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January 09, 2007
The Seam, The Sword & Belle
"One of the truly sad, no tragic developments in modern romance is that we males have no way of displaying our manly virtues to the women we adore. Somewhere along the way somebody got the terrible idea that men no longer need to be, well, men; that we should to be tamed, made more sensitive, more gentle.
"Let me state this bluntly: men have been reeducated, Pol Pot-like, to be feminized.
"Don't women realize what we really want; don't women understand what men really need? It's in our DNA, it is at the hot and burning core of our souls.
"I want to climb into the saddle of a snorting, stamping medieval war horse, enter the lists, and SLAM! unhorse another rider. I want Karen to place her silken handkerchief on the tip of my lance and declare me her true knight.
"I want to grab an frightfully sharp Samurai sword, dash into brutal, face-to-face combat against the wicked bandits who threaten Karen's shtetl -- whoops I'm mixing civilizations here. But okay, you get the point.
"Please, please, please, just hand me two Colt .45's and let me duel in the sun against a wild bunch of psychotic killers hired by the evil railroad to crush Karen's modest Arizona homestead.
"Instead, men have been reduced to playing violent video games. Shopping for expensive Italian coffee blenders. Maybe playing a rough game of touch footbal.
"When all we truly desire is to let slip the dogs of war for the women we love."
Yes, this is what it is like inside my mind.
And this is a particularly giddy excerpt from Chapter 30 of How I Married Karen. To read the entire chapter, please click here.
Virtual Jerusalem, has been running my series on a weekly basis, and I have to tell you, I feel just like Charles Dickens, (minus the massive talent) whose many novels were originally published as weeklies, and highly anticipated by the reading public. There is something quite wonderful about seeing your story running as an old fashioned serial.
I'm working on Part II of My Hollywood Gun, and that should appear later in the day.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at January 9, 2007 09:34 AM
Comments
Seraphic Secret is private property, that's right, it's an extension of our home, and as such, Karen and I have instituted two Seraphic Rules and we ask commentors to act respectfully.
1. No profanity.2. No Israel bashing. We debate, we discuss, we are respectful. You know what Israel bashing is. The world is full of it. Seraphic Secret is one of the few places in the world that will not tolerate this form of anti-Semitism. That's it. Break either of these rules and you will be banned.
Robert, you are the MAN. I remembered the story from its first appearance, but forgot the ending.
You are the MAN!
Posted by: yehupitz at January 9, 2007 10:28 AM
Another difference is that Dickens made huge sums of money from his weekly installments. I read once that in New York, crowds would be waiting quayside when the boat containing his latest was scheduled to arrive.
Posted by: kishke at January 9, 2007 10:47 AM
Yehupitz:
Thanks so much. Karen thinks so too.
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.seraphicpress.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at January 9, 2007 10:53 AM
Kishke:
Dicken was paid, gulp, $1.00 per word. That was and is real money.
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech at January 9, 2007 10:55 AM
A dollar a word? Are you sure? Wow. Given the size of his novels, that would mean he was paid in the neighborhood of $200,000 a book.
Posted by: kishke at January 9, 2007 11:23 AM
Kishke:
Am I sure? nope. That's what I remember hearing some years back. I should check it out for it does seem to be an immense sum of money.
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech at January 9, 2007 11:29 AM
Kishke:
Well, obviously, he was paid in British currency, I've seen some sources say it was a pence per word... which would be more than a one American dollar in 2007. Either way, he was a very rich man for his time.
But he was surpassed by an even more famous man of his time. In his final year as the lead attorney for the nascent railroad trusts before he became president, Abraham Lincoln made more than $100,000. It is basically impossible to calculate how much money that would be today... but it's probably upwards of $10 million 2007 dollars.
Posted by: Jake at January 9, 2007 11:35 AM
Jake: If he was paid more than a dollar a word, then he far surpassed Lincoln. He produced a book in about 20 weeks, so two-and-a-half books a year. That would be in the neighborhood of $500,000.
Posted by: kishke at January 9, 2007 11:42 AM
Kishke:
Good point. Lots of money here either way. Incidentally, Lincoln's most profitable year was 1859 and Dickens wrote a little book that year called "A Tale of Two Cities"
Posted by: Jake at January 9, 2007 01:38 PM
I read once (I'm not sure if it's true) that the sailors on the boat bringing the latest Dickens installment would read the book and then the people waiting frantically on the shore would call up to the sailors to find out what happened in the story. I don't know why anyone would want to know what happened in advance, but different strokes...
Posted by: Fern R at January 9, 2007 01:58 PM
Off-topic, but harking back to an earlier post, it seems the i-phone has arrived:
Posted by: kishke at January 9, 2007 02:35 PM
Kishke:
Yup, I've been watching my stock climb :)
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech at January 9, 2007 10:33 PM