Essay: Judging a Book by its Cover

I took an Athabasca University English Composition course a decade ago. I thought that it would be interesting to turn some of my assignment essays -- such as this one -- into blogs.
I have moved since I wrote this but my books have accompanied me to my new home:

My Edmonton apartment feels a bit cramped; perhaps there are too many bookshelves? Their contents vary from software manuals to great literature. Many of the shelves are stuffed with the accumulated flotsam and jetsam from my foreign travels. These books are valued literary friends. In many instances though, they are judged by their covers even while the contents remain unread. They shout out to be opened and have their contents read; but how do I choose?

I have travelled far from Canada. When I planned foreign trips, the destination was rarely a particular country but instead an experience or perhaps a person. I did not set out to visit India but rather I set out to go “around the world” and then filled in the gaps. Going to Australia – at least on my second and third visits – was represented by a certain friend from the beach more than any desire to see the Outback. Rather than planning for East Asia, I was making efficient use of the airplane ticket rules; cramming in every possible stopover. But then, once I had arrived in some new country, the destination became interesting and I would gather travel guides, atlases and history tomes. I have read more about countries after I left them for the final time than I ever read before my first arrival.

Many of my favourite books were discovered at bargain prices in the back bins of dusty bookstores. Others are more recent eBay discoveries. When I have time for pleasure reading I browse my shelves for something interesting. But which unread book will it be? I enjoy books where cultures and civilizations intersect. Perhaps something about Western travellers in China will be a good choice tonight?

How about an imposing thick volume: Borderlands of Eternity embracing ''Across China on Foot'' by Edwin J. Dingle? (Dingle) Hmmm. A peak inside reveals that Edwin John Dingle was the “Founder of the Science of Metaphysics” and the original publication date is 1911. A page flip reveals photos of walking trips through Burmese mountains and boat travel on the upper Yangtze River. Fascinating I am sure, but this doorstop of a volume is rather too thick, embracing as the cover declares, two books in one.

Maybe I should attempt Behind the Ranges, Fraser of Lisuland, Southwest China by Mrs. Howard Taylor. (Taylor) First published in 1944, this appears to be the earnest and sober biography of missionary James Outram Fraser. (He certainly looks earnest and sober in the preface photograph). A label inside the front reveals that it was “Awarded to Arnold Fenton” by a Sunday school in 1959. I wonder if young Fenton read it himself and what life-lessons he gleaned from its pages. It covers the same interesting geographic area as the Dingle volumes, so I must someday give it an earnest and sober read.

Something with less heft would be a better choice. A Thousand Miles Of Miracle in China is described on its cover as “Extraordinary, Absorbing, Thrilling”. The title page reveals it as a 1904 personal account “by Archibald E. Glover, M.A. (Oxon.), of the China Inland Mission”. There are detailed maps and some photos of the nineteenth century Boxer Rebellion. The chapter titles promise high-adventure: “A Hairbreadth Escape”, “Travelling to the Execution” and “Left to the Mob”. (Glover) I do suspect that its Christian sermonizing might be too heavy for my current taste.

No, I think that something slightly more modern and somewhat less earnest will be better. Here is the novel Nanking Road by Vicki Baum published in 1939. The cover has a lovely impressionistic sketch of old Shanghai’s main shopping road. The hotel in that scene looks quite like the one where I stayed during my own Shanghai visit in 2000. While I have not read her books, I do know that Ms. Baum’s Grand Hotel was a big thirties hit. The 805 page length does seem a bit intimidating and I am not sure I want to spend weeks enmeshed, as promised, in the lives of a “multi-millionaire who began life as a rickshaw coolie”, “a celebrated gynaecologist flying from Nazi persecution” and a wealthy Englishman “dabbling in espionage”. (Baum)

Perhaps a view of Asia by an Asian will be tonight’s final choice. I own a copy of The Silent Traveller in Japan by Chiang Yee. From the forties to the seventies, Mr. Chiang wrote a series of Silent Traveller books illustrated with personal pen sketches, poetry, calligraphy and pithy observations. A couple years ago, I quite enjoyed reading his Silent Traveller in San Francisco. He noticed things out of the ordinary and met such interesting people. So the Silent Traveller it will be. Pushing back my keyboard, I leap into the first sentence: “I have paid Japan four visits so far…” (Chiang) and I continue reading long into the night.

Works Cited

Dingle, Edwin J.  Borderlands of Eternity embracing “Across China on Foot”.  Bristol, England & New York, NY: J.W. Arrowsmith & Co., 1911.
(Copyright 1939 Edwin John Dingle)

Taylor, Mrs. Howard  Behind the Ranges, Fraser of Lisuland, Southwest China. London, UK: China Inland Mission, 1944

Glover, Archibald E.  A Thousand Miles of Miracle in China. 

London & Glasgow: Pickering & Inglis, 1904.

Baum, Vicki.  Nanking Road. 

London, UK: Geoffrey Bles, 1939.

Chiang Yee. The Silent Traveller in Japan.  New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Co. 1972

Reading unusual books: Man-Eaters of Kuamon

I am an eclectic book collector and reader.

Apparently most people make their book selections from the newspaper best seller lists or they rush out for the latest Oprah recommendation. In the days of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens there were fewer options for entertainment. Everyone in and out of high society would be waiting for the next book release or serial publication. The latest offering would be eagerly read and passed around. It must have been like those days in the sixties where everyone on the street watched the Laugh-in or Ed Sullivan the night before.

Now there are popular readings -- everyone seems to be reading Harry Potter -- but that is rare. I suspect that more people read Rowling's books so that they are ready for the next movie than read them for the shear pleasure. Reading seems more of a fad than a pleasure.

In my teenage years I sometimes read a book a day! Usually basic science fiction by Andre Norton or Robert Heinlein. Now, decades later, there are so many distractions. There are plenty of good shows on basic cable and I could spend half of every day answering email and twittering away on the Net. I have magazine subscriptions (news, computers and business) that I read from cover to cover.

So it takes special effort to sit and read a book. In the meantime I enjoy visiting used book stores. That is a merchandising category that is in decline. I buy the book categories that no-one wants. Those poor mislaid volumes written by missionaries in old China or perhaps some guide book for a long forgotten World's Fair just seem destined for my bookshelf.

The problem in recent years is of course retreating far enough from modern life to actually read something from my collection. Today I finally finished something that is different than most of my readings.

Man-Eaters of Kumaon by Jim Corbett (Oxford University Press 1946)
Jim Corbett is now known as an environmentalist. India's oldest national park is now named the Jim Corbett National Park. In the twenties he was more famous as a sportsman hunter. He was famous as the man who rid the hills of several man-eating tigers and leopards.

One of the things I liked about this story is its first-person directness. I read another book last year about hunting in BC. That book was full of stories told at some vague time to someone else who told them to the author. This book here is full of first person detail with occasional stories told the author in the immediate aftermath of the events.

Jim Corbett realized that these tigers were a beautiful and necessary part of the Indian hill country. He described how these cats became man eaters out of necessity. Generally the tigers in these events were injured by a hunter who had let the beast escape wounded into the forests. Hunger lead to unsuccessful attempts at their usual fare; then these wounded tigers would turn to something easier. That something easier was the local villagers as they worked their fields or cut tree branches for their livestock.

One surprising thing is the great number of deaths in these cases. One of the tigers in this book was aid to have killed more than 300 victims. The normal tiger habit is to return as many days as it takes to completely eat their kill; but the man eaters had become so shy after many failed hunting attempts that they would gulp a meal of human flesh and then leave for a hiding place. The next day they would be on the hunt for another victim.

Jim Corbett was raised in the hill country. He took prodigious chances and did prodigious feats. He commonly walked many miles up and down thousand foot hillsides. Every sense was at full alert as he stalked his prey. He preferred hunting alone or accompanied by his dog Robin. That way he did not have to worry about loosing a companion to the tiger or a stray shot. He only had to worry about his own hide.

His most common method of bagging a tiger was to hide in a tree within a short distance of the remains of a tiger kill. He would sit there for 14 hours all night at alert readiness for an animal that was as interested in hunting him as he was as interested in hunting it. In several of the stories in this book he managed to bag his tiger as it leapt toward him and fell at his feet.

I am still not a game hunter or what Mr. Corbett would have called a sportsman; but I do have a better appreciation of the difference between his solitary contests between man and beast and that so-called sport as practised by helicopter travelling millionaires.

My hunting will remain the search for elusive and unappreciated books as found on the dusty shelves of bargain book stores.