On A Mission

I've been reading The Octopus, by Frank Norris. He wrote it around 1900. It's a novel based on the Southern Pacific's rapacious profiteering at the expense of the farmers of California.

It's based on fact, but fairly loosely. Most of the action takes place in Tulare County, which is maybe 150 miles southeast of where I live here, but as I'm reading the book, I'm thinking "Boy, this fictional mission in the book sure does sound a lot like Mission San Juan Bautista. It has a big dramatic view of the valley below, just like San Juan Bautista. It has a walled garden just like San Juan Bautista. It's in the middle of nowhere just like San Juan Bautista."

Well, sure enough, I finish the book on Sunday night after Tony and Jeff and I got back from San Juan Bautista, and in the afterword, the editor mentions that Norris, who lived in Hollister while he was writing the book, never set foot in Tulare County, and he based the two fictional towns in the book, Bonneville and Guadalajara on Hollister and San Juan Bautista, respectively.

Having been to Tulare County myself, I gotta say Norris made the right call. Tulare County is boring as all hell. Just hot, flat and boring. Not a place to go for a culturally enriching experience. I don't know if they even have a mission down there, but if they do, it probably looks like a Sizzler.

'Cause it is just that boring.

San Juan Bautista, on the other hand, is a really inspiring place. It's in "Vertigo," you know.

And it doesn't look that much different from what it looked like when Norris wrote The Octopus. The Mission is still a functioning parish, and for a suggested donation of three bucks you can tour the walled garden where the character Vanname pines for his departed sweetheart in a series of rhapsodic Fin de Ciècle internal monologues. And the buildings on the perimeter of the mission plaza are part of a state park. They're all very historical too. There's a livery stable, a hotel, and the cutest little jail. And a block from the Mission there's Third Street where they have antique shops and all that tourist stuff.

It's all very charming and colorful. In fact, I might have to set one of my murder mysteries there someday. Maybe one of those historical murder mysteries where a shot rings out in the crowded saloon.

A woman shrieks! And Don Saguero, proprietor of the Rancho de Baños crumples to the floor. As the life leaves the Old Vaquero's body, shiny nuggets roll from his hand. Gold!

See what I mean? No way something like that is gonna happen in Tulare County.

Kurt "big daddy" True
1 june 2005