Maps, chemistry, a woman and Pride: books read

Cartography and the way maps shape our perception of the territory fascinate me and I’ve read several good books about them (here’s one. Here’s another). I thought Seymour J. Schwartz’s THE MISMAPPING OF AMERICA would be another with its look at how early American maps often got it wrong: California as an island, non-existent islands in the Great Lakes, a Northwest Passage and other fantasies that would make it easy to sail to the Pacific and thence to the Far East. Unfortunately the book is a dull catalog of “This person made a map, then this other person, then this third person ….” and I found it unsatisfying.

I read HISTORICAL STUDIES IN THE LANGUAGE OF CHEMISTRY by MP Crosland to see if it would help me understand some of Doctor Jekyll’s chemical terms when he explains his theories in the Stevenson novel.

It doesn’t, but it is fascinating to read how the chemical notations and abbreviations I learned in high school took so long to become definitive. Crosland starts with the alchemists and their enthusiasm for symbolic and cryptic writing that hid their knowledge from the uninitiated. Making matters worse, neither they nor the first chemists had the knowledge or skills to identify compounds and they had multiple false assumptions, such as color geographic location being significant (i.e., gold from Bavaria might be significantly different from gold from the New World). Trends in language also changed: mundane descriptors such as oil of vitriol, butter of arsenic or milk of magnesia lost out to technical terms, which eventually became standardized so everyone knew what they were talking about. Specialized but interesting. And someday I would love to work “butter of arsenic” or “vital air” (a one-time name for oxygen) into a story.

LAURA by Vera Caspary is the source novel of the 1944 movie, wherein a surprisingly educated detective is called in to investigate the murder of the free-spirited, strong-willed title character — could it be her rather wimpy fiancee? Waldo, the well-known newspaper columnist who feels she friendzoned him (I cannot stop seeing him as Clifton Webb in the movie, despite Caspary making it clear he’s built more like Jack Black)? The twist is — well, I won’t reveal it just in case you don’t know.

I prefer the movie. This is more a literary story than a mystery, told from multiple points of view; while the writing is good, “literary” is a tough sell for me. And I really can’t swallow the degree to which the detective hangs out and chats about the case with his suspects.

I’m a fan of Phil Jimenez’ run on Wonder Woman and his story “Spaces” was the highpoint of DC PRIDE: To the Farthest Reaches, an anthology for Pride Month (DC’s done several of these). Jimenez reflects on how the weirdness of pre-Crisis WW convinced him that if he could only get to Paradise Island he’d be welcome there, weird as he was, and how much it meant to him to work on the series. It’s lovely.

The rest of the book didn’t work as well for me, mostly because I’m only occasionally reading current comics. I don’t know most of the couples and some of the characters are complete unknowns (Circuit Breaker, master of the still force) or wildly different (why is Raven so normal and chill?). That’s not a fault of the storytellers but it did make it harder to get into, particularly when some of the stories tie in to ongoing plotlines. Still, it’s good DC has added so many more LGBTQ cast members; I do hope current trends and corporate takeovers won’t change that.

All rights to images remain with current holders. Cover by Jimenez.