Transcribe
Translate
Fantasy Aspects, issue 1, May 1947
Page 13
More information
digital collection
archival collection guide
transcription tips
as I did for Dick. At the end of the book's 467 pages is something unusual: our centaur is still alive, and apparently ready to slip down to still lower levels. Yet you will find that you are happy about it, because he has finally been accepted. As the author puts it in the very last paragraph: "Luxuriously he slipped down, still further, with one shoulder propped against the porch, content above his uttermost dreams, one of the fellows at the corner store." In another book, The Centaur Passes, by Percy White & E. G. Boulenger (Duckworth, London; 1933). There is another reference to the food question. "I took him //the Centaur// his breakfast -- a big bowl o'milk and a loaf o'new bread, for he lets me know what he wants plain enough...'" Well, that puts us back where we started from. There just doesn't seem to be an explanation. It may be true that horses can eat the same things that humans do, and exist on it, but they would have to eat a prodigious amount of food to do so. And as the man in the story said, the centaur evidently knew what he wanted. Let's consider another aspect of it. The boozing angle. They all seemed to like the stuff, but none of them could hold his liquor very well. Again from The Centaur Passes we have, "'Will you permit me to finish my beer, Sir John?' said the Centaur, visibly under its cheery influence." And Dick, Mr. Sheehan's Centaur, was not against the stuff. As a matter of fact, he hurt his leg in one part of the story when he was stinking drunk. The centaurs of James Branch Cabell (with the one in Jurgen a noteworthy example) were generally under the weather, while the one in the Wife of the Centaur, by Cyril Hume, went out on a roaring toot. All in all, the best behaved centaur was Algernon Blackwood's (The Centaur). That poor thing lived a very dull life, however, As far as that goes, he shouldn't even be mentioned in connection with our other red-blooded stumblebums. Of all these, Murray Sheehan's Dick was the only one to come to a happy ending. And he did it only by forgetting his godly creation and becoming one of the town loafers. This all was supposed to happen in Missouri, in case you are interested. I guess it all depends on your political beliefs on that score, you all, though. Anyway, to get back to the subject, the authors seemed to have a nasty habit of killing off their centaurs, just as they do their supermen (Odd John, Thus Far, The New Adam), their intelligent dogs (Sirius), their alien races (The War of the Worlds, Last and First Men), and their villains (you can name your own on this one). Yep, it's a sad state of affairs that the poor creatures couldn't do better than they did. All in all the lot of mythical characters was not a happy one. The centaurs always get killed off, although they do seem to have a hell of a good time while they are alive. In conclusion -- I, for one, would like to see many more stories of this creature. He seems to be neglected when you consider his half-brothers, the werewolves, vampires, unicorns, etc. And to finish on a note of damn foolishness; in the public library in Nashville they have under the heading of CENTAUR: The Stray Lamb by Thorne Smith. Evidently the librarian's idea of a centaur is the episode in which Mr. Lamb turned into a horse. Huuuuummm --- that might explain the beginning of the modern centaur legend. Now lemme check on that one.... Reprinted from the Dec. '46 issue of Vampire, published by Joseph Kennedy (the fan, not the U. S. statesman.) ---( Page 13 )---
Saving...
prev
next
as I did for Dick. At the end of the book's 467 pages is something unusual: our centaur is still alive, and apparently ready to slip down to still lower levels. Yet you will find that you are happy about it, because he has finally been accepted. As the author puts it in the very last paragraph: "Luxuriously he slipped down, still further, with one shoulder propped against the porch, content above his uttermost dreams, one of the fellows at the corner store." In another book, The Centaur Passes, by Percy White & E. G. Boulenger (Duckworth, London; 1933). There is another reference to the food question. "I took him //the Centaur// his breakfast -- a big bowl o'milk and a loaf o'new bread, for he lets me know what he wants plain enough...'" Well, that puts us back where we started from. There just doesn't seem to be an explanation. It may be true that horses can eat the same things that humans do, and exist on it, but they would have to eat a prodigious amount of food to do so. And as the man in the story said, the centaur evidently knew what he wanted. Let's consider another aspect of it. The boozing angle. They all seemed to like the stuff, but none of them could hold his liquor very well. Again from The Centaur Passes we have, "'Will you permit me to finish my beer, Sir John?' said the Centaur, visibly under its cheery influence." And Dick, Mr. Sheehan's Centaur, was not against the stuff. As a matter of fact, he hurt his leg in one part of the story when he was stinking drunk. The centaurs of James Branch Cabell (with the one in Jurgen a noteworthy example) were generally under the weather, while the one in the Wife of the Centaur, by Cyril Hume, went out on a roaring toot. All in all, the best behaved centaur was Algernon Blackwood's (The Centaur). That poor thing lived a very dull life, however, As far as that goes, he shouldn't even be mentioned in connection with our other red-blooded stumblebums. Of all these, Murray Sheehan's Dick was the only one to come to a happy ending. And he did it only by forgetting his godly creation and becoming one of the town loafers. This all was supposed to happen in Missouri, in case you are interested. I guess it all depends on your political beliefs on that score, you all, though. Anyway, to get back to the subject, the authors seemed to have a nasty habit of killing off their centaurs, just as they do their supermen (Odd John, Thus Far, The New Adam), their intelligent dogs (Sirius), their alien races (The War of the Worlds, Last and First Men), and their villains (you can name your own on this one). Yep, it's a sad state of affairs that the poor creatures couldn't do better than they did. All in all the lot of mythical characters was not a happy one. The centaurs always get killed off, although they do seem to have a hell of a good time while they are alive. In conclusion -- I, for one, would like to see many more stories of this creature. He seems to be neglected when you consider his half-brothers, the werewolves, vampires, unicorns, etc. And to finish on a note of damn foolishness; in the public library in Nashville they have under the heading of CENTAUR: The Stray Lamb by Thorne Smith. Evidently the librarian's idea of a centaur is the episode in which Mr. Lamb turned into a horse. Huuuuummm --- that might explain the beginning of the modern centaur legend. Now lemme check on that one.... Reprinted from the Dec. '46 issue of Vampire, published by Joseph Kennedy (the fan, not the U. S. statesman.) ---( Page 13 )---
Hevelin Fanzines
sidebar
