review of
Crispin Hellion Glover's Rat Catching
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - February 15, 2012

Warning to the reader of this review: all 3 of my reviews of Glover's bks begin w/ the same contextualization. Otherwise, they aren't the same review.

I'm not very familiar w/ Crispin Hellion Glover's work. I've heard that he has a bit of a 'cult' following, I've heard that he was in some, by my standards, big budget films as an actor. I've seen a few of them: Back to the Future, River's Edge, The People vs Larry Flynt, & Alice in Wonderland - all of wch I've liked.

Then he was coming to one of the places where I work to perform & show his own films & I was to be the projectionist. I wondered: 'Will this guy be an arrogant megalomaniac asshole who's difficult to deal w/?' I read his rider. It wasn't too demanding, it was reasonable & professional. Still, it was either the 1st or one of the few riders I'd ever read for work & I started dreading the job. More stress that I don't need.

Then I met Glover & he was very friendly & likable. I watched him rehearse a bit w/ his Slide Show made from his bks. When we had a chance to talk, I mentioned Tom Philips' wonderful A Humament bk b/c of its similar techniques to Glover's own. & we talked a bit about Max Ernst's collage novels made from Victorian-era bk illustrations. Glover immediately offered me free copies of all the bks he had w/ him for sale. This astounded me b/c it was unexpectedly generous. It was then that I was sure that Glover's basic spirit is close to mine & that he isn't, indeed, 'Only In It for the Money'.

I phoned my girlfriend at home, knowing that she was coming to the show that nite, & asked her to gather materials that I cd give Glover in trade since I decided that his generosity shd be reciprocated in kind.

He performed his Big Slide Show wch consists of his standing audience-left to a projection of images from 8 or so of his bks. A sharp red spot is focused in such a way that his head & one gesturing arm are seen illuminated. Glover's delivery of the selected text is dramatic. This was an interesting way to experience the bks.

I picked Rat Catching as the 1st one to read b/c it's the earliest of the 3 I have. All of these remind me of Edward Gorey as far as their visual presentation goes & this one reminds me of Gorey as far as its morbidity goes - although Gorey is probably more morbid. The aforementioned Tom Philips is also important to mention again b/c Philips' A Humament is a thorough masterpiece of "treating" (as Philips puts it) a Victorian-era novel by painting over its pages to provide a very revised visual environment & a selective choice of text-left-revealed.

Rat Catching, however, is also quite different from Gorey & A Humament. While, like A Humament, it's a 'treatment' of a previously existing bk, it seems to me that the images culled for its collaged interior are often, if not entirely, of origin external to the bk that the text came from. The original, by the by, was called Studies in the Art of Rat Catching & was published in 1896.

Glover's main hand-touch seems to've been pen & ink borders & squiggly decoration w/ the same types of lines & blots used to black out unwanted words from the original. So, eg, on the title page, the original author's name is covered over & there's an asymmetrical box enclosing Glover's handwritten name instead.

The 1st 2pp of chapter 1 consists of this text:

"In the following elementary treatise for the use of public schools, I propose following exactly the same plan as my parson (a good fellow not afraid of a ferret or a rat) does with his sermons - that is, divide it into different heads, and then jumble up all the heads with the body, till it becomes as difficult to follow as a rat's hole in a soft bank; and, to begin with, I am going to talk"

At the end of "talk" there're some inked-in ornaments that seem to function as new punctuation - perhaps as an ellipsis. The text appears as if it were the original text & the large blank area that follows it may've originally had an illustration &/or more text. But I have to wonder: DID THE ORIGINAL WRITER REALLY WRITE THIS WAY?! Or did Glover change the text thru some cutting-up to make it read as it does. I don't know. The content of this: "the same plan as my parson (a good fellow not afraid of a ferret or a rat) does with his sermons - that is, divide it into different heads, and then jumble up all the heads with the body, till it becomes as difficult to follow as a rat's hole in a soft bank" seems more than a little odd to me & its oddness seems appropriate to Glover's bk.

The very next 2pp have an illustration (not done by Glover) of a monk being surrounded by & overrun by rats. This is placed across the text in a way that blots some of it out. This is unusual for the general lay-out style since most of the illustrations stay w/in rectangular placement parallel to the edges. The illustration is also potentially relevant to the theme of the original bk wch seems to've been mostly about using ferrets & dogs for chasing down rats & killing them.

Things begin to drift. By the end of chapter 1 there's a picture of an unfortunate man w/ an apparent open sore covering most of his abdomen. It's a wonder that he's still alive & standing. This is followed by text about the bubonic plague that may or may not've been in the original bk. I suspect not. Rats always get the blame for carrying the plague but, of course, it was the fleas that were on the rats who, in turn, bit humans, that carried the plague.

At 1st, the illustrations presumably added by Glover from his own found image file collection, seem more-or-less relevant to the rat theme but then a more general theme, unspecified by text, seems to grow out of it. The text of chapter 3's beginning says:

"I am a working man, or rather have been till I got the rheumatics, and as such I naturally stick to my own class and prefer associating with those of my own sort, and therefore I always keep working."

This is, perhaps, the 1st hint that there's more to this bk, both the original & Glover's remake, than just rat catching. Glover's 'dark' humor becomes apparent when a picture of a man apparently lifting up or putting down the hindquarters of a lamb is inserted in the story of a "sand-pit man" convicted of crimes. This picture has a hand-lettered caption that reads: "The sand-pit man violated a lamb" w/ the implication being that the man is having sex w/ the lamb. From this point forth, rats go by the wayside & the illustrations border on being a Mütter Museum catalog: there's a lamb w/ its skin removed, & what appears to be a death mask of a man w/ facial growths.

There're rabbits - including ones that're being herded into an enclosure for leisurely slaughter. There's a photo of a naked man sitting on a stool w/ a hand-written caption that reads: "Sometimes I feel as though I may fade away Then I remember my work". I interpret that as an authorial statement. Next up are chickens & a section on their killing followed by apparent wild birds being killed by humans. There's some relief in this slaughter w/ illustrations of platypuses who I suspect of having been chosen here b/c of their name & duck-bills & b/c of the "queer platypus" illustration identification. Then come seals & seal pelts.

In general, the black & white starkness of it all coupled w/ high-quality glossy paper & hardback binding, give this bk a a solidly grim feel. & as w/ the opening chapter text, the What a Hodge-Podge! of the last 2pp seems to sum up both the original author's presumed sly purpose & that of Glover too:

"Oh, dear! oh, dear! What a muddle, what a hodge-podge I have made of this pen work! I sat down thinking that it would be quite easy to write a book on "Rat-catching for the Use of Schools," and I have drifted off the line here, toppled into a story there, and been as wild and erratic in my goings on as even Pepper would be with a dozen rats loose together in a thick hedge. Well, I can't help it I am not much good at books; and it isn't of much consequence, for during the last few days I have heard from half a dozen head-masters of schools that they find the art of rat-catching is so distasteful to their scholars, and so much above their intellect, and so fatiguing an exercise to the youthful mind, that they feel obliged to abandon the study of it and replace it once more by those easier and pleasanter subjects, Latin and Greek. Well, I am very sorry for it, very sorry. I had hoped to have opened up a great career to many young gentlemen, but have failed; and I can only console myself with thinking that one can't make silk purses out of - you know what. Mind, in this quotation I am not thinking of myself and my failure."

It seems that the original uncredited author was a bit of a wry character. Of course the full quotation, from Jonathan Swift, is something like "You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear" - meaning you can't make something fine out of inferior materials - in this case it seems that the students are implied to be the sow's ears.

All in all, Glover's reworking seems fluid & playful rather than something made in pursuit of a rigorous intellectual end. However, Glover might see it otherwise. During his Q&A after his performances & screenings, he was prolific in his statements of purpose. I wasn't always convinced. What I was convinced of was that he was a nice guy.

Earlier in the day of his 2nd night of presentation, someone rammed my car as it sat parked in front of my house. Given that I live very close to the bone, this caused my stress to skyrocket. As such, I was a nervous wreck by that night. Glover's general niceness went a long way toward rectifying that.

Good luck to ya meatey!