym's during their mutual experiences in Antarctica in the 1820's.

A brief summary of Poe's story:  Pym was a restless youth and stowed away on a ship where he hid in the hold and was fed by Peters for several months.  A mutiny occurred and most of the crew were killed in a subsequent ship-wreck and Pym and Peters found themselves in a small boat sailing toward Antarctica.  Caught by a powerful current, they passed through dangers galore, including escaping from tribes of black savages, passing through a gigantic wall of mist, and espying, at the end of Poe's account, a large feminine figure looming in front of them at the end of the story.

Drs. Castleton and Bainbridge are treating Peters in his cabin and through their discussion of his case, the narrator learns that Peters was in fact Gordon Pym's former Antarctic associate.  So he takes a ride with them both to visit the old seaman and finds a short, seasoned veteran of the seas who seems to be expiring from old age.  Castleton wants to purge him with calomel and home remedies, but Bainbridge, mainly because Castleton becomes distracted with other business, manages to heal the old sailor to the point that he agrees to share his story.

Over a series of visits, Bainbridge learns what really happened to Peters and Pym, and, in nightly sessions, relates the tale to the narrator.  To wit:  Pym and Peters discovered a race of white people living in a temperate zone behind a wall of fog in an archipelago of sorts, with one large island and many smaller ones.  At the South Pole itself, an area about 30 kilometers in diameter had fallen into the center of the earth, allowing hot magma to rise and heat the surrounding area.  The resulting heat enabled the growth of a civilization as mentioned.  The inhabitants had arrived there in the fifth century after escaping from Italy with the Huns on their heels and without knowing their destination, they were whirled by the current into the confines of Antarctica.  They had created a society of peace and tolerance and were a quiet and intellectual people.  Their architecture had something of the Roman about it, but with touches of pre-BC Egypt and a bit of Greece.  The indigenes called their country Hili-li.  They supported themselves through farming, viniculture, and a modest amount of fishing. The ambient temperature stayed at around 90 degrees year-round.

Pym fell in love with the king's daughter, Lilama, who reciprocated his affection, but a jealous rival, Ahpilus, maddened with devotion, kidnaped her and sailed away to Volcano bay, a local inlet at the base of a mountain eight miles high named Olympus.  There was a small colony of exiles at this locale, who were ostracized by the Hili-li rulers for being overly belligerent.  Possessed by his maniacal desires, Ahpilus, clutching Lilama, ascends the mountain and is followed by Pym and Peters along with some relatives of the kidnapee.  The two groups meet each other near the top, and glare at one another across a forty foot chasm.  Ahpilus is about to jump off and take Lilama with him, when Peters (he was about 4'8" tall and immensely strong;  rather orangutangish, actually) leaps across the gap and rescues the girl.  He breaks Ahpilus's back in the process, eliminating him as an enemy.  (spoiler ahead),

They all return to Hili-li, where the malefactors are forgiven and Pym and Hili-li are married.  Shortly thereafter the whole country falls victim to a sudden freeze, a phenomenon that occurs every 500 years or so, and many citizens die, including Hili-li.  Pym is distraught and decides to leave, which he does, accompanied by Peters.  They sail a small boat north until they meet a coasting schooner that provides Pym passage to a port from which he arranges transportation home.  Peters spends many years following his profession as a sailor until he retires to the small town of Bellevue.

This was the only novel Dake wrote, and it worked quite well, i thought, as a completion to Poe's tale.  The writing style was 19th centuryish, but readily comprehensible.  The only critique of the book(which i actually found quite entertaining) had to do with the frequent oracular expeditions by Castleton (he had a tendency to extrapolate at length, and often, about his opinions concerning politics, business, economics, travel, agriculture, etc.) and the peculiar antics of Arthur, a sort of hotel odd- job boy who ranted about his desire to operate an ice cream store.  It was fun and exciting at times, and offered a different perspective on 19th C. writing and authorship.  I wonder how many other Pym-related books are out there, unrecognized and waiting for some curious reader to find them...

33 comments:

  1. Apparently Verne was not the only one not entirely satisfied with Poe's ending. I wasn't either, so I'm glad these gents have tried to bring it to closure. It might be a while before I get to this one though.

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    1. i just thought i'd mention it since you seemed interested in it at the time... lots of books out there and too little, you know...

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  2. This does sound fascinating. It wouldn't surprise me that there were others as well. A fascinating comparative reading program.

    I've only read the original Poe & that years ago. This makes me want to pick it up again.

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  3. you might like the Verne... actually, it was a better book, considered overall, than this one, although i liked this one well enough... how's the Plutarch going?

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    1. I see this is available on Project Gutenberg (as is the Verne). Is that were you found them? I imagine a physical copy would be hard to come by.

      I'm making progress with the Plutarch but it is big. I should write another post. The best pair of lives so far for me was Alcibiades & Coriolanus. I might have to go off & reread the Shakespeare play.

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    2. sorry for the delay: yes, that's were i got it. Corolianus has been confusing for me; i never was sure what S's point was... i might try a bit of Plutarch, if its not too recherche? ww formidable, better... probably depends a lot on the translation

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    3. I haven't really compared translations, though I might try that at some point--it would be interesting. Though the North translation doesn't seem to be on Gutenberg, which is surprising. That's Shakespeare's translation & that would be fun to look at. The Stewart-Long does seem to get good mentions & is available on Gutenberg. Clough says in his introduction to the Dryden he wouldn't have bothered if they had already done them all. (At the time he published Long had done only a few and it wasn't clear he was going to continue, eventually dying before he did.)

      And the only other complete one is the Bernadotte Perrin which is available in the Loeb series, but that's nine volumes, with Greek, of course, but still...

      I do think it helps to know a bit about the history, because he assumes you do already know. I've found the ones where I knew something already--Alcibiades, say, or Fabius Cunctator--to be much more interesting. Biographies where I knew nothing about the period I was forever double-checking everything with Wikipedia to figure out who he was talking about.

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    4. tx for the comeback... i have no Greek at all, so one of the others would be... hold it. i thought i had an abbreviated Plutarch back there but it turned into a Suetonius... i'll have to do some research...

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  4. I'm not familiar with any of these works. I always find it interesting when an different author brings closure or additional adventures to the original author's work/characters. Sometimes the result is fantastic, and sometimes it is abysmal.

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    1. how right you are!! Sherlock Holmes pastiches are a case in point: there's been a million of "extra" stories published about SH and poor Watson and very few are worth reading... but i've also found that he's such an iconic figure that even the bad ones are interesting... curious...

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    2. I think it is just so hard for people to accept when an author has passed away or stopped writing, that the characters are simply done as well. They are so iconic as you said, and so loved.

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    3. especially those you connect with when you're young... i still remember characters from books i read as a kid: they're really part of me... EEyore, the Hardy brothers, etc.

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  5. You really do find these obscure but interesting sounding tales! I had no idea that this was out there. I also wonder if there are other stories relating to The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket floating about.

    I can see why there is such a temptation to continue the story. It really ended in a way that begged for more.

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    1. this was on Gutenberg; i just happened to come across it by total accident... now i'm trying to exercise my self-discipline to keep from going back and spending way too much time poring through the electronic stacks, haha...

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  6. All news to me. Someday I should read Poe. I have a songwriter friend who is rather obsessed with him. That place in Antarctica where it is warm sounds amazing. On a super hot and dry summer day with the Santa Ana winds raging here in my part of Los Angeles, I would like to find the opposite and just go hang out there until the weather changes. One cannot do heroic acts in the Santa Ana days. One can only pant inside one's air conditioned house, drink water and wait for it to change.

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    1. I am from Minnesota and hate the abysmal heat - though I will take heat over humidity any day, which Nebraska has tons of and it is gross. I hate walking outside and feeling like the air is so heavy, you are practically swimming through it.

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    2. i've heard that there's more serious crime in that area whenever the Santa Ana blows: it drives people crazy... i read all of Poe that i could find when i was in my teens and some of it was pretty scary... i don't know if i'd put up with it now, tho... i've noticed that my tastes have really changed a lot in the ensuing years; things i loved are now just blah and i'm a lot more picky about what i read, which i'm not terribly happy about, but what can a person do? like everything else, just keeping keeping on, i guess...

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    3. Sarah: i see that the replies get just as mixed up on Google as they did on Wordpress; maybe it's that way on purpose haha... heat like that is really enervating... it gets hot here a few times in the summer, but mostly we live close enough to the ocean that it's liveable most of the time...

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    4. We've had some stretches in the summer of 100+ days, but it usually stays below 110. Typically we are in the 90s throughout the summer, but GAH! THE HUMIDITY! I can't take it, it is awful.

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    5. the little experience i've had with it is one of the reasons we live here...

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    6. It's terrible! My grandparents, mom, and aunts and uncles all lived here in Nebraska for quite a few years before moving back to Minnesota and those who have visited in the summer in the last few years have said the humidity was never like this when they were here. I wonder if it has partly to do with irrigation for farmland, and the massive increase in the use of machines for watering the fields?

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  7. What a whale of a tale! I have read everything Poe wrote and do not remotely remember this. I'll have to dig up my Poe again and find it. It really sounds almost Lovecraftian. And also reminds me a little of that movie from the fifties or earlier, Beyond the Horizon, where the Himalayan explorers stumble across Shangrila.

    Never heard of Drake, if I never read the story, at least I've read your fine review of it.

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    1. tx, Sharon... i read most of Poe also and didn't have a very good recollection of the story this book was based on until i was reminded of it. Poe wrote some essays that are very hard going that i haven't read; they're hard to find... Lovecraft was the scariest writer i ever read, particularly his "In the Mountains of Madness"... for some reason i had nightmares about that book for years when i read it in my teens...

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  8. Hi Mudpuddle, hope everything is going well for you & you’re keeping healthy. 🙂I’m amazed at all the obscure but interesting books you write about! I don’t ever read on kindle, ebooks etc so I think I probably miss out on some good stuff that isn’t actually in print.

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    1. so far, no sickness here... we live in an area that's very little affected by the pandemic, tho... even so we wear masks when going shopping which we keep to a minimum... Gutenberg is a great resource for scarce books: it's sort of like hunting for buried treasure except you never know exactly what you're going to discover...

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  9. I found you! Back when you changed sites I somehow got a WordPress url instead of this one. I wondered if you were still active at all until I saw you over at CK's. I will amend my shortcuts directly! :)

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    1. glad to see your imprint, Stephen... i haven't checked your blog lately; hope things are proceeding cheerfully! how are things over there?

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    2. So far, so good...lots of news about corona cases being on the rise, but the state continues its march towards opening. I can't say I mind, to be honest. I hope you and the Mrs. are staying safe!

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  10. Wow, I hadn't heard of this sequel! I read the Poe and Verne books a few years ago. I enjoyed the premise though neither of the books really fleshed it out satisfactorily IMHO. Will definitely check this out at some point!

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    1. i liked it... i can't say that it was remarkable, but it kept my interest, not only for the enhanced story-line, but for the characters... Castleton was a true type that i've run across more than once! i guess you probably read that it's on Gutenberg... i looked around on your last post for a comment button but couldn't find one... i gather that book was written by the premier of China? most amazing that he wrote a novel also...

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    2. Oh you're right! I forgot to add the "Continue Reading link" (added now :)). The book on Xi was written by a guy named Richard McGregor - it's sort of an elongated blog article, but I definitely enjoyed it. I want to read Xi's own writings at some point, though apparently it's mostly a bunch of his speeches/rhetoric put into book form.

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    3. computers are a challenge that's for sure... i forget stuff like that all the time, even at my very low competency... i'll check your post, tx...

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