Whiskers - Newspaper Article by CJ Dennis 1933
Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2016 4:17 pm
I don't read a lot of novels - but I am currently engrossed in an excellent series of fictional works by Aussie author Sulari Gentill. They surround the exploits of four young avant-garde people in the turbulent years of the 1930s - within Australia and beyond. These four - two artists, a poet and a sculptress - become embroiled in everything from political intrigue to murder investigations, at a time when the world was lurching from depression to dictatorship to ultimately, war.
The special attraction for me in these novels is their meticulously-researched link to actual events, with historical characters sharing the pages with the fictional ones. Each chapter begins with a bona-fide newspaper item (either news or social comment) gleaned from the press of the day - which is then woven in with the events taking place in the story.
The book I am currently reading (Paving the New Road) is the fourth in the series. In it the protagonists find themselves in Germany during the meteoric rise of Hitler, and I was particularly delighted to find, from The Courier Mail of 1933 (a reprint from The Herald), part of an article by CJ Dennis on the subject of "Whiskers" (subtitled "Their Significance in Relation to Human Psychology"). Here is the extract used by Sulari Gentill in her book:
"And this brings us to Germany, the natural home of hirsute grotesquery.
From the "monkey frill" of Wagner to the "mutton chop" embellishments of Bismark and his alleged master, Frederick, we come to those three outstanding war-time figures: Ex-Kaiser Wilhelm, Von Tripitz and Hindenberg. With that elaborately trained representation of the German eagle that reared arrogantly from his upper lip the ex-Kaiser was a hoarding, advertising all the bombast, vanity and childish fustian that his tragic acts later revealed. Behind his forked beard von Tirpitz, lurked, threatening but ineffective, even as his fleet lurked in the Kiel Canal. But those pendulous pothooks that droned aggressively upon the Hindenberg cheeks were eloquent of savage obstinacy, of ruthless and ponderous persistence. They resembled nothing so much as a pair of strange, barbaric weapons designed for torture and brutal tenacity.
And so I am brought naturally to the comical moustache of Herr Adolph Hitler, and to an abrupt end. For, should I try to set down all of the concentrated egotism and erratic mentality that even the printed effigy of that comic moustache suggests to me, I should be here writing for a week."
Great stuff, isn't it - and quite an insightful evaluation at a time when the said Adolph was being feted as Germany's saviour. Some of you will no doubt already be familiar with CJD's article, which is of course just one of many that he wrote. The full text of the article is here:
http://www.middlemiss.org/lit/authors/d ... skers.html
Cheers
Shelley
The special attraction for me in these novels is their meticulously-researched link to actual events, with historical characters sharing the pages with the fictional ones. Each chapter begins with a bona-fide newspaper item (either news or social comment) gleaned from the press of the day - which is then woven in with the events taking place in the story.
The book I am currently reading (Paving the New Road) is the fourth in the series. In it the protagonists find themselves in Germany during the meteoric rise of Hitler, and I was particularly delighted to find, from The Courier Mail of 1933 (a reprint from The Herald), part of an article by CJ Dennis on the subject of "Whiskers" (subtitled "Their Significance in Relation to Human Psychology"). Here is the extract used by Sulari Gentill in her book:
"And this brings us to Germany, the natural home of hirsute grotesquery.
From the "monkey frill" of Wagner to the "mutton chop" embellishments of Bismark and his alleged master, Frederick, we come to those three outstanding war-time figures: Ex-Kaiser Wilhelm, Von Tripitz and Hindenberg. With that elaborately trained representation of the German eagle that reared arrogantly from his upper lip the ex-Kaiser was a hoarding, advertising all the bombast, vanity and childish fustian that his tragic acts later revealed. Behind his forked beard von Tirpitz, lurked, threatening but ineffective, even as his fleet lurked in the Kiel Canal. But those pendulous pothooks that droned aggressively upon the Hindenberg cheeks were eloquent of savage obstinacy, of ruthless and ponderous persistence. They resembled nothing so much as a pair of strange, barbaric weapons designed for torture and brutal tenacity.
And so I am brought naturally to the comical moustache of Herr Adolph Hitler, and to an abrupt end. For, should I try to set down all of the concentrated egotism and erratic mentality that even the printed effigy of that comic moustache suggests to me, I should be here writing for a week."
Great stuff, isn't it - and quite an insightful evaluation at a time when the said Adolph was being feted as Germany's saviour. Some of you will no doubt already be familiar with CJD's article, which is of course just one of many that he wrote. The full text of the article is here:
http://www.middlemiss.org/lit/authors/d ... skers.html
Cheers
Shelley