The Palm-Wine Drinkard, Amos Tutuola, 1952 - Part 11
Hard to salute each other, harder to describe each other, and hardest to look at each other at destination to Both wife and husband in the hungry-creature’s stomach
Welcome back to Seventy years of books, where I'm blogging my way through the seventy titles originally compiled for the Big Jubilee Read. I’ve been on a short break following my surgery (which unfortunately I developed an infection from), and this week I’m continuing with the first book, Amos Tutuola's The Palm-Wine Drinkard.
Hard to salute each other, harder to describe each other, and hardest to look at each other at destination
There are nine terrible creatures in the bag, and the palm-wine drinkard is able to beat eight of them in a fight, but the final one is their champion and he cannot win.
The champion revives his companions with water from nearby leaves and the palm-wine drinkard’s wife uses the same method to revive her husband, allowing for their escape. But between fears of being recaptured and the horrors of Deads’ Town, the couple do not know where to go next.
“To travel in the bush was more dangerous and to travel on the Deads’ Road was the most dangerous”
The palm-wine drinkard and his wife meet a “hungry-creature” who lives absolutely in the present (mindfulness goals), only ever thinking about where his next mouthful is coming from.
After trying to save their precious egg from the creature’s constant eating, the palm-wine drinkard transforms his wife into a wooden doll, an attempt to protect her which ultimately leaves her unable to defend herself.
The “hungry-creature” eats her, but the palm-wine drinkard is absolutely determined to recover her after everything they’ve been through together.
Both wife and husband in the hungry-creature’s stomach
The palm-wine drinkard manages to rescue his wife by being eaten by the hungry-creature and they decide to return to his home town, but are unfortunately lost as they have travelled so far into the bush while in the hungry-creature’s stomach.
They continue their journey regardless and, as the palm-wine drinkard’s wife is ill, decide to stay in the “mixed-town” where the palm-wine drinkard is asked to judge two complex (and hilarious) court cases. He can’t make a decision so adjourns both cases for a year to get out of it.
This decision haunts him to this day, and there is a plea to the reader to forward their judgments to him urgently.
Perhaps you can be the one to help?
This week in 1952
1952 saw the Royal Albert Dock in Liverpool awarded Grade I listed status, only for it to be abandoned twenty years later, before the restoration of the site in the mid-eighties.
The 1952 Summer Olympics were held from 19 July to 3 August in Helsinki, Finland. This year’s Olympics were held in Paris, France and the Paralympics will open in a few days time.
On 26 July, Farouk I, King of Egypt and the Sudan, passed away.
On 14 August, Alan Turing’s The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis was published. The paper explained how natural patterns, such as stripes, spots, and spirals, like those of the giant pufferfish, may arise. He had been wrongly convicted and subjected to chemical castration earlier the same year, in March.
On 18 August, actor and dancer, Patrick Swayze was born.
1952 film of the week: The Crimson Pirate
The Crimson Pirate is a tale of deception and disguises, in which we are warned from the start to only believe half of what we hear.
Set in the Caribbean, a crew of unruly pirates led by Burt Lancaster’s Captain Vallo, without a smear of eyeliner in sight, attempt to double cross rebels against the King while obtaining a fortune from Baron Gruda (Leslie Bradley), the King’s envoy.
While looking for El Libre, the rebel’s leader, our fair captain encounters the beautiful and confident, Consuelo (Eva Bartok), and falls in love, which leads to layers of mistrust emerging among the crew, and the bounds of friendship and loyalty being severely tested.
The rebellion against the King allows Captain Vallo to appear as a kind of Robin Hood figure, rather than a vicious pirate, and his quest mirrors that of the palm-wine drinkard rescuing a daughter for her father, with Captain Vallo rescuing a father for his daughter.
And there’s a hot air balloon, which I love.
1952 song of the week: Once in a Blue Moon, Nat King Cole
This cheery piano instrumental is the first hit written by Burt Bacharach and the first professionally written song performed by Nat King Cole.
The music fades out gently with a slower tempo, and while this might not be the most famous song about moons with a blue hue, it’s a lovely piece that’s well worth a listen.
1952 product of the week: The motorised treadmill
Today treadmills are a really popular piece of exercise equipment and you’ll find many of them in every gym.
However, they started life in the ancient world, to assist workers with hauling loads in construction. They continued to be a key piece of machinery in both the construction and farming industries, and in the nineteenth century were even powered by horses as a substitute for wind or water, when these natural resources weren’t available.
Penal treadmills were also used in the nineteenth century to punish allegedly “idle” prisoners - this “manual labour” wasn’t to actually achieve anything useful and was just for the sake of punishment.
Fast forward to 1952, cardiologist Dr Robert A Bruce and his research partner Wayne Quinton co-invented the first motorised treadmill to help diagnose heart and lung conditions and diseases. Patients were hooked up to an electrocardiograph (ECG) machine while walking and running and very few minutes the speed and incline would increase which allowed Dr Bruce to see if and where heart and lung defects were taking place.
This procedure revolutionised the diagnosis of cardiovascular and respiratory illnesses and contributed to the development of treadmills being used as an exercise aid from the late sixties.