A scent of 1908

"Four hours of research for two lines of text" is my oft-repeated joke. And sometimes an evening spent doing research ends in a scene abandoned on the cutting room floor, so to speak. I share both my research into Edwardian perfume and its related outtake here.

Jicky perfume was created by the house of Guerlaine in 1889, and was one of the first perfumes to contain synthetic essences. As described by a variety of sources, Jicky's notes included lavender, citrus, and rose over a base of civet (a scandalous scent!) and vanilla. Legend has it the perfume was named for a woman named Jacqueline with whom Aimé Guerlain fell unrequitedly in love, but more likely it was named after his nephew Jacques. It was marketed as a women's scent, but proved equally if not more popular with men.

Jicky is still available- in fact, it's the oldest perfume in continuous production. While I'm tempted to try some for myself, I know that classic fragrances have mostly been modified for modern preferences, and I wouldn't have the same experience with it as do Vivian and James in this brief scene from The Stowaway, which takes place shortly after their arrival at the Savoy Hotel in London.

*  *  *

Deep in my brown leather trunk I discovered an unfamiliar green velvet bag. “And what might this be, Lord Jim?”

“A gift for you, compliments of 'Becca. It seems she enjoys outfitting her new customer. Also I told her in my last letter about our unpleasant experience with the lavender, and she offered to send along something we would like better.”

From the bag I withdrew a small, light-green velvet box. I traced the looped House of Guerlain emblem printed in gold upon the lid before I opened it, drawing out the moment. “Jicky perfume!" Any aspirations I may have had of appearing sophisticated were handily overcome by the sight of the beveled glass bottle in the box.

Jicky in its 1908 bottle

If James liked to see me happily surprised, this must have been all he could ask for. He leaned over my shoulder, one long ringlet brushing my cheek, as I held the bottle gingerly in both hands. “'Tis only proper to warn you, It has a lavender note, but 'Becca promises it will not remind us of our mothers. And we can both wear it, if the lady doesn't object.”

“I would be honored to share a scent with you, sir.” I turned my beaming face to his. “James, how did she know? I've always wished for a bottle of this.”

“Good. You can wear it tomorrow, and at least something worthwhile will have come of the day.”

“Let's try it tonight and make sure we do like it, shall we?” I unscrewed the top and sniffed. “Oh, I don't think that will be difficult at all.”

I learned ever more about Jicky and the House of Guerlain researching for this post. Some sources:
Fragrantica, Monsieur-Guerlain, Now Smell This. And there are some interesting first-hand accounts of people's experiences with Jicky on the web as well.

Tiddely-om-pom-pom

Vivian Drew may have felt isolated in her home of Pinbury Down, Devon, but she had access to the London Illustrated News--if not the most recent editions--with occasional expeditions to the city of Plymouth so that she was not entirely remote from the trends of the day. A common form of entertainment for the Edwardians was singing popular songs, and sheet music was readily available.

"Daisy Bell" (known better as "A Bicycle Built fur Two") is one of those songs, and also one I like to sing, particularly to a cat of my acquaintance named Daisy. I at first considered mentioning it in The Stowaway, but it's so commonly known I don't think it provides much period flavor. So I delved into Edwardian popular music and decided that "I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside," written in 1907 by John A. Glover-Kind, would be a perfect choice for Vivian to spontaneously sing on board the Jolly Roger, to the surprise and delight of the Captain. He's not one to frequent music halls or to shop for sheet music when he's in port, and this song provides a window into a world he is only tangentially a part of.

Mark Sheridan's 1909 performance

As it turns out, "Seaside" is probably at least as well known in the UK as "Daisy" is in the States. (UK readers, can you back me up on this?) as demonstrated by the number of covers I've found. For example, it makes appearances in two songs by Queen ("Brighton Rock" and "Seven Seas of Rhye") and two episodes of "Dr. Who." And it hops the pond to appear in the 7:18 episode of "Navy: NCIS." YouTube has many versions of the song, including this strangely adorable cover from "Thomas the Quarry Engine."

The popularity of the song means I don't need to take up space in an already-crowded manuscript to includ the lyrics, but I shall do so here:

Oh! I do like to be beside the seaside
I do like to be beside the sea!
I do like to stroll along the Prom, Prom, Prom!
Where the brass bands play:
"Tiddely-om-pom-pom!"
So just let me be beside the seaside
I'll be beside myself with glee
And there's lots of girls beside,
I should like to be beside
Beside the seaside!
Beside the sea!

And here is Basil Rathbone, in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (please ignore the fact that the movie is set fifteen years before the song was written). This version is the most appropriate under the circumstances as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was the most competent member of J.M. Barrie's struggling Allahakbarries cricket team.

Now I'm going to sing this song for the rest of day. Perhaps you will too.

An afternoon at sea

Two weeks ago, my friend and I went on an Evening Sail on the brig Lady Washington out of Anacortes, Wash. I can't imagine letting a summer go by without at least one sailing now that I've discovered there are tall ships so close to home, thanks to the Grays Harbor Historical Seaport Authority, and I had the excuse of needing to refamiliarize myself with exactly what it's like to be on board a brig.

I'd been wondering when the crew of the Lady Washington would start to recognize me. The answer is "now." They not only recognize me, they remember that I'm working on this book. I found this more than a little gratifying.

Tall ships in Anacortes, WA
--the Indian Chieftain
and the Lady Washington

While I think of the Jolly Roger as being slightly larger than the Lady, she's still not a huge ship. A brig is not an enormous vessel like the galleons I've seen in numerous (inaccurate) interpretations of Peter Pan. Spending time in a similar space helps me understand what it would be like to live there alongside a handful of people one considers friends, a few others who don't take sides, and some who can only be considered enemies. It's pretty close quarters for a crew with an average size of fourteen, even if Vivian Drew does have the captain's cabin and often the state room to take refuge in.

As I'd hoped, I found the ship familiar enough now that I could easily imagine what daily life is like for Vivian once she's part of the crew. I wanted to make special note of the background details--the squeak of the pulleys, the sound of footsteps running on the deck, the quality of the wind on a calm day--so that her experience would be real to me (and, I hope, to the readers of her tale). I walked about the ship and thought about waking every morning to realize this was now my home. How I would become accustomed to the intricacies of the rigging and the dimensions of the decks. How I would feel to have a position of value among the pirates of the Jolly Roger.

Even though our sail wasn't a Battle Sail, we got a bonus cannon shot, which was as fun as I remembered from my first sail on the Lady. And I got a good look at the ordnance locker this time, which will prove useful to my story.

The jewel in the jungle

"It's pink," marvels Vivian Drew when she first sees the Teatro Amazonas in Manaus.

"Mr. Cecco told me as much," says Jas. Hook in response. "But he left out everything else of note, which I suppose is to be expected."

Everything else of note" is a significant amount. The Teatro was a showpiece of Manaus at the time of the rubber trade, at a time when "the White City" was one of the most extravagant places on earth, a center for a blatant display of money and culture from Europeans who were making their fortunes exporting rubber around the world (and doing so on the backs of South American natives, but I digress). And it remains a cultural draw, appearing prominently in visitors' guides written for this year's World Cup in Brazil.

The teatro took fifteen years to build, finally opening its doors on January 7, 1897, for a performance of the opera La Gioconda. Legend has it the theater was built in hopes of attracting Enrico Caruso to perform in Manaus, but there is no evidence that he ever actually did so.

The entire theater was built from European materials in a Renaissance style. Atop the pink edifice rises a dome covered with 36,000 tiles from Alsace-Lorraine painted in the blue and gold of Brazilian flag. Mr. Foggerty of the Jolly Roger's crew might have approved, as he originally hailed from the Alsace region of France, according to J.M. Barrie. If Benard Foggerty cared about such things.

In addition, iron for the framework of the building was brought from Glasgow. Murano glass chandeliers hung from sky-blue domed ceilings painted with scenes from the arts by Italian artist Domenico de Angelis. Not everything in the Teatro was of European design, however--the metal chairs had cane seats and backs for comfort in the jungle heat.

Upon entering the reception foyer, a visitor was greeted by golden drapes, coral pillars of Carrara marble, and heavy carved chairs of Jacaranda wood.

A pirate captain might not be able to procure the best of the 701 seats in the harp-shaped theater upon short notice, but with three tiers of box seats, he could certainly arrange for reasonable sightlines for him and his companion. From there they would look upon a painted curtain, with "The Meeting of the Waters," a depiction by Crispim do Amaral of the Rio Negro and Solimões rivers where they meet to form the Amazon. 

After the collapse of the rubber trade in the early years of the 20th century, there was little call for European opera performances in the heart of the jungle. The Teatro stood empty for 90 years, with the exception of its appearance in Werner Herzog's 1980 film Fitzcarraldo, until 2001 when Brazil's new populist government decided to reopen it, "allocating 1.5 million pounds a year for this task (in a province where 60 percent of the population is poverty stricken and illiterate," as Atlas Obscura puts it.

A variety of concerts and performances are held now in the refurbished Teatro, which also hosts an annual opera festival and is the home of the Amazonas Philharmonic Orchestra. A few changes have been  made to its original decor. The wicker seats have been replaced by more traditional wooden chairs with red velvet upholstery (one of the originals remains on display). And it now houses a Lego miniature of itself.

After my immersion in research about Manaus and the Teatro, I'm especially intrigued to learn about a recent film that seems to bring up some interesting--and uncomfortable--contrasts between the theater and its location, both in the past and now. As the documentary's creator chooses only to screen it in locations that are as opulent as its subject, I can't say if I'll ever get the chance to determine this for myself. Such elitism seems entirely appropriate for a theater with a history such as this.

Tributaries

With four of the World Cup matches being held in Manaus, it's been especially hard for me not to drop into every conversation bits of what I'm learning from my research into that area in the early 1900s. It's surprising how relevant the lessons from the rubber trade are still (and how little we seem to have learned about boom and bust economies, but I digress). The Stowaway concerns itself with a ship's travel up the Amazon River to the White City of Manaus, but the books and movies I am using for research take their creators into the depths of the jungle as well, and relevant to my needs or not, they are too fascinating to put aside.

The iconic image of a steamship being towed through the jungle
is the heart of the movie "Fitzcarraldo."

When asked in an interview by Zach Raskin for Book(ed) Passage about the research for her 2011 book State of Wonder, which is set mostly in the Amazon jungle outside Manaus, writer Ann Patchett said her ten-day visit there "was about five days too long." Instead, she said, she could have done her research by watching Werner Herzog's Aguirre: The Wrath of God and  Fitzcarraldo, and The Burden of Dreams, Les Blank's documentary about the making of Fitzcarraldo). So, taking Patchett's advice, I watched two of the films (Aguirre being too tenuously relevant to The Stowaway). I've also read The River That God Forgot, a 1968 book by Richard Collier about the Amazonian rubber trade, and just finished The Sea and the Jungle, written by H.M. Tomlinson in 1912.

What strikes me about these accounts of travelers in Amazonia is how quickly the jungle drives its visitors to a kind of eloquent despair. Their words can be hilarious, although no doubt far more for the reader than for those who put down the words. Even those who revel in the unfamiliar sights of the jungle, like Tomlinson, find themselves easily overwhelmed by its impenetrable enormity. "You will remember the equatorial forest but as a gloom of foliage in which all else that showed was rare and momentary, was foundered and lost to sight instantly, as an unusual ray of coloured light in one mid-ocean wave gleams, and at once goes, and your surprise at its apparition fades too, and again there is but the empty desolation which is for ever vastness sombrely bright." He describes one of the blue morpho butterflies as "aerial and bright as a fairy in Hades." Men who were lost in the jungle soon went mad, Tomlinson's traveling companion tells him, echoing his own suspicions.

Herzog himself was wonderfully vivid about his growing malaise in Burden of Dreams. He was devoted to his project and devastated at the thought that he may not complete Fitzcarraldo, and began to find the jungle oppressive. "I wouldn't see anything erotical about it," he said, disagreeing with actor Klaus Kinski's description. "More like full of obscenity. Nature here's vile and base. It's fornication, asphyxiation, choking, fighting for survival, growing, just rotting away...The trees are in misery.The birds are in misery. I don't think they sing, they just screech in pain." He concluded that the Amazonian jungle is "a harmony of collective and overwhelming murder."

Les Blank, too, reached a similar conclusion. During his first weeks in the jungle, he was so fascinated by the flora and fauna, he entertained the idea of becoming a botanist. But by the conclusion of filming only a few months later, he was so broken down by the hardships of the production in the unforgiving environment, he wrote in his journal, "I hope I get out of this world alive."

"We can all have our own take on the Amazon, said Patchett, "but at the heart of it there is a very basic theme: bugs, heat, leaves, omnipresent danger."

Luckily my own story is not concerned with exploration of the jungle or tributaries, or my research would likely never be done. Still, I've added to my list Herzog's own Conquest of the Useless: Reflections on Making Fitzcarraldo, if for no other reason than that he may be my favorite film director and I'd love to hear more about his undertaking in his words. And a copy of The Naturalist on the River Amazons, written by Henry Walter Bates and first published in 1863, sits upon my coffee table, waiting to be read next. I want to understand how it feels to travel that river and spend time in that region, since I doubt I will experience it myself. (Like accounts of mountain climbing, there are adventures I prefer to enjoy vicariously.)

Of course, the opera house in Manaus required its own reading and movie list. No doubt I will be inserting what I learn of it into every possible conversation soon, and blogging about it.

How doth the little crocodile

I have been remiss in addressing the crocodile in Peter Pan, which is, after all, a significant character--and frequent metaphor. But ignoring her has certainly never made her go away.

J.M. Barrie devotes little of his book to physical description of Captain Hook's scaled nemesis, although in stage directions for his 1904 play, he provides the memorable stage direction: "A huge crocodile, of one thought compact, passes across, ticking, and oozes after them." He tells us in the book that the creature is female, although Hook refers to the beast as "it" (an omission for which Vivian takes him to task in The Stowaway). In the 1953 animated Disney film, the croc is male and named Tick Tock. In Peter and the Starcatchers, and the play derived from the book, the crocodile is again male and known by the moniker Mr. Grin.

In Barrie's wake, many writers and filmmakers have given the crocodile additional metaphoric weight. It is easy enough to see her as the personification (reptile-ification?) of death. As the character of Mrs. Snow says in the film Finding Neverland, in a quote often misattributed to the author rather than the character played by Johnny Depp, "I suppose it's like the ticking crocodile, isn't it? Time is chasing after all of us, isn't that right?"

And yet Disney studios gave us a, well, goofy croc. Not only am I not threatened by Tick Tock, I actively feel sorry for him. I accept the reasoning behind making the movie less frightening for young children, but I'm embarrassed on behalf of the cartoon Hook, as being afraid of this animal just makes him look more ridiculous. Surely the poor crocodile deserves better as well.

The 2003 live action movie went the entirely different direction with its menacing, dinosaur-esque crocodile.

And we've lost all pretense to realism in the stage productions of Peter and the Starcatcher, but I admit to being particularly impressed with the use of minimal props to portray an alarming Mr. Grin.

In The Stowaway, we learn that the story Peter Pan told Mr. Barrie--that he cut off Hook's hand and threw it to the crocodile, leading the beast to stalk the pirate incessantly in hopes of getting the rest of him--may not be entirely correct in all its particulars. But that does not mean the crocodile isn't a deadly creature and frightening enough in its own right. As I write this, I see that only a day ago, the remains of a man were found in the belly of a saltwater crocodile in Australia, in the same region where another crocodile killed a 12-year-old boy in January. The croc in The Stowaway has metaphorical significance, as may be unavoidable after so many years and retellings, but I hope not to be heavy-handed about it. The real physical threat posed by a crocodile is already substantial enough.

Peter in manga

I had the pleasure of meeting Elaine Tipping of Tiny Blue Dragon Studio, creator of the Peter Pan Manga, at Emerald City Comic Con in March. She is a kindred spirit who cares as much for the original story as I do, and I was delighted to find her interpretation of Barrie's book. The tale lends itself beautifully to the manga format.

"It's important to be faithful since the original has so much charm and detail that is either lost or outright changed in other adaptations," says Elaine. "And since no one reads books anymore, the Disney version has become the penultimate version, which is unfortunate, as I don't think there is a less faithful version out there. It also doesn't help that Disney tends to monopolize titles and people tend to think that Disney has actually written Peter Pan, which has lead to a few interesting conversations. Barrie had some messages in his original story that were changed in adaptations, so I want to get to the core of his writing and bring that through.

"There are a few things I changed. I removed all the racism, for one (as much as I could get out) because it doesn't add to the story, in my opinion, and it's not part of his message. He did do what research he could on the natives, but at the time, he didn't get far, and all he really had was like, the Last of the Mohicans, so I'm writing a native tribe that fills the purpose that he wanted, without all the added on ignorance of the time. There are a few other things that got changed, little descriptors that didn't make sense, or were impossible to draw. Barrie writes a lot of inconsistent things too, he'll say one thing, and then contradict it in the next chapter, so there's a lot of balancing going on. Not to mention that Barrie can write surrealism like nobody's business (everyone tends to look at Through the Looking Glass for that style, but I'd argue that Peter Pan is nearly as surreal), but that is also lost in adaptations because it's just so weird in parts."

But her interpretation of the story keeps to Barrie's original message--growing up is inevitable, but it doesn't have to be sad. Being stuck in childhood, unable to fully experience life, is far worse, Elaine and I agree. 

Elaine is also well aware of the perils inherent in adapting Edwardian mores to current times. She put a great deal of thought into her own portrayal of Tiger Lily, which she calls "tricky." "A lot went into her planning. For one, I wanted to avoid the racism, but for two, I also wanted to consider the location of Neverland, which I've always thought to be near the Caribbean, or somewhere in the Atlantic, since they mention the 'mainland,' the mainland being Britain and such. I like to joke that it's in the Bermuda triangle. Anyway, I wanted the natives to be a mix of what a kid might dream up as a native person, but also like they could have had influences from other places off the Neverland. I went with a more South American, Caribbean, island theme to them, to give them real world influences, but also be fictional, since they are unique to the Neverland. So I had to dance a bit of a fine line there, and wanted to avoid being too historically accurate, what with the whole surreal aspect to the whole story."

Maria Tatar's Annotated Peter Pan includes the screenplay Barrie wrote 1989 for a proposed silent film, and Elaine used that for additional clues into Barrie's visualizations. The natives are all much taller than the boys, and therefore older, as opposed to Disney's child Tiger Lily.

Like me, Elaine objects to the usual (again, Disney-driven) depiction of a bumbling Mr. Smee. "I actually did start out drawing him older and then I realized...wait, why do we draw him older? There is no mention of his age in the book, the only hint we have is the original actor hired for him in the first play, who definitely wasn't grandpa-ish, like so many versions do. So I thought it would be fun to go younger on him. I also like the idea that he's learning from Hook, looking up to Hook, and I wanted to try a different dynamic than "old fool" for Smee."

Of course, one reason I connect with Elaine's interpretation of Peter Pan is her portrayal of Jas. Hook. "Hook was a tricky one. Hook is the one character Barrie goes into depth about, and he's really the only one we know for sure what he looks like. In detail. So the trick is to make a loyal Hook, but also a Hook that's unique to my version. I'm pretty happy with what I came out with. I did a lot of research on him, to help back up my version, and that helped a lot." (I'm happy with her version, in case you hadn't guessed.)

And what made her think of drawing Peter Pan as a manga to begin with? "I've always really been into Peter Pan, but I had a resurgence in college when I reread the book and found it absolutely charming, and way more deep and detailed than I remembered it as a kid. A few years ago, I was taking a comic course out here in Japan and I thought, you know, I should do a comic to practice all the things I've learned. You know what no one's done yet? A loyal Peter Pan adaptation! And that's how it all started."

Elaine is working on three to four comics at any given time, and draws her Peter Pan pages in stages. She pencils one week, inks the next two, and then tones the final week. Each one can take from two to four hours to complete, depending on the complexity of the page. 

Ultimately she will complete Barrie's entire book, and then some. "I've actually planned out the rest of the chapters, outlined what they'll contain, and I know how many books the series will be. I also might write a few side adventures, but not include them in the timeline, since I don't want to infringe on Barrie's works, but there will be a lot of adventures in the middle of the story, using Barrie's list of adventures at the end of the underground home chapter."

The Peter Pan manga is available in several places and formats, including on Amazon in both book and Kindle versions. It's available for free on  Smack Jeeves and Deviant Art, as well as inkblazers and Crunchyroll, and Elaine reposts to Tumblr (where I first came across the manga), Facebook, and her own Patreon. She posts as TriaElf9 on DA and Tumblr. Go forth now and see the story, along with Elaine's commentaries on her process, for yourself!