Themes in the Novella, This and That

[Wraxtiorre]

A recent discussion about the "Gone Dog" story has revealed an
interesting perspective in This and That. I had always believed that
this novella had no Philosophy in it, that it was nothing more than a
romp of defying reader expectations. But that is not true--in fact,
it contains one of the most complex and oft-misunderstood ethical
values provided by most religions. In Christianity, it is described
as, "For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever
will lose his life for my sake shall find it." (Matthew 16:25) One of
the maxims of Karma is the Three-fold Rule, that everything a person
does will be revisited upon him or her either three times, or thrice-
as-strong.

However, it leaped out at me that the George of the mini-story was
rescued by the Gone Dog precisely because he had sacrificed his own
safety in order to rescue the Gone Dog, and the shark had been killed
precisely because it was trying to kill (and eat) the Gone Dog. While
this synopsis may seem obvious and silly, the depth of the Philosophy
contained in the passage is strangely comforting, despite the
disrespectful tone it is given as well as the harsh reaction to it in
the following chapter. I recall that as I was writing it, Brent Ward
and I were constantly competing for spiff (an elevated commission
rated for the sale of Swiss Army Knives), and I intentionally chose a
set of events that was entirely unrelated to the storyline and could
not be interpreted as having any meaning at all. How surprising it
feels, all these years later, to know that I can summarize the theme
of This and That by surmising that the author loses control of his
story precisely because of his efforts to remain in control of it, and
that the "Gone Dog" story highlights that fateful struggle in the
entire novella.

Now, I must reread This and That in its entirety in order to see
how this philosophical perspective relates to the rest of the story,
for this insight shows that the "Gone Dog" story was in fact an effort
of framing, and as such it suggests a portrayed contrast to the story
surrounding it--or at least a wry assessment of it.

As for the history behind the "Gone Dog" story, my sister Lisa and
I would often spend dreary evenings of inactivity locked up in a room
with a typewriter acting out and narrating silly and meaningless
stories involving the hijinx of a character named Gamorra, based on
the over-sized flying turtle of Japanese monster-movie fame, and a
group of guys merely referred to as "the boys." For some reason, they
were always "crunching raisins" in a manner much like the chewing of
gum. But one of the enduring images from those evenings was the joke
that significant or dramatic events always seemed to occur near a
village whose occupants never seemed to be doing anything but to stand
around in the village looking at the sky and the horizon, as though
waiting for something interesting to happen, or perhaps, unaware that
something interesting was already happening near them and they were
just too ignorant to notice it.

BTW, Herb Mickman occasionally gets session work in the San Francisco
area, and builds models of human brains in his basement using uneaten
pasta from his children's Mac'n'Cheese dinners.