Are you tired? Run down? Listless?

[chanaleh]

I recently reread Dorothy Sayers' Murder Must Advertise (thank you again, muchabstracted!), and one of the early-20th-century products that figures prominently in the book is "nerve food".

The specific version that comes into the plot is a fictitious brand called Nutrax. But any reference in books to "nerve food" always calls to my mind C.S. Lewis' The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which opens with the memorable line "There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it", and goes on to say of Eustace's parents, "They were very up-to-date and advanced people. They were vegetarians, non-smokers and teetotallers and wore a special kind of underclothes." As many of you will recall, there's this bit a little later in the exposition where Caspian has rescued the three children and orders them spiced wine, and Eustace "began to cry again and asked if they hadn't any Plumptree's Vitaminised Nerve Food and could it be made with distilled water and ....".

The fact is that this whole characterization is pretty damning of both Eustace (who at least grows out of it over the course of this book) and his parents, whom Lewis was painting clearly as the progressive liberal yuppies of their day, though the subtleties were lost on my eight-year-old self. They are also described somewhere else in the books (I can't find the citation) as "freethinkers", which I only learned much later had the specific technical meaning of "atheists".

Google showed me a lovely insight from Slate that is credited only to "HLS" with a broken link "here" regarding "the magical symbolism of Turkish Delight in Narnia". The only extant cached copy seems to be on this "printable" Slate page, so I am grabbing their excerpt for posterity:

…I think it's reasonable to suppose that Lewis knew Turkish Delight was not the world's greatest candy. In fact, that is likely why he chose to use it. Edmund, at the stage when he requests Turkish Delight, is a very conventional and very mean-spirited little boy. Lewis often used poor taste in food as a stand-in for poor character. For example, in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Eustace Clarence Scrubb is another unpleasant child, who demands "Plumptree's Vitaminised Nerve Food" instead of delicious spiced wine. Eustace was a product of his parents, who Lewis disapprovingly reports were "vegetarians, non-smokers and teetotalers and wore a special kind of underclothes" -- in other words, lacking the taste to celebrate the gifts of good food and drink. In short, Lewis saw a love of good things, like food, as healthy, and a rejection of good things in favour of bad things (sometimes in the name of health or progress) as a twisting of the meaning of health and normalcy. Bad taste in food, for Lewis, is a symbol of being morally or imaginatively stunted. It shows a lack of discernment, which (without getting overly religious) can be symbolic of a lack of spiritual or moral discernment. Similar metaphors are used repeatedly in Biblical settings, the inability to sense (see, hear, smell, touch, or taste) standing in for the inability to understand the truth of God, prophecy, and redemption.

A positive part of being a child -- and certainly children fare much better than adults in Narnia -- was being uncorrupted by what you "ought" to like or what was "practical" and instead understanding naturally which things were good. When Edmund demands Turkish Delight as his candy, it highlights the fact that he does not at this time possess the rudimentary facility to know that Turkish Delight is lousy candy compared to something like chocolate. His poor choice of candy is a symbol of his mean and, in a bad sense, very "ordinary" nature (quite unsuited to Narnia), which leads to his worse choice of siding with evil…

Lewis (whom I personally love, btw, as the only Christian theologian I can actually get behind) is kind of like Ayn Rand in this way: you are left in no doubt as to how he wants you to feel about a particular character at any given moment.

Anyway. So the point is, I have always wondered, ever since reading the Narnia books as a kid: what the hell WAS this stuff? Clearly a minor industry of some kind, a nutritional supplement, a patent medicine -- but what exactly? I tended to picture it as something like Bragg's Liquid Aminos, or maybe some kind of herbal tincture.

Now, this won't be news to all you Moxie fans, but I found this article on Nerve Food as a class of beverage that clearly identifies them as phosphate beverages. In other words: the direct precursor to the common soft drink. Or, y'know, as they still say 'round these parts, tonic.

Modern soft drinks are heavily based on phosphoric acid, or else citric acid. But right up through the 1950s you would commonly get phosphate sodas at the soda fountain.

Ironically, while phosphates might once have been a useful dietary supplement, beverages based on phosphorus are now so prevalent in our society that we're overloaded. The body processes calcium and phosphorus together (along with magnesium), and if the available ratio gets out of balance, the body will pull calcium from the bones to process the phosphorus. This is not even to get into the problems of dumping those regular quantities of refined sugar OR artificial sweeteners into your system, or for that matter caffeine (not that I can be self-righteous about that one). Instead of "tonic", we ought to start calling it "toxic".

All of this also makes me think how completely lost all the cultural overtones of *our* modern consumer society will be on readers even a century hence. Suppose you write a story where one character reaches for a can of Mountain Dew and another a pomegranate SoBe Lifewater... in a few decades, who's going to grasp the difference? (One can hope.)

Comments

[netpositive.livejournal.com]

While I like all of Sayers' work, I do think _MMA_ may be my secret favorite because of the characters, the humor and the sheer fluidity of her language in going on the flights of fancy about the advertising world.

Have you ever seen the BBC miniseries version of MMA? It features Paul Darrow, the man who played Avon on _Blake's Seven_, as Tallboy, which was an utterly awesome surprise.

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

I haven't! I don't think I've yet seen ANY Dorothy Sayers adaptations, including Gaudy Night which red_queen has so often tried to show me.

I enjoyed a lot of the digs at manufactured consumer culture: the more they spend to advertise a thing, the surer a sign that no one actually needs it, and so on. :-)

[netpositive.livejournal.com]

Ah, I have both the major sets of BBC adaptations, Carmichael (the early ones) and Petherbridge (the 3 main books w/Harriet) and have been through them more than once. The TV equivalent of comfort food. :) I find each actor has good and bad points for me. Petherbridge looks more like I imagine Peter and being thinner he seems more athletic, but Carmichael just sounds better and has more of the character quirks -- I think he really masters the facetious aspect *I* like the most, the ability to spout superfluous hypereducated yet fluffy badinage while the brain is ticking away behind the mask.

Even products from just a generation ago can be so obscure! I'm *mumble* old enough, or have hung out with old enough people ;) to get a lot of the pop-culture references in _Bored of the Rings_ which was published in back 1969, but it's even funnier for people 10 years older who remember ads for things like Serutan. :)

[jicama]

Suppose you write a story where one character reaches for a can of Mountain Dew and another a pomegranate SoBe Lifewater... in a few decades, who's going to grasp the difference?

What is the difference, nutritionally? One is carbonated and the other isn't? HFCS vs fructose? Both are flavored acidic sugar-water.

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Oh, well, yes. Nutritionally, they're equivalent; I was thinking in terms of subculture affiliations. :-)

[trowa-barton.livejournal.com]

Don't forget: There are at least 7 known types of Mountain Dew.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

possess the rudimentary facility to know that Turkish Delight is lousy candy compared to something like chocolate.

I think this came up at some point in the past: There are two kinds of turkish delight.
From Wikipedia: "Turkish delight (Lokum) is a confection that in the West is frequently manufactured from starch and sugar, but which in the Middle East takes a variety of forms more subtle, including premium varieties made almost solely of chopped dates, pistachios and hazelnuts or walnuts."

Having had the good stuff, I will note that it is, in fact, delightful and fully worthy of Edward stuffing his face with it.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

Real Turkish Delight from the Middle East is in fact delightful. It's full of nuts and subtly flavored with rose water, just really lovely stuff. The stuff they sell in England, though, is vile.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

The only good Turkish Delight I ever had I bought when I was in London, though.

Mind you -- we bought it from a stand run by a couple Turkish people who made it themselves.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if that counts or not. :)

I think more what I meant is that Anglicized Turkish Delight is not at all the same as traditional Turkish Delight. That doesn't mean you can't find traditional Turkish Delight in England.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Well. . . it's somewhat similar in shape, sometimes. It may have no similarities in color, flavor, or smell, but it's sorta the same shape.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

Ha!

[besamim.livejournal.com]

The only Turkish delight I've ever sampled is the chocolate-coated Big Turk candy bar. Yeah, it's not great.

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

I have to say that, having been in Turkey and having tried many of the different Turkish Delights, but also many of the honey pastries more like baklava, that were I there, Turkish Delight is not the dessert I would be stuffing my face with. :)

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

"special kind of underclothes" suggested to me they were Mormons.

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

That's what I was thinking, but I'm not sure that Lewis didn't mean patent undergarments of the type meant to stimulate the blood. Those were pretty common in that era.

[fredrickegerman.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think Kellogg was very attached to them. But I also get the feeling they had strong associations with the teetotaler / clean living crowd (especially wool ones), which may be one of the reasons they were incorporated into Mormonism. Or vice versa (ie Mormonism -> clean living).

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

That could very well be. Kellogg and the crowd he attracted were in to a lot of very strange things. My favorite depiction of this is Boyle's The Road to Wellville.

[melopoeia.livejournal.com]

I've liked C.S. Lewis less and less as I've gotten older. But it amusing to think of modern soft drinks starting out as "health" drinks. I find myself thinking of garbage like Crystal Light. I remember hearing about sasparilla advertised as a medicinal...

[cycon.livejournal.com]

Why do you think "soda shoppes" began as an extension of pharmacies? Even Coca-Cola was originally concieved as medicine — cocaine and all.

[fredrickegerman.livejournal.com]

The roots of soda in health food go back to the early 1600s at least, and it looks like they go back much further than that. The earliest known mead recipe in English, if followed to the letter, yields something akin to thyme-flavored pepsi (you drink it while it's still actively fermenting, barely alcoholic, and *really* sweet).

It is a pretty bitter irony. But it explains why Coke and Moxie are flavored with funny-flavored herbs and phosphoric acid and why Dr. Pepper is made from prunes.

We used to drink Ginseng soda on my high school cross country team (this was back before anyone had heard of ginseng, and only chinese groceries sold the stuff). If you think Moxie tastes like dirt... But quite invigorating a tonic, let me tell you.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

Suppose you write a story where one character reaches for a can of Mountain Dew and another a pomegranate SoBe Lifewater... in a few decades, who's going to grasp the difference?

I feel like I had a post about this a couple months ago, regarding a book written in the eighties where a character orders white wine but didn't specify what kind. I could tell this was supposed to be significant, but couldn't parse whether this was supposed to reveal the character was sophisticated, pretentious, ignorant, or one of these things but pretending to be another. I've had similar issues with some old movies, where you can't tell whether they're wearing clothes that are cutting edge, normal, or several years out of date. Someone put a lot of thought into revealing character through how they dress, what they drive, what they eat, etc, but the tools to interpret that are totally gone.

[seventorches.livejournal.com]

There's a scene like that in CHANCE by Robert B. Parker, and it's pretty clear what the POV narrator's opinion is (Spenser is often a snob, frankly) even 25 years later. I would suggest that if you can't parse it, that's a weakness in the writing (or perhaps it's unusual strength if you can?)

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

Oh, the writing in this case was generally unimpressive. And I agree that the author should have enough detail that even if you can't parse one reference, you should be able to grasp the character. But still, it's an interesting problem. In real life, I would feel like I'd learned something different if I found out that someone drove a Honda vs. an Audi vs. a Ford. But I'm not quite sure that I'd be able to tell that kind of information for a story set in, say the 50s. Or what different types of carriages imply in the 1850s, for that matter.

[trowa-barton.livejournal.com]

I would like to read a story in which someone tries to make their own soft drinks.
(I've been experimenting with flavors off hammercock's Sodastream)

[dpolicar]

I definitely need more lists.

As for "even a century hence"... well, sure. Not to mention lost on readers even a thousand miles in any direction. That's the risk one takes when being topical.

I often think about this in the context of organic foods.

[inseriatim.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the fascinating post! (from a fellow lover of C.S. Lewis)

[fredrickegerman.livejournal.com]

Speaking of healthy tonics, the one advertising campaign I associate with Dorothy Sayers is the Guiness Toucan:

If he can say as you can

Guinness is good for you

How grand to be a Toucan

Just think what Toucan do

<\quote>
As noted on her wikipedia bio, though it came up in the literary biographies I read for a high school term paper.

Life imitating art, or something.

[marmota.livejournal.com]

Coke Sued for Fraudulent Claims on Obesity-Promoting “VitaminWater”:
http://www.cspinet.org/new/200901151.html