Surely it is a mark of sheer eggheadedness to post an entry on Wikipedia. However, I have done so and now added Templeton to Wikipedia's list of Invisible Cities. Fictional cities, I think Professor Wiki calls that entry. And I must say that the local Rabid Cohort of Fenimore Cooperites (the RC/FC) has proved rather slow off the mark not to beat me to it. (Halloo, Hugh--why's the RC/FC lagging in Wiki-land?) I'm used to our local historians and critics leaving the rest of us--Southerners-in-exile like me, the yearning social climbers on the rungs below Clark-Busch-Hager Land (makes one feel Jane Austenish--those great-grandfathers made their fortune in beer! in sewing machines! in trade!), the Bassett workers, the baseball shop owners, etc.--in a fog of dust.
By the by, if you have an interest in Cooper's dreams about the wilderness, the best place to start is Mr. MacDougall's The James Fenimore Cooper Society. It also has a section in praise of Fenimore Cooper's daughter, Susan Fenimore Cooper, author of the marvelous Rural Hours.
And here is the Wiki post:
Templeton - A little Yankee village on the shore of the imaginary Glimmerglass, both invented by James Fenimore Cooper in The Leatherstocking Tales; the name of the lake having infiltrated the so-called non-fictional realm with great success, the name of the village appearing there infrequently.
I did not, however, mention that I have pilfered the imaginary town for my own twisted purposes in many short stories . . . Some things need to remain secret. Now you know.
* * * * *
P. S. to the RC/FC: Note that the link to the Tales is Not Found. How can that be? Shall it stand?
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
6 comments:
Alas, I must once again remind large numbers of Chinese salesmen and other worldwide peddlers that if they fall into the Gulf of Spam, they will be eaten by roaming Balrogs. The rest of you, lovers of grace, poetry, and horses (nod to Yeats--you do not have to be fond of horses), feel free to leave fascinating missives and curious arguments.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Hugh MacDougall, Cooperstown mastermind of The James Fenimore Cooper Society, has reported via email that he could not add a comment to this post. Therefore, I, the Palace Testing Girl, will attempt to check the system by adding a comment--this comment, in fact.
ReplyDeleteP. S. Happy 4th Day of Christmas. On the Beggar Queen's schedule today at the Palace: complete story; take children to Narnia via the wardrobe; find out what happened to the pistachio and chocolate marzipan; exercise (lots!) after eating said marzipan.
BUG found: if you preview a comment, click on Publish Your Comment back in the original "Leave your comment" column. That is, not in the comment-in-preview box. Otherwise you may lose the comment. Suppose such shenanigans will be fixed by Them ...
ReplyDeleteHappy fourth day of Christmas to you. And here's to the preservation of eggheads. I wish I could sample those pistachio and chocolate marzipan treats myself.
ReplyDeleteAs to your former post, I thought "what a visual soul she is" (and you are) but reading at last some of your books realize (not that there was a doubt) you have a fine ear as well.
Few books in my childhood homes as well. I had your version of Alice, though, and a handful of small Little Golden Books, of which I most remember the Eloise Wilkin Hansel and Gretel (chubby cheeked and definitely good enough to eat) and their white feather bed in the witch's house, and a copy of some of the ruthless Andersen fairy tales, of which I most pored over drawing of the princesses who wandered away to dance.
Here all the roads are blocked with roadslides, and the electricity at the shop a variable thing, but there are early violets, sweetsmelling.
I do my parents an injustice to suggest that there were few books at our house--but since my mother was a librarian, most of the ones I read didn't live at our house! But I do think that there wasn't such a mania to "possess" books, and that the ones a child owned were greatly cherished--like yours.
ReplyDeleteOnce upon a time I owned many books--still do, by most standards--and now that I reside in the boondocks, I wish that I still had them. Too many moves, too many heavy boxes... But I'm glad you're reading mine.
Violets and slides. Is that spring already? Sounds like spring in the Carolina mountains. When I was in high school, there were fewer roads and more mudslides that brought down trees and boulders and cut us off. Was it cosy, or was it sheer Poe, a nightmare of being buried alive? Both, I think.
Here it is snowing... Snow is my Colette's husband that shuts me up and makes me write.
No, the violets may be spring (they are too early this year) but the roadslides are winter. We get our rain in the winter months, in great curtains and buckets. Right now it is blowing from the south, sideways, and my youngest, who hates the wind, is very troubled. The area in which I live is known as the Lost Coast, and for good reason. When the hills slide we are cut off for days, and once in a decade or so, for weeks. The major slide area is simply a mountain that was meant to be at the ocean, and is working its slow way there.
ReplyDeleteSnow is a good encloser, but in my life would probably wrap in a dog or two and certainly a child and some cats and lots of distractions. I'm easily distracted from writing, myself.
So, I have finished The Wolf Pit, the first of the books of yours I managed to find, and found it both harsh and beautiful. And Wednesday, from separate areas of the country, Claire and The Raven Mocker came to my post office box. I always need to sit with poetry, since it is rich fare, but those I sampled were remarkable for a sense of sound. But I put aside all my normal duties to read the Raven Mocker (helped by a power outage; candlewax dripped on the pages). (I noticed a very stupid review--official library type--of this book on Amazon. Undiscerning soul.). This is such a good book, Marly, with all the wonderful elements--so vivid, and smudged with darkness (I'll have nightmares about the raven babies). (And I like ravens, so you were working against some of my prejudices--we have a pair that has lived on my land since our early time there; they teach their babies where we put treats, and have learned to make cat like sounds whenever the cats are around.)For me this book is up in my list of life favorites (a very strange list it is, though). And I am looking forward to more.
That landscape reminds me of something out of Lorna Doone somehow--excessive, dangerous, romantic, but with violets peeping out. I have a child who fears the wind around the corner of the house...
ReplyDeleteI am impressed! You are reading me with a vengeance! That's a full half of what I've published in book form. ("Catherwood"--out of print after HarperCollins ate the Bard imprint & all of Morrow, then spat many lines back out--is the one writers tend to mention most often, or so I've been told.) The Wolf had the misfortune of coming out on the heels of 9-11. (I ought to get some kind of prize for pub date mishaps.) "Claire" is mostly early poems; I'm working on another book that's divided between mortals, angels and demons, and God. Thought I'd work on a larger scale! I'm glad you like the Raven. I'll have to look at that review--a librarian's review of "Ingledove" really took the prize as a blinkered disaster, so of course it's slathered on all the e-tailers. Funny how they judge one librarian's opinion to be more important than reviews by experienced books editors at newspapers and other novelists.
I'll have to look and see if you have posted the Strange Life List anywhere. If you haven't done so, do!