The Literary Qualities of Calvin & Hobbes

Nearly every intelligent person's favorite comic strip seems to be Calvin & Hobbes. Although I hesitate to include myself in the "especially intelligent" category, Calvin & Hobbes has been a presence in my life since I can remember. My first C&H book was "Revenge of the Baby-Sat," which is now in shreds, torn apart by overuse. I have since acquired nearly all of the published volumes, including the wonderful Tenth Anniversary Book, and the final word on C&H, the elephantine three-volume set The Complete Calvin & Hobbes. 

          I have been rather sick lately and instead of being a good Rice student and feverishly getting some readings done, I have glued much of my attention, once again, to the spiky-haired little boy and the sardonic stuffed tiger that so impressed upon me, at an early age, the importance of being a little wild. But the more I read of them, the more I realize that there is real substance there, a distinct anti-modernism and Epicurean outlook towards life that I did not have the faculty or the vocabulary to understand in my early years. Looking back, I wonder how subversive those funny panels really were, and if they made me what I am today in some subtle way (Epicurean and anti-modern). I think the duo would approve of their own actions, because, after all, "every good club needs a secret code!"

          Bill Watterson, in his Tenth Anniversary Book, explicitly denied an ideological or philosophical connection to John Calvin or Thomas Hobbes. In fact, the pair seem to be the very opposites of their namesakes; Calvin is anything but unwaveringly moral, and Hobbes is distinctly anti-authoritarian. He even lets Calvin be the "Dictator-for-Life" in G.R.O.S.S (Get Rid Of Slimy girlS). But generally, the attitude of the strips both daily and Sunday are philosophical; meditating on the biggest and best questions and conundrums of modern life and thought. The most striking philosophical waxing happens in the wagon or on the sled, tumbling down hills, or walks in the forest looking for "weird stuff," or, my personal favorites, around the snowmen that Calvin insists are high art (that is, until he learns that he can sell them).

          Watterson uses Calvin as the exemplar of our times. He is a child lost in his imagination and seems never to age, although many winters and school-years pass without a birthday. He dresses comfortably, hates his parents, but more sharply hates any authority figure, preferring to internalize them as monsters or aliens. Watterson uses Calvin's assertions to demonstrate how wrong he is about everything, or at least how ridiculous it is. But Calvin wouldn't mind this in the slightest—his willful obliviousness is the source of humor in the strip, and also the source of pathos; we know people who hold the same ridiculous positions as Calvin does (sometimes, scarily, he is ourselves). But Hobbes serves as the empathetic foil to Calvin's nihilistic philosophizing. He expresses himself as the quiet questioner, who really hammers in his point with a quip at the end of each dialogue. Perhaps this is Watterson himself talking. Who knows? 

          What philosophical issues does Watterson tackle? As I mentioned before, he runs the course, commenting on all the important questions of life and death: our relationship to the universe and each other, our relationship to animals and nature, literature, aesthetics, science, ethics, politics, economics, time, love, and on and on. He gives specific formats for the discussion of each one of these topics, and I'd like to go over them now with you, with some examples to boot. I think these are some of the most interesting and important (and distinctive) issues he deals with.

          Science, Human Progress & the Cardboard Box:

             Calvin's special Cardboard Box serves as everything science has ever dreamed of: the Transmogrifier, the Cerebral Enhance-atron, the Time Machine, the Duplicator, and anything that Calvin has a pressing need of. It seems that whenever he wants to get out of work, or bend the forces of nature, he uses his intense imagination to build some save-all contraption. But he always lands himself in far more trouble than he was in at first! It's also unimpressive (as Hobbes says, "scientific progress goes, 'Boink?!'"), and often destructive. Take for instance his creation of the "deranged mutant killer monster snow goon," which is a retelling of Frankenstein and the Sorcerer's Apprentice. Even though he defeats them eventually (by freezing the original snow goon and his mutant snowman creations with the garden hose) at considerable cost to his family (who have a yard covered in ice and weird snowmen), he refuses to learn the lesson, saying to Hobbes that the moral of the story is "Snow Goons are Bad News." When Hobbes points out the limited applicability of such an aphorism, Calvin replies, just like an impetuous scientist "I like maxims that don't encourage behavior modification.

          What Watterson is commenting on here is the overwhelming arrogance of the scientific community messing with things they don't understand or control, like time and genes and mutant snowmen. It's a classic theme, with the same dire warning: we humans cannot delve into the mysteries of the universe without botching it, blundering as much as possible, and then refusing to learn the lesson. A distinctly anti-modern viewpoint, that, and one that suggests that humans in their current form are as good as we're gonna get without hurting ourselves. Stay out of the Cardboard Box, says Watterson.

So that's part one. Look out next week for a new theme chosen from Calvin & Hobbes.

Next Week: Warm Tapioca: Calvin and Television

Imbolc 2011

Here's my altar for Imbolc (or Oimelc), or Candlemass. Between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox, we begin to see spring emerging (even though it doesn't get much colder in Texas!), and the long nights begin to be noticeably shorter, signifying the renewal of life and the promises of another spring. The cross/wheel is St. Brigid's cross, and the little piece of bread you see is a section of a braided bread circle, every braid plaited with a prayer, shared with friends. We also had custard, indicating the time of year as well, as this is the time in which sheep begin their milking (hence Oimelc or Ewe-Milk).

I enjoy observing the passage of the year, it gives me grounding. Last year I taught a class on Neo-Paganism in Britain and America. I taught it from a highly skeptical perspective, one that spoke of my pagan friends affectionately, but dispassionately. I thought that it was just another manifestation of the great cultural washing-out, another aspect of a dying romanticism.
But I no longer think so. While the religion certainly has deep problems, I now see Neo-Paganism, especially Heathenism, Traditional and Progressive Witchcraft, and Druids, as a way of dealing with the problems of modernity without throwing out the good things about our generation. They keep the sense of community and ties to the land and rhythm with the seasonal changes and valuable crafts and knowledge, and still can be individualistic! Of course, not all Neo-Pagans are like that, but most at least have a sense of it. Am I still speaking from outside the faith? The year has caught me in its whorl, just like the rolling prairies of Texas caught me as a child. Perhaps that's why I never really understood Christianity's strange antipathy to pagans. I see why, certainly, reading the accounts of martyrs. Not only that, but Christians originally kept the good things about paganism... why do you think Christmas is so important to us, and Easter? It gives us a base, keeps time from rolling steadily out of our minds. But recent Christianity took out all the Saints' Days, and all the festivals (because the were pagan), so what are we left with? Christmas and Easter and Halloween (although they're not sure if they like that one). That's not enough to build a calender around!

I will celebrate the wheel of the year throughout this entire year. I want to experience firsthand the grounding, the putting down of roots in time itself, the grasping of a spoke as the wheel turns inexorably forward. At least I'll know where I am.

Submissions to Rice Review & Rice Pudding

Three out of four submissions to Rice Review (R2) were chosen to be published: A short nonfiction called "Noble Savage," which is a condensed version of the "Ginny" chapter in Red Ochre and Cattle: Growing Up Texan, which I am writing. Two poems were chosen: "Odyssey" and "Ledge." "Odyssey" is about leaving Houston and going to Shiner, "Ledge" is about the lure and dangers of nihilism.

Rice Pudding is not going to start up this semester, unfortunately, but we're assembling a team and we hope to at least get started on the website soon. It's beginning to take shape!

My class (being taught about British Fantasy literature) is going well, magically in fact (pardon the pun).

And lastly, I have (re)discovered a really wonderful movie, called Sherman's March, which is a sort of documentary by Ross McElwee. It is an exploration of Southern Womanhood, and the difficulties of understanding and relating to it.

Anyway, that's all for now, because I'm feverish and I don't have the patience to pour more time into the transient, false universe that sometimes sends down ideas—what we all know as the internet.

In Conlusion: