Saved by the Book

A few months ago, I was reading Francois Truffaut's book-length interview with Alfred Hitchcock and was reminded of the scene in 1938's The 39 Steps where Robert Donat's character's life is saved because a hymn book in his pocket stops a bullet.

Alfred Hitchcock: . . . What I like in The Thirty-nine Steps are the swift transitions. Robert Donat decides to go to the police to tell them that the man with the missing finger tried to kill him and how the Bible saved his life, but they don't believe him and suddenly he finds himself in handcuffs. How will he get out of them?

After reading this, I seemed to come across again and again what TV Tropes calls the "Pocket Protector". I can recall three movies I watched this year by name that have it--Burton's Sleepy Hollow, Plunkett and Macleane, and Rainy Dog. The first two of those movies were both released in 1999 and were set in the 18th century while Rainy Dog came out in 1997 and was set in contemporary Taipei.

Maybe it's a measure of the religious leanings of Western audiences that over sixty years after a hymn book saved the hero in The 39 Steps it's a book of witchcraft that saves the hero in Sleepy Hollow while a villain is saved in Plunkett and Macleane by a nice thick bible. Or maybe it's just a sign of the kind of movies I end up watching.

It's a villain that's saved in Rainy Dog and it's by a cigarette lighter, much like a character in 1992's Hard Boiled. Asian films seem to prefer a concealed metal object over a book.

I feel like I've run across more instances of this plot device lately but I can't remember them. Maybe it's a sign I should carry something heavy in my breast pocket? Maybe it's just a sign I should remind everyone to read.

Twitter Sonnet #1177

A dream assembled markets for the street.
A ticking watch was dropped in bourbon straight.
Reflections made the face a very beet.
The early worm arose so very late.
A cagey coat contained the heart and ribs.
The apple fell across from heated snow.
Galoshes stayed where steps were calling dibs.
In crystal ice is more than atoms know.
Regarded glasses turn the eye again.
A name resembled clumps of tangled hairs.
The elbows knew the knees were real akin.
For joints as links were chained to bears.
In pockets kept beside the heart's a song.
The lighter's smaller book was very strong.

Wolves Who Pass Cars in the Storm

The new Sirenia Digest this month has an exceptionally good story from Caitlin R. Kiernan called "Virginia Story." Featuring two characters on a long, lonely night drive in the rain, it works like an old fashioned ghost story while also reminding me a bit of the film noir called Detour and Caitlin's own The Drowning Girl.

A literature professor named Meg is driving home to New York from Alabama when she picks up a hitchhiker, a mysterious young woman with a curious physical abnormality. The story that follows is subtle and very effective as Caitlin combines the present tension from Meg's anxiety about dangerous road conditions with the naturally developed cues of character development and the weirdness of the story the hitchhiker tells. There's an effective reference to the biblical story of Lot and how he offered his daughters to be raped, a story actually in Genesis though, unlike a very similar story in Judges 19, no rape occurs thanks to the presence of a couple angels (Milton references both stories in Book I of Paradise Lost). "Virginia Story" makes one of the most effective uses of werewolves I've ever seen in fiction, too. A very nice story.

Twitter Sonnet #1095

A tiny shield sufficed for flattened pop.
A bottle thrown would spin and spill a tale.
Along the gaucho line the strange'd stop.
In heaven, salmon dwarf the biggest whale.
We bought a whistle shaped to break a world.
In ev'ry fence a smil'ing goat's asleep.
And further than a horse the lamb was hurled.
To land in peace upon a giant sheep.
A warning hat obscured departs to book.
A waiting list approached the island late.
Throughout the castle grins whereso you look.
The table's set for sketches off the slate.
A goblin stood for verdant visions past.
The wind's a canny sculptor first and last.