Saigon Hotel, March 1970

I walked down Tu Do Street from my hotel, the Majestic, toward the opera house and the Continental. The Continental Hotel is Graham Greene’s hangout, and the gathering place for press and diplomatic types. In this Paris of the East there are impressive boulevards, sidewalk cafés and colonial balconies. There are many bicyclists and pedestrians and military vehicles jamming the street. The cafes are crowded, and loud music, mostly American rock and roll, vibrates out to the sidewalks from the strip clubs. Life is good, business is booming, and the Saigon night is young.

      The motor scooters, old cars, and packed buses, careen around the traffic circle, oblivious of the hand signals of the policeman on his platform. Neon signs blaze,  GIs are out in packs,  MPs are on patrol, and the boy-girls whisper of secret pleasures as they skip to walk beside you.

      The Continental’s ground floor café is enclosed by protective screens. I walked through the café into the lobby and on through to the courtyard and up the steps to the bar. The bartender was middle-aged, Vietnamese, who spoke English flawlessly. I mentioned Greene.

      “Yes, Graham Greene,” he said. “The Quiet American…did you read the book before coming here?” I replied that I had, and offered the thought that everyone who came should read it.

      He laughed, and said, “Yes, but of course your government dislikes the book. I’ve read it many times.”

      “Do you know what room Greene lived in when he was writing the book?”

      “I’m not supposed to say. It causes problems,” he said, with a grin. “You’re on your way to R&R  or home?”

      “Home… tomorrow.”

      “Well, in that case,” he said, “let me see if the magic room is unoccupied, you can take a quick look.”

      I was nursing my second beer when he returned: “Come with me” he whispered.

      We went up a service staircase to the second floor. Room 214 is a corner room with tall bright windows, yellow draperies, a chair and ottoman, a bed and matching nightstands, with a writing desk and chair facing the wall. It was clean and empty, awaiting its next guest. I stayed at the open door admiring the brass handles and letter box.

      “You can go in for a minute if you like.”  

      “No, this is fine, thank you.”

      Later I ran into a few friends in the bar and stayed quite late. As I was leaving I looked across the room to my conspirator to say goodbye. He saw me, smiled and waved me over.

      Leaning across he said: “I forgot to mention, our friend Graham Greene actually prefers the Majestic Hotel to this one, and stays there now when he comes to Saigon. Do you know the Majestic?”

November 22, 1963/2013

It has been fifty years since the Kennedy assassination and the true beginning of the “sixties.” On that November 22, in 1963, we who were very young, and living a relatively slow paced, black and white, half hour of news at seven existence, were slammed into a world of real time murder, distrust, intrigue, and confusion. I can still see Sister Benedict dropping to her knees in our classroom gripping her cross and telling us all to kneel down right now and say a prayer for the president, who might in fact be dying. I ran the six blocks home to my mother who uncharacteristically hadn’t heard what had happened.  I remember trying to sort out the reality of it all. He was actually dead? Shot in the head? There was Jackie with blood all over her, people running around with guns, police cars, Air Force One, a casket, darkness, lights, he was dead. On a sunny Friday afternoon a week before Thanksgiving, just like that?

All of us experienced it in roughly the same way, a coming of age that was unwelcome and frightening, and which unbeknownst to each of us, was a catalyst for things to come. Indeed, some would argue it all went to hell after that. From Vietnam through Watergate and back again, we lived and rambled through the sixties until 1975 when that last chopper left Saigon. Now looking back it is difficult to recall what the country looked like pre-1960, except that it was more hidden from view and therefore less urgent. Things were brewing, and we were involved in marches and readings and singing and protests. But it was being fed to us in small doses, maybe two minutes out of an evening news broadcast or a few questions on a talk show or during a press conference.

All of that changed with the media becoming more and more the defining force in our daily lives, gradually building up to the then improbable 24 hours of broadcasting on too many channels to even count, and of course the internet. Now everything is thrown in our face, from massacres to wars to assassinations to tsunamis to nuclear accidents, to real time terrorist attacks, and we become skeptical of “Breaking News” stories…is this an earth shattering story or another cruise ship fire?  It’s difficult today for our younger brethren to appreciate the impact of that infamous “News Bulletin” with Walter Cronkite interrupting the midday TV shows with the news of shots being fired at the presidential motorcade in Dallas. Yes, it was a different world then, it was primarily our parents’ world, and ours by inheritance, and we watched it evolve in very short time from a decade of assassinations, war, and riots, to the high definition, information overloaded, yet essentially similar world we have today.

When we remember JFK this November 22, we remember what our country looked like then and the turmoil that was just beginning for all of us. For many of us who lived through those tragic days fifty years ago we look back not only in sadness but in awe; awe at the profound, twisted effect a tragic assassination has had on our history, and sadness that in experiencing the loss of a president we lost forever our basic innocence, our faith in a human capacity to seek out the good and just in all things.  

October Baseball

    I remember the World Series as a frustrating time of having to run home from school to catch the middle-to-final innings of the baseball games on television, wondering why everyone in the world got to watch the entire game except us kids in school. It seemed it was always the Dodgers and the Yankees, except for the few years that the Milwaukee Braves got to play and my mother cheered for them as only an old Boston Braves fan could do. Of course there were no wild card games or series, and no division play-offs. We had the American League and National League, about sixteen teams, two pennant races and winners, and then the World Series, played on sunny afternoons on black and white TV. Both leagues played under the same rules, pitchers came up to bat or were taken out of the game, good hitters had to take the field as well as hit, and managers had to manage.

I also remember being a Red Sox fan and never being able to root for the Sox in the series until 1967. That was the year we played the Cardinals and I arrived at Fenway in the wee hours to wait in a mile long line for standing room only tickets. And then watching batting practice from my standing perch in the back of the back row of the first base grandstand, afraid to move and lose my spot, I saw the great Cardinals pitcher Bob Gibson warming up and knew there was no way that the Sox were going hit this guy. No way. And so it went, 1967, 1975 and again in 1986, until 2004 when they finally did it. Those of us who were die hard fans from the 50’s and 60’s onward will never forget that full moon over Fenway and the childlike thrill that came, along with a few tears, when the Sox won it all.

Each October the drama is played out for another group of teams and their fans, kids and grownups alike. Now there are more teams and more games, wildcard and division championships, night games in vivid HD color. And either because of the changes or in spite of them, it is still October baseball, with cheers and broken hearts, winners and losers, heroes and goats, and a great dramatic run to the final game that will determine the World Champion. In these uncertain times that make us all wonder when the next brick will fall, we still have the October Classic.  So as Ernie Banks would say: “Let’s play two!”  

There Used To Be a Bookshop

The Chestertown Old Book Co. closed in April after ten plus years of dealing in rare and second-hand books. A sad day for us, as it is for so many small booksellers lately. It's a difficult thing to throw in the towel on a business you love, but the choices were few and pretty clear.

So now we move on. The Chester River Press is still functioning albeit a bit wobbly after the bookshop's demise. The two enterprises meshed nicely and the bookshop provided the ideal setting for discussing book layouts, type selection, paper, printing and publishing options, editing, cover design, etc. But we will continue as a Press, and I urge you to check the website.

Much of the remaining book stock from the Old Book Co. will be sold at auction by Waverly Auction in Falls Church, Virginia. We still have some business left to do with customers who left their books with us and we will be contacting them soon. The bookshop's email account was closed, and the best method of staying in touch is to contact us at...info@chesterriverpress.com.

Color Us Orange: Agent Orange and the Legacy of the Vietnam War

by Gerard Cataldo

June, 1969, Tan An Province, South Vietnam: We were told to hold off our landing until the C-123’s finished their spraying run on a strip of thick jungle on the river. As soon as they were finished, we flew our Huey into a small clearing to complete a medevac of six wounded GI’s. As we were climbing out we could see the distinctive tail-high profiles of the 123’s starting another run on a nearby area. Our medic, Johnny Tobin, came on the intercom: “That’s agent orange, boys…and it’s nasty shit.” 

The story of Agent Orange is fairly well known, but considering new generations of young Americans who might barely recall reading about the Vietnam War, let alone living through it, and for some who might have slept, smoked, drank or danced their way through the sixties and seventies, a short retelling and update of the story might open an eye or two.

Based in large part on a Rand study, the United States military began using herbicides and defoliants in Vietnam in 1962, with the expressed intent to prevent the communist guerilla forces, the Vietcong, from being supplied food by local farmers, and to defoliate jungle and forest areas which provided cover for the guerillas. Manufactured by Monsanto Corporation, Dow Chemical, and others, the agent was a mix of two phenoxyl herbicides, 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) and 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4,5-T), the latter being contaminated with one of the most toxic dioxins, 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzodioxin (TCCD).

The mixture was shipped to the military in Vietnam in chemical drums marked with a colored orange stripe. The military reportedly mixed and used the chemicals at a rate of six to twenty-five times the strength recommended by the manufacturers. During the war, from 1962 to 1971, the military sprayed an estimated 17 to 20 million gallons of Agent Orange (and other agents containing Dioxin, such as agents Green, Pink, Purple, Blue and White) on parts of South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia in defoliation campaigns code named Operation Trail Dust, and Operation Ranch Hand (originally code named, more aptly,Operation Hades). Twelve percent of the area of South Vietnam was affected, destroying an estimated 5 million acres of forests and crops. (By reference, the entire state of Maryland contains about 7.5 million acres, New Hampshire contains about 5.7 million acres.)

Herbicides were not developed solely for Vietnam. During World War II the U.S. and U.K. conducted research on the military applications of herbicides, including test flights using 2,4-D in 1944 and 1945. Research in the United States continued during the 1950’s, leading to a ‘successful’ military demonstration of the tactical use of herbicides by spraying 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T from aircraft over a four square mile area at Fort Drum, New York. From the early 1950’s through the 1960’s, the military mixed, tested, or stored Agent Orange and other herbicides containing Dioxin at locations in the following states: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, Montana, New York, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin. The military also tested the agents in India, Korea, Cambodia, Laos, Puerto Rico, Thailand, and in Canada (jointly with the Canadian military).

Herbicide spraying in Vietnam was conducted primarily by specially outfitted C-123 Provider aircraft, and by helicopters, trucks, boats, and backpack hand sprayers. GIs would off load the 55 gallon drums, stack and store them at base locations, open, mix and load the herbicide onto aircraft, boats and vehicles, and transport numerous drums to villages and small airfields for further storage until use.

Empty drums were used by GIs and locals for numerous purposes, including: barbecue pits, trash burning, storage of other liquid products including fuel, as sand filled revetment walls for aircraft protection, as containers for holding water for field showers, and for use in villages as structural components, water and food containers, and for other domestic and farming purposes. Dioxins from Agent Orange settled into the soil and sediment, and are detectible today in extremely high doses especially around the former major air bases where the U.S. military had off-loading and storage facilities. Dioxins affected the animal and bird species in Vietnam, and left the defoliated forest areas susceptible to ongoing erosion, loss of seeding forest stock, and made regeneration difficult and in some cases impossible.

Civilians in villages affected by the spraying were contaminated by the crops they farmed and ate, and by the ground water they drank. The Vietnam Red Cross, in a study referenced by the Department of Veterans Affairs, estimates that three million Vietnamese have been affected by Agent Orange, including children born with birth defects. As with most air operations of that type, the spraying of herbicides was not an exact science. It was susceptible to wind drifts, weather, errors in navigation, careless handling, improper storage, casual use of contaminated containers, spillage, and occasional releases of toxins over heavily populated areas, and areas where U.S. troops were conducting operations. As a result, American troops, to one degree or another, were conducting ground or air operations in the immediate vicinity of spraying, slept in contaminated areas, worked at bases where the agent was mixed or stored, or were susceptible to doses of contaminants in their food and water supplies.

Concerns for the health issues of humans involved with Agent Orange commenced in 1965 with Dow Chemical beginning discussions on the toxic nature of Dioxins. In 1969, Bionetcs Research Laboratories published a study showing that Dioxin caused deaths in laboratory animals. A report prepared by the National Institutes of Health in 1969 presented evidence that 2,4,5-T caused malformations in offspring of mice, and as a result the military ordered a limitation of Agent Orange use to areas remote from the population.

Two million, six hundred thousand Americans served in Vietnam. Of those, 58,200 were killed, and 304,000 wounded. Between the end of the Vietnam War and 1977, the Department of Veterans Affairs began receiving claims from Vietnam veterans for disabilities they believed were associated with exposure to Agent Orange. These claims were routinely denied unless the veterans could prove that their health conditions began when they were in the military or within a year of discharge. By the early 1990s, of the 39,400 veterans who filed claims for disability issues related to Agent Orange (or other Dioxin contaminated herbicides) the V.A. had compensated 486 veterans. During the 1980s additional studies were conducted, class action law suits filed, and expert testimony given before Congress, resulting in the Agent Orange Act, enacted by Congress in 1991. The Act gave the Department of Veterans Affairs the authority to declare certain conditions “presumptive” to Agent Orange/Dioxin exposure. The list of conditions has grown since 1991, and now includes: prostate cancer, respiratory cancers, multiple myoma, type II diabetes, Hodgkin’s, and more. The list has been expanded to include conditions borne by offspring of veterans, and specific conditions suffered by women who served in Vietnam.

The United States has been in negotiations with Vietnam concerning the health impact of Agent Orange on the Vietnamese population and offspring. In 2007 the U.S. made $3 million available for public health programs in Vietnam, in particular in areas surrounding former U.S. military bases where Agent Orange was mixed and stored. In 2011, the U.S. began a decontamination campaign of Dioxin contaminated areas in Vietnam, with $32m allocated by the Congress to fund the effort. There are 25-30 former military bases in Vietnam where Agent Orange was mixed or stored. Testing for Dioxin has been conducted at former bases, including DaNang, PhuCat, and BienHoa, resulting in high levels of Dioxin still present in the soil and sediment, in some cases up to 350 times higher than the standard of international recommendations for action.

For its part, the Department of Veterans Affairs has updated its policy on the Agent Orange issue. Currently, the V.A. recognizes that veterans who served in Vietnam between 1962 and 1975 are “presumed to have been exposed to herbicides,” as specified in the Agent Orange Act of 1991. These veterans do not need to show they were exposed to Agent Orange or other herbicides in order to get disability compensation for diseases related to Agent Orange exposure.”

And so the Vietnam War continues to be the gift that keeps on giving. Those of us who were there and know what an experience it was, and who watched so much sacrifice, duty, and heroism, and who have, for many years since, wondered how we got through it and what it was about anyway, now are faced with health worries that might in fact have been courtesy of our service. To search for lessons is a futile gesture, since all wars have their human legacies, whether addiction, depression, nightmares, wounds, disabilities, or cancer, and none of it will ever stop until we realize the consequences of what we do as a nation, not only to other people but to ourselves. We can only assume that the coming years will bring additional revelations about chemicals used in Iraq and Afghanistan, and other places we have yet to experiment with.

There’s a lot more to war than meets the eye. It’s not all patriotism, and parades, and medals, and speeches, and campaigns, and tough guy slogans, and America right or wrong. There are human consequences that never seem to enter the equation when the suits and generals sit around the conference tables in Washington and plan the futures of twenty- year-old men and women.

When the last helicopter lifted off from Saigon on April 29, 1975 we were told the Vietnam War was over. Well…it wasn’t.

(This article originally appeared in the Talbot/Chestertown Spy, August 28, 2012.)

The Boeing Model 40

Chester River Press is pleased to publish The Model 40: The History of the Boeing Model 40 and the Birth of Boeing Airliners, the second book by noted aviation historian Mike Lavelle who, with co-author Addison Pemberton, has written the first definitive history of the Boeing Model 40, the airplane that flew the transcontinental Chicago to San Francisco mail route. The Model 40 helped Boeing survive the depression years and was the first true Boeing airliner. The book is written in two parts, the first being a complete, detailed history of the design, development and operations of the aircraft, and the second being the personal story of the discovery, restoration, and flying of an original Model 40. Heavily illustrated with period and contemporary photos and charts, and with a foreword by William Boeing, Jr., The Model 40 is destined to be the standard reference on the early years of Boeing aircraft. Copies are available through Chester River Press and Amazon.

Thomas Jefferson's Copy of Aeschylus

The Chestertown Old Book Co. is pleased to offer an historically significant set of books from the personal library of Thomas Jefferson, assembled and interleaved by him, specially bound by his personal bookbinder, and containing Jefferson's unique quire ownership markings.

This is a seven volume set of The Tragedies of Aeschylus, in full leather, octavo in size, bound by Frederick Mayo in uniform bindings of gilt tooled calfskin. Each volume was assembled and bound according to Jefferson's specifications, resulting in varied texts, pagination, paper stock, and language: French, English, Greek and Latin. Following the 1815 sale of the bulk of his library to Congress, Jefferson continued to acquire books. The Retirement Library Catalogue, written in Jefferson's hand, constituted the third and final library at Monticello. After Jefferson died in 1826, his library was listed for auction through Nathaniel P. Poor in Washington, D.C., on February 27, 1829. This Aeschylus set is included in the Poor Catalogue.

Jefferson's habit was to mark his books at quires "I" and/or "T", by placing his initial in ink beside the quire signature. Jefferson's marks are present in these volumes. Jefferson's "strike-throughs" are also present on the title pages of four volumes. Also present is a handwritten notation by G.C. Verplanck, the original buyer at auction. This set of books has been in the Verplanck family since its purchase at the auction. In addition, the set of books is specifically referred to in a letter Jefferson wrote to Philadelphia book dealer John Laval on March 27, 1820.

For further information on this unique set of Jefferson's books please contact us at rarebooks@verizon.net, or telephone 410-810-3880.

War on the Home Front

Chester River Press has the privilege of working with distinguished aviation historian Mike Lavelle in the publishing of his "aviation papers," a collection of research, lectures and journal articles on key events in the history of aviation and in particular Boeing's contributions to the design and production of significant aircraft. Mr. Lavelle is a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, and currently a Director at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington. We have just completed and released the first of Mr. Lavelle's works, War on the Home Front: Building the B-29 Superfortress, a compelling, heavily illustrated study of the design and development of one of the most important aircraft of World War II. In the book's Foreword, distinguished historian and lecturer Richard P. Hallion states: "In this incisive and thorough study, aviation historian Mike Lavelle takes the reader deep into the design and production process that led to the B-29. Written by a historian totally in command of his sources and references, with an informed perspective shaped by years of following aerospace history, this history of the B-29 is certain to become a standard reference..." We look forward to continuing our work with Mr. Lavelle to publish the full collection of his aviation papers.

New Poetry Collections

Chester River Press has published the latest poetry collections of two well-known and highly regarded literary figures and poets, Mary Wood and Emily Vogel. The Philosopher's Wife, by Emily Vogel, contains 36 poems which, in the words of Michael Foldes "...speak to possibilities, revealing the mysteries of enchantment, the too-often fleeting moment of adoration that accompanies found love." Pulitzer Prize winning poet Franz Wright states: "From my first encounter with them I have been struck by the ferocity of clarity and understatement with which Vogel shapes and controls and, in fact, intensifies the impact of these splendidly constructed poems." In First Ice, Mary Wood presents 18 poems introduced by Kelly Castro: "Mary Wood does not struggle with life's process. The poems in this collection, most of which were written in the last ten years, are about a complete acceptance of life as it is. And though her poetry addresses time's inevitable effects, hers is not a sullen art." First Ice is adorned with four color art pieces by Kathryn Jankus Day, including the cover art, and the cover of The Philosopher's Wife is an art piece by Faith Wilson.

Tennessee

I had the pleasure of meeting with David Bruce Smith, writer and publisher, who has created a masterpiece production of three works by Tennessee Williams. Tennessee is a limited edition, four-color, letterpress, three-volume collection that contains the first publication of Tennessee Williams's recently discovered play These are the Stairs You Got To Watch, along with The Glass Menagerie, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Included in the collection are original artwork by Clarice Smith, depicting "Tennessee's Women," and a preface by Michael Kahn, Artistic Director of the Shakespeare Theatre. David Bruce Smith provides the commentary.

The books are elephant folios letterpress printed in four colors, finely bound and hand sewn on Fabriano Rusticus paper, with six color art prints from metal plates, all enclosed in a custom box. For those of us who admire Tennessee Williams's work, this set of books is awe-inspiring. Beautifully produced and a pleasure to read, it is a sincere tribute to Williams and also a stunning example of fine book making. I urge all to visit David's website at davidbrucesmith.com to learn more about this publication and his other offerings.

Discovering an Impressive New Blog

I've recently discovered a new blog worthy of your attention. Chris Adamson's superb observations at www.booksandvines.com shouldn't be missed. His reviews of new and special editions of classic books are informative, engaging, comprehensive and entertaining. A must-read blog for all of us who thirst for the latest in beautifully crafted books. Chris presents literature, art, fine wines and food in the expert manner of a true book lover. Click the link in the listing below right, and enjoy!

Chestertown Book Festival

The Chestertown Book Festival Committee is pleased to announce the Third Annual Chestertown Book Festival to be held Saturday, September 10, 2011, from 10am to 5pm, at the historic Prince Theatre, 210 High Street, Chestertown, Maryland, 21620.

Author John Barth will keynote the event at 7pm on Friday, September 9, on the campus of Washington College, and will be signing his new book on Saturday at the Prince Theatre. Also on Saturday, Adam Goodheart, Director of the C.V. Starr Center at Washington College will discuss and sign his new book 1861: The Civil War Awakening; and Richard Ben Cramer, Pulitzer-winning journalist and author, will discuss work in progress as well as his previous works, including What it Takes: The Way to the White House; Joe DiMaggio: The Hero's Life; and How Israel Lost: The Four Questions.

The Festival will include authors, illustrators, publishers, printers, booksellers, periodicals, etc. The Festival is now accepting participant applications for display space, please see the Festival website. Applications should be submitted by July 15. Space will be limited in the theatre, allowing for approximately 30-35 participants to display and sell their works. The Festival is open to the public free of charge. We welcome volunteers and donations. The Festival is a 501.c nonprofit organization.

Please check the website at www.chestertownbookfestival.org, or call 410-810-3880.

A Noteworthy Blog Discovery

The Whole Book Experience is a new blog worthy of your attention. The blog is dedicated to fine press books and presents news items on fine press happenings and events, profiles of presses, and reviews of fine press books. The blog is superbly presented, with clear photographs of books and interesting discussion. Don't miss it! Click the link on the blog listing in the right hand column, below.

Early Biographers of George Washington

Chester River Press has just published First in Their Hearts: Early Biographers of George Washington, by Gerard Cataldo and Barbara Chesney, 2011. The book discusses the biographies of Washington written by Mason Locke Weems, John Marshall, Jared Sparks, and Washington Irving. Published in connection with lectures given by Cataldo and Chesney to the Old Kent Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, the book contains the text of both lectures and vignettes of the four biographers.

New Publishing Ventures

Chester River Press has just published three new books. The first is William Thompson’s novel The Waterbusher, set in the dark days of the 1930s on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. The second is the first trade edition of Fierce Blessings, a collection of poetry by James Dissette, which was first published in a limited letterpress edition by Chester River Press. The third is The Passion for Books by Gerard Cataldo.

The Passion for Books is a concise guide to book collecting for the novice and experienced collector. The book is my attempt to synthesize my own experience with the various terms, practices, and customs which I have found to be most important for a meaningful pursuit of a wonderful passion. It is the result of my enjoying many years of collecting books and being an antiquarian book dealer and bookshop owner.

These books are available through our website.

Hertzog Award for Excellence in Book Design

Chester River Press is pleased to announce that our letterpress limited edition of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness has been named the 2010 recipient of the Carl Hertzog Award for Excellence in Book Design. The book's designers and printers, James Dissette and Chad Pastotnik, will receive the award at a ceremony in February. The award is presented by the Friends of the University Library of the University of Texas at El Paso, and is the most prestigious award of its kind.

Well deserved congratulations to Jim and Chad for a superb labor of love and art. The books were printed at Chad's Deep Wood Press and bound at Bessenberg Bindery, both in Michigan. Our partnership with Chad on this project was truly extraordinary. For information on this fine edition of Conrad visit our website.

Scaling the Walls of Troy - Part Three.

This concludes the story of the design, printing and publishing of the Chester River Press edition of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. We just received our advance copy of the set and we are very pleased indeed. Two folio volumes, in slipcase, black cloth binding with gold foil design and spine titles, top edge gilt, ribbon markers, text in Greek and English, and over fifty full-page, tipped-in original art pieces in the Greek vase styles. The art is stunning, and these modern books have the look and feel of classic folios.

Dystopia Revisited

I’ve been on a trip to the land of Dystopia, wandering down a few of its many side roads, re-reading standard works and discovering unfamiliar ones. It was a refreshing exercise to read several of the classics of this genre in sequence over a limited period of time. The production of worthy dystopian novels and stories numbers in the hundreds and continues each year. I offer here a brief survey of some classics of the genre, for your consideration.

To begin with, certain themes recur in dystopia land, including: the status of the intellectual and the free thinking person; the various futuristic visions of architecture or ruin; the social norms, living conditions and personal interrelationships; and the inevitable divisions of society into the powerful and the less-powerful classes. These plot nuances are often a product of an author’s attempt to interject political and social views based on contemporary society. These all become recognizable markers for the reader’s journey through the genre. Also, there is a post-apocalyptic nature to many plots, whether clearly stated or implied. In fact, there seems to be a friendly rivalry in literati circles with the “true” dystopians on one side, the post-apocalyptics on the other.

I started my tour with H.G. Wells. Being one of the ‘fathers of science fiction’, Wells has some claim to writing one of the first dystopian novels, The Time Machine, in 1895. The concept of time travel was not invented by Wells, but he infused the Time Traveller’s journey into the very distant future with a glimpse of a civilization evolved into a divided two class structure. The Time Machine is written in the form of a second hand narrator relating the exploits of the Time Traveller who invents the machine which makes travel to the future and past possible. This plot line is not generally followed in other dystopian works as most are straightforward narratives assuming place, time, and events to be cohesive in their telling. But Wells uses this format in some of his other tales, most notably in When the Sleeper Awakes.

Most of the standard elements of dystopian fiction are present in The Time Machine. The architecture plays a prominent role, with the landscape dotted with ruined buildings and monuments, and an underground network of cavernous tunnels. The societal structure is based on power where the underground species has evolved as strong, brutish, and animal-like, but in control of the apparatus of the world, preying on the gentle, simple minded surface civilization for sustenance.

The Time Machine continues to fascinate readers, viewers and listeners. It has been filmed several times, most recently in 2002, was performed as a radio dramatization by the BBC in 2009, and Penguin Classics has released a new paperback series of Wells’ novels. The Time Machine was first published in serialization and stands as an example of Wells’ early writing in the genre, as the first popularization of the time travel concept, and as a clue to themes to be developed in his later work.

Wells’ When the Sleeper Awakes, 1899, (revised in 1910 as The Sleeper Awakes) is a more intense dystopian offering covering the full range of themes, but also written from the perspective of a visitor from the past finding himself in the future. Graham, “The Sleeper”, wakes after a 200 year nap to find himself in a future London. By a rather convoluted sequence of events, he is now the richest man in the world. The plot basically involves Graham assuming his “responsibility” as the master of the world and aligning with the enlightened visionaries to thwart the evil power elite.

Wells did some intriguing writing here regarding futuristic architecture in particular, with London depicted as a giant covered mall with massive halls, passageways, factories, living quarters, and entertainment centers. He returns to the theme of the underground masses versus the above ground society. His vision of airplanes and aerodromes add to the prophetic nature of the writing. More solidly dystopian than The Time Machine, some readers see Sleeper as a logical ‘fleshing out’ of the ideas briefly explored in the previous novel, and many critics have termed Sleeper “the first dystopian novel”.

Wells was a socialist, wrote fiction and non-fiction, and was concerned with society’s structure, its problems, and its future. His early works were termed “scientific romances”,
many of which were concerned with the utopian possibilities for the “World State”. He envisioned an end to nationalism and the advancement of science and a planned society. Reading these two works of Wells is an exercise in theme development. Written just four years apart, Sleeper is a giant leap from The Time Machine in terms of dystopian elements and development of plot. The later and more seriously regarded dystopians such as Zamyatin, Huxley and Orwell owe a great debt to Wells’ imagination.

One of the first works I revisited was the short story “The Machine Stops” by E.M. Forster, published in 1909. This can be found in Forster’s volume of short stories titled The Eternal Moment and Other Stories. It tells the tale of a future dependent on “The Machine” to control the personal and public affairs of the citizenry. The dependency has allowed ‘humans’ to evolve into a soft culture where the basic state of living is isolation in small apartments, and the main concern is communication of ideas. This is accomplished in a huge subterranean metropolis or ‘condominium’ environment where the Machine provides the essential needs of the citizens, and provides the means of communication and learning through video conferencing. Travel to the outside world is prohibited, but one is permitted to use an air ship to be transported to other similar subterranean locations on the Earth. The inevitable happens when gradually the Machine develops problems, begins to falter, and then stops altogether. There are definite post-apocalyptic hints to the plot, especially concerning the surface world and the possibility of life existing there.

Clearly dystopian in nature, most readers today readily identify the Machine with our computer driven society, easily bringing to mind our apprehension at the turn of the millennium, when airplanes would fall from the sky and the infrastructure of the globe would shut down. But this story was written a hundred years ago, seventy years before the internet, and was most probably a reaction of sorts to Wells’ writings as well as a statement of concern with the development of technology in general. No matter how conceived, "The Machine Stops" is staggering in its prophetic perception of the tendency to devise artificial solutions to human problems and needs, and today’s reliance on computers, systems, video and data transmission underlines the significance of Forster’s warnings. Vonnegut’s Player Piano echoes this theme. "The Machine Stops" should be required reading for all of us.

Yevgeny Zamyatin’s novel We, written in 1921, has been considered the first dystopian novel of the” modern era”. It is a prototype of sorts for the novels of Huxley and Orwell, the similarities being too obvious to ignore. Here we have the complete scenario of a future society forming after a war that destroyed most of the world’s population. The locale is a glassed-in One State led by the Benefactor with a totally controlled, always visible society. Each minute of life is accounted for, and the plot centers on a rebellious group which favors imagination and individual freedom over order and efficiency. The narrator of the tale, D-503, is the designer of a space ship named The Integral, which is designed to travel the universe to spread the One State philosophy.

Zamyatin was a Bolshevik and experienced the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917. He was a naval engineer and writer, and was arrested and exiled at least twice in his lifetime. He became a critic of the Communist government in Russia, mainly because of what he saw as censorship and extreme regimentation. He was also the author of an essay titled "Herbert Wells" and supervised several translations of H.G. Wells’ works. The influence of Wells is clear. George Orwell was clearly influenced by Zamyatin; he read We in the French translation and published a review. Aldous Huxley maintained that he had not known of We until after he had written Brave New World, but most critics, including Orwell, doubted that claim. When asked about the influences on his novel Player Piano, Kurt Vonnegut is quoted as saying that he “cheerfully ripped off the plot of Brave New World, whose plot had been cheerfully ripped off from Eugene Zamyatin’s We.”

Wherever the trail of influences begins and ends, reading Zamyatin’s We is essential to a studious reading of the subsequent novels of the genre. All of the ‘elements’ of dystopian fiction are present, including not so veiled references to Christianity, surgical procedures to eliminate the ‘imagination’, numbers instead of names, the inevitable attraction of the sexes outside of regimented unions, the ‘underground’ revolutionaries, and an intriguing take on architecture involving glass buildings and living quarters. Interestingly for this period of dystopian writing, We includes space travel, or at least the preparation for it, as a background plot device. This is not repeated by Orwell or Huxley, but is featured at the conclusion of Miller’s A Canticle for Leibowitz.

Huxley’s Brave New World was published in 1932, eleven years after Zamyatin’s We. Huxley has stated that his decision to write the novel was inspired by his visit to a state of the art chemical plant. His concern with the future of industrial advances, especially genetic engineering, is clearly evident in this novel, where the society of the New World State has transcended natural sexual attraction and birth to substitute engineered and controlled reproduction. At the novel’s start we are included in a tour of the Hatchery and Conditioning Centre, where much pride is taken in the number of fetuses which are able to be produced by a single egg, and the manipulation of these into the various castes of society. Everyone is programmed by birth to be a member of a particular class, bred to occupations, housing, diet, etc., thus eliminating competition and promoting contentment. Life in The New World State has eliminated romantic relationships, idleness, professional competitiveness, religion, and books.

Unlike the closed society described in We, the New World State, centered in ‘London’, includes outlying population centers which are semi-controlled. These are used as tourist diversions and exile destinations. One of these, the so-called Savage Reservation is located in New Mexico, and plays an important role as the plot develops. An exiled mother and son are returned to ‘London’ and their fate, and their interaction with members of the higher castes and the populace forms the scenario for the conclusion of the novel.

The similarities between Zamyatin’s We and Huxley’s Brave New World are significant. They in fact have much more in common than does Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, published in 1949. Orwell’s dystopia is a grittier work, the setting of which resembles Eastern Europe under totalitarianism, right down to the grim apartment buildings and dark streets. Here we have government surveillance, information control, rewriting history, a one party structure, mutual distrust, lack of basic freedoms, and the inevitable revolutionary group. We seem to identify more with Winston Smith than any other central character in the previous dystopian novels because he faces what we have been taught to fear in our own society. His occupation is to change and falsify past documents, news items, literature and other records. It’s a small leap for us to recollect the similar activities of the Soviets, such as brushing a Beria or a Khrushchev out of a photo, or removing an enemy of the state from all mention in history books. We are familiar with the real life specter of citizens being spied on, turned over to the Party authorities by neighbors, and locked away convicted of a trumped up political crime.

Nineteen Eighty-Four has transcended literature and entered the zone of common social concepts. We use it and learn from it in ways that are not possible with the others. We recognize its terms and warnings in our present society: Big Brother, doublethink, newspeak, war is peace, love is hate, room 101, thought police, and of course ‘Orwellian’. At times we use these terms too loosely, and at other times we ignore their rightful application. The themes are universal, and that is the special power of this book.

Vonnegut’s Player Piano, 1952, is a treatise on automation and capitalism. It focuses on the replacement of human skilled labor with machines, in this case the pre-computer era punch card operated ‘boxes’. The theory is that humans make mistakes, are slow, and are concerned with other things in their lives, thereby hampering constant attention and focus to the making of products, tools, etc. In fact, most routine chores are susceptible to ‘automation’. The consequence is a population of lower class workers having nothing meaningful to do all day, except to ponder how much better things would be if they were gainfully employed. The resentment of the working class for the elite managers and engineers is intense, and builds to a mini ‘revolution’. Vonnegut has given us a dystopian world much simpler in scope than Zamyatin, Huxley or Orwell, but in many ways a world more directly relevant to modern day work methods and theories of production, all centered on the computer, and the consequences for society of devaluing manual skilled and unskilled labor.

Walter Miller’s A Canticle for Leibowitz, 1960, is an essential book for any reading survey of the dystopian genre. Post-apocalyptic in nature, it covers a period of thousands of years, in three cycles, centering on a Roman Catholic monastery in the United States where the monks have been preserving written documents and artifacts especially of a scientific nature. Miller originally wrote three short stories for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in the 1950’s, and subsequently reworked the stories into a three part novel. Heavily influenced by Roman Catholicism and the Judeo-Christian traditions, the novel can be challenging to readers unfamiliar with religious doctrine and the Bible, however the sheer power of the writing and the plot fully compensate for this.

The cyclical structure of the novel takes us through the aftermath of a nuclear war, the survival of the Church, and in particular the Abbey of St. Leibowitz in the southwestern United States, the preservation of knowledge for future generations, the barbarian existence of the remaining population, and finally the resurgence of scientific and technological knowledge and experiment leading to the certainty of a new desolation. Man’s seemingly endless ability to strive toward self destruction is reaffirmed. Canticle is not to be missed by the first-time traveler to dystopia , and is an even greater pleasure the second or third time around.

Our fascination with these tales of the possible and probable continues, and in many ways grows stronger, in the decades following 1960. There have been many worthy entries in the field of dystopian literature since Miller’s Canticle, and I intend to include them in a future reading project. We remain students of this genre because each work teaches us something different about how human beings react to desolation, control, loneliness, intrusion, security, war, peace, love and hate. These stories shed light on the eternal struggle between our individual needs and desires and those of society. They enunciate our unspoken fears about current events and allow us to question the validity of what we see and hear. They justify our doubts and sharpen our vigilance. They provide warning and comfort, and renew our faith in the human desire for intellectual and physical freedom. They question the very fabric of our governments, our society, our religious institutions, and our history. They challenge us, entertain us, frighten us, and soothe us. And they deserve to be read, and revisited.

Scaling the Walls of Troy - Part Two.

To continue, Chester River Press is planning a new presentation of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. The initial task was to locate acceptable electronic texts of Alexander Pope’s translation of the Iliad and Odyssey, and the classic Greek text. As we found during our preparation of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, what at first seems simple enough turns into a complicated process. In essence, on line texts are a wonderful convenience, the alternative being a retyping of printed texts into a workable electronic format. However, the methods used to produce an on line text are fraught with problems and oversights. If they are to be used for anything but reading, they require careful editing and comparison with published editions and, even then, errors, omissions, and author changes from edition to edition have to be accounted for. And in this case, we were dealing with Greek and English.

While we were pondering the textual problems, we decided to contact Steven Shankman to ascertain his interest in our project. Professor Shankman teaches at the University of Oregon, and is Distinguished Professor, College or Arts and Sciences, and also UNESCO Chair in Transcultural Studies. He has authored many books and numerous articles on Homeric studies, is well known for his scholarship on Alexander Pope, and edited an Alexander Pope translation of the Iliad for Penguin Books in 1996. We wrote to Professor Shankman explaining and presenting our project, asking if he would consider writing an introduction for the publication. We were ecstatic to receive not only a favorable response but a strong endorsement of our project. He agreed to prepare an original introduction for what, in his words, would be “a magnificent edition” of Homer.

Our plans for the illustrations of the Iliad and Odyssey were centered on Greek vase painting of the Homeric period. We envisioned using the classic Greek vase shapes illustrated with original art depicting chosen scenes from the Iliad and Odyssey, at least one scene from each of the 48 books. Using the internet, we sent out an “artists call”, describing the project and emphasizing the classical Greek nature of the planned drawings. Over the period of several weeks we received more than 150 responses, all of which were noteworthy in their professionalism and artistic talent, but unfortunately very few demonstrated the classical style of art we were seeking.

Our disappointment turned to excitement when one morning a young artist named Avery Lawrence came into our bookshop, opened his portfolio and showed us his just completed drawings of Greek vases with two scenes from the Iliad. We were amazed. They were exactly what we envisioned. Over the next six months Bill Frank worked with Avery on scene and vase selections, fine tuning the drawings and matching them with couplets from the Pope translation. The final result would be more than fifty full page art pieces accompanied by catalogue entries.

There are, of course, many editions of Pope’s translations of the Iliad and Odyssey. Some significant changes were made over time, a most noteworthy one in 1736 when Pope changed the first two lines of his Iliad from the 1720 first edition. The lines originally read as follows:

The Wrath of Peleus’ Son, the direful spring
Of all the Grecian Woes, O Goddess, sing!

Pope changed them to the now familiar:

Achilles’ wrath, to Greece the direful spring
Of woes unnumber’d, heav’nly Goddess, sing!

Pope made other changes over the years, dealing mostly with spelling, hyphenation, punctuation, and the use and non-use of italics. After his death in 1744, the changes to Pope’s text rested with the various editors who prepared later publications of his work. By the mid-nineteenth century fairly standardized texts of the Pope translations were in use. Even so, the electronic versions we reviewed contained several variations which proved inconsistent with specific published editions of Pope we studied. We finally settled on the edition introduced by Theodore Buckley in the 1890’s. This edition incorporated not only Pope’s major changes but the smaller revisions to the text we were comfortable with.

The standard Greek text of the Iliad and Odyssey is the Monro-Allen edition of 1920. This edition was available to us electronically, but posed the problem of ascertaining the accuracy of a classical Greek electronic copy. We would need to edit the Greek. Bill Frank reads and studies classical Greek, but attempting to proof the entire Iliad and Odyssey was a mountain a bit too high to climb, for Bill or any of us at Chester River Press. We decided to seek both an editor for the Greek, and to be on the safe side, an editor for the English text, to bring the Pope electronic version in line with the Buckley edition.

Jim Dissette made contact with Professor Barry B. Powell, University of Wisconsin, who is a renowned Greek scholar. His books include: Homer and the Origin of the Greek Alphabet, 1991; Writings and the Origins of Greek Literature, 2002; and most recently Writing: Theory and History of the Technology of Civilization, 2009. To our great fortune Professor Powell agreed to proof the electronic Greek text, and considered it a ‘fun’ project! In the course of our work he became an invaluable resource for us, going far beyond what we asked him to do.

Professor Shankman put us in touch with Steven Shurtleff, a Pope scholar who had assisted him in the research for the Penguin edition of the Iliad. Mr. Shurtleff agreed to edit the electronic text of Pope’s Homer to correspond with the Buckley edition. This was monumental, since the editing covered spelling, punctuation, and all of the minor differences in the two versions. He knew Pope’s Homer intimately, was a pleasure to work with, and his expertise and diligence were crucial to our effort.

Thus far, at least, the Greek gods were smiling upon us. Designing the book itself promised to be a challenge. This was Jim Dissette’s expertise and he prepared several mockups of the page layouts, title pages, dust jackets, and typefaces. A basic decision was how to present the Greek and English texts. We knew we would need to publish in two volumes, but the Iliad and Odyssey are lengthy books and, depending on the font size, running Greek on one page and English on the facing page could prove unworkable. Jim designed a two column page, placing the Greek in one, the English in the other. He designed each page in a wide lateral format to accommodate the text with generous margins. It was definitely not your standard book shape, but a practical one, and very elegant too.

Jim designed Avery’s full page art pieces to be ‘tipped in’ as opposed to bound into the book. We would use a heavier stock coated paper for the fifty-plus art pages, which would enhance the magnificent colors in the printing process. Each volume would have a vase art frontispiece, with the title pages printed in gold Greek lettering on a black background. The dust jackets would mirror the title pages.

At last came the day when the introduction was completed, the proofing and editing of Greek and English finished, all art pieces and catalogue entries ready, and Jim was working on the delicate and lengthy process of adjusting the texts to the pages to accommodate the shorter Greek text with the longer Pope text. We each read the text carefully again to ensure there were no lines dropped, no Greek fonts erroneously transmitted from computer to computer, no pages out of sequence, and all of the detail checking that comes along just when you think the layout is completed. And then we were finished, and it actually looked like we had a book, two in fact. The files were off to the printer and we awaited the galleys, when the proofing process would begin all over again.

So we take a deep breath, begin planning our marketing campaign, and wait, gripping tightly to the Walls of Troy.

Scaling the Walls of Troy - Part One.

From the Renaissance to the present time, there have been over five thousand printed editions of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. The Homeric texts trace back to oral poetry of perhaps the eighth century BCE, which coincides with the traditionally accepted time period of Homer’s life. As we have all learned, questions and theories abound concerning the very existence of a man named Homer, and whether the written texts from the sixth century BCE bear any resemblance to the oral epics of the eighth century. What we do know is the standardization of left to right written Greek traces to ca. 600 BCE, and by that time there were many written versions of the Homeric texts available. Aristotle studied the written text in the fourth century BCE.

The first translation of Homer into English took place in 1581 when Arthur Hall published the first ten Books of the Iliad. Interestingly, he translated from a French translation of 1555 by Hugues Salel, not directly from Greek or Latin. The most well known of these early translations was by George Chapman, who’s Iliad was finished in 1611, and his Odyssey in 1616. Chapman’s translation has been in steady use right up to the present time. Subsequent noteworthy translations were: Ogilby, 1669; Hobbes, 1673-77 (at the age of 85); Dryden, 1700; and significantly, Anne LeFevre Dacier, Iliad,1711, translated into French.

The most reprinted translation is that of Alexander Pope, spanning the years from 1715 to 1720, Iliad, and 1725 to 1726, Odyssey. Pope’s translation departs from most others in that he favored a liberal, poetic approach rather than a strict literary translation. His concern was with contemporary readers, and so chose the heroic couplet which at that time was in favor with his colleagues. His translation has been called a ‘paraphrase’ by some critics, and brilliant by others. It was said he cared more about the sound of his translation than the scholarship. Pope’s translation is poetry, and it is his poetry, and should be taken in that light.

As a side note, Pope was more directly involved with the Iliad translation than the Odyssey, for which he relied on the research of his assistants, Elijah Fenton and William Broome. He translated by reference to the Greek and Latin, and researched all translations to that date, especially the French translation of Anne Dacier.

New translations of the Iliad and Odyssey, story adaptations, novels, and related literary works continue at the rate of twenty or more each year. The fascination and interest in the Homeric works go beyond the academic and research environments. Our earliest oral and written epic, given a new translation or presentation, is as likely to appear on today’s list of recommended new publications as is the latest novel by Dan Brown.

With all of that in mind, and with a desire to produce a meaningful work ‘for the ages’, we at Chester River Press decided to publish a new presentation of the Iliad and Odyssey. We have been living with Homer now for the better part of a year, researching various editions, acquiring permissions, working with scholars, artists, editors, proofers, and printers, and generally becoming obsessed with the nuances of planning, printing and publishing this monumental work. But at the start we had some basic decisions to make.

First, we settled on Mr. Pope’s translation, for a number of reasons: its uniqueness, endurance, poetic beauty, controversy, history, and its reflection of the voice of the original epic. We felt no other translation rivaled Pope’s for the sheer beauty and rhythm of the verse. His translation is an event in itself, and carries on what most certainly was the musical quality of the original. His poetry adds to the reading, rather than distracts from it. Homer should be not only interesting but enjoyable; a pleasure to the senses as well as stimulation for the intellect.

We also knew we wanted to present the Homeric Greek along with the English, even though Pope’s is not a literal translation. Seeing the original Greek along with the English is rare, but it provides an additional sensual value to the presentation and allows for certain reference points which can be intriguing. Those familiar with Greek, as well as novices, will be presented with the opportunity to reference the original and broaden the experience. Besides, it’s fun to impress your fellow literati by stating you read Homer in English and Greek, however minimal!

The third basic decision was that the entire work should be generously adorned with original art pieces. We decided on the format of Greek vase painting of the period: red-figure and black-figure. Each ‘Book’ of the Iliad and Odyssey (there are twenty-four in each) would have a pertinent scene represented on an appropriate vase type. These we envisioned as full page, color, original art pieces. We would need an artist.

We then turned our thoughts to an Introduction for the work. Through our reading we were aware of prominent scholars in the Homeric field, and one in particular who had written several books and pieces on Alexander Pope’s translations. Steven Shankman, Ph.D. was currently at the University of Oregon. In 1997 he edited and introduced the Penguin edition of Pope’s Iliad. We decided to attempt a contact with Dr. Shankman to explain our project.

With these decisions made, we set out to put the pieces together: locate and proof our texts; find an artist to work with; contact Dr. Shankman; plan the design of the book; decide on printing; draw up a budget and time frame; and generally begin to fine tune the publication.

We had much work in front of us, but the Walls of Troy were in our sights.