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STICKLEWORT AND FEVERFEW - (submitted by Pocho)
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O blighted Marigold, |
Sticklewort and Feverfew is a book for both adult minded children and children minded adults. It was written by Robert Sutherland in the 1970’s and published in 1980. This is not a normal book review but rather exposition on what the book meant and means to me and may to others, the latter being reason for inclusion here. I’ll do no more than briefly set the scene of its content and leave traditional reviews to be read on the Amazon books web site at this link.
Grover is a very small town inhabited by real humans and anthropomorphic animals. The book gives no more than descriptive distinction between either species or gender. Grover’s idyllic society is invaded by life and earth destroying pollution brought by arrival of an international corporation's factory.
The creatures of Grover progress through disappointments as they try to work for change in more or less socially accepted manners. In vain, they join to write letters, editorialize, petition, meet with company executives, and seek government intervention. They finally turn to disruptive and then destructive direct actions. They learn the immensity of the powers they are up against when even those efforts bring but temporary relief. They finally cast their lots to an all or nothing approach, and they win, not just in physically destroying the factory but more importantly by discovering the true meaning of community.
Bob and Marilyn Sutherland have been close personal friends since the mid 1960’s when we joined in struggles of the civil rights, anti-war, poverty program, and sexual liberation movements that took place in the twin towns of Bloomington and Normal, Illinois. Though I’ve left the area, the Sutherlands remain an active part of the group we formed there called Community for Social Action, or CSA.
A recent email from Bob reiterated his reasons for writing the book
“…as encouragement for people to organize on the local level. To show the importance of that, and how it comes about through necessity, ….(Also to suggest through a kind of metaphorical projection how we in CSA grew in solidarity, courage, and imagination and worked together to achieve certain useful skills”
Several years of progressively more militant organizing and activism taught us much by the mid 70’s. We discovered that all social organizing is local and that people join forces to act together only out of immediate self interest in events which directly influence their lives. To the contrary, we found causes approached from far away or born and projected of intellectual construct or moral concern mean little in bringing people to unite and as such act to cause real social change.
We learned that to communicate there must first be established an inner common language and felt bonds which develop only between those whose relationships grow from common experience and mutual personal concern. The many battles also taught that the struggle would not culminate with the small victories or defeats resulting from each specific set of endeavors. We knew it would instead continue through and beyond our lives.
Our underlying devotions changed from concentrating on temporary alleviation of pains and progressed toward ongoing uprooting of those forms of social organization which brought forth the immediate visible symptoms of underlying causes. We found it was not enough to understand the beast we fought, to write and yell about it, raise temporary hell in the streets, disrupt establishment meetings, picket businesses, organize in bars and churches, and leaflet on sidewalks and front doors. We realized the price of change was devotion of our lives, and in that, many of us determined to direct our personal skills more intimately to that end throughout the time we have left.
There were some who weaseled into the system to subvert from inside. Others migrated to employment where they’d be more in touch with people most hurting. One went from Presbyterian minister to attorney and poverty law career. My own twist was to apply an electronic background toward (among activities best left unmentioned) agitating through what became computer communication. Bob Sutherland’s love of and facility with words and language moved him to authoring.
Both of the Sutherland sons had been my physics students but appeared more interested and accomplished then in creating fanciful and artistic doodles during laboratory exercises rather than assigned measurements. They must also have been great teachers of artistic skills, for in the several years of Stickelwart’s writing, their father also grew into quite an artist as he created and recreated the book’s 74 pencil illustrations.
In each reading I am intrigued trying to figure which of my past companions most resemble which characters in the book. We all seem to be there, but, except for brief obvious glimpses, our psycho likenesses seem dispersed through the crowd. Maybe that’s the way it is when people of like minds join.
For those here who know me only in online personage and who might also obtain and read the book, Sutherland claims my being was his model for Roscoe Lynx. That’s the big not so wild retired hockey player feline (pictured above at right behind the bar) who fancies himself as rough on the surface but is without admission inwardly shy and sensitive as he plays his harp, secretly writes poetry, and tends gardens. Those sorts of activities hardly fit my own self image. Being rough on the surface is certainly acknowledged and I guess, as with Roscoe, probably affected. The waved off “aw shucks” denial of a softer and sensitive side is, as would be with Roscoe, quietly accepted with gratitude and understanding that Bob may be a better judge of character than I.
Our movement meetings changed during the course of the book's writing in that now we were treated to stories of little animals with cute names. I recall personal frustrations of impatiently putting aside preferred planning of more exciting disruptive activities while being required instead to view the latest pencil sketch renditions of Franklin Groundsquirrel playing the flute or Fergus Fisher guiding the Albatross to drop horrendous Jamaica Delight down the Smudge-Buddle factory smoke stack. But Bob was Bob, and he said the book was a CSA action. We listened. (My more favored disruptive activities continued anyhow.)
Francis Irvin’s fourth grade class in the nearby crossroad town of Hayworth also listened. Each developing chapter was read to them, and the students eagerly made suggestions to be incorporated into revisions and following chapters. Bob discovered sooner than most of us what Francis already knew, that kids and animals are oft times wiser than those who would instruct them and that learning comes primarily through listening rather than talking.
Sticklewort and Feverfew was hardly the sort of book toward which profit oriented publishers might clamor, and so Bob’s characterized CSA action was not over when the manuscript was completed. We’d all read it and been involved in it’s creation (like it or not) but it yet lacked printing, a cover, price, promotion, and distribution, things that seemed as far away as the citizens of Grover sensed during their early frustrations. The Southerlands, like the citizens of Grover, did not give up. They mortgaged their home and formed their own publishing company, Pikestaff Press. Sticklewort and Feverfew became a book.
I had an original signed hardcover copy and read and admired it even after having digested and commented on the final manuscript and been subjected to its creation in parts over and over and over. I loaned the book to a daughter and never heard about it again. I wanted to read it once more in recent years, and the daughter was no help.
A used signed hardcover one was listed on Amazon for 80 some bucks. Adding to that shipping to Mexico with slim chance it would get here scrapped that plan. I emailed Bob and he sent me a paper bound one (signed again), which was all they had. In each of several readings since, I’ve been forced to see through the thin fabric of my previous delusions and frustrations and admire more and more the work of Bob Sutherland. His CSA action means more to me now than memories of my favored more exciting but brief disruptions.
I didn’t want to write this unless I knew the book was available for purchase. I queried Bob about that in recent email. His response was
“Used copies are available from amazon.com and abebooks.com. If people would wish to purchase new (mint) copies of the paperback, they should order them from The Pikestaff Press, P.O. Box 127, Normal, IL 61761. Cost is $9.00 plus $3.00 postage & handling -- cash or check upfront with order (no credit cards) -- which might well be cheaper than buying used copies from those website vendors.”
Poem and graphic above copyright © 1980, by Robert D. Sutherland
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