Sunday, December 05, 1999
Kids' books for grownups
BY PETER BRONSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The King of Queens is a TV show about a fat guy and his cute little wifey and her annoying father, who I think wandered away from from The Home for Retired Seinfeld Characters. (That place needs razor wire and armed guards before we see Kramer on Meet the Press).
In other words, The King of Queens is a lot like all the other shows on TV about exceptionally ordinary people with ordinary jobs and ordinary, annoying relatives. People in TV Land are just like us, I gather, except that everything they do is uproariously, knee-slapping, roll-on-the-floor, canned-laughter hilarious, because they are such imbeciles — especially the guys.
If TV looks more and more like us, then we look more and more like TV. That means the 1999 American Male is an overgrown 12-year-old who wears unbuttoned shirts that are too big, with cuffs that come down to his dragging knuckles. He looks vaguely stupid, but can scheme like Machiavelli to avoid a dinner party, because he's scared to tell his wife he'd rather play Pokemon with his pals.
He's an adolescent, sloth-witted slob, a comical, clumsy doofus whose favorite line is a helpless “Whaaaat?”
Everybody loves Raymond.
But you can have him. I'll trade a royal flush of Kings of Queens for an evening with Jack Aubrey or Richard Sharpe.
Capt. Jack sails the moody and violent seas of Patrick O'Brian novels. Lt. Sharpe leads infantry through India, Spain and France, in books by Bernard Cornwell.
Both are fictional Englishmen whose adventures are meticulously researched, crammed like museums with the weapons, tools, people, places and battles from the age of Napoleon.
And both come from a time long past, when adult males were men, not childish “guys,” who understood loyalty, honor, friendship and duty.
These novels are kids' books for adults (not to be mistaken for TV adults who act like children).
They are packed with action and adventure like the books we learned to love as children, taking us back to our first Tarzan book or Robinson Crusoe, the first night we stayed awake, turning pages, enchanted by tales that could set an imagination blazing like a prairie fire.
Yet they have adult themes: love, faith, jealousy, war. They open the watch case to reveal the brass cogs and springs that make men tick. It's politically incorrect to say so, but these books are about men. I think the same is true for Harry Potter books and boys.
Another thing that sets them apart: They have a moral code. There is always the right thing to do. Those who take the easy way out are weak, and they suffer the consequences. Those who follow the code don't expect any reward. But they do the right thing anyway, even when they are afraid, even when nobody is watching, because it is a matter of honor. Character.
That is hard to imagine in modern times when honor is as unusual as square-rigged ships and muskets, when our leadership elites have spent the past year scolding anyone who is foolish enough to believe that character counts.
I think Jack Aubrey, Richard Sharpe and Harry Potter are antidotes to a modern world without rules, where the only code is cunning and strength. They are a refuge from the cynical assumption that nobody does the right thing when nobody is watching; that the right thing is for chumps.
The typical modern hero is a boorish loser with a messed-up life, who reluctantly does one right thing, for the wrong reason — and is therefore vindicated, no matter what he has done in the past.
In the 19th Century of Capt. Jack and Lt. Sharpe, a man's past follows him like his shadow, and dishonor stains like indelible India ink, a tattoo for life. Men have to grow up early. But they have to grow up.
In our ordinary world of ordinary people who all look and act like a TV sitcom, we can't wait to forgive anything. Men are weak and harmless, with fragile feelings. They need to be indulged and laughed at, just like children.
On The King of Queens, the fat guy can't figure out who Benedict Arnold is. The annoying old man yells, “Doesn't anybody read anymore?”
And everyone laughs uproariously at the little boy in the big body whose empty face says he is lost.
It's just a TV comedy. But sometimes I wonder if the laugh track is laughing at the people who are watching TV — when they could be reading a good book.
Peter Bronson is editorial page editor of The Enquirer. If you have questions or comments, call 768-8301, or write to 312 Elm Street, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202.
Peter Bronson is editorial page editor of The Enquirer. If you have questions or comments, call 768-8301, or write to 312 Elm Street, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202.
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