Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Part Thirteen, Chapter Two - The Latest in Chicago Fashion

Gris goes clothes shopping and talks to a guy who is referred to as "Jimmy 'The Gutter' Tavilnasty" no fewer than nine times.

There's a battered old sedan that might be leftover from World War One - you have to crank the engine to start it, and the car's cantankerous enough to break an arm while you do so.  Gris, naturally, has a servant do it, and once on his way amuses himself by driving carts off the road.  He refers to the two-wheeled horsecarts as "gigs," which is accurate but archaic, especially given the book's presumed setting in the then-present of the 1980's.

He pulls over to boggle at the big black rock that Afyonkarahisar takes its name from.  The other night Jimmy "The Gutter" Tavilnasty confronted Heller after watching the man climb the rock on his way to town, which Gris decides is impossible due to the hill's treacherous handholds, which would be all but invisible in the dark.  So rather than acknowledge Heller's awesomeness, Gris decides that Jimmy "The Gutter" Tavilnasty is a compulsive liar who was lying to Heller about what he saw Heller doing.  Kinda like greeting a stranger walking down the street and claiming that they're flying.

Why can't a Hubbard villain be smart?  Why can't they possess basic reasoning skills?  Why do they have to be so bloody stupid?  Didn't Hubbard realize that it cheapens his heroes' accomplishments when they're aided so much by their antagonists' mental deficiencies?  Outsmarting the bad guy is one thing, but Gris and Terl and the rest just don't have any smarts to begin with.

Gris visits the Mudlick Construction Company and negotiates the details of his hospital project, which will be half sensible building materials, half mud.  And he'll get a huge kickback out of it.  Then he hits the Giysi Modern Western Clothing Our Specialty Shop for Men and Gentlemen to get the latest in Chicago fashions, as imported from Hong Kong.  He leaves looking like a gangster and shortchanges the clerk by 495 lira.

Now I'm wondering if Gris' obsession with Prohibition-era mobsters is a character thing or a Hubbard thing.  Kinda like how Battlefield Earth had an inexplicable fondness for Scotsmen and the Thompson machine gun.  Was Hubbard retreating into his childhood interests in his last years, and this influence then made its way into Mission Earth?  Or is this yet another dig at his enemies, the suggestion that a member of the alien CIA would idolize organized crime?  As opposed to other terrestrial secret police; I'm sure Gris could find a ushanka in Turkey, Russia's right next door.  But nope, dated mobster wear and corny gangster dialogue it is.

Properly attired, Gris sets about tracking down Jimmy "The Gutter" Tavilnasty.  He has no luck searching the area's hotels, so Gris takes a moment to convince a local merchant to sell gold, giving Gris an easy outlet for all that transmuted shiny stuff en route from Voltar.  On his way out, a friendly encounter with a local policemen inexplicably allows Gris to deduce where Jimmy "The Gutter" Tavilnasty is hiding.

It must have sparked my wits.  Where would a gangster go in this town?  Of course, the Saglanmak Rooms!  Now, saglanmak, in Turkish, means "to be obtained" or "available."  But there is another word, saklanmak, which means "to hide oneself."  Now, according to that great master, Freud, the unconscious mind can twist words into meanings closer to the intent of that person.  These are called "Freudian slips."  This was what must have happened.  No matter that he didn't speak Turkish, Jimmy "The Gutter" Tavilnasty had made a Freudian slip.

Besides, it was the only place in town that the Mafia ever stayed.

I think we're intended to laugh at Gris here, but I'm not sure if all the other times he's stupid are meant as comic relief too.  And how effective can he be at comic relief when he spends the rest of the book murdering people, scamming people, and generally being an unpleasant little stain? 

Gris goes back to the previously-visited hotel, finds "John Smith" on the register, and bribes the guy at the desk to deliver some booze to Jimmy "The Gutter" Tavilnasty.  Gris times it so he slips in through the window just as Jimmy "The Gutter" Tavilnasty answers the door, yelling "Surprise!" at the extremely jumpy killer-for-hire.  Sadly, Jimmy "The Gutter" Tavilnasty misses his hasty, reflexive shot at the intruder and knocks himself out by crashing into the hotel worker as he tries to flee.

For his part, Gris is rather nonplussed that his plan to meet the mobster nearly got him killed, and doesn't seem to consider that there might be better ways to set up a meeting with someone.

When Jimmy "The Gutter" Tavilnasy comes to, Gris amiably gives him his gun back and hands him a drink, name-dropping Babe Corleone as an "old flame."  He offers Jimmy "The Gutter" Tavilnasty a part in an upcoming scam - the hospital Gris designed will have Voltarian plastic surgery technology, capable of modifying fingerprints and voices in addition to faces.  For a steep fee, Gris will offer mobsters a new look, new passports, the works, with Jimmy "The Gutter" Tavilnasty getting a twenty percent cut as commission.  To sweeten the deal, Gris promises to deliver Gunsalmo Silva "on a silva platter" so Jimmy "The Gutter" Tavilnasty can complete his contract.

So Gris gets some new clothes, hires a new ally, and we finally learn how Gris plans to gain his (third) fortune.  Also note that after that conclusion back when he was looking at the big black mountain, Gris has no comment about his new employee being a compulsive liar.


Back to Chapter One

2 comments:

  1. Hubbard absolutely ADORED the whole Scottish motif and whatnot, and that's likely why it was in B.E. As for the gangsters and stuff, his paranoia and conspiratorial thinking was pretty rampant, so it wouldn't surprise me if he just considered the G-men to be in cahoots with gangsters from the 40s.

    Also remember, the 40s are when he did a lot of his writing, and he had a fondness for the term "the golden age", so it could just be an excuse for him to write his cheap pulp again, but with a "reason" for doing so in the 80s. I dunno, best I can think of. I've never read anything which directly said anything about Hubbabubba and having any sort of pseudo-fetish or anything for the time, but the 40s and 30s are when he was younger, more dashing, full of ideas and writing...so it could just be the mental masturbation and fantasizing of a deteriorating old man with nothing better to do than write a book and make it up as he goes. He explicitly wrote this with the intention of it being the longest book in the world, and he succeeded, sort of. I'm not sure if it's still counted as such because it was released as a series of books, but if taken as a whole, I think it does.

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