Style & Skill
Throughout their stories, the Nelson brothers experiment with different narrative styles. Working to develop authorial identities, they adopt styles that reflect many disparate tones, from the conventional, highbrow style that they attempt to emulate and the rural, boyish language that inevitably seeps into their prose. Below, an examination of select works explores the tension between the Nelson brothers’ endearing flirtation with conventions and their rugged New Hampshire dialect, highlighting the contours of their development as storytellers.
The Rugged and The Conventional: Dual Authorial Identities
The Intellectual Farmer: March Edition
In this imitation trade magazine, Arthur and Elmer work to develop legitimate authorial identities. The two boys’ prose styles are preoccupied with the conventions of such magazines, employing commercial phrases such as, “in this modern time of ours,” (3) “inquiring in to the matter,” (5) and “the most wondrous white bean in cultivation,”(6) at a dizzying rate. The magazine’s form suggests similar efforts toward emulation of popular forms, as the boys’ two-column page structure, formal section headings, and ornate cover-page all strive to replicate trade magazine conventions.
At the same time, however, intonations of rougher, boyish, rural Goshen language appear in their prose. Phrases such as “and you know how you done it,” (3) and “the most prolific bush bean we ever saw,” (6) find expression, too, in this magazine’s columns. What is striking about this language is not necessarily its presence in the boys’ narrative, as such instances abound in their writing, but its interaction with the populist goal that drove the boys to fabricate such a magazine in the first place.
The boys’ stated aim in crafting this periodical is to offer poor farmers an affordable source of advice, so that “others might prosper” from helpful knowledge, “live easier,” and grow “wealthy” (3). They believe fervently in the American ideal of upward mobility, and they adhere to the conventions of trade magazines. But at the same time, they do so in a subversive manner, hoping to create a helpful magazine alternative to the glut of expensive magazines that they say are on the market, and doing so in their own, rural New Hampshire dialect. Thus, their colloquial language is an innovation pregnant with meaning. Though they strive to emulate popular forms, Arthur and Elmer take possession of their writing, using language that honors their heritage, and bolstering their populist message with populist language.
The Intellectual Farmer: April Edition
Though a number of similar stylistic features emerge in the April edition, the boys adhere more strictly to trade magazine conventions in their second issue. In particular, the tone initially feels more mechanical and commercial than the tone of the firt issue. There are still endearing mis-turns of phrase – such as “all the race” instead of “all the rage” (3) – but the narrative is saturated with jargon-esque descriptions of “thorough trial[s]” (3) and “new article[s]” (4). This self-conscious language might signify a desire to establish the budding imitation magazine as a more professional entity than its first iteration might suggest. Previously expounding a subversive, populist message, perhaps the boys felt that they had to establish more conventional authorial credibility in order to back it up.
Such a desire is apparent in the second issue’s preoccupation with establishing narrative authority. The boys assert that nearly everything they advertise is “the best one ever invented” (5), and adopt high-powered abbreviated pseudonyms – “Editor,” “A.W.N.,” “E.P.N.,” etc. – that suggest a self-conscious bid for credibility.
As the narrative progresses, the boys begin to surrender their pretenses to the sheer fun of their paracosmic farm world. This shift is evident stylistically, as the rural language and buoyant, childish phrases that made the first issue so endearing begin to creep back into their narrative. They “cheerfully recommend” tools (5) and strawberry strains (6), and boast hyperbolically of their “20 or 30 million water melon plants” with the following quip: “Now who can beat that” (6). Their particular brand of “thumb pop corn” is “taking the lead now,” (7) and the strain of tomato that they champion is “pronoonsed” the best strain at the state fair (9). Though the boys do not abandon the conceit that they are writing for a real magazine, the organic magic of imagination streams forth into their prose to a greater extent, bypassing self-imposed censorial attitudes that would have them remain exclusively highfalutin. They appear to take more pleasure in the language that they author after working through stylistic conventions and satisfying their respective desires for narrative authority at the beginning of the piece. As they tinker with the balance between strict convention and innovation, the boys’ quests to develop authorial identities are evident in stylistic maneuvers.
An Adventure on Red Rover:
In An Adventure on Red Rover the Nelson brothers inscribe their real-life hunting habits and rituals into the narrative. When situating their fictive alter egos – Walter Allen, Arthur Little, and Elmer Green – within the coal-mining island of Red Rover, they cast themselves as “stout and rugged” boys (3), either heading out to hunt and fish or returning from similar journeys. “Rugged” is a particularly significant adjective choice, as the boys’ High School Notes indicate that their “rugged,” “hayseed” physiques compelled the other boys to urge them to come out for the football team (High School Notes 1-2)
In addition, phrases such as “he had good luck for he was a good marks man,” (3) and, “the old bird weighed 100 pounds and the others about 75 pounds,” (14) closely parallel the boys’ descriptions of their day’s plunder in their Sketches. Furthermore, the call and response yelling that the characters perform is identical to their call and response location technique on a hunt in their High School Notes (for a discussion of both of these parallels, see the “Roughin’ It” Section).
This piece is not without tension between the boys’ rural Goshen dialect and attempts at highbrow, authoritative speech, however. The juxtaposition between the richness of the rural dialect and the staleness of the boys’ endeavors to emulate the rhetorical maneuvers of more refined text is striking. The narration features many ingenious, naturalistic descriptions, such as the “report” of guns, the “tramping” of feet in the woods, (12) and the “claims” of land that the boys occupy (4). Seemingly accidental insertions of the colloquial, such as “you wait,” are similarly endearing (10). However important the boys’ experimentation with conventional language may be for their development, their rugged New England dialect is a great deal more engaging, providing a refreshing glimpse into a different form of development. Though the boys may not have known it, they were crafting a style of their very own, expressing themselves in novel language that was true to their region. One cannot help but be tantalized, wondering at the innovative prose that the boys might have produced had they continued on this trajectory of development, unhindered by the shackles of convention.
And yet, this piece, too, is often confined by prepackaged, jargon-esque terms. However, they strike one in a different manner than the phrases that bogged The Intellectual Farmer down, as many of these examples are spelled incorrectly. Where such appropriation of conventional language might stifle and constrict the reader in other Nelson narratives, these botched attempts are quite endearing. Not to patronize the boys, but their innocent, boyish attempts to reach for highbrow dialect are somewhat amusing: “kept inquireing,” (4) “ammediately,” (10) “un earthly” (7).
There is something so original about the Nelson brothers’ “hayseed” dialect, though. They might have produced pieces entirely comprised of their hunting dialogues, where their speech could roam freely, poetically naming natural phenomena as they came across it in the woods, without regard for conventional speech. More of this essence makes itself apparent in their notes, at times, but it remains latent, and too often obscured. The boys display the seeds of great adult fiction writers, and one must wonder at the wealth of underdeveloped potential that they exhibit.
Simpler Ventures: The Youngest Hands at Work
Voyage of the Francis:
In this shorter volume, a very young Arthur experiments with the cruder, fundamental aspects of story telling. There are certainly elements of plot – a storm, a fishing expedition, a jump overboard, and an odd game of tag, for example – but they seem to form only a skeletal story, made up primarily of big event to big event, without much imagined emotion or transition in between. Much like “History of Long Continent,” this narrative exhibits some continuity, and a minor understanding of causality – but that’s about it.
The skeletal nature of this story calls to mind ancient tales, such as The Gilgamesh Epic, a major epic story that survived on stone tablets from the former Sumerian civilization. Elements of the archetypal Hero’s Journey are at play, albeit through the purview of a juvenile. One such element is evident in the captain’s course of action after the ordeal of the storm. In epic stories, conventions dictate that, after a significant crisis, the hero of the story will frequently secure food for his trusty companions. In this same manner, The Francis’s captain boils salmon and tea for his crew when they are shipwrecked, (6) replenishing them for further activity. Additionally, the “silver” tag game that he engages his crew members in beside the water recalls the classic scene in the Aeneid where Aeneas conducts funeral games with his crew on the beach, in order to honor his father (10).
It may seem a grand comparison to make, but there is a certain structural logic to Arthur’s story that is beyond his understanding. Having internalized storytelling conventions, he is employing them in the most rudimentary manner possible, as people have done for thousands of years, adding and subtracting from the oral lore that sustains, creates, and disseminates epic stories. Employing these story elements in a meaningful, instinctual way, Arthur operates according to story patterns that are – perhaps – beyond his conscious understanding.
There are also incongruous moments in the text that suggest that Arthur might have asked an older brother for help with vocabulary. Words such as “shole,” “amidst,” (2) “abated,” (8) and “fastened” (6) call significant attention to themselves in this regard. Additionally, there appears to be some rhetoric that sounds – again, crudely – like something an adult might have said to Arthur at various points in his life. The phrase, “new not what to do,” (2) is a bit of a lofty construction, and the phrase, “did as he told them,” smacks of the register that a mother might use to correct a child’s behavior (4). Though the Nelsons may not have come from a prominent literary family, their traditions of deliberate self-archiving provide the milieu necessary to accumulate new literary tools: whether elements of story structure, expansions of vocabulary, clever turns of phrase, or communicative rhetorical registers. Even at a young age, “The Voyage of the Francis” shows Arthur tinkering with all of these boons, experimenting with literary techniques of his own accord.
History of Long Continent
History of Long Continent appears to have been written by one of the Nelson brothers at a very young age. Though clearly imagined with great pleasure, the narrative lacks the sophistication of others, moving seamlessly from unelaborated battle to unelaborated battle. For example, “a man named Bill Poron” enters the narrative inexplicably (as most characters do) and attacks William Little (also inexplicably) (8). This action “excited Ethan Allen” – a character yet to be mentioned in the text – who subsequently attacks William Little (8). Thus, there is a distinct stream-of-consciousness quality to the narrative, likely moving from thought to thought as they occur to the author.
The usual poor spelling is somewhat poorer than usual in this narrative, compounding the notion that a younger author is at work. The text is speckled with words that are painfully sounded out, such as “in habert ance” for inhabitants (4) and “chasted” for chased (6). In addition, advertisements for the “[sic] times” (9) and the Chattanooga Weekly (14) have been haphazardly pasted over the narrative at intervals, making the slippery narrative that much more incongruous. As if the presentation could not grow any more rudimentary, starting on page 16, the author begins to scribble indecipherable words and phrases over the text, with the same medium that he has used to draw the letter “n” in cursive at the bottom right-hand side of every page, where one would expect a page number. The fragmentation of the narrative and presentation feels almost post-modern, like the blitz of different mediums and modes that magazine spreads adopt, but in a crude sort of way. The author certainly strives to emulate conventional forms here, but the unrestrained character of the piece is markedly juvenile, and wholly representative of the process of organic thought.
Metaphorical Flights
The Fight of the Boys:
The Fight of the Boys is a standard Nelson battle tale, but there are a few notable instances of style that show growth in the development of authorial identities. Most interesting, perhaps, is the boys’ use of metaphor and simile. They are so often occupied with relaying action sequence description after action sequence description, straining to allow their pen to keep up with the vivid adventures taking place in their minds, that their language often takes on the character of their naming processes (see below): bare and blunt. Here, however, the boys employ flights of metaphorical language, affording their prose a depth and integrity that is rare among Nelson narratives. “Shower[s] of arrows” assail the onrushing “west siders” as they enact their counter-raid. The narrator exclaims, “how the logs did hop and split to pieces,” when Jimmy’s canon “bombards” a portion of the “east siders’” fort. Jack – “like a flash” – jumps at “a fellow seizing him by the neck." Showering, hopping, and flashing, metaphor and simile allow the Nelson brothers’ prose to take on a character more proximate to the liveliness of their imaginations.
Naming Processes
American Family Robinso:
In American Family Robinson Vol. 1 and 2, the minimal narrative trajectory, focused on exploring and discovery, provides insight into the naming process that the Nelson brothers might have used to dream up their simple and representative continent names. Quite often throughout this narrative, either Alice or Jimmy suggests to the other that they name a natural phenomenon or place after its basic physical characteristics. As the two row through their rugged surroundings, for example, they come across an island rich with oranges, which they decide to name, “Orange Island” (1). They also discover a cave in a forest, which they decide to name “forest cave” (1). Shortly thereafter, they spy some rocks near a cape, which they decide to name – quite logically – “Cape Rocks” (2).
While one might criticize the epithets that the Nelson Brothers choose to name the facets of their paracosm – long, big, round, sand, etc. (see Reference section for more) – as unimaginative, here it becomes evident that these simple nicknames encapsulate entire journeys. According to the mechanism of an inside joke – (you had to be there!) – the place names in this narrative signify journeys that only Alice and Jimmy have known. Similarly, the Nelson brothers’ notable intimacy and camaraderie have allowed them to share journeys amongst themselves that only they know. Thus, while the names that figure into their paracosm often appear blunt and unimaginative, they must have recollected so much more in the minds’ eyes of the brothers themselves: the minutiae of all of those glorious evenings out back, playing in the brook, for example. This is a conjecture, but it seems that, through the exploits of these two young adventurers, the reader has a unique window into the ways that the brothers think about naming – one that, by necessity, they cannot share completely with us!