The Ballad of Sir Hercules: An Expansion of a Digression

So, this is something I mentioned briefly in class on the day we discussed Cat's Cradle, but something that I think is worth visiting in greater detail.

The story of why I read Crome Yellow(Aldous Huxley's first novel) is a long and boring one, filled with many tears and looks of woe. Suffice it to say, it was Huxley's first novel, I thought I was writing my first novel, and I wanted to judge myself against someone whose work I liked when he was at the same stage of his career as I was in mine. 

In Crome Yellow, Sir Hercules is presented as a long-deceased family member of Henry Wimbush about whom he has written a long and tiresome biography called “History of Crome” which he uses to stupefy his guests at a dinner party. Many don't make it through the tale, though perhaps they should have. As Hercules' story is a bit dark, I'll do my best to supplement it with equally dark photos throughout.(maybe they all won't be so dark after all)

Hercules was born to a noble English family. He grew up a magnificent scholar, being well-versed in both Latin and Greek by age 12. He became a poet around that time, but still failed to impress his parents due to his limited stature as he stood a meager three-and-a-half feet tall when he had finished growing. Without even the chance to win his parents over, Hercules was forced to watch each die from unexpected causes during his youth. This left him with a massive estate and a chance to rearrange the entirety of his world.

Hercules set about to fashioning his future. He hired dwarf servants, traded the horses for sturdy shetland ponies, replaced the hunting hounds with wily pugs and set the house up to accommodate his diminutive stature. By the time he married his 3-foot tall wife(who he rescued from the circus) Hercules had insulated himself within a home and support system that was entirely dwarfish. This leads him to develop the idea that not only do the people of his house not need big people, but big people are not necessary at all. He states numerous times that “his people” will one day multiply and show their superiority to the world as a whole. 

Now, obviously, thoughts like these have some glaring flaws and also tend to point toward some delusion within Hercules. It's hard to blame his being bitter, but he does tend to take a fairly drastic, hostile approach toward big people. However, in taking this approach, Hercules attempts to take the meta-narrative that would drive the lives of most dwarves and turn it completely around. This works for him to a certain degree and leads to quite a number of happy and productive years for Hercules and his wife.

But, as with all things, the postmodern world will simply not let them be, showing its delicious passion for ruin. The birth of Hercules' son Ferdinando, a very happy and proud moment for him and for any parent, turns sour quickly as the years go by. The boy simply will not stop growing. Larger and larger until he stands around six feet tall, almost twice the height of Hercules who, despite his best efforts, begins to resent the boy for being big in the same way that his own parents had resented him for being small. This leads to several altercations and culminates with Ferdinando inviting several of his friends over for dinner at their estate where they begin roundly criticizing Hercules' odd existence at Crome.

While a few petty insults should not be enough to truly harm Hercules after a life spent dealing with people who treated him much the same, the fact that they come from his son and friends brings to Hercules a much sharper reality: while his son exists, his world cannot exist as he has made it. This essentially pulverizes the foundations of Hercules' existence and leaves him with very grim options for the future. The outside world, in this case, has crushed Hercules' invented meta-narrative and reinstalled its own. “People are this. You are not this. You are less than a person.” Hercules sees little hope left for the life he has made and opts to kill himself and his wife that night.

And with Hercules' and his wife's death, Wimbush concludes the story. Just like that. No moral. No nothing. Just a sad story about a sad man leading to a quiet homicide and suicide that no one even remembers except his distant relative Wimbush.

But maybe it's not just that. Hercules tried to create his own meta-narrative and live within it, avoiding the rest of the world entirely and scorning them when possible. His life was lived as if he had submerged himself, his estate, and all those inside it within a bubble deep down in the ocean. The problem is that his oxygen was bound to run out at some point. 

 

And so it does run out, leaving him as quickly as the idea to craft his own world had come. With this in mind, it seems only fitting that such a seemingly trivial encounter drives Hercules to suicide. The whole affair becomes the simple act of the world flexing its bulging muscles to batter the meek and sickly individual.

I may have bumbled pretty far by 250 words. Whoops. Well, at least it wasn't a horribly depressing story.