CD Review: "Election Special" by Ry Cooder




The cover of Ry Cooder's new CD



Hats off to Ry Cooder! Hang out the bunting and pin up the rosettes! Election Special is another excellent album of topical songs about the current American political scene. And it’s only been a year since the release of the similarly-themed Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down in August 2011. Following the success of that project, Cooder continued to write very pointed political songs. He says that he wanted to reach listeners during the US presidential-election year of 2012. And, indeed, the album did arrive in a timely fashion – one week before the Republican Party convened for its convention in Tampa, Florida.

Election Special was released on August 17 by both PerroVerde Records and Nonesuch Records. It was recorded at Drive-By Studios in north Hollywood (actually, the living room of engineer Martin Pradler) and Wireland Studios in Chatsworth, California. As with the previous album, Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down, this new one was produced by Ry Cooder, and features himself on guitars, bass and mandolin. His son Joachim plays drums. It was mixed and mastered by engineer Martin Pradler.

All of the songs are written by Ry Cooder (except for the final track, “Take Your hands Off It” – co-written by his son Joachim). As with the music on the previous album, Election Special features simple instrumentation and sparse arrangements. Although the recordings are done in the spirit of one-take performances, there had to be considerable over-dubbing, since Cooder is often playing several instruments on a track, as well as doing the singing.

These are often highly-charged, political songs, which pull no punches. But the lyrics are not simplistic or preachy. They’re funny and satirical – bitter and yet undercut with a fragile sense of optimism. As Cooder reminds us in the press release that his record company put out, he twice refers in this album to a surprisingly apprehensive Pete Seeger quote: “I have no hope; I could be wrong.”



Guitar-extraordinaire Ry Cooder on acoustic



As I mentioned in my review of Pick Up Some Dust and Sit Down, Ry Cooder has really come into his own as a talented songwriter in recent years. Formerly known primarily as an interpreter and presenter of other people’s songs, it is astonishing to note that in the last seven years he has put out five albums of his own songs. He composes songs with the approach of a short-story writer. In an interview with Bud Scoppa in Uncut magazine he described the process like this:

“I have to find little storylines. I have to find something I can play and sing, in some style, or some instrumental point of view – a country tune, or a blues tune – updating these things that I grew up listening to, these Depression-era songs and what-not.

"It seemed the more I did it, the better I got at it, like anything. It’s an acting job. You put yourself into the spirit of the thing, the character of the thing.”

It’s an artistic approach. Instead of the simple-minded propaganda of a “protest song”, he’s using irony, role-playing, and empathy to present deep, contentious issues. As he put it to The Guardian newspaper in London (August 10),  

“With a four-minute song, you can use allegory and other means to suggest a different point of view.”

 There’s no doubt, here, where Cooder’s political sympathies lie: two songs deal, approvingly, with the Occupy movement; one song skewers Mitt Romney; a jaunty country song savages an amoral, racist delegate to Tampa; Cooder channels Barack Obama in a slow blues lamenting the non-stop obstructionism of the Republicans in Congress; and the uber right-wing, libertarian Koch brothers are demonised in a pointed version of the Crossroads-deal-with-the-Devil. Some tasty blues and country music employed to deliver some candid and forthright commentary on America’s sick political culture - where did things go so wrong?



Romney: "how he treated his dog tells you a lot about him"



The album kicks off with “Mutt Romney Blues” an upbeat country blues sing that revisits (it came up constantly in 2008, during Romney’s previous run for the White House) the notorious incident when – during a family holiday trip in 1983 – Romney had his dog Seamus locked inside a dog carrier crate and strapped to the roof of the car during a twelve-hour, 650 mile-trip to Canada. Twelve hours. During his ordeal, the dog defecated liquid down the windows of the car. Romney stopped at a gas station to wash the dog, the carrier, and the car. Then he put Seamus back in the carrier and strapped him back on the roof. Cooder says that he was inspired to write this song from a quote by the Rev. Al Sharpton, who opined “how he treated his dog tells you a lot about him.” In a clever move, Cooder writes the song from the dog's point-of-view. The point is made, without being moralistic:

  

Ol’ massa boss cut me down, I won’t spread the story ‘round;

All the plans and schemes you got in mind; they’d think I was lyin’;

And the mean things you tryin’ to do, I won’t blow the whistle on you;

Take me down from this roof, please massa boss, woof, woof, woof!

 

At the crossroads - a deal with the Devil?

The next piece, “Brother is Gone”, is truly brilliant. This country-blues starts with a haunting mandolin riff, which – after a few listens to the track – you will find yourself humming hours later. Singing in a melancholic, laid-back tone, Cooder assumes the persona of Charles Koch, one of the well-known (some might say notorious) Koch brothers. He and his brother David control Koch Industries – the second-largest, privately-owned American company. They use their vast wealth to fund neo-conservative and libertarian causes and advocacy-groups in the United States. The lyric plays with the Crossroads Blues legend make famous by Robert Johnson; it presents the Koch brothers making a deal with Satan. But this ain’t set in the Mississippi Delta; this happens in Wichita, Kansas – headquarters of Koch Industries. In a Nonesuch Records press-release, Cooder says “the only logical explanantion for the Brothers I could come up with is that they made their deal at the Crossroads with Satan.”

You will be exalted in the evil works of men,

High power rollin’ over land and sea;

But some dark night I’ll be comin’ round again;

And take one of you back down to hell with me …



Even more astonishing is the slow, twelve-bar blues piece, “Cold Cold Feeling” – perhaps the stand-out track on this CD. Reminiscent of his brilliant, John Lee Hooker-inspired blues on the previous album (“John Lee Hooker for President”), “Cold Cold Feeling” puts him inside the psyche of President Barack Obama. It’s an audacious move – “If you never been President, people, then you don’t know how it feels”, he sings, not in a vainglorious fashion designed to vaunt himself over us, but to elicit our sympathy: “these stray dog Republicans always snappin’ at my heels”. Cooder cleverly characterises the political position Obama is trapped in – stymied on all sides by a recalcitrant and belligerently obstructionistic Republican opposition. Some nice, understated, slide guitar sets the mood – portraying “the most powerful man on Earth” in a defensive and wearisome mood.

But that downer-mood is suddenly lifted by the next track, “Going to Tampa” – a bouncy, country tune depicting a Republican red-neck on his way to the party’s convention in Florida. The humour is obvious and broad here: “I’ll give all my money, if Sarah Palin calls me honey, and shakes the peaches on my tree.” But, despite the wise-cracking jokes, some of the details are disturbing – a suggestion to revive the Willie Horton strategy, and to bring back Jim Crow-tactics - pushing the racist-agenda of "States’ rights". And our Republican delegate seems interested in one main thing – as he puts it to his staying-at-home wife, “I can’t take you with me little darlin’, I’m goin’ down to get my ashes hauled.” [translation: I’m going there primarily to get laid.]



I drank the Kool-Aid



And then comes the ominous rocker “Kool-Aid”. It starts with drums and a moody guitar sound – which I just can’t figure out how he gets. It’s a dark piece. It’s about a down-and-out, lower-class man who feels betrayed by a reactionary system that exploited him, and then left him abandoned:

You said the poor were closing in and I had to leave;

War on them was a righteous thing and I believed –

With my gun I took a stand against black, brown, yellow and tan;

Kool-Aid, I drank your Kool-Aid.

 

Ry Cooder photographed by his son Joachim

 

When you think about it, you notice that nearly all the songs here are presented as first-person narratives – and that these first-person narratives are all very different. Cooder is able to get inside the mood and mentality of the character he’s chanelling.  And that strategy promotes sympathy and understanding, rather than ridicule and hate. Only on a couple of tracks does Cooder use in-your-face declamation. The gloves are dropped and he lets it all hang out. The final song here, “Take Your Hands Off It”, is of this type. He closes out the album swinging, condemning those who try to restrict the people’s rights – rights enshrined in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. He defends voting rights, union rights, reproductive rights, human rights:

You don’t speak for God, you know he don’t belong to you;

You ain’t talking to him, you know he don’t belong to you.

This is a wonderful album. Writing about political topics like this – especially in the context of a particular place and time – can often result in mere propaganda. But Ry Cooder shows how to use the songwriter’s craft to create topical material that is urgent and heartfelt, but also subtle and intelligent. And the music, of course, is assured and masterly. He varies the styles and mixes up the moods – dressing up the ideas with basic and compelling sounds. Nearly every song here is a gem. This is the kind of CD I can listen to over and over again without getting bored. Ry Cooder for President!

 



Book Review: Charles Dickens 9 - "David Copperfield"



Photo of Dickens (38 yrs.) from 1850 daguerrotype

I had to really push myself to get through Dickens’s previous novel, Dombey and Son – which I found rather uninteresting as a story – so it came as a real relief to be reading David Copperfield again. I think this is the third or fourth time that I’ve read it, and it always delights. It's impossible to resist story-telling that is this vigorous and poetic. I raced through its 880 pages in just over a week.

After completing the monthly serialisation of Dombey and Son in April 1848, Charles Dickens took a break of about six months before contemplating a new novel in the last few months of that same year. As always, events in his own life influenced the type of novel he would write and the key theme – or “leading idea” – that would guide the enterprise. William Hall, the man who had published Dickens’s first sketch fourteen years earlier had died in March; Dickens attended the funeral in Highgate Cemetry and spent a good deal of time thinking about the man and the effect that he’d had on his life.  And then his sister Fanny, the oldest of his parents’ eight children, died of tuberculosis on September 2. Her crippled son Henry died a few months later. During the writing of Dombey and Son, Dickens had been much moved by the long account of the decline and death of the young Paul Dombey – especially as he had narrated that section from the lad’s point-of-view. Death and dying must have been on his mind and prompting him to reflect on the course his life had taken. And entering, as writer, into the consciousness of a child may have released further painful memories of his own childhood.

Some time after Fanny’s death, Dickens wrote an extended fragment of autobiography (about 7,000 words), which he then sent to John Forster – his friend, confidant and agent. For the very first time he shared with somebody else the deep humiliation he had experienced as a boy of twelve, when his father had been incarcerated in the Marshalsea Debtors Prison in 1824, and he had been sent to work at the Warren’s Blacking Warehouse at the Hungerford Steps. The whole experience would be included in the upcoming novel. But even though Dickens had finally unburdened his mind, so to speak, about this incident – which had been the most formative event of his life – the public would not be aware that some of the key events described in David Copperfield were autobiographical until Forster revealed it in his biography, published three years after Dickens’s death.


Meanwhile, Dickens was busy writing a new Christmas Book. He hadn’t managed one the previous year, and this one proved to be his last. The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain was about lost time. It is concerned with the power of memory – how memory has the ability to heal psychic wounds. And Dickens even suggests that it is through memories of our own suffering that we are able to empathise with the pain of others.


Dickens (37 yrs.) - daguerrotype by John Mayall

At some point during Dickens’s long consideration of his new novel, John Forster suggested that he use a first-person narrator. Dickens had never used that technique before. He took the recommendation seriously. It’s often said that he was influenced by Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, published in 1847. Undoubtedly he was, but the long section in Dombey and Son narrated from a young lad’s point-of-view would have already demonstrated to him the advantages of the technique, even before Forster made his suggestion.

As Dickens went through his typically tortuous gestation for this new book, other events in his life were being drawn on for the content of the novel. In early January of 1849, Dickens travelled with a couple of friends to Norwich, in order to visit the site of a notorious murder that had been much in the news. On the afternoon of their arrival, they made a side-trip to Yarmouth, and visited the beach, looked out over the North Sea surf, and wandered around the nearby marshes. Dickens said it reminded him of the Medway he had known as a child in Kent. Yarmouth would become the atmospheric home of the Peggotty family in the new book. And on a long walk back to Yarmouth from Lowestoft he passed a signpost pointing to the village of Blundeston. He remembered the name and used it as the location for the young Copperfield’s early life – changed slightly to Blunderstone. On January 15, Catherine Dickens gave birth to another son, their eighth child. Charles named the boy Henry Fielding, after the eighteenth-century author of Tom Jones, whose spirit and style – Forster later recalled – Dickens hoped to emulate in his new work. Finally, Dickens was also busy, at this time, writing a series of articles for the Examiner about the sufferings of abused children. Specifically, he criticised the practice of “baby-farming” – the shipping out of young children from workhouses and orphanages into the care of freelance guardians. They often became victims of abuse that was even worse than they had received in their former institutions. It was a situation that Dickens had described twelve years earlier in Oliver Twist, when the young Oliver is “raised” (neglected) for an extended period by Mrs. Mann.

So, Dickens was toying with all this material – struggling to find a “leading idea”. He constantly took long walks during the day and night through the streets of London pondering his book. He described the process as a “violent restlessness … vague ideas of going I don’t know where …”. Eventually he committed himself to an autobiographical novel written in the first person. As he set to work writing at the end of February, 1849, an announcement was made of the imminent arrival of the novel's first instalment. But the writing did not come easily. He worked at it steadily throughout March. His main problem seemed to be finding the right tone. The content was so personal - often quite painful for him to remember - but he still managed to sustain a convincing and sympathetic tone. He took the utmost care on this book and planned it carefully. There would be no theatricals and foreign-travel during the first year of its careful composition.



Charles Dickens's desk and writing chair



In the book Dickens – his brilliant, comprehensive, and definitive biography of the writer – Peter Ackroyd provides a detailed account of Charles Dickens’s methodical approach to writing. He would rise at seven o’clock; eat breakfast at eight; and be in his study at nine. He would remain at his desk for five hours – until two in the afternoon. Then he would walk until five o’clock around London, or into the nearby countryside. Dinner came at six, often lasting a couple of hours. And then it would be an evening spent with family and friends, before retiring punctually at midnight. Dickens's desk was set in front of a window, so that he could gaze out at the world, but not really focusing on much - his mind being lost in the fictional world of his imagination. He demanded quiet; in his house in Devonshire Terrace, he had a second door added to the entrance into his study, in order to keep out any noise.



Dickens (46 yrs.) photographed by George Watkins in 1858

He wrote with a goose-quill pen, dipping it into blue ink, on blue-grey pieces of paper measuring 8 ¾ inches by 7 ¼ inches. On an ordinary day he would complete about 2,000 words (2 – 2 ½ slips of paper). But when he was all fired up, he might churn out almost 4,000 words in one sitting.  Sometimes, of course, nothing at all would come. But he would not break from his routine; he would remain in his study doodling, dreaming, planning – keeping religiously to his daily five-hour session.

He needed momentum; he didn’t like to write “cold”. He preferred to wait for inspiration – when his mind would be seized by an image, or an idea. He would then write quickly, almost instinctively – adding or amending things as he went along. He used what he called an “incessant process of rejection” – cutting stuff out after weighing carefully its tone and effect. If he accidentally exceeded the limit of a month’s instalment, he would usually cut passages of improvised humour or external description. And when the proofs came back from the publisher for his perusal, he worked very quickly on his corrections.



Cover of monthly issue of David Copperfield

David Copperfield was Dickens’s eighth novel. It was published by Bradbury and Evans – in the usual fashion – as a series of monthly instalments from May 1849 to November 1850. The illustrations, again, were done by Hablot Knight Browne (“Phiz”). The full title of the novel, as shown on the cover wrapper (green, as usual), was very unwieldy: The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery (Which He Never Meant to Publish on Any Account). Is it any wonder, then, that it came to be called simply David Copperfield? The novel was first released in book-form in 1850, shortly after the publication of the final monthly issue (in the familiar two parts).

Surprisingly – given the quality of the writing and its cavalcade of fascinating characters – the monthly issues did not sell as well as previous novels. Sales were down significantly from Dombey and Son. David Copperfield was selling, on average, 20,000 copies. Compare that to the 35,000 copies of its predecessor. When he realised the effect the drop in sales would have on his income, Dickens decided to take on other work to provide a more stable source of funds. He had long wanted to establish a weekly magazine - a literary and journalistic compendium stamped with his personal touch. The political manifesto for his magazine, he said, was “the raising up of those that are down, and the general improvement of our social conditions.” He would pay particular attention to education, housing and sanitation. What he proposed to his publishers, Bradbury and Evans, was that he edit the weekly, and be given full editorial control. Regardless, he needed significant help, and he got it from the experienced journalist and writer W.H. Wills, whom Dickens hired as sub-editor. He was an excellent choice: a meticulous editor, careful with detail, and frugal in running an enterprise. Dickens picked Household Words as the title of his new magazine; it’s a quote from Shakespeare’s Henry V – from the famous feast-of-Crispian speech:

Then shall our names, familiar in his mouth as household words,

be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red. (IV, iii, 54-55)

He set up an office at 16 Wellington Street, just off The Strand.

Charles Dickens signed a contract with Bradbury and Evans that would give him 50% of all the profits from Household Words. In the first two years he earned about £2,000 annually from sales. He also got paid separately for each of his own contributions. He was now set financially. He continued editing the magazine for another twenty years – the rest of his life. And he no longer needed to worry about his fiction paying for the bulk of his ever-growing expenses.



Dickens's magazine Household Words

Dickens was responsible for almost a third of the writing in the first issue of Household Words. He would write a lot less in subsequent issues, but the pattern he set would be maintained: several articles about topical issues, some history, a story, a bit of travel writing, and  a poem. Dickens edited it to be entertainment and instruction. He wanted it to be readable. It wasn’t pitched primarily at a literary audience. He wanted to make it popular and reach the middle class. The first issue came out at the end of March in 1850. It cost twopence. It came out every week, but was also released in a monthly format and sold as a bound volume. Circulation settled in at about 39,000 copies per issue.

So, for nine months – from March to November of 1850 – Charles  Dickens was writing half of David Copperfield, in monthly instalments, and editing a weekly magazine. When he felt inundated with work and obligations, he would find a way to get out of the city, so that he could write in peace – even though it often took him a while to feel comfortable in the new environment. Thus, he did 13 days in Brighton; and then he leased a magnificent country house called Winterbourne, near the town of Ventnor, in the Isle of Wight.

 

It’s astonishing that David Copperfield did not capture the imagination of his reading public in the same way as some of his earlier books, because it would soon emerge as Dickens’s most popular book. It was his favourite too. Whenever he was asked which of his own books he like best, he always picked this one. In a Preface that Dickens wrote for the 1867 edition, he wrote:

“Of all my books, I like this the best … like many fond parents, I have in my heart of hearts a favourite child. And his name is DAVID COPPERFIELD.”

Most readers seemed to agree with him. Dickens was the favourite English writer of the great Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy; and he loved David Copperfield the best. Dostoevsky was also captivated by it – he read it first in a Siberian prison camp. James Joyce knew it well, and wrote a parody of it in his modernist masterpiece Ulysses. Even Virginia Woolf – not much of a fan of Dickens’s work, it is true – found this book irresistible. She read it half a dozen times and remarked in a letter to Hugh Walpole that it was magnificent: “it belongs to the memories and myths of life.”

I think the power of the book’s attraction for its readers comes from two main things: its amazing collection of compelling characters; and its status as one of the first truly interesting bildungsromans, telling the story of the coming-of-age and cultivation of a young gentleman.



Uriah Heep, Mrs. Heep (both "very 'umble"), the young David and Wilkins Micawber



In his influential little book about novel-writing – Aspects of the Novel – the Edwardian novelist E.M. Forster distinguished between flat characters and rounded characters. And he identified Dickens as the prime example of a writer whose stories are full of flat characters – often based merely on a physical trait, or a repetitive turn-of-phrase. As such, they ought not to be very interesting, because they show almost no development. When you think about it, David Copperfield is full of these flat characters. Mrs. Gummidge, the widow of Daniel Peggotty’s partner is a “lone, lorn creatur’ [for whom] everythink goes contrairy.” Wilkins Micawber is always waiting “for something to turn up”, and his wife is forever declaring that she “never will desert her Wilkins”. The carrier who drives little David in his horse and cart keeps asking the young lad to tell his nurse Peggotty that “Barkis is a-willin’.” And the odious clerk Uriah Heep is continually telling us that he is “very ‘umble”. But, surprisingly, Dickens does show development in some of these minor, flat characters. After Little Emily elopes with Steerforth, for example, Mrs. Gummidge abandons her whiny negativity and becomes a comfort for Daniel Peggotty. And Mr. Micawber serves as the catalyst for the come-uppance of Uriah Heep. So many fascinating characters crammed into this book – whether they are flat or not!

And the “leading idea” of the book is giving a full account of Copperfield’s rise from a troubled youth to a successful adult – told in a first-person narrative from the boy’s point-of-view. What gives the story its imaginative power is Dickens’s reminiscences of his early life. The book is not straightforward biography; he incorporates several key experiences from his own life, but then finds ways to present correspondences between real experiences and the fictional imaginings he was creating.

The most dramatic parallel with Dickens own life (the subject of the 7,000-word fragment he had sent to John Forster) was the time spent in a blacking factory, sticking labels on bottles. When Dickens got to the beginning of this section of the novel (Chapter XI), he took a very long walk of 14 miles into the country, in order to ponder how he would handle this episode. On the slip of paper that contained his plans, he wrote this poignant and cryptic note: “What I know so well”. The manuscript shows that he went through this chapter with much less revision than elsewhere. He knew what he needed to do; and he was able to control his feelings and maintain the narrative tone he had established.

Other autobiographical details which Dickens inserts into the life of Copperfield, his narrator, were his job as a parliamentary reporter for a “Morning Newspaper”, his laborious effort to learn shorthand (in order to report on those Parliament speeches), and his shift from journalism to fiction-writing. He also writes about the steely ambition and discipline that led to his success as a writer: “I never would have done what I have done, without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence.”



Daniel Peggotty searching for the fallen Little Emily

In a Preface that he wrote for the first Everyman edition of the book, English author G.K. Chesterton – while conceding that the book was a masterpiece – argued that the first half of the book was a brilliant move in a new direction for Dickens (psychological realism), but that the second half showed a retreat to the styles of the past. Specifically, he thought the use of the emigration-to-Australia theme was a cop-out, and an easy way to wrap-up various loose-ends in the plot. But events in Dickens’s own life, with which Chesterton may not have been familiar, help explain his introduction of this theme. There had been a set-back at Urania Cottage, the home for “fallen-women” that Dickens had established with the help and financial support of Angela Burdett-Coutts. Dickens became aware of the work of Mrs. Elizabeth Herbert and the Family Colonisation Loan Society, an institution which helped organize and fund emigration to the British colonies in Australia. He thought it would be a good idea to encourage some of the women at Urania Cottage to begin a brand new life “down under”. But the first group of young women sent there had taken up with prostitution on the ship itself. So emigration comes into the book. And prostitution too – both Martha Endell and Little Emily fall into that way of life in order to survive destitution in London.



Clara Peggotty, David's nurse and friend



Finally, a few observations about some of the interesting female characters in this book. Clara Peggotty, the infant Copperfield’s nurse and friend is a lovely character – one of Dickens’s quintessential nurturing women. She is completely loyal – first to David’s weak and ineffective mother, and then to the young lad himself. Little Emily, who David falls in love with on his very first visit to the Peggotty clan in Yarmouth, reminds us of Nancy in Oliver Twist – a woman with a heart of gold, who falls victim to circumstances and an exploitative man. Rosa Dartle, who lives as a companion with Mrs. Steerforth, is an astonishingly cold and cruel woman. Dora Spenlow, Copperfield’s “child-wife” is an irritatingly feckless character. Dickens must have modeled her on Maria Beadnell, whom he was infatuated with for several years in his late-teens and who eventually rejected him – probably because of his lower-class origins. He later hooks up with the angelic Agnes Wickfield – another of Dickens’s unreal specimens of perfect womanhood. Parenthetically, G.K. Chesterton writes an interesting critique of Dickens’s alternating attentions to Dora and Agnes in his 1907 introduction to the Everyman Library edition of David Copperfield. He felt the marriage that Dickens describes between David and Dora is wonderfully true and human; whereas the relationship between David and Agnes is entirely false. Dickens was wrong, he thought, to kill off Dora and then engage in a long, drawn-out account of how David is eventually united with Agnes. I take Chesterton’s point – but Dora really is quite annoying.

David's saviour, great-aunt Betsey Trotwood

And then there’s the wonderful Betsey Trotwood, David’s austere great-aunt. She is a good example of one of the apparently “flat” characters introduced very early in this novel, who go on to become fully-rounded, interesting and intensely human. She is a real eccentric, but proves to be genuinely kind and warm-hearted under the brusque exterior. She is the only person willing and able to confront and confound the evil Edward Murdstone, David’s step-father, and his cruel sister Jane. And the way that Aunt Betsey nurtures and champions the simple-minded Mr. Dick is Dickens at his most humane. She is one of the most sublime figures in this intensely compelling book.

If you were to choose to read only one of Dickens’s books, this would have to be it. The sheer power of his story-telling is at its height, here, and the novel is full of memorable characters – whether flat, round, pointed or square. If you want to know what all the fuss is about Charles Dickens, read this and all will be revealed.

 

[2012 is the bicentenary of the birth of Charles Dickens. Lots of special events and activities are planned in England this year. Back in 2009, my good friend Tony Grant (in Wimbledon, UK) and I did a pilgrimage to three key Charles Dickens destinations - his birthplace in Portsmouth (the house is a Museum), the house he lived at on Doughty Street in London (now the chief Dickens' museum), and the town he lived in as a child on the north-coast of Kent (Rochester). 

These visits inspired me to begin reading through all Dickens's novels. By last summer I had done six, but stalled in the middle of Dombey and Son. I thought what I could do to mark this special year of Charles Dickens was to start again, read through all 14 of his novels inside the year, and blog about them. I'll give it a try, anyway! So this is the ninth of a series.]

Next: Bleak House

[Resources used: "Introduction" to Dombey and Son by Lucy Michael Slater (1991); Dickens by Peter Ackroyd (1990); "Portraits of Charles Dickens (1812-1870)", an excellent web-page collection of Dickens pictures.  Dickens Portraits ]

David Copperfield meets the Micawber family

Photo Essay: Covered Bridges in Vermont

Front of "Station" bridge spanning Dog River in Northfield Falls, 11 miles south of Montpelier, Vermont

One of the pleasures of photography is finding a new subject, a new topic to document through pictures. When my family was on vacation in August in the state of Vermont, I was looking for interesting things to do in and around the Montpelier region. On a tourist map of the state, I noticed a cluster of four icons in the town of Northfield Falls, about 11 miles (17.5 km) south of Montpelier, the capital of Vermont - indicating a local concentration of covered bridges. I knew about covered bridges but I’d never photographed one before. I had my new subject.

Station Bridge

Side view of "Station" bridge in Northfield falls reveals some of the "Town Lattice" design. Built in 1872

Covered bridges – built primarily of wood – are designed to protect the bridge structure from the harsh winter elements. The roofs keep most of the snow and ice off the roadway. The bridges are relatively small, spanning creeks or small rivers. The covered bridges in Northfield Falls cross Cox Brook and the Dog River. Approaching your new photographic subject, you look for interesting angles and perspectives. Avoid the head-on shot; do an oblique or sideways shot that gives a sense of the object's three-dimensionality.

Inside the "Station" bridge in Northfield Falls, Vermont - note the lattice style design

There are about 100 covered bridges left in the state of Vermont – which means it has the highest concentration of the things in the country. And the group of five covered bridges in Northfield Falls is the second-highest concentration in the state. I had come to the right place. Avoid flash - as always. Here the Nikon D7000 demonstrates how well it copes with low-light situations.

Most covered bridges have windows that allow pedestrians to gaze down-river or up-creek.

This first bridge (in the four pictures above) - the "Station" bridge (most Vermont covered bridges have names) - was built in 1872 using the "Town Lattice" design. It is 137 feet long, crossing Dog River. It's located in Northfield Falls, on Cox Brook Road - about 150 metres from the town's main street. The bridge is painted in red ochre - the de rigeur colour, apparently - although one of the four bridges I photographed was different. This bridge is 16 feet wide (5 m) and has a 12 foot (3.75 m) vertical clearance. A sign on both ends of the bridge indicates that the speed limit for vehicles is 10 miles per hour, and that travellers crossing on horseback should walk across the bridge.

Newell Bridge

The "Newell" bridge uses the more familiar "Queen Post" design. It was also built in 1872. It crosses the Cox Brook. As the sign says, only one vehicle at a time can cross here. 

A close-up of the west-end of "Second" bridge showing the "Queen Post" structure of the inside



Most covered bridges in Vermont are painted with a red ochre-coloured stain; but some are white, some are brown, and some are grey. Some of these bridges have windows; some don’t.

The window looking north from the Newell Bridge

 

The “Second” Newell bridge (above) is shorter than the “Station” bridge – only 56 feet (17 m) long. It’s about the same width (4.7 m). There’s another covered bridge nearby on Cox Brook, so this one is also referred to as the “Lower Cox Brook” bridge – as opposed to the “Upper”.

Slaughter House Bridge

Gillian looks around the "Slaughter House" bridge, back on Dog River

The third covered bridge we visited (above) in Northfield Falls is called “Slaughter House”; it’s on Slaughter House Road, which used to lead to a former slaughter house – now closed. 

 

Barb looking out the window on the "Slaughter House". A good view inside of the "Queen Post" design.



This bridge uses the “Queen Post” design and was built ca. 1872. It is located on Bailey Street. It’s 59 feet long and spans the Dog River. This picture (above) shows how the floor of the bridge is reinforced to handle vehicles – the long planks parallel to the roadway are laid perpendicular to the horizontal planks beneath.

The view of Dog River looking north from "Slaughter House" bridge.

To find Northfield Falls, drive east from Burlington, Vermont on the I 89 to Montpelier, and then go south for about 11 miles on Route 12. It’s an attractive town. We stopped for lunch in a local diner. And then went looking for the covered bridges.

Side-view (from the south) of "Slaughter House" bridge.



Warren Bridge

"Warren" bridge, spanning Dog River - just north of Warren (seen from the western side of the river).

The fourth, and final, covered bridge shown here is the “Warren” bridge. To get to it from Northfield Falls, you drive south on Route 12 to Roxbury, and then cross the mountains on a partially-unpaved road for about 8 miles to Waitsfield. Then you take Route 100 south until you are just south of the village of Warren. The “Warren” bridge is just east of Route 100 on Covered Bridge Road.

Side-view of "Warren" bridge looking from the north; it spans Mad River.

“Warren” bridge crosses Mad River. It is 57 feet long (17 m) and 14 feet wide (4 m). It was built by Walter Bagley in 1880. One of its unique features is the eastern portal, which extends further over the approaching roadway than the western portal.

Inside view of "Warren" bridge showing the "Queen Post" truss design



This view (left) of the inside of “Warren” bridge shows the “Queen Post” truss design, which holds up the roof. Vermont covered bridges – the majority built in the late-nineteenth century – favoured several different designs.  This bridge has two large windows giving views north and south of the Mad River below.

Side-view of "Warren" bridge from the east side of Mad River.

Here is a link to a website which provides details of the names and locations of most of the covered bridges in Vermont.

Many details about the size, design and age of the covered bridges can be found on individual Wikipedia pages. Do a Google search using the name of the bridge.