Read the previous entry in the series here.
Read the next entry in the series here.

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The next chapter, “Family Matters,” opens with Kennit and Sorcor taking their captured slaveship, the Fortune, into port with a crew largely taken from the former slaves. When they are in port, Kennit reviews the charts from the captured ship as he lets it be known that he is taking offers on her. The ship’s status is rehearsed; it shows the stains of its service, and Kennit is struck by the condition of the former slaves as he tours it. The assigned captain, Rafo, notes the likely histories of the former slaves, and they misinterpret the reflexive eye-watering as tears shed for their condition.

When Kennit goes ashore, he finds his crew strangely eager. He also finds himself the center of an impromptu celebration, lauded as a savior by the freed people and the port town. He takes the chance to expand his influence, effectively bringing the town under his willing command. His empire has begun to form.

In Bingtow, Kyle and Keffria dine in advance of his shipping out. She asks to see Wintrow again, but is denied. Althea has still not returned to the Vestrit home, and Kyle is convinced she will return penniless; he presses Keffira to take her in hand when she does. He also presses for heartless economic decisions about family holdings, and their daughter, Malta, interrupts with questions about preparations for an upcoming social event. Keffria protests her suggestions, but Kyle sides with his daughter against her mother. When, afterward, Keffria voices her objections to Kyle’s permissions, he rebukes her angrily.

After Kyle storms off, Keffria muses on the changes in their relationship. Her reverie is broken by Ronica coming in. They confer about Kyle, Ronica casting aspersion on the idea of the Vivacia becoming a slaveship, rehearsing what she has learned of the conditions in them. She also notes the shifts to local government that have occurred, with new interests beginning to have a sizable voice. The threat to the Rain Wild River and the Traders upon it is also noted, and Keffria realizes that Kyle’s ignorance of Trader matters is a threat to them all.

Hobb goes to great pains to depict the evils of slavery in the chapter, both among the pirates and in Bingtown. She also goes to some pains to note the dehumanizing aspects of enslaving people, emphasizing that the system is destructive for all involved in it (though clearly more so for the people put into bondage than for those who put them into it). Keffira serves as an embodiment of the consumer who benefits from slave labor, able to justify it only insofar as she is able to avoid thinking about the practice. And, like many who are now in similar situations, she is unable to divest herself of entanglement in a corrupt system, certainly at a single stroke.

It is something which more people need to consider, certainly.

Care to lend a hand?

 

Read the previous entry in the series here.
Read the next entry in the series here.

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The chapter that follows, “Transitions,” opens with Brashen waking aboard the Paragon and considering the events of the previous night, and his situation. Realizing his straitened finances, he makes to head out and look for work. The ship greets him and advises him of where Althea has gone and warns him of some of the concerns in the work he purposes to do. The ship also turns to morbid talk of suicide and killing before Brashen leaves.

Meanwhile, Althea tries to pawn her jewelry in Bingtown, finding some success in addition to the increasing demands of daily living on one’s own. The shift in economics strikes her strongly, as does her withdrawal from Bingtown society. And she startles herself to arrive in Amber’s shop, at which she marvels before startling again to find Amber ensconced therein. The two speak of the Vivacia and slavery, with Amber speaking cryptically of a nine-fingered slave boy. She also gives Althea the gift of an intricately wrought bead in exchange for the chance to assist her later on.

Aboard the Vivacia, Wintrow works under the unkind tutelage of his father’s crew and considers his circumstances. Kyle summons him to his cabin to talk, and he does more to talk at him than with him. When Kyle offers an earring in token of an offer of early command, Wintrow refuses, citing his religious convictions; Kyle is angered by the refusal, and when Wintrow asks why Althea not be given the opportunity, Kyle angrily retorts that her sex makes her unfit. Wintrow argues against the sexism from Bingtown history, and Kyle replies from his own family background before dismissing Wintrow from his cabin. The second mate, Torg, returns him to his berth and locks him in, and Wintrow finds sleep amid despair.

In the night, Ronica calls on the Vivacia. Ronica tries to reach her husband through the ship, to no avail. She also learns that Althea has visited several times and leaves a message for her with the ship.

Once again, I find myself reading affectively as I reread the present chapter. It is not because of Kyle’s continued misogyny, the assertion that women somehow need to be protected from the concerns of working life, that they need to be kept happy and pampered; I know that I am in part the product of my upbringing in a part of the world that still does not do terribly well with issues of gender parity, and I know that I still have biases on which I am working, but I hope I am not the kind of tyrant Captain Haven is. Nor is it because of the foreshadowing of foresight coming from Amber, whose identity is known to Hobb’s readers at this point but which I will not make much of at the moment. No, it is because of Wintrow.

Wintrow, both as depicted and as he regards himself in the present chapter, excels in the environment of the monastery. Aboard the Vivacia, however, he is “Nothing remarkable….An indifferent ship’s boy, a clumsy sailor. Not even worth mentioning.” And while some of the attitude can be put down to adolescent angst and the upset at being utterly displaced, the shock is one I have seen described by those leaving academe, as well as one I have felt myself as I have done so. The university system as it has been in the United States and other places in the world is one that emerges from the monastery, and there is much of the monastic still about it in popular conception and, indeed, in the minds of some of the powerful within it (as witness some comments by a notable medievalist in May 2019, with which many disagree vociferously). So a monkish character might well invite identification from a bookish reader–and, as someone who spent twelve years in college earning three degrees in English (and focusing on medieval/ist literatures, no less!), I qualify as such a reader.

I did well in school, perhaps not as well as Wintrow in the monastery, but still enough to think that I was somehow special; life outside academe, though it goes well for me now, has disabused me of that notion. And I had my shift, my change well into my 30s; how much worse it would have to be for an adolescent…

Again, I read affectively, something I should know better than to do, given my academic background and formal training. But I still do it, which may be why I could not find a permanent place in the professoriate to which I trained.

It’s hot, here, but it’d be cool of you to send support!

Read the previous entry in the series here.
Read the next entry in the series here.

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The next chapter, “Of Derelicts and Slaveships,” starts with the Paragon recalling times underwater, interacting with serpents. He is interrupted by Althea, with whom he begins to converse, if sullenly. She asks if she can sleep aboard him, and he agrees, though he notes that Brashen is staying aboard him, as well. She boards him for a night’s berthing, anyway, and he reflects on their earlier relationship.

Brashen soon returns and makes for his own bunk. Althea asks for his advice, and he advises her to return home, and swiftly, noting that his own situation is in part because he waited too long to do so, himself. He also notes to her that she will have trouble finding work aboard ship because of her family connections, the Traders being fractious. He also warns her of the dangers of being a woman among a mostly-male crew, and she despairs of her course of action.

Elsewhere, the Marietta closes on a slaveship after failing to catch a liveship, the Ringsgold. Kennit and Sorcor confer regarding the pursuit, Kennit assigning it to Sorcor. He watches, coldly calculating, as his mate conducts a successful capture, and his attentions turn towards the serpents that follow the slaver. He finds himself entranced by them until the battle is ended, and he finds himself rebuking Sorcor after the mate reports the victory and its cost to the crew. He also assigns the taken ship to another crew member and considers the need to eliminate Sorcor.

The chapter makes a motion towards Althea adopting a trans identity. A number of scholars speak to such concerns in Hobb, though most focus on the Six Duchies novels rather than the Liveship Traders works. Katavić, Melville, Mohon, Räsänen, Sanderson, and Schouwenaars each offers an example; I need not reiterate what they have already aptly discussed, though what they do discuss begins to apply in the present chapter.

The chapter also reinforces earlier impressions of Kennit. He remains more concerned with money than with people–unsurprisingly for a pirate, of course, but still stunning against what he himself admits is a horrible situation. Similarly, the cooling regard in which he holds his mate is striking, even if not unsurprising for so mercenary a person in so mercenary a profession and position as piracy. The mate is a threat to him, particularly after the boost of a successful raid he led, and such a position as a pirate captain’s is not a stable one. Parts of the old internet chestnut The Evil Overlord List come to mind, particularly the comments about lieutenants (and I admit to being happy still to be able to bring that bit into the work I do; it remains fun, and I am not doing this for money or acclaim at this point, even if a bit of funding would be welcome).

Please continue to support this project!

Read the previous entry in the series here.
Read the next entry in the series here.

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The following chapter, “Consequences and Reflections,” opens with Althea consulting the Bingtown equivalent of an attorney regarding the terms of her father’s will. They are, unfortunately, clear, and clearly not in her favor. She also asks about Kyle’s oath about ceding the Vivacia to her if she could present proof of her honest sailor’s skills; her interlocutor notes that it would likely work, but counsels her against pursuing the action.

After Althea leaves, she fumes, musing on her situation, and determines that she will not live on her sister’s charity. She also calls upon the Vivacia at the docks, reminiscing on the status of women among sailors as she does so. As she begins to confer with the ship, she realizes that she can feel Wintrow at work aboard her–and that his suffering marks the ship, to its potential future peril. When she is interrupted by Torg, she sits upon her anger and counsels the ship to set it aside; the ship does not, but acts against the mate.

As Althea leaves, promising to return to the ship, she wonders about the ship’s intentions and harbors dark thoughts of her own. She also has an uncomfortable encounter with Amber, though the two exchange no words, and there is no hostility made manifest between the two. After, she eats and gives thought to how she will proceed afterward, being unwilling to accept more of her family’s charity, and she begins to realize how dire her family’s situation is. She also gives more thought to the Vivacia and her nascent development, comparing her to other notable liveships–including the Paragon, whose history she rehearses in part; the part is tragic enough.

After the meal, she sends a note to Ronica and walks out amid the shops selling goods from up the Rain Wild River. She sees Amber again, at her shop this time, and considers her situation again before making her way towards the beached Paragon.

The story of the Paragon that Althea rehearses is, as noted, a tragic one, the more so given that it depicts the ship as having come into consciousness amid fear and pain. Death has already been established as necessary to quicken a liveship–three generations of a single bloodline–with implications that the Liveship Traders novels do begin to investigate, but there is a patent difference between lives ending of old age and its often-associated infirmities and the calamities that befell those whose lives quickened the Paragon. It is hardly to be wondered at that a consciousness that forms amid such trauma would have problems, as ascertained by the standards generally applied. (How apt the application is is something with which the books concern themselves later.) The repeated traumas clearly do not help, either.

Help me recover from the weekend’s holiday?

 

Read the previous entry in the series here.
Read the next entry in the series here.

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The following chapter, “Confrontations,” opens with Althea waking to the sound of Ronica berating Kyle for punching his adolescent son. Kyle responds harshly before backing off of a position he realizes is perilous for him. Althea enters abruptly and confronts him, but she is soon distracted by tending to Wintrow. She rages against her nephew’s situation for a moment as he continues to try to remove himself from that situation, and, in a rage, Kyle vows that he will cede the Vivacia to Althea if any captain vouches for her seamanship. He also rages against his own son, sending him packing off to the ship under duress before rebuking Althea. Ronica quashes the argument. She accepts the blame for Althea’s disinheritance, explaining her reasons for it and noting the terms of Keffria’s enfranchisement. Althea cannot but continue to inveigh against the situation, and, in the face of the continued insistence upon it, she leaves.

Kyle resumes inveighing against Althea, and when Ronica rebukes him for his behavior, he turns his anger upon her–not physically, but still coercively, and partly through exploiting Keffria’s indecision. Ronica reassesses her elder daughter, not favorably, and she is shocked yet again when Kyle announces his intent to trade in slaves. When he is met with objections to that plan, he demands charts to the Rain Wild River, only to be told that they had been destroyed. He disbelieves and continues to rage, and Ronica takes herself and Keffira away from him.

Kyle’s patriarchal tendencies are on full display in the present chapter. He demands Wintrow’s obedience physically, notes that things are done well “for a woman,” and rages at the Vestrit women because they “have no sons to protect” them or “men to take over the running of the holdings.” He repeatedly asserts that he is “the man of this family” and therefore its rightful head, owed obedience by all in it. It is an all too common attitude even now, that the presence of a penis is the primary determiner of ability, and it is still an all too common attitude that command means the imposition of will despite the knowledge and expertise of others. I must confess to being guilty of some of the same follies, and I am trying to sit with the discomfort that being reminded of them produces in me. But perhaps I am overly affective a reader in doing so.

I note as I reread the ways in which Kyle approaches Kennit. Both of them appear amid the trappings of bourgeoisie success; Kyle stands in a house built by settlers over generations and staffed by servants, commander of a vessel owned by the family descended from those settlers, concerned more with money than anything else. He is not heir to that family, as such, but married into it and is imposing his own views upon it rather than even attempting to understand the people he seeks to rule. Might he, himself, be taken as a metaphor for colonialist discourse, especially given his physical description in the text? Might he point towards intersectionalities of oppressive structures? Might someone still vested in academe make such arguments?

Help me mark tomorrow’s holiday?

Read the previous entry in the series here.
Read the next entry in the series here.

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The next chapter, “A Change of Fortunes,” opens with Brashen approaching the derelict liveship Paragon. He banters with the ship briefly before boarding with permission and returning to a rack he had established on a previous excursion. The ship is strangely pleased to have him aboard again.

Kennit and Sorcor confer aboard the Marietta. Kennit again pushes his idea of pirate civilization, and he begins to win Sorcor over to it, the added details presented doing more to persuade the mate of the captain’s plans. Sorcor’s vehemence against slavers surprises Kennit, but he agrees to the amendment on which Sorcor insists. Sorcor blanches a bit at Kennit’s plan to take a liveship, but he strikes a deal to pursue a slave-ship for every liveship they pursue–one to which Kennit agrees.

Wintrow faces his family as his father, Kyle, insists that he sail aboard the Vivacia instead of returning to his monastery. Wintrow tries to refuse, but he is knocked unconscious by his father.

The chapter delves further into the overt politicism of the Liveship Traders novels, especially in Sorcor’s emphatic assertions regarding slavery. The chapter affirms his experience as legal property and begins to touch on the horrors of such a status; no words can truly convey such horrors, of course, but the descriptions of the tanning work to which Sorcor was forced and the conditions aboard the slave ships are particularly evocative. (They are more so amid the current-to-this-writing protests of George Floyd’s murder, Breonna Taylor’s, and far, far too many others’.) That Hobb is pulling from depictions of the Middle Passage is clear, and it is equally clear that slavery is being presented as evil even by the standards of the evil.

I cannot help but note, also, Kennit’s reluctance to engage slavers in the way Sorcor calls for him to do (ultimately successfully, it must be noted, but still). Kennit drapes himself in trappings of wealth gotten through effort, yes, but still stolen, and he frames his plans in terms that read to me remarkably like the putative American Dream; what he describes rings of suburbia in my ears. Yet for all that, Kennit resists the idea of freeing slaves and ransoming slavers, preferring the economic benefits of interfering with the slave trade to the moral imperatives of interdicting it. Again, while such issues were far from inaccessible in the context of composition, present circumstances call for a much more emphatic, and much less sympathetic, reading. Kennit may not be a slaver himself, but he is okay with slavery–so long as it makes him money, and it is only when his continued tolerance of slavery begins to threaten his economic plans that he relents and agrees to work against it.

More people need to be better about it than Kennit than are.

We’re half through the year; send me a bit to help me make it the rest of the way?

Read the previous entry in the series here.
Read the next entry in the series here.

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The following chapter, “Night Conversations,” starts with Keffria tending to her mother and her children before slipping into bed with her husband, Kyle. After they reconsummate their marriage, they fall to talking about the events surrounding the funeral. Kyle inveighs against Althea, and Keffria finds herself in agreement with him, musing on the “man’s load of decisions and work” her mother had faced instead of the genteel lives of other Trader women.

The conversation turns to Wintrow. Keffria’s hopes for and pride in him are rehearsed, only to be thwarted by Kyle rising, ostensibly to check on Althea, whom Brashen is escorting back to her family’s home. As they proceed, they banter–more drunkenly on Althea’s part than on Brashen’s. Althea vows to reclaim the Viviacia and to make Brashen her first mate when she is captain. Brashen makes note of a woodcarver’s shop–Amber’s–as they pass, and Brashen begins to muse again on his situation.

When Brashen delivers Althea to her family’s door, Kyle greets them–harshly, going so far as to swing on Brashen. The commotion rouses Ronica, who rushes in and quashes the upset, dismissing all present. Brashen stalks off towards the Paragon.

Elsewhere, the serpent Maulkin wrestles with memory, and the serpents he leads press on northward.

The present chapter shows more of the more overtly political / critical nature of the Liveship Traders novels. Keffria’s musings on her mother’s work and Kyle’s blatantly paternalistic, patriarchal attitude are foregrounded, and neither is portrayed particularly pleasantly. Keffria’s musings come off as naive and spoiled (particularly when read against Hobb’s biography, and while biographical criticism is fraught as a sole means for determining meaning, it does have some value in discussing contexts of composition), while Kyle’s conduct is stereotypical in form. Internalized and externalized patriarchy are on negative display, and not inappropriately, maugre the heads of no few who bewail “social justice warriors” in their purportedly escapist works.

It is still the case, unfortunately, that only escapist works seem apt to engage with issues of parity; the “real” world does not do much more, in the aggregate, than pay lip-service to it, when it even does so much as that. (Yes, I am aware there are exceptions. The overall tendency remains in place, however.) One of the things that escapist works do is show what could be; one thing no few works do, even those that purport to be nonfiction, is present what their writers think ought to be. For those who look at relative parity as being objectionable, I have many words, though few enough that I would include here; there are other places for me to say such things than this, and fog the air blue with those exhalations. I look with hope for such things, though, and if it makes me a fool to trumpet it, then I will be a fool, for I will not stop winding that particular horn.

Support is always appreciated.

Read the previous entry in the series here.
Read the next entry in the series here.

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The following chapter, “Loyalties,” begins amid the continuing funeral rites for Ephron Vestrit, who is buried at sea. Wintrow looks on uncomfortably throughout, not understanding the customs of the Traders. He largely escapes the notice of his family until Kyle sees him stumble and disdainfully assigns him to the new second mate, Torg. Torg puts Wintrow to work to keep him out of the way, and Wintrow struggles with the busywork.

After, when the family makes to depart the Vivacia for their home, the ship complains. More familial drama threatens to erupt, and Ronica stems it with a few quiet words to the ship and to Kyle. Wintrow is tasked to remain aboard the ship for the night after he escorts Ronica to the waiting carriage. She speaks to him of the ship, though he claims not to understand her. His unease with the quickened ship stems from his religious convictions, and the regard in which others hold him creeps into his mind. He moves to confront members of the crew and Torg, and while things go passably with the crew, Torg is another matter, entirely.

Wintrow leaves Torg and finds himself in conversation with the ship. He finds himself strangely stirred by her words.

Elsewhere, Althea drunkenly muses over her failures and regrets, and she mourns her father. Her family’s handling of the Vivacia rankles her, and she has trouble when she makes to leave. Fortunatley, Brashen is in the same tavern she is, and he makes to escort her home.

Once again, I find myself rereading affectively, sympathizing with Wintrow Vestrit in a way that was likely desired of audiences–and a fairly easy sell for the “typical” readership of fantasy novels. I have made no secret of being a nerd; if nothing else, I maintain this webspace and others (here and here), which is often regarded as being nerdy. Too, I got into grad school (and not for medicine or an MBA), which is nerdy, and I did so off of roleplaying games, which is even nerdier. And in keeping with that, I spent a lot of time in cloistered study–not unlike Wintrow, nerdy boy removed from “real” “manly” life that he is. (Yes, I have issues with it. Go figure.)

Consequently, the interactions with Torg struck something of a chord with me. I’ve known the type, as I think many have; I’ve been on the receiving end of the type, as I know too many have. And I continue, even now, to wonder how such people so often end up in positions of petty authority that they then use to berate and belittle and bedevil those about them. For they do, in life as in art, though art at least tends to offer their comeuppances for the audience’s view; the real world is less giving in that, often in keeping the comeuppance from ever happening.

Is it any wonder that I and those like me read what we do?

Can you help me make my nerdery pay?

Read the previous entry in the series here.
Read the next entry in the series here.

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A chapter titled “The Quickening of the Vivacia” follows, opening with Ephron being brought aboard the ship on a litter, as if cargo rather than the long-time captain of the vessel, while Brashen watches in pain. He helps Althea lay the man directly on the deck, and he springs to Ephron’s order to aid Althea in retrieving the peg from the figurehead, the older man praising him. They are able to return the peg to Ephron just in time to give it him before he dies, choking, and amid the revelation that the Vivacia will go to Keffira rather than to Althea.

Althea is soon wrapped up again in her grief at the loss of both her father and what she had thought was her birthright. The family fracas continues, with Kyle ranting about the incapacity of his elder son and Althea returning the peg to its hole to quicken the Vivacia, aided by Brashen. After she briefly confers with the now-wakened ship, she hears Brashen put off her decks, and, after another small fracas, she follows.

For his own part, Brashen pulls his discharge pay and tries, without success, to get a ship’s ticket–a reference for his skills at sea. He plots his next course of action with no eagerness, regretting earlier lack of thrift, but he is interrupted by Althea storming by, and he follows her once again.

I am minded as I read the chapter again of funerals I have attended, in which I have participated or to the foci of which I have been close. There have been more than a few, if less than there have been for all too many of my age, who reached adulthood just before 9/11 and the jingoistic fervor that followed it, dragging many into service and into early graves or worse. It has often been the case for me that I have acted…badly…at such events and in the days and weeks surrounding them. I am given to understand that it is not uncommon, that many people are at their worst when dealing with the deaths of others, particularly those who had been close to them as an indulgent father is to a beloved daughter. (My daughter is beloved; I do not know how indulgent I am.)

I have asserted before, I think, that one of the strengths of Hobb’s writing is its nuanced authenticity. Her characters act like people rather than like roles, and even the protagonists of her novels display behaviors and attitudes that are other than optimal. They are certainly on display in the present chapter, with the family fracas surrounding Ephron Vestrit’s death showing most of the Vestrit family other than at their best. It is still clear that readerly sympathy is directed away from Kyle Haven–the slut-shaming in which he indulges after Althea re-seats the figurehead peg is hardly a valorization–but even with that, he is not the only one acting badly.

Avoiding Mary Sue is a good thing.

Can you spare something to help me keep doing this for another year?

Read the previous entry in the series here.
Read the next entry in the series here.

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The next chapter, “Bingtown,” opens with Althea rehearsing her circumstances since her confinement to quarters. She has come to feel a deeper connection with the Vivacia and with her ancestors who have died on her decks, and what she learns from the connection leaves her with a greater appreciation for the ship–and for all ships.

The ship’s second mate, Brashen Trell, comes to check up on her, having heard that she fares poorly. Althea sets his concerns aside, but, when the Vivacia begins to come into her home port of Bingtown and Althea dresses to disembark, she sees the truth of those concerns in herself. She is further disheartened when Brahsen arrives, under orders, to remove her possessions from her cabin. An uncomfortable trip to the Vestrit home follows.

Althea’s arrival at her childhood home is not more comfortable. Her sister, Keffira, effectively ignores her, and the household staff does not recognize her. Ronica greets her, though, if bluntly, and sends her to visit Ephron in their bedchamber. He greets her as best he can, but he is in the final stages of his final illness, and he knows it, bidding her take him to the Vivacia. She rushes off to have the ship made ready to receive him, meeting with some small resistance along the way.

The rest of the family follows, Wintrow not understanding what he is to do with himself in the strange situation. The changes to his family in his absence strike him strangely, and his own liminal status as a priest makes fitting in harder for him than needs to be. And he is swept along by the family’s preparations for Ephron’s death.

Brashen wakes Althea from where she has succumbed to her grief aboard ship. As she rouses, he considers the older sailors aboard her decks and how many of them have no other home. Including him.

Hobb demonstrates a preference for emblematic names in works focused on the Six Duchies; it is not outside expectation that she would do something of the sort in other novels in the same milieu. Certainly the Divvytown that gives the previous chapter its title is something of a description of the place; it is a town in which spoils are divvied up, clearly. So I thought I would take a look at meanings for “Bingtown”; one of them I found attested is…interesting, certainly, being cited as a euphemism for intoxication. Of course, that definition postdates the novel by a few years, and even if it can be accepted that a term is in use before it is attested, it seems a bit of a stretch to think that being stoned is the image that most fits the actions of Bingtown.

Perhaps a more apt reference is to a piece in Ed Blair’s Kansas Zephyrs, “The Bingtown Band.” While the poem itself is perhaps best taken as a send-up of amateur rural musicianship, the line that “‘CASH IS KING’ is their new motto,” with the capitalization in the original and therefore prominent to even a casual glance, seems apt enough for a city founded and governed by self-styled Traders.

I continue to appreciate your backing.