Follies

In one of James Herriot's books, he recounts a story from his days as a new-fledged vet, before he actually set up in practice. The story involved an encounter with a Scottish farmer's horse, and ended with Herriot's coat (and, I think, Herriot himself) dangling from the horse's mouth while the farmer expostulated, "Dinna mess wi' things ye dinna ken anything aboot!" (Or words to that effect. It's been years since I read it.)

The story came to my mind after hearing Simon & Garfunkel's "Richard Cory" a little bit ago. Now, back in my teens, when I first heard the song, I was quite impressed by it. I memorized the lyrics, and occasionally sang it to myself. About twenty years later, I finally ran across the original poem, by E. A. Robinson, and it just killed the song, stone dead.

In the S&G song, Richard Cory is the richest man in town. He is a slumlord, his factory is a place of oppression, and he controls the city government from behind the scenes. He is ostentatious in his charities, and notorious in his libertine ways. And, in the end, he kills himself. Such an event is, to be honest, neither surprising nor upsetting.

In the poem, Cory is an aristocrat, in the best sense of that word. He is wealthy, yes, and handsome; he dresses well, and has a beautiful voice, but with all that he is completely unaffected. His generosity is sincere, and his friendliness honest. And, in the end, he kills himself.

This is a completely different story from the one S&G sang, and, to my mind, a more powerful one.

Throw in the artistic choices that S&G made - e.g., after revealing Cory's suicide, they devote an entire overwrought chorus to describing the narrator's reactions - and you get, well, a maudlin piece of crap. (I don't apologize for liking it in my teens. I'm not sure I could have appreciated Robinson at that age. I know I didn't appreciate Emily Dickinson - now, one of my favorite poets - then.)

This is the final stanza of Robinson's poem:

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread,
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.

That's the way to do it. Paul and Art, I like you both, together and separately. But dinna mess wi' things ye dinna ken anything aboot!