New York by Gas-Light Essays

New York by Gas-Light Essays New York by Gas-Light Essay New York by Gas-Light Essay New York by Gas-Light and Awful Disclosures can be called a number of things, but â€Å"earnest reform tracts† is probably something that should be excluded from the list. New York by Gas-Light has one critical redeeming value: George Foster had a magnificent subject that had largely been unexploited by other journalists in his day: New York City.   New York had grown at an breakneck pace, becoming in just a few decades the first true American metropolis.   At the same time, Americans’ appetite to know about this strange, somewhat sordid place had also grown, and Foster was entirely willing to satisfy the public’s desire to know.   Reading through his fifteen sketches, one finds descriptions intended to arouse and perhaps to shock his readers, but there is no serious call to clean up the vice of the city. Consider a few examples: female prostitution is invariably the result of man’s individual villainy in seducing and betraying the pure being who trusts her destiny to his keeping – or of the monstrous crime of society which dooms its daughters to degradation, want and misery from which no virtuous effort of theirs can ever rescue them.   Let society heed this one simply truth, and apply a thorough and efficient remedy, by furnishing the means of comfortable and happy existence to women who would be virtuous and exclude from its presence all men who are guilty of seduction or libertinism, or who have trifled with the sacred affection of woman, in any form.   The nine-tenths of all crime and suffering will be at once abolished from the face of the earth.   But this is something to be prayed fro rather than hoped for. Indeed, given the prominence that Foster attained through his writing, one wonders how fervently he prayed that these conditions end.   Describing â€Å"Five Points,† he waxes eloquent: This is indeed a sad sight, an awful sight a sight to make the blood slowly congeal and the heart to grow fearful and cease its beatings.   Here, whence these streets diverge in dark and endless paths, whose steps take hold on hell here is the very type and physical semblance, in fact, of hell itself. Foster gives no suggestion that he want to remedy the vices he found in such places as Five Points.   Given the success that he enjoyed with New York by Gas-Light, it seems unlikely he did. New York by Gas-Light is not entirely accurate.   Foster took a number of journalistic liberties in his writing, but it can still be classified as non-fiction.   That cannot be said of Awful Disclosures, which was a calculated fraud.   Maria Monk was never a nun and was never in the Hotel Dieu Nunnery.   Monk had suffered a brain injury as a child, and she apparently could not differentiate between reality and elaborate fictions.   She collaborated with several vehemently anti-Catholic Protestant ministers, to produce a book that described the nunnery in Montreal as an elaborate prison in which nuns were held as slaves for priests. While there is the absence of explicit details about sex acts that might be expected for a piece of this period, there are many details of sadistic punishments meted out against nuns for the slightest resistance.   Infanticide is described in some detail, this being the supposed means of disposing of any accidental children born of the liaisons of the lascivious priests with their sexual servitors. (Monk, 99-101, 128)   Bondage and gagging are described as punishments. (Monk, 105-06, 114-15)   In a remarkably cold scene, she describes the murder of a nun and the dumping of her body into a lime pit. (Monk, 59-65) While Foster wrote New York by Gas-Light as a profit-making venture, the purpose for creating the elaborate hoax of Awful Disclosures is more devious.   The book was created as an attack on Catholicism.   In the 1830s, nativist Protestants felt themselves threatened by Catholicism.   To counter this, and following the literary success of Six Months in a Convent in 1832, Maria Monk’s backers created their pseudo-pornographic account of life in a Montreal nunnery.   The book has since been exposed as completely fictional.   An investigator who was enter the Hotel Dieu Nunnery reported that Maria Monk’s description of the arrangement of the rooms (Monk, 35-40) was hopelessly inaccurate. (Schultz, xv-xix)   As inquiries continued, it was discovered that Maria Monk had never been a nun, had apparently been confined for a considerable time to an asylum, and was a common prostitute rather than the victim of priestly sexual abuse.   Nevertheless, Awful Disclosures remained a remarkable bestseller for many years. (Schultz, xviii-xix)

Review of Timeline by Michael Crichton

Review of Timeline by Michael Crichton The purpose of history is to explain the presentto say why the world around us is the way it is. History tells us what is important in our world, and how it came to be. Michael Crichton, Timeline Ill admit it right up front: I dont like historical fiction much. When authors are sloppy in their research, I find the inaccuracies distracting enough to ruin what might otherwise be a good story. But even when the representation of the past is largely authentic (and to be fair, there are some extraordinary authors who really know their stuff), fictionalization makes history much less enjoyable for me. What can I say? Im a hopeless history buff. Every minute I spend reading fiction is a minute Id rather spend learning historical fact. Heres another confession: Im not a big fan of Michael Crichton. I do find good science fiction fascinating (a genre that pushes the edges of what if is as mind-expanding for me as a scholarly discipline that asks what really happened). And Crichton isnt a bad writer, but none of his works has ever made me sit up and say, Wow! While his ideas can be intriguing, they all seem to make much better movies. Whether this is because his style lacks the immediacy of film or because I have to spend less time plowing my way through the story I have yet to decide. So, as you can well imagine, I was predisposed to despise Crichtons semi-historical novel Timeline. The Up Side of  Timeline Surprise! I liked it. The premise was appealing, the action was gripping, and the ending was dramatically satisfying. Some of the cliffhangers and segues were very nicely executed. While there wasnt a single character I could identify with or even like very much, I was pleased to see some character development as a result of the adventure.  The good guys grew more likable; the bad guys were really bad. Best of all, the medieval setting was mostly accurate, and well-realized to boot. This alone makes the book a worthwhile read, especially for those who are unfamiliar or only somewhat familiar with the Middle Ages. (Unfortunately, this is a rather large percentage of the population.) Crichton effectively points up some common misconceptions about medieval life, presenting the reader with a vivid picture that is at times much more attractive, and at other times much more frightening and repellent, than that generally presented to us in popular fiction and film. Of course there were errors; I cant imagine an error-free historical novel. (Fourteenth-century people larger than modern folk? Not likely, and we know this from the skeletal remains, not surviving armor.) But for the most part, Crichton really managed to bring the Middle Ages alive. The Down Side of  Timeline I did have some problems with the book. Crichtons usual technique of expanding the cutting-edge technology of today into a believable science-fiction premise fell sadly short. He spent too much effort trying to convince the reader that time travel could be possible, then used a theory that struck me as internally inconsistent. Though there may be an explanation for this apparent flaw, it was never addressed clearly in the book. I suggest you avoid a close examination of the technology and accept it as a given in order to enjoy the story more. Furthermore, the characters who were surprised by the realities of the past were people who should have known better. The general public may think the Middle Ages were uniformly filthy and dull; but encountering examples of good hygiene, splendid interior decor or swift swordplay shouldnt surprise a medievalist. This makes the characters not very good at their jobs or, worse, it presents the erroneous impression that historians dont bother with the details of material culture. As an amateur medievalist, I find this rather annoying. Im sure professional historians would be downright insulted. Still, these are aspects of the book that are easy to overlook once the action is truly underway. So get ready for an exciting ride into history. Update Since this review was written in March of 2000, Timeline was made into a feature-length, theatrical-release movie, directed by Richard Donner and starring Paul Walker, Frances OConnor, Gerard Butler, Billy Connolly and David Thewlis. It is now available on DVD. Ive seen it, and its fun, but it hasnt broken into my list of Top 10 Fun Medieval Films. Michael Crichtons now-classic novel is available in  paperback, in  hardcover, on  audio CD  and in a  Kindle edition  from Amazon. These links are  provided as a convenience to you; neither Melissa Snell nor About is responsible for any purchases you make through these links.