Patito de Hule
02-21-2012, 10:45 AM
The Tourgee Owl (http://www.flickr.com/photos/carbonated/3882076720/) appeared on the cover of the original edition of Bricks without Straw. It is an owl perched on a bauble. In its original context it can be found here by scrolling down about three pages (http://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/tourgee/tourgee.html).
I find this interesting because of of its obvious connection to his earlier book, A Fool's Errand: by One of the Fools. On that book there is a foolscap hung on the bauble. Obviously, the foolscap and the bauble are symbols of the fool--in this case, the Fool. The owl, of course, is a symbol of wisdom.
In the 47 chapters of A Fools Errand we have the following chapter heads:
1. The Genesis of Folly
24. Wisdom Crieth in the Streets (exact midpoint in the novel)
45. Wisdom and Folly Meet together
46 and 47 are anticlimactic.
Folly ... Wisdom ... Wisdom and Folly
This is true miscegenation.
A Fool's Errand roughly autobiographical. Albion Tourgee was an Ohio abolitionist. At age 23, he joined the Union Army, but sustained a spinal wound at Bull Run. Initially paralyzed, he recovered and continued in the Army, became a Colonel and was breveted a brigadier general. After the war, he moved to Greenville, NC, for a warmer climate and his health. He was appointed a judge. And an outspoken judge he was. Such men, called carpetbaggers, were not especially loved in the Reconstruction South. :flare: Eventually he moved back home where he continued to be an activist for civil rights. He began to lecture and to write to supplement his income.
The protagonist Comfort Servosse was already an established lawyer in Peru, MI, in 1861. A depression set over him on reading the news about Union defeat at Bull Run. He joined the Army and, like Tourgee himself, became a colonel. He was also wounded, but in the leg instead of the spine. Like his creator, he moved South at the end of the war to Warrington, a small 600-acre plantation. There he ran afoul of his neighbors by his friendly attitude to the Negroes and was eventually driven back home.
A "fool's errand" is an impossible mission. And given the time and social conditions, bringing a message of freedom and equality to the Blacks was exactly that. The autobiographical plot might be a little shallow, but much depth is added by the maintained contrast between the Fool and his Wisdom.
I should like to do a fuller review of this interesting book, but at this time I wanted to put down something. And I want to read Tourgee's other works before I decide where I'm going with this one.
I find this interesting because of of its obvious connection to his earlier book, A Fool's Errand: by One of the Fools. On that book there is a foolscap hung on the bauble. Obviously, the foolscap and the bauble are symbols of the fool--in this case, the Fool. The owl, of course, is a symbol of wisdom.
In the 47 chapters of A Fools Errand we have the following chapter heads:
1. The Genesis of Folly
24. Wisdom Crieth in the Streets (exact midpoint in the novel)
45. Wisdom and Folly Meet together
46 and 47 are anticlimactic.
Folly ... Wisdom ... Wisdom and Folly
This is true miscegenation.
A Fool's Errand roughly autobiographical. Albion Tourgee was an Ohio abolitionist. At age 23, he joined the Union Army, but sustained a spinal wound at Bull Run. Initially paralyzed, he recovered and continued in the Army, became a Colonel and was breveted a brigadier general. After the war, he moved to Greenville, NC, for a warmer climate and his health. He was appointed a judge. And an outspoken judge he was. Such men, called carpetbaggers, were not especially loved in the Reconstruction South. :flare: Eventually he moved back home where he continued to be an activist for civil rights. He began to lecture and to write to supplement his income.
The protagonist Comfort Servosse was already an established lawyer in Peru, MI, in 1861. A depression set over him on reading the news about Union defeat at Bull Run. He joined the Army and, like Tourgee himself, became a colonel. He was also wounded, but in the leg instead of the spine. Like his creator, he moved South at the end of the war to Warrington, a small 600-acre plantation. There he ran afoul of his neighbors by his friendly attitude to the Negroes and was eventually driven back home.
A "fool's errand" is an impossible mission. And given the time and social conditions, bringing a message of freedom and equality to the Blacks was exactly that. The autobiographical plot might be a little shallow, but much depth is added by the maintained contrast between the Fool and his Wisdom.
I should like to do a fuller review of this interesting book, but at this time I wanted to put down something. And I want to read Tourgee's other works before I decide where I'm going with this one.