I almost completely agree. I also agree with Recusant that Fred MacMurray is an underrated actor.
But I only agree in part that America is "about plucking civilisation from the wilderness and mire of fallen humanity." For me, all of my life, the central figure in the American myth has been the solitary wanderer, the man looking to get away from the crush of society, seeking, as Daniel Boone put it, "elbow room." If you go on a long hike and reach the point in late afternoon where you must turn and head home, the cast of the sunlight somehow informs your sense of distance and fills you with a kind of delicious aloneness that is simultaneously sad and sweet. And that, for me, is what it means to be an American. Of course, I haven't a Calvinist cell in my body.
But I only agree in part that America is "about plucking civilisation from the wilderness and mire of fallen humanity." For me, all of my life, the central figure in the American myth has been the solitary wanderer, the man looking to get away from the crush of society, seeking, as Daniel Boone put it, "elbow room." If you go on a long hike and reach the point in late afternoon where you must turn and head home, the cast of the sunlight somehow informs your sense of distance and fills you with a kind of delicious aloneness that is simultaneously sad and sweet. And that, for me, is what it means to be an American. Of course, I haven't a Calvinist cell in my body.
Except that this same figure is an icon of the Romantic Movement in late 1700s, early 1800s. Melmoth the Wanderer. Figures standing about on crags overlooking wild landscapes in painting after painting. Frankenstein. Childe Harolde. I think the loner represents What It Means to Be a Man in the civilized world. There's a real sense of longing there. Women always want to belong, but I don't think men do. They join groups of necessity.
ReplyDeleteFrank, call me when you've got some dates free. We need to catch up.
I keeping coming back to the reality that most Europeans, especially those who know the US only through media rather than via visiting, have absolutely no sense of the size or scale of the place. New England is our closest analogue, in terms of scale and culture, to Europe. But Nevada is something completely other. And you can drop New England into Nevada—twice.
ReplyDeletePart of the American myth, already mentioned, the loner archetype, is really the pioneer or explorer archetype. But the scale of the place is one of the elements that defined our American myths: it really is so incredibly big, that almost everyone, if they wander at all, will experience that loner moment simply out of logistical necessity.
Amen, Art. When I was in Elko, Nevada, a few years ago for the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, I met a guy who grew up on what he called "a small ranch." It was only 20 squares miles.
ReplyDeleteThose of my generation who came of age in the 1950s and 1960s (I just turned 57) recall Fred MacMurray as the nice old guy from the TV program "My Three Sons" and the Disney "Flubber" films.
ReplyDeleteAs I grew older and began to watch older films I was surprised to view a different man in Billy Wilder's "Double Indemnity" and "The Apartment."
MacMurry was also very good in "The Caine Mutiny" as the writer-turned-sailor/nice guy-turned-prick in the World War II drama.
MacMurray would have made a good Philip Marlowe.