I Ran Across a Biting Satire for Our Modern Times

Mischief – Chris Wilson (1993)

            I often spend much of my lunch hour at work reading (lucky me!).  One day, as I was leaving the Baylor College of Medicine cafeteria, I noticed a bookshelf tucked away in the corner.  Taped to the top shelf was a sign reading “Your Free Library.”  I am always drawn to Libraries of any type, even tiny ones.  I perused the contents of the shelves, finding many magazines, medical periodicals, and quite a few books, both fiction and non-fiction, that were interesting to me.  Among these was a well-worn paperback titled Mischief, by English author Chris Wilson.  Reading the blurbs and the synopsis on the back page I was intrigued, and took the book with me.

            From the moment I began to read this novel I found myself both engaged and amused by turn, and began to really relate to the protagonist, one Charlie Duckworth.  He narrates his own tale, describing himself then his humble beginnings, where he was found beside a Brazilian river by a British botanist who brings Charlie back to the UK as his adopted son.  This book resonantly speaks to the outsider’s experience upon being thrust into British society and culture, mirroring somewhat my experience as an outsider Puerto Rican who was brought to Houston, Texas, leaving behind every bit of societal culture I understood, and having to adapt and join the alien American culture I had seen so much on TV and movies.

            Like the very best works of satire, this is one funny book.  Also, like the very best works of satire, the jokes are there to shed light upon the horror inherent in the culture being savaged.  Charlie is, in nearly all respects, the opposite of a British gentleman.  His skin is yellow, his body is hairless, and his frame is tall and gangly.  He is a devout vegetarian.  He is so overcome with empathy and sympathy for anyone who appears in pain or suffering that he unconsciously mimics their afflictions, thereby causing the very people he is sympathizing with to reject him, fearing that he is only ridiculing their woe.  He does not understand sarcasm, nor lies, nor the very British trait of extreme politeness to the point of delusion.  He sees himself as an animal, not a Homo Sapiens Sapiens human being, and the responses and reactions he receives from the British people as he maneuvers school and life only reinforce that idea.

            Charlie Duckworth is also an astute observer of humanity, sharing with the reader the many conclusions he has come to regarding the human creature and the actions of such.  Here is an example of the type of interactions Charlie had with his University professors,

            “Holzinger gave a rhesus Monkey an electric shock every time it ate a banana,” Dr. Jobson told our seminar group. “Why do you suppose he did this?

            “Was he a sadist, a psychopath?” I asked.  It seemed a rhetorical question, but I wanted to make a contribution.

            “Duckworth,” Dr. Jobson declared…”don’t be a smart-arse.  Not in my seminars.”

            “But look at it from the monkey’s point of view…” I protested.

            “The monkey doesn’t have a point of view,” he snapped.  There was this prevalent view in psychology that animals didn’t have pleasures or feelings.  There were only things that happened to them, and things they did in reflex reply – stimuli and responses.  I knew better.  Though, I didn’t say so.

            Charlie experiences much of what constitutes a “typical” British upbringing, always experiencing things in a way that exasperates the Brits around him.  They do not know how to cope with someone who has not yet assimilated all their self-delusion mechanisms.  This is very much how life is like in our modern world for anyone not interested in acquiring wealth and/or power, or for someone whose personal values are deemed worthless by the society he finds himself in.  The kind, giving, friendly person is the first victim of the mean, selfish, and antagonistic person. 

Charlie’s insights into us humans may cut deep, but they are true insights, and exceedingly valuable.  I would recommend this book to anyone who has felt marginalized by the world at large, or out of place within a world that you did not create.  I know it resonated deeply with me, and my experiences.  Author Chris Wilson has created a profound book, dripping with the sharply observed satire expected out of someone like Mark Twain or Jonathan Swift.  It is a satire for our modern age, asking what being human really means, and whether it is worth it to try.

(This book can be purchased here: https://www.amazon.com/Mischief-Christopher-Wilson/dp/0233987134 )

The Anomalies are Where the Real Work of Life Happens

Freaks of Nature: What Anomalies Tell Us About Development and Evolution – Mark S. Blumberg (2009)

            As I was browsing the selections in the M.D. Anderson Library at the University of Houston I came across this book.  Sometimes interesting books just fall in your lap.  The title, Freaks of Nature, seems sensationalist, but what is found inside is a deeply researched and well-written account of the wide processes by which nature creates the seemingly infinite variety of life and life-forms on our planet Earth.

            The main subject of this book is exceedingly topical in today’s world where people are starting to understand the wide spectrum of human sexuality, human sexual development, and the evolution of sexual roles in the many species that display them.  Too often our human group-mind seeks to designate everything and anything into tidy examples of dichotomy.  For example, it is very easy to reduce the infinitely complex nature of human experience with chocolate as “some people like chocolate,” and, “some people do not like chocolate.”  Both of these statements, while true, do not speak to the actual reality of chocolate experience among humans.  Some humans adore chocolate, and it is the main object of their snack desires.  Others are allergic to cocoa, and eating it is a health risk.  Other people appreciate chocolate smells but cannot stand the taste.  Still others experience euphoria and altered states of consciousness upon ingesting chocolate.  Even with something as seemingly simple as a foodstuff, a dichotomous reduction fails.  This idea is what the author applies to the understanding of those life-forms that humans deem “freakish” or monstrous” or “misbegotten.” 

            One of the early chapters discusses birth defects which are similar throughout the animal kingdom.  Twinning, or congenital malformations, can be found in almost all plants and animals we research.  Sometimes one can crack a hen egg and two separate yolks come out.  Sometimes snakes are born with two heads, just like the humans that were displayed in freak shows and sideshows in our recent past.  These similarities, and the similarities between all vertebrate embryos that were discovered through the development of microscopy, helped us humans accept that there is a universal “code” for development.  This code is called DNA.  For a long time, humans seemed to accept that DNA was a hard-wired instruction manual, and that any deformation or defect was caused by a mutation in the genetic material.  This seemed to make sense in a world where everything was dictated by a supernatural and perfect entity.

            However, this viewpoint fails to account for the equally important, and sometimes more important, aspects of development brought forth by environment.  In humans, for example, a normally developing baby can start to develop malformations or defects based on the mother’s exposure to a certain chemical.   These issues do not arise from DNA.  They come from outside the developing organism.  In many species of reptiles, such as crocodiles, the temperature of the soil in which the eggs are laid determines the sex of the animals.  In some, high temps mean male children, while in others high temps mean female children.  In yet other reptiles, extreme temps either low or high result in one sex of offspring, and median temps result in the other.  These factors are so varied and so complex that it has been very difficult to identify and determine exactly what shapes a life-form’s development.  The more we look the more non-dualistic nature seems to be.

            Life is about change.  Life is endlessly adaptable.  If not the single organism then the entire species will adjust.  Understanding the near-infinite variety of forms and functions allowed in Nature helps us to better understand a current hot-button topic.  That is the idea of intersexuality.  Humans assign sex roles to their children as soon as they are born, sometimes to highly detrimental effect.  We assume males are males and females are female but this is not ever that clear.  There are humans born with XX, or “female” designating chromosomes, but who show outward male sexual characteristics.  There are humans born with XY chromosomes, but who lack certain enzymes that allow their body to process the testosterone it creates, leading to female physical traits.  There are humans born every day that have two separate gonads, or two separate sexual organs.  Humans are not alone in this.  There are examples from all of the animal kingdom of such births, creatures that do not fit our dichotomous male/female model.  In many children, reconstructive surgery is imposed on them by worried doctors and parents, parents who think, if I shape my child’s genitals to be male, he will then identify as male, and all will be great.  Studies show this is fraught with trauma, especially as the individuals in question have had no say in how they wish to live.

            The way in which we treat each other depends a lot on the definitions we assign to the world around us.  Intersex organisms weird people out sometimes.  We have been taught that there is but one way to be, either male, or female, and that some sort of god decreed that this is how everything should be.  Everything else is either a mistake, or an abomination, or a punishment from this supposedly benevolent deity.  Humans still abandon or murder babies they see as malformed or cursed.  We still force our ideas of what life is supposed to be like on others.  I wish more people would read books like this, the better for them to understand that Life is a process, an ever-developing, and ever-expanding process, and that there is no one way to be.  Those we call freaks or monsters are just as developed and evolved as we are.  They deserve the same respect and dignity we shower upon the life we deem normal, and in many ways, may be pointing to what our future could be.

(This book can be purchased here:  FREAKS OF NATURE  )