The GIANT SLUG of
SUMATRA, a novelized account of one of Indonesia's stranger fauna and its
relation to the Great Belgium Tea Company by Gutzon Borglum © 1892
published by Knoffe and Berger, New Hebrides, Minn.
As usual my reading is destined by the mundane rather than
the cultivated dictates of such as the New York Times (although to be fair I
sometimes succumb to that siren song).
The companion duplex antique shop to the Beans and Leaves shop
(a wintery scene of same is shown in the blog proper) has
a $1.00 book trough outside. And that
price sirens me every time I purchase a $1.00 cuppa of the coffee of the day -
which may range from the smooth North East Blend to the robust Sumatra
Mandheling and all superior to the bitter Star Buck - at Beans and
Leaves, a grand small time gourmet competitor here in my tiny town of North East. Back to the book in trough so to speak, this
vintage book with the author Gutzon Borglum was like a magnet. I am sure you know - but just in case -
Gutzon Borglum is the chap that carved Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. How many Gutzon Borglums can there be. It has to be him – (John) Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum, b 25 March 1867 - St Charles, Idaho - and d 6 Mar 1941. I had no idea that he had ever written a
book. After purchasing the book (and all
you do. to do that, is stuff a one dollar bill down a little tube in the shop
window and walk off!! Neat eh?), and on arrival home I did the Wiki- thing with
nary a reference to his writing said Giant Slug etc., or any book for that
matter. Well the publication date seemed
about right for a young man not yet settled in to his life's work, and that
name Gutzon doesn't bring too many other people to mind. And in retrospect his carvings did tend to
the grandiose – who knows maybe this giant slug thing caught his fancy about
the impressive right off the bat of youth.
Again Wikipedia gave me a nice run down on slugs and they can become
large but it is the sea slugs that are the giants, with some ranging over a
meter in length. I am sure that it was
the sea slug that had so impressed Borglum though in the novel it was a giant
land slug that fell from the coffee tree in the mountain plantation that so affected
the young heroine – Sumatra (Sammy) Mandheline – driving her into the arms of
her mother's lover. Her father, a
Belgium minor nobility sort, had landed in Indonesia as manager of a Dutch
Kaffee and Kao Koa exporting firm. Her
mother, a native from a countryside tribe, the Mandhelings (an older Dutch
spelling of Mondailing) that eventually gave all the coffee from Sumatra the
name Sumatra Mandheling, epitomized the allure of the far east - slim, golden,
sensual in appearance - and she was all
eyes for the young European nabob van der Arschoot. The novel takes place as their daughter Sammy
approaches young adult hood and her father, old van der Arschoot (the small v
in van and d in der indicate decent from ancient nobility) increasingly
involved in the Kaffee Kao Koa export spends long hours at work, leaving Sammy
and her mother alone and to their own devices at their rambling plantation
home. Well as is the case in turn of the
century books, love intervenes both with Sammy and Bialicti, her mother. The giant slug plays a minor but important
role and the book comes to a happy and conventional (for that day and time)
ending. What is most interesting is the
amount of detailed information; descriptive, learned, and ranging about the
flora and fauna, with historical accuracy (to the best of my Wiki knowledge) of
Indonesia and its ongoing contact with the western world. Three stars out of five – but only if you
have the rare patience to accept turn of the century conventions and writing
styles. Presented by Norvellhimself!
I will leave with a final Wiki note, to wit:
“- the best known
giant rat in fiction comes from the pen of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle , who in The
Adventures of the Sussex Vampire has Sherlock Holmes declare,
as an aside, to Dr. Watson:
'Matilda Briggs was not
the name of a young woman, Watson . . . It was a ship which is associated with
the giant rat of Sumatra, a story
for which the world is not yet prepared.' “
Which said comment has long since been expanded upon many
times by numerous authors and performers (e.g. see Firesign Theatre
and its 1974 comedy album The Tale of the Giant Rat of Sumatra
for one).
Could it be that Gutzon Borglum writing in 1892 predicated
those many tales with his novel 'The Giant Slug of Sumatra'? Could Sir Arthur have read this strange romance
and unwittingly influenced his 1920's Vampire of Sussex tale? Is this the one and the same Gutzon Borglum
of Mount Rushmore? And more importantly
from my point of view – is this seemingly first edition novel of Gutzon Borglum
worth big bucks? I doubt if we will ever
be given a reasonable conclusion to any of these conjectures.
