Two
Anniversaries:
Two Very Different Results
Reviewed by
Kenny Brechner
Powerful monarchs, historically, have had no trouble discerning that tribute, whether of a monetary or adulatory nature, came better from their subjects than from themselves. Two current books, anniversary tributes both, bear out this principle in different ways.
The fortieth anniversary of Spy vs. Spy, the marvelous cartoon featured in Mad Magazine, has occasioned a new release, Spy vs. Spy: The Complete Casebook. The book, however, is a tribute both to a well known cartoon, and to a little known, (in the U.S.) but fascinating cartoonist.
Antonia Prohias, the creator of Spy vs. Spy, was a political refugee from Cuba. Arriving in the United States in 1960 with "nothing but his talent," Prohias showed up at Mad Magazine with a sketchbook and a fourteen year old daughter to serve as translator. Mad, fortunately, had the good sense to take him in. The Complete Casebook details Prohias’ distinguished career as a an editorial cartoonist in Cuba, where his courage and artistry are still vividly recalled. Nostalgic, entertaining, and informative, Spy vs. Spy: The Complete Casebook, is a model of what an anniversary tribute should be.
Robert James Waller, author of The Bridges of Madison County, (Bridges), has celebrated the anniversary of his one success by writing an "epilogue" of it entitled A Thousand Country Roads, the key passage of which reads as follows:
"Since Francesca, he (Robert Kincaid) had no interest in other women. It was not a studied fidelity nor a painful celibacy he lived for the last sixteen years, nor a matter of endurance. After Francesca, he simply was not interested. His time with her had been his defining moment, and nothing of a romantic nature lay outside those boundaries."
The increasingly few readers who payed money for Waller’s follow ups to Bridges, such as Slow Waltz in Cedar Bend, Border Music, and Puerto Vallarta Squeeze, already have cause to wish that Waller had followed his character’s example and considered Bridges his own "defining moment" and never felt interested in writing again.
The notion at the center of A Thousand Country Roads, that Robert and Francesca spend a fair portion of their time revisiting their affair, is a thinly veiled analogue to Waller’s own pre-occupation with his own singular moment of success and fame. A love song to Waller’s own celebrity, A Thousand Country Roads offers the reader nothing but some execrable poetry and the chance to join Waller in his intoxicated state of self appreciation.
Everything about Bridges is nostalgic for Waller, even the technical side as he notes in his "Author’s note" describing "a book that rolled from an inexpensive printer when I was using five-dollar software on a chugging Zenith 286 computer." Well, that revelation took my breath away. Just imagine!
With all the nostalgia for his own celebrity brewing in his own breast it’s not surprising that Waller can’t leave Bridges alone but must "twirl the big rope again. " No harm in that, of course, as long as one gets out of the way.
