Whisker story
A sweet book group I am in, called Tom Purdue because when we started we read Proust, has now turned to Tristram Shandy. It is so wonderful to know people who like to read the fattest books on the shelf. I feel less alone.
So I started plowing through Tristram Shandy, giggling and trying to make Danny listen to me explain how silly it is.
The other day I was in downtown Oakland with my co-worker Charity (nominative determinism! we work in philanthropy!) and we ran into a gaggle of people I know who were at World Fantasy Con. I completely forgot WFC was happening and was in Oakland or I might have tried to attend! Oops! I am so busy with GOAT and DIFxTech work and have been working nearly every weekend since probably before January. But to my story. It was nice to see my nerds even for a few minutes. Maybe will see them some more at WisCon in May! Tempest suggested I go to “BarCon” ie just go hang out in the hotel bar. So after work I came back, ran into Tempest again and went with a friend of hers to the convention hotel bar. Turned out that bar sucked, less of a bar than a slightly squalid restaurant that was too crowded for wheelchairs and smelled weirdly of tuna fish sandwiches. We then ran into some other women who suggested the “starlight lounge” or something on the top floor where a con suite was rumored to have secret whiskey tasting. (I have no idea what any of these people’s names were by the way but we were instantly firm friends in pursuit of Fun.)
As we went into the elevator I saw Karen Joy Fowler and there were waves and greetings and I shrieked “WHISKERS!!!!!” with an crazed leering grin and then realized (somehow people were still getting on the elevator during this) Karen is NOT in my book group and has NOT read Tristram Shandy. There is still time, Karen! You can read it! Or just skip to the very beginning of Book 5 and then you will understand my dumb joke!! I had 20 floors of crowded elevator to explain the failure of my joke to my nerdy whiskey-seeking crew.
On the 21st floor we all piled out of the elevator into a huge, dimly lit, almost empty ballroom with great views of the Bay, of Oakland and the hills all around. But there was one table with people who had brought an entire box of wine AND THEY WERE MY TOM PURDUE BOOK GROUP y’all. So I again screamed “WHISKERS!!!!!” with extra glee. The other denizens of the elevator probably still think I am unhinged.
I spent a lovely evening talking with Karen Schaeffer, Mike Ward, Tom, Spike, John, and Eileen Gunn, quaffing what I think was Mike’s wine. it has been too long since I saw them all – we used to hang out more regularly at PENSFA dinners years ago and I would go to K+M’s Christmas shape note singing, but otherwise it is just at cons. They all have the basic vibe of people who have books crammed in every corner of their houses and a rolling library ladders going up to the ceiling. At some point it was just me and Eileen head to head muttering passionately about feminist historical research. I love Eileen so much!!!
So what is the deal with whiskers? Tristram Shandy is basically an enormous rambling series of digressions. Catnip for me! Lovely nods all through to Don Quixote, to Rabelais and Voltaire.
By Book Five, almost nothing has happened but we have built a partial picture of Tristram the narrator, but much more so of his father, mother, uncle Toby, the local pastor or minister, and uncle Toby’s servant companion who was with him in the wars. Buried somewhere in Book Four (just as his birth scene was described) the narrator addresses his own ramblings, and promises the reader a whole chapter on something inconsequential such as whiskers.
CHAPTER IX
What a chapter of chances, said my father, turning himself about upon the first landing, as he and my uncle Toby were going downstairs—what a long chapter of chances do the events of this world lay open to us! Take pen and ink in hand, brother Toby, and calculate it fairly——I know no more of calculation than this balluster, said my uncle Toby (striking short of it with his crutch, and hitting my father a desperate blow souse upon his shin-bone)——’Twas a hundred to one—cried my uncle Toby—I thought, quoth my father (rubbing his shin), you had known nothing of calculations, brother Toby. ’Tis a mere chance, said my uncle Toby.———Then it adds one to the chapter——replied my father.
The double success of my father’s repartees tickled off the pain of his shin at once—it was well it so fell out—(chance! again)—or the world to this day had never known the subject of 204 my father’s calculation——to guess it—there was no chance——What a lucky chapter of chances has this turned out! for it has saved me the trouble of writing one express, and in truth I have enough already upon my hands without it.—Have not I promised the world a chapter of knots? two chapters upon the right and the wrong end of a woman? a chapter upon whiskers? a chapter upon wishes?——a chapter of noses?—No, I have done that—a chapter upon my uncle Toby’s modesty? to say nothing of a chapter upon chapters, which I will finish before I sleep—by my great-grandfather’s whiskers, I shall never get half of ’em through this year.
Take pen and ink in hand, and calculate it fairly, brother Toby, said my father, and it will turn out a million to one, that of all the parts of the body, the edge of the forceps should have the ill luck just to fall upon and break down that one part, which should break down the fortunes of our house with it.
It might have been worse, replied my uncle Toby.——I don’t comprehend, said my father.———Suppose the hip had presented, replied my uncle Toby, as Dr. Slop foreboded.
My father reflected half a minute—looked down——touched the middle of his forehead slightly with his finger———
—True, said he.
(Keep in mind any time someone is talking about noses you should get suspicious and start thinking about syphilis jokes)
(The footnotes in the edition I am reading are so bad, y’all, I want to do the whole book or maybe just a chapter, Almanack style!)
So that was buried in Book Four. Book Five opens with the promised chapter on whiskers. It is framed as an old, boring man telling a story to a woman listener, as if we are overhearing them: a fragment of a story from the court of the Queen of Navarre (Who by the way was extremely cool; read her memoirs). (Also read about La Fosseuse!)
In this fragment, the ladies of the court are admiring a young officer who lacks facial hair and somehow the word “whiskers” takes on a bawdy meaning for them so any reference to it makes them giggle. It is so great because nothing is direct, and the fragment is about the contagion of suggestive meanings given to innocent words in innocent contexts, which is half the point of Tristram Shandy the book which manages to be incredibly dirty and rude and scandalous without being 100% direct about it.
La Fosseuse drew her bodkin from the knot of her hair, and having traced the outline of a small whisker, with the blunt end of it, upon one side of her upper lip, put it into La Rebours’ hand—La Rebours shook her head.
The Lady Baussiere coughed thrice into the inside of her muff—La Guyol smiled—Fy, said the Lady Baussiere. The queen of Navarre touched her eye with the tip of her fore-finger—as much as to say, I understand you all.
’Twas plain to the whole court the word was ruined: La Fosseuse had given it a wound, and it was not the better for passing through all these defiles——It made a faint stand, however, for a few months, by the expiration of which, the Sieur De Croix, finding it high time to leave Navarre for want of whiskers——the word in course became indecent, and (after a few efforts) absolutely unfit for use.
The best word, in the best language of the best world, must have suffered under such combinations.———The curate of d’Estella wrote a book against them, setting forth the dangers of accessory ideas, and warning the Navarois against them.
Does not all the world know, said the curate d’Estella at the conclusion of his work, that Noses ran the same fate some centuries ago in most parts of Europe, which Whiskers have now done in the kingdom of Navarre?—The evil indeed spread no farther then—but have not beds and bolsters, and nightcaps and chamber-pots stood upon the brink of destruction ever since? Are not trouse, and placket-holes, and pump-handles—and spigots and faucets, in danger still from the same association?——Chastity, by nature, the gentlest of all affections—give it but its head——’tis like a ramping and a roaring lion.
I like to imagine Jane Austen and her sister Cassandra reading this together as they grew up and laughing wildly. Maybe they would side eye each other as teenagers whenever someone said “whiskers”.
I drank two glasses of wine with Tom Purdue very relieved that at least two people there had gotten to Book Five (I read ahead by accident) and so they got my joke.
Later I made Danny read me the entire chapter out loud. (He is great at this and can do it cold, even having to parse long-ass sentences.) We need to finish Moby Dick (so glorious!), and we are in book 4 I think of Dance to the Music of Time, another very long favorite of mine! I should re-read Don Quixote though especially since my dad is on his 3rd re-read (in spanish) this time looking up every word he doesn’t know instead of faking it till he makes it.