REVIEW POTPOURRI: Chechaquo, To Build a Fire, Winter Dreams, Doctor Zhivago scene

by Peter Cates

Chechaquo

When I woke up this morning at 2:30 a.m., the temperature was 9 degrees Fahrenheit. In that context, I find these following sentences from a story written more than 100 years ago quite pertinent, powerful, thought provoking and eerily poetic:

“But all this – the mysterious, far-reaching hair-line trail, the absence of sun from the sky, the tremendous cold, and the strangeness and weirdness of it all – made no impression on the man. It was not because he was long used to it. He was a newcomer in the land, a CHECHAQUO [Native-American definition for tenderfoot, greenhorn, newcomer, beginner], and this was his first winter. The trouble with him was that he was without imagination. He was quick and alert in the things of life, but only in the things, and not in the significance. Fifty degrees below zero meant eighty-odd degrees of frost. Such fact impressed him as being cold and uncomfortable, and that was all.”

To Build a Fire

Jack London

To Build a Fire, by Jack London (1876-1916), first captivated my imagination when I read it in one sitting during my 1964-65 schoolyear at the long-closed Carl B. Lord School, in North Vassalboro. I also soon found out in that initial reading that the man didn’t realize that it was really 75 degrees below zero, not 50 degrees, according to the native husky dog walking alongside him who shared a brotherhood with the wilder wolves and was more experienced, in its brute intuition, with Yukon Territory survival.

Yet another detail of startling vividness was the man spitting saliva and the saliva making a loud crackling noise before it even hits the ground.

Jack London was one of three extraordinary American novelists born during the 1870s who died young, the other two being Stephen Crane and Frank Norris.

Winter Dreams

Tchaikovsky

The First Symphony of Tchaikovsky has the title of Winter Dreams and its second movement has exquisitely hushed strings evoking the peace of nighttime. There are numerous recordings of high quality, several of which can be heard on You Tube.

Doing a quick check, I found four very good ones by Herbert von Karajan, Igor Markevitch, Gennady Rozhdest­vensky and Michael Tilson Thomas.

Doctor Zhivago scene

The 1965 classic Doctor Zhivago had a wide span scene of the vast Russian winter wilderness so brilliantly realistic I was shivering in my seat when I first saw it at a revival movie house some 40 years ago.

Scene from Doctor Zhivago