Drydocking Sloop

English 363
January 29, 2010

Drydocking Sloop

I entered the little cafe, which was built flat-roofed and crisp of line in the '50s, and now had hardwood counters and tables, shade-grown coffees (promoting triple-canopy ecosystems, birdlife, and general ecological health), and whole-grain pastries.  It is, of course, a vital part of the process of "boatbuilding" to visit such places often, and sitting there at a varnished hrdwood table was Ben Travis, local hydrology engineer—a wiry, grey-haired forty-five-year-old who seemed always to have a glint in his eye, and (more to the point) was building a thirty-six-foot schooner in his backyard, which he intended to sail around the world with his family.

I asked him the green white oak question, and suddenly the glint vanished, replaced by the blank look of one who knows he has valuable and arcane knowledge. (Robb 93)

    This passage reveals to me another example of the narrator's sense of subtle smug condescension, not towards the reader or audience per se, but a general voice of superiority.  It also has an example of what could be termed hollow description—that is, a descriptive passage that reads well, but shows very little concrete evidence without having to dissect the sentence to infer its meaning.

    Let us begin with this latter point, concerning the hollow descriptions.  When Robb-as-narrator tells us that this "little cafe" was "crisp of line in the '50s, and now had hardwood counters and tables" it calls to mind far more about what is not being described as much as what is being described.  What exactly is 1950s "crisp of line" design, and how does that differ from the apparently more recent style of "hardwood counters and tables"?  In my own experience, hardwood style isn't necessarily "crisp" but it is usually straight of line (hence a specific varietal of tree is known as lodgepole pine because of its even grain and pole-line straightness).  The following description of Ben Travis does indeed show us-as-readers something about the fellow, but it relies on worn-out clichés to do so: "wiry, grey-haired forty-five-year-old who seemed always to have a glint in his eye" is a generic description of an archetype who is wise and happy and, according to cliché tradition, is about to become serious and impart Very Important Wisdom.  Obliging, this happens in the following paragraph when "suddenly the glint vanished, replaced by the blank look of one who knows he has valuable and arcane knowledge."  The knowledge in this instance is valuable within context and arcane only so far as people have been using white oak to build boats in New England, so the use of "arcane" seems a bit brash and overblown.  Or, one could argue with a Hemingway attitude, that "arcane" is a ten dollar word used when a fifty cent one might have sufficed.  But fifty cents doesn't get one very far in this little cafe with its shade-grown coffee.

    Which brings up the former point concerning the narrator's smug voice.  To what purpose does it serve to offer a comment (complete with Very Important Sounding parenthetical) about "shade-grown coffees (promoting triple-canopy ecosystems, birdlife, and general ecological health), and whole-grain pastries"?  Personally, having been a professional coffee-roaster, I am familiar with the extent of coffee practices around the world and the value of fair-trade organic (why were these two features not mentioned?) shade-grown coffee (coffee being the second largest commodity traded in world markets and ethical business models within the industry can set standards for thousands of others), but in unpacking the meaning of Robb's passage here, I call into question the term "triple-canopy," never having heard it before, nor able to find any reference to such a thing outside of Robb's own narrative.  This description sounds more at home in a sales pamphlet than a narrative memoir, unless the point is to ensure us-as-readers that the narrator is a socially conscious supporter of environmental causes and is hoping for a big thumbs up and us-as-readers to collectively say, "Good for you."

    The point of this passage from Robb is, I think, to show us the sort of everyday places in his small town where old knowledge and wise still reside, and it waits, available for the asking, to seekers such as the narrator to come along and pluck it from today's vine.  This wisdom and knowledge is, of course, represented by Ben Travis, while the cafe in which he waits for the seekers of his arcane wisdom is a place that was built some fifty years ago (showing it has some sense of tradition in a region with only a few hundred years of Western Civilization under its metaphoric belt) but now has a much simpler air about it, embedded, perhaps, in the grain of the varnished hardwood counters and tables.

    I understand that the author (via his narrative persona) seems to attempt to show us-as-readers—the sense that some wisdom, the important knowledge, is something that comes from age and place and word-of-mouth handed down from adept to apprentice.  I just don't think he does so without being smug and disingenuous towards the audience and the world that resides outside his small sphere of influence.  It feels to me more like reading a political propaganda piece or moralistic tract than the tale of someone looking to folk wisdom and tradition in order to fulfill their own spiritual path.


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