Lurid Historical True Crime ... and Why I'm Not An Academic

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I recently read a couple books about the case of Mary Rogers, a young woman in 19th century New York who was brutally murdered and possibly raped. Or maybe she'd had an abortion and the abortionists disposed of her body in a panic. In any case, she wound up dead in the waters off the shore of New Jersey. There were several different suspects and theories -- a jealous fiance, gang murder, abortion gone wrong? The case was never solved. The story was a sensation for the burgeoning penny press and inspired Edgar Allan Poe to write the Mystery of Marie Roget, set in Paris but clearly based on the Mary Rogers case. It continues to attract writers as a subject, a classic historical true crime subject.

The first book I read about it was an academic take: The Mysterious Death of Mary Rogers: Sex and Culture in Nineteenth Century New York. And for an academic book, it was fairly approachable. But I didn't finish it, which is rare for me. Two reasons. The first was the prose, which despite efforts to make the book comprehensible to ordinary humans, still included passages like this:

"As the subject of all forms of social discourse -- the newspaper, the mystery novel, and even that of legislators and reformers -- Rogers was the embodiment of all that antebellum middle-class culture named as unspeakable, but actually, according to the modern critic of the history of sexuality, Foucault, integrated into a 'regulated and polymorphous' variety of discourses."

Someday I will read an academic work in the humanities that does not name-check Foucault and/or Derrida within the first 20 pages. Or maybe I won't, because these works, as a class, are just too annoying. I spent too long in the world of reporting, I guess, but I can't stand being instructed on what something means. Just tell me what happened and let me draw my own conclusions, OK?

The other reason I gave up on this book is I felt there was a fundamental hypocrisy at work. It purports, in passages like that quoted above, to analyze and, to some extent, judge Rogers' treatment as an object of prurience by the press and the public at large. Well, yeah. And why exactly did you choose this subject for your book anyway? Perhaps because you realized that people are fascinated with crime, particularly crimes against attractive young women? Perhaps that's why you also included the word sex in your title? Edgar Allan Poe got it and he didn't feel the need to cast himself as a moral authority who is horrified by other people's interest while he was doing it. Then again, he didn't have Foucault and Derrida to tell him what was really going on.

Speaking of Poe, he is a major player in another nonfiction book about the case which I read all the way through: The Beautiful Cigar Girl by Daniel Stashower. This is a standard work of historical true crime, made sexier by Poe's role in the story. It suffers a bit from the basic problem with the Mary Rogers story -- we never do find out what, exactly, happened to her and who was responsible -- as opposed to other great works of historical true crime, like The Devil in the White City and The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher. Those books give you an answer to what the hell happened. Stashower's book gave me a lot more insight into Poe, so that was a plus. If you're interested in this story or in that genre, I recommend it. The subtitle, I must say, is a bit much: "Mary Rogers, Edgar Allan Poe and the Invention of Murder." I get that you want to get Poe in there. And I get that this case was part of the beginnings of both widespread public interest in crime, via the new popular press. But murder's been around for a long time, hasn't it?

The book I really liked, though, was the one I just finished: The Mystery of Mary Rogers by Rick Geary. It's a graphic novel, part of a series by Geary called A Treasury of Victorian Murder, which also includes famous cases like Lizzie Borden. He's done some 20th century cases, too, and a biography of J. Edgar Hoover. I've now read three of his books and I think they're all terrific. So if you're going to read one book about this case, this one is my recommendation. And if you're a true crime buff, especially a historical true crime buff, definitely check Geary out. They're a good introduction to graphic novels, too, if you're curious about that genre but are not sure where to jump in.

Ebooks for everyone! At least everyone who wants them

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I wrote a piece about ebooks and libraries that appeared in Sunday's edition of Solares Hill. If you are not a Citizen subscriber, or you didn't happen to buy a copy of Sunday's paper, I'm afraid I can't tell you a way to look at the piece.

I can, however, give you a little explication on my attitude toward ebooks: If you like them, great. If you fear them, relax. No one, at least in the world of the public library, is going to force you to use them instead of old-fashioned print books. And I think all the doomsayers who predict the end of Civilization As We Know It are wallowing in their own bitterness and I just don't see the point. Sure, civilization as we know it is changing. That's what it does. Some of the changes are good, others not so much. But constantly calling out all new developments as harbingers of evil is just tiring. And sad. Who wants to be angry all the time? If you only want to read books on paper, knock yourself out.

And what about libraries? We could be in for some rocky times as the digital tidal wave that has already swamped newspapers now reaches us. But we're trying to do what we've always done, which is provide people with reading material and information for their edification and entertainment. Already, in the world of reference, online is the way to go. And as the world goes online, public libraries play an increasingly important role in providing online access and guidance for those who don't have or can't afford computers and internet access on their own. Possibly general interest books will go largely digital, too. But I think it will be awhile. The Monroe County Library's ebook collection, as of this writing, is 549. Our collection of physical books numbers around 150,000.

A couple interesting developments that have come to my attention since I wrote the piece. One is that charging as much for an ebook as for a hardcover may not be as outrageous as I once thought. This piece from Digital Book World made me reconsider and I certainly favor publishers spending money on important things like author advances, editors and marketing. However ... it's one thing to charge $30 or the hardcover equivalent of a book. It's another to triple the prices for libraries (and libraries only) like Random House has done. Their theory seems to be that elending at libraries is just too easy so more readers will borrow instead of buy; but surely they realize from decades of experience with physical books that frequent book borrowers are also frequent book buyers, who may well be inclined to snap up a writer's backlist or recommend a title to their friends? Like many librarians, I was also unhappy with HarperCollins' decision to limit library checkouts to 26 per license. Some library books fall apart (or go missing) sooner than that. But others hang around for years and years.

I've been waiting for someone to figure out the appropriate model for library ebook lending ... and I think a good candidate just appeared. The folks over at Pottermore, the J.K. Rowling empire, are licensing the Harry Potter series as ebooks (yep, we've got all seven of them in the Monroe County Library digital collection). They cost $28, around the price of a quality hardcover. And they expire after five years, which seems like a reasonable length of time for a popular title. In fact, such expirations based on time rather than number of checkouts could serve as a sort of self-weeding mechanism for libraries -- popular titles would, one presumes, be re-licensed while others would be quietly allowed to expire, much as we do today with weeding the shelves. Only without all the cardboard boxes and magic markers.

Now someone just has to figure out how to loan ebooks on an interlibrary basis. And how patrons can donate their copies if they wish. I have faith that somewhere in libraryland, someone smarter than me is already working on both tasks.

It's not about the horse

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A review of Catherine the Great by Robert K. Massie, along with consideration of The Winter Palace by Eva Stachniak: First, the biography:

Only in the bizarre chessboard world of 18th century European monarchy could an obscure princess from the German nation-state of Anhalt-Zerbst rise to become Empress of Russia, the vast and powerful nation that dominates the eastern part of the continent, then and now.

Catherine, writes biographer Robert K. Massie, was the equal of her illustrious predecessor Peter the Great – “his only equal – in vision, strength of purpose and achievement during the centuries that Russia was ruled by tsars, emperors and empresses.”

The story of her reign is fascinating but equally so is the unlikely tale of how it came about. Catherine – born Sophia – was plucked from relative obscurity by Empress Elizabeth, a daughter of Peter the Great.

Elizabeth was childless and had taken her nephew, Peter, also a German, as her heir. For his consort, she chose another German related to Peter’s House of Holstein – little Sophia. As a young teenager, the princess was summoned to St. Petersburg.

While Sophia, soon rebaptized in the Russian Orthodox Church as Catherine, was an eager and willing student of Russian language, religion and culture, her young husband-to-be was not. Whether he was mentally ill or just damaged from a neglected and traumatic childhood, young Peter was certainly strange. He idolized the Prussian emperor Frederick the Great, and he spent most of his waking hours conducting pretend military drills in the Prussian manner. For his “soldiers,” he employed servants and, well into adulthood, dolls.

Young Catherine was left to learn the navigation of Russian imperial court life herself, dealing with the vain and unpredictable Elizabeth as well as her immature and unprepared young fiancé. Even after the pair were married – and Catherine had grown into an attractive young woman – the marriage went unconsummated and the heir Elizabeth had essentially ordered up did not appear.

Finally Catherine was encouraged to take a lover and she bore the first of her three children – fathered by three different men, none of them her husband, according to Massie. It was a boy and the delighted Empress Elizabeth immediately seized custody.

When Elizabeth died, Catherine’s husband Peter ascended the throne. His brief reign was a disaster. He tried to remake the Orthodox Church in the Lutheran image, ordering the destruction of icons and the shaving of the priests’ beards. He tried to remake the Russian Army in the image of his beloved Prussia, putting an uncle from Holstein with no military experience in command. And he embarked on a disastrous war with Denmark, over a territorial dispute that was important to Holstein but had no bearing on Russia. Within a few months “Peter had provoked and insulted the Orthodox Church, infuriated and alienated the army and betrayed his allies,” Massie writes.

Desperate, military and political men in Russia’s top circles turned to Peter’s wife – the mother of his purported son and heir, Paul. For the start of his reign she had been out of commission – pregnant with another child by a dashing Russian officer. Peter, meanwhile, had taken a mistress he much preferred to Catherine and hoped to replace her. But after giving birth, Catherine quickly reasserted her influence and seized the reins.

When a group of soldiers appeared at her residence, she told them “that her life and that of her son had been threatened by the emperor but that it was not for her own sake, but for that of her beloved country and their holy Orthodox religion that she was compelled to throw herself on their protection.”

From there, Catherine consolidated her hold on power -- helped along the way when her allies (including her lover's brother) -- managed to kill the deposed emperor in a dinnertime struggle at his place of confinement. Her regime claimed Peter died of hemorrhoidal colic (!)  but no one really believed it (even if few in Russia would dare to say so) and throughout Europe she was always considered a usurper even as she befriended Enlightenment figures including Diderot and Voltaire and created one of the world's great Western art collections, which survives today at the Hermitage.

Like Elizabeth I before her and Victoria after, Catherine's long and stable reign is a historical anamoly. A woman managing to gain, hold and exercise power and literally rule men is so incredibly unlikely that when it happens it becomes mythic. And unlike English queens, it appears Russian empresses were acknowledged to have sex lives, even outside of marriage. Empress Elizabeth and Catherine both had a series of "favorites" with all-hours access to their private chambers. Catherine eventually installed one as King of Poland (under heavy Russian control). The most famous, Gregory Potemkin, was rumored to be her husband though they never could have acknowledged it and their partnership evolved from romance to administration. Massie matter-of-factly recounts Catherine's lovers (a total of 12) but never brings up the notorious rumors about sexual relations with a horse. Untrue rumors, I should add. Even Snopes says so.

When Catherine died in 1796, her son Paul succeeded her -- but their relationship had always been a difficult one, starting from his birth when the Empress Elizabeth took him away and severely limited Catherine's access to her own son. Peter the Great had changed the law so that a Russian ruler could name his or own successor -- meaning Catherine had tactical power to keep her son under her control. When Paul finally reached the throne he changed it back to primogeniture, or the nearest male heir. "Never again would an heir have to go through what Paul had been through," Massie writes. "And never again would Russia be ruled by a woman."

After reading the biography, it was interesting to see a different perspective on the German princess in Eva Stachniak's novel The Winter Palace. The story is told from the perspective of a Polish girl, a few years older than Catherine, who becomes a ward of Empress Elizabeth when her parents die while living in St. Petersburg. Barbara is recruited as a household spy by the aging Empress, directed to befriend Catherine and report back about the actions and thoughts of the Grand Duchess. Eventually, though, she becomes a sort of double agent, serving Catherine -- and simply seeking to survive the normal intrigues of palace life and then the upheaval after Elizabeth dies, Peter is deposed and Catherine takes over. After having read the biography, I was surprised at the portrait of Peter -- I wouldn't call it sympathetic but in Massie's account, he was far worse, especially in his treatment of Catherine. And his actions upon assuming the throne, both in allying himself with the Prussia, hated by most Russians, and in making enemies of the Orthodox Church, are almost unmentioned. Barbara herself is a fairly sympathetic character though even her developing relationship with her husband is merely hinted at. And this may be a bit of a spoiler but her disillusionment toward the end of the book seems just implausible -- surely someone who had spent so many formative -- and successful -- years at court would have developed a healthy self-protective realism and cynicism about the motives and duplicity of powerful people.

I enjoyed both these books, the biography more than the novel, though I will still read the next in Stachniak's planned series about Catherine. If nothing else, it makes a nice break from the machinations of the English court.

Catherine the Great: A-

The Winter Palace: B

This, that and the other

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1) It's March which means many people pay a lot of attention to basketball and eventually I remember that the cool people over at The Morning News are holding the annual Tournament of Books. I'm still working my way through the first round but man, this is good stuff.*

2) Which is sort of related (smart writing about books -- on the Internet!) to another thing: this recent, incredibly smart piece in Salon, examining Franzen v. Internet (for the record, I'm on the Internet's team) and giving the best defense I've read yet on what the Internet has brought to the world of books and readers. It's so good I'm going to quote from it at length. But you should still go and read the whole piece. And follow the links in the first excerpt.

The Internet has been amazing for book talk. There is more of it, and at a higher quality, than perhaps at any other moment, certainly in my lifetime. Dinosaurs love to lament the lost space in newspaper book reviews; a few years ago, the National Book Critics Circle fought, what seemed to me, a self-serving campaign to save the book review, by which a handful of people really wanted to save their right to sell the same lame 450-word book report to a handful of regional dailies. You didn’t have to bother reading the book to write many of those reviews, and as a one-time daily books editor myself, who once assigned reviews to some of those active in this debate, it was clear that many critics did not. Now we have the Rumpus and the Awl and the Millions and the Morning News and Maud Newton and Bookslut and the Nervous Breakdown and Full-Stop and the Los Angeles Review of Books and HTMLgiant and you get the idea. Professional freelancers didn’t save the book review – the battle was won by the Internet and people who love reading. The culture is richer for it. Twitter’s a useful tool for keeping track of the idea explosion.

and this:

That the online book culture is full of branding and image-burnishing is hard to deny. But it is also a generous place, at its best, and writers who use these social media tools understand this. They retweet, they send out links to positive reviews and articles about other people, they congratulate each other on publication day. Promotional, sure — but if it’s news that a favorite writer has a new story in a small journal I wouldn’t have known about, well, that’s valuable news. Indeed, it’s at least as valuable as the phony and promotional blurb industry which Franzen seems to have no problem being a part of.

 Hear, hear! Also, read, read! And write, write!

3) Speaking of writing ... if you are a Keys person and you are a writer, aspiring or otherwise, there's a cool contest this year at The Studios of Key West. It's called The Writes of Spring and last I heard there were about 10 spots left (they're only taking 25 registrants total). So get over there (digitally or otherwise) and sign up!

4) Illustration of The Book Reader of the Future, which came from the April 1935 issue of Everyday Science and Mechanics, courtesy of the awesome website Retronaut.

* Special thanks -- and asterisk/footnote homage -- to Citizen Reader both for reminding me about the Tournament of Books in general and for pointing out that this hilarious round in the ToB was judged by Wil Wheaton -- a name that sounded vaguely familar when I read it but didn't remember until I read the CR entry that goddamn, that *is* Wesley Crusher from Star Trek TNG! I've read occasional references and links to his blogging but had no idea he was this funny.