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5.0 out of 5 stars
The Road To Apeville, On The Train Leaving Brooklyn,
By Don Reed "Don" (Cliffside Park NJ) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Rescue of Miss Yaskell: And Other Pipe Dreams (Hardcover)
The Rescue of Miss Yaskell & Other Pipe Dreams, Russell Baker; Congden & Weed (1983)
Not one review of a book written by one of America's greatest humorists, the acclaimed writer of the Observer column in the New York Times & the winner of two Pulitzer prizes - for his nationally syndicated column (1962-88) & for his sterling autobiography, "Growing Up"? Not one? From "The Road to Apeville": "I turn on the radio... The 7:52 is thirteen minutes late. Maniac shoots seven. Hailstones in Hackensack. Trial in seventh week. Senate confirms Reagan nominee. Scientists to mate man & ape. Murders four, takes sleeping pills... "Alarm bells ring along the ganglia. The mind flicks the retention switch. `Something interesting passed through in that last batch of sludge.' The recall mechanism automatically tunes out the continuing flow of data (C.I.A. spokesman denies, Congressman denies taking kickbacks...) & begins sifting through already molding residue. "Yes, here it is. Artificial insemination. Right. Something about artificially inseminating a human female with ape extract to see what would be produced. "The mind stalks this half-heard fragment with caution. Nonsense. One must have dreamed it. Science wouldn't. A frantic scramble through the newspapers. Not a word about it. Immense sensations of relief. Must have dreamed it. What would be the point of crossing man & ape?" [Italics]: Point? You want to know the point? How about a boom for the razor-blade, shaving cream & depilatory industries? "Nonsense. Science wouldn't." [Italics] : Oh wouldn't it?... "Yes, why not cross human & simian? With a tail strong enough to suspend itself from a subway strap, a man would find it easier going to work in the rush hour. "Yet I dislike this progress. It is already hard enough finding a shirt in a size 36 sleeve length without having to compete with a new race whose arms hang to their shins... "The trouble with science is that...science cannot make the world better. It can only replace bad old things in the bad old world with new things that make the new world just as bad, although in different ways, as the old.... "I see in the papers that science had made a square tomato. The story goes on & on about the advantages of this deed, such as: square tomatoes are easier to pack than tomato-shaped tomatoes; the new square tomato is tougher than its predecessor & can, therefore, be more easily picked by machinery, & so forth. "In all these raves, there is not a word about the square tomato tasting better than the old tomato. "In fact, there is not a word about whether the square tomato has any taste at all. So where is the miracle? The last scientifically bred tomato, which you get at the supermarket most of the year, is also hard & easily harvested & packed, but it doesn't have any taste. "The only purpose of a tomato is to taste like a tomato, & if it doesn't, it is not a miracle, but a failure. If its purpose is to be hard, it might as well be a potato. If its purpose is to be square, it might as well be a cardboard box... "The radio clacks on. (Rhodesian rebels attack. Russian astronauts in orbit. Coffee prices rise.) I have come dangerously close to an idea. A heresy. Is science as muddled as the rest of us?..." ***** Buy "Rescue" & encourage everyone you know to do the same - even your friends who tend to lose things. The odds are pretty good that while they're shopping for shirts with size-36 sleeves, they'll leave it on a subway seat - where an ape currently representing the 15th generation of simians scientifically bred from man will find & appreciate it far more than someone who has the sense of humor of a square tomato (say, Mayor Bloomberg, or Arthur Sulzberger, Jr.). ***** The only thing that went astray with "Rescue" has to do with some now long-forgotten idiots at the publishers, Congdon & Weed. The accumulated columns were artificially divided into sections such as, "Regions of the Past," Urban Gothic," "Media, Or What's That Rotting My Brain?" Then, within each, the columns weren't presented in the chronological order in which they had been originally published in the Times. The first decision can be fatal (see review of "fred allen's letters"), but not here. Starting the book off with the wistfully illuminating "A Visit With The Folks" works perfectly. But the second decision - to not arrange the columns in order of their creation, within the artificial divisions...when you start screwing around with chronology... For instance, the date attributed to "The Road to Apeville" - "March 15, 1977" (p. 293, hardcover) is questionable. The column refers to "Senate confirms Reagan nominee." Ronald Reagan occupied no elective office on March 15, 1977; the President on that date was Jimmy Carter (Reagan succeeded him in 1981, having left the California governorship on January 6, 1975). The other Congdon & Weed brainstorm (certainly not their last before they filed for bankruptcy in 1985) was to have Russell pose for the dust jacket photo - front cover, no less - in that era's mass-produced, revoltingly phony publishing pose: "The Wise & Patient Author with His/Her Chin Resting Thoughtfully On The Author's Cupped Hand." If you're lucky, the dealer sending you a copy of "Rescue" will be fresh out of dust jackets, confiscated by the EPA cops in a 1985 Superfund cleanup drive.
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