The Immortality of the Written Word

“Writing for immortality is not a good idea” ~ H.J. Jackson in her new book, Those Who Write for Immortality: Romantic Reputations and the Dream of Lasting Fame

Around my neck, I wear a Chinese coin on a leather thong, one that comes from final days of the Song Dynasty under Emperor Huizong. I can amuse myself for hours considering how the metal smith would react if he knew one of the coins he created would last for 900 years and end up hanging around the neck of another human being whose race, culture, language, and technology would leave him in a combination of terror and awe.

But then, it also makes me wonder how the authors of the past would react if they knew their books lasted well beyond their own lifetimes such as Plato, St. Augustine, H. P. Lovecraft, and others.

And that brings me to a book I just completed reading yesterday. Browsing in one of the most disorganized used book stores I have ever encountered, I came across an old beat up paperback with the title, The Mark of Pak San Ri written by one William Stroup. Because of my love for Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu novels, I took a chance and purchased the paperback  expecting it to be a cheap knockoff. In fact, the author makes bold mention of the fictional character of Fu Manchu in the story.

It's not the best book I have ever read, basically a very formulaic pulp. Richard Quinn is an ex-G.I. living in postwar Seoul in South Korea when he witnesses a murder. The rest of the book is his attempt to solve the mystery behind the crime as he tries to keep one step ahead of of Pak San Ri's assassins that appear to be about 50% of the entire population of Seoul. The events of the story follow a precise formula:

1. Quinn ignores good advice to stay out of trouble.
2. He gets into a fight with the Korean crime lord's minions.
3. He gets knocked out.
4. He comes to, facing certain death.
5. Quinn is rescued at the last moment by his friends or the U.S. military who are looking for him or just happen to be in the right place at the right time.
6. Repeat this four more times.

A typical pulp story, there is a lot of violence and sex and Quinn gets knocked out so many times in the story, you wonder how he survives without a terminal concussion. He also gets branded with a hot iron, kicked, beaten, and even takes two bullets just because he can, but like a good Timex watch, he takes a beating and keeps on ticking.

But it's a fun read if you can get beyond the pulp tropes and the illogic of it all.

SPOILER ALERT!

I will give kudos to the author for revealing that Pak San Ri is one of the most beautiful women in all of Korea. I didn't see that one coming as the story implies a male antagonist throughout. (Hold down your right mouse button down and skim it over the darkened part to read the concealed spoiler.)
 
However, the point of this essay is not about bad writing, but the author William Stroup. I wanted to see what else he had written and that sent me into the dusty corners of the Internet to discover there is very little to discover about the man. From what little I can gather, William Stroup was born around 1903 and passed away sometime near 1966. It appears The Mark of Pak San Ri is the only work he ever wrote and only one of the seventeen paperbacks published by the short-lived Book Company of America (Beverley Hills, California). Stroup lived in Hermosa Beach, California, but it is not known for how long. Because of the novel's intimate references to army life as well as Korea, I assume Stroup served in the Korean Conflict while in the army. However, if the birthdate is correct, he would have been in Korea during his early 50s. A search of military archives reveal nobody named William Stroup.

So the gentleman disappears in the mists of time, his sole novel being his own literary immortality.

I do not write for immortality. I write solely to entertain, but I confess that it amuses me to think that maybe someday, some decades in the future, some blogger may comment on one of the novels or collections he or she discovered while traversing the dusty, narrow aisles of some disorganized used book store.

Time will tell.