"He's Looney, I Tell You!"

 

Matthew Looney and the Space Pirates (1972), by Jerome Beatty Jr. (Illustrations by Gahan Wilson)

This Sunday I finally read Matthew Looney and the Space Pirates after having it in my library for well over a decade. It was bought at one of the now defunct Half Price Books, mainly as a ‘remembrance’ of the first Matthew Looney book read back in grade school, but never browsed for fear of ‘spoilers’ about the two volumes published in between. Well, now I’ve recently bought and read the previous three books, so this Sunday I finally sat down and read Matthew Looney and the Space Pirates.

I found it a pleasant read, but nowhere near as innovative as the first three, which, admittedly, had the advantage of setting things up and exploring their oddities.  I think it benefitted by my having read the previous books; it would have been harder to follow otherwise. MLSP follows the adventures of Matthew Looney, who has advanced through the books from a Cabin Boy to a Commander, and who, in the face of further encroachments from the Earth, is sent on an expedition to found a Moon colony on the distant uninhabited world of Freeholy. This is complicated first by the machinations of his old frenemy, Hector Hornblower (who blows his own horn while hectoring his way into situations), who weasels his way onto the expedition, then by space pirates who locate and hijack their spaceship thanks to Hector’s carelessness. Matthew is set adrift by the pirates into space, and the rest of the tale involves his rescue and his adventures to overcome the pirates and save the expedition.

This was the last of the Matthew adventures in the Looney series by Jerome Beatty. There are three others featuring Matthew’s younger sister, Maria. I shall probably wait a bit before trying to get them; at least two are in the $30 range on Amazon. But I do want to eventually complete the sequence. 

Into the Archives: Lunacy and Piracy

Matthew Looney in the Outback: A Space Story (1969), by Jerome Beatty Jr. (Illustrated by Gahan Wilson) Avon/Camelot, 223 pages.

“Because of tense conditions between moonsters and earthlings, moon man Looney is sent to establish a peaceful colony on a new planet. Sidetracked to Earth, he discovers that a bomb will soon destroy the world and decides to try to prevent the holocaust.” – Google Books.

“Jerome M. Beatty Jr. (December 9, 1916 — July 31, 2002) was a 20th-century American author of children's literature. He was also an accomplished feature writer for magazines. Beatty served in the United States Army, achieving the rank of corporal, and is buried at the Massachusetts National Cemetery.” – Goodreads.

Okay, I got this book in the mail on Friday, but due to circumstances I only read a little bit of it over the past few days. It is a Third Printing, from after 1973 (the first printing was in 1969, the year we actually landed on the moon) and while it has some wear and aging is in good condition. As of today, I’m only about a third of the way through, but I intend to spend the rest of the day polishing it off.  After I finish, then (in time) I will read Matthew Looney and the Space Pirates, then rest a while until I consider getting the Maria Looney books. After I read Outback and Space Pirates, I am not sure if I will publish a full review of them or a meditation on the Matthew Looney books. All I can say at the moment is I think this book definitely would not benefit if read as a ‘standalone’ but does well enough as part of a continuity.

Before I began working on this entry, I went back to see what I had written about the Looney books before and was a little intrigued to discover how my memories and understanding of them evolved over time. I went from almost forgetting about them to thinking I had read two or three of them to realizing I had only read one of them back in the day to learning more about the series and the author himself. It has been an interesting exercise in childhood and cultural memory, analysis, and tidying up loose ends.

Laughing Shall I Die: Lives and Deaths of the Great Vikings (Paperback/‘Softcover’, November 22, 2021, 368 pages, Reaktion Books) by Tom Shippey

Laughing Shall I Die explores the Viking fascination with scenes of heroic death. The literature of the Vikings is dominated by famous last stands, famous last words, death songs, and defiant gestures, all presented with grim humor. Much of this mindset is markedly alien to modern sentiment, and academics have accordingly shunned it. And yet, it is this same worldview that has always powered the popular public image of the Vikings—with their berserkers, valkyries, and cults of Valhalla and Ragnarok—and has also been surprisingly corroborated by archaeological discoveries such as the Ridgeway massacre site in Dorset.

“Was it this mindset that powered the sudden eruption of the Vikings onto the European scene? Was it a belief in heroic death that made them so lastingly successful against so many bellicose opponents? Weighing the evidence of sagas and poems against the accounts of the Vikings’ victims, Tom Shippey considers these questions as he plumbs the complexities of Viking psychology. Along the way, he recounts many of the great bravura scenes of Old Norse literature, including the Fall of the House of the Skjoldungs, the clash between the two great longships Ironbeard and Long Serpent, and the death of Thormod the skald. One of the most exciting books on Vikings for a generation, Laughing Shall I Die presents Vikings for what they were: not peaceful explorers and traders, but warriors, marauders, and storytellers.” – Amazon.

Tom Shippey is of course one of the best-known and highly regarded scholarly authorities on Tolkien and his works, but before that he made his career as an expert in Norse literature, be it Old English, Icelandic, or Scandinavian. I got this book in the mail (late Saturday afternoon) and while otherwise engaged gave it a quick riffle and read a few sample passages. I was immediately hooked by the highly readable style, more reminiscent to me of a bardic retelling rather than an academic treatise, although his skillful weaving of facts from scattered sources shows the deep learning that has gone into this work. I can hardly wait to get into it. It strikes me that this is a volume that might well appeal to my nephew Joey (his nickname is ‘Viking’, though his interests at the moment are more on the pop cultural level) if we could interest him in it somehow. 

"The fact is that in the Vikings own language, Old Norse, vikingr just meant pirate, marauder. It wasn't an ethnic label, it was a job description. And what this means for us is that if you come across headlines - as these days you very often do - which say something like 'Vikings! Not just raiders and looters anymore!' then the headlines are wrong. If people weren't raiding and looting (and land-grabbing, and collecting protection money), then they had stopped being Vikings. They were just Scandinavians. But while most Vikings were Scandinavian, most Scandinavians definitely weren't Vikings, not even part-time. The two groups should not be confused, not even with the aim of making 'the history of the Vikings' look nicer." - from The Introduction, by Shippey.

Into the Archives: Matthew Looney and the Invasion of Earth

 

Matthew Looney and the Invasion of Earth, by Jerome Beatty Jr. Illustrations by Gahan Wilson. (Avon/Camelot 1965; this 4^th Printing 1972)

“The Moon People realize there is life on Earth because the Earth has bombed the Moon! The expeditionary force sent to invade Earth is successful this time in finding living creatures. Terrified by what they interpret as water bullets hurled at them from the sky, the spacemen flee in such haste that they leave Matthew behind. So, to Matthew alone belongs the glory of finally meeting the EARTH people and bringing a dangerous specimen back to the Moon.” – from the back of the book. ‘Matthew Looney combines the ingenuity of Buck Rogers with the charm of Charlie Brown.’ – The New York Times.

          A piece of space junk (a probe?) crashes on the Moon just as Matthew Looney, now a Spaceman First Class, is prepared for a second journey to Earth with his space-hero Uncle Lucky. They are to be joined by Hector Hornblower, Matthew’s frenemy and rival, who will be Cabin Boy this time. Not exactly evil, but he's proud and envious, sort of the Eddie Haskell of outer space.  The sudden ‘attack’ on the Moon indicates that there is far more advanced life on Earth than they knew.

This changes their mission: it becomes first, to make contact and secure a peace treaty and second, failing that, to use powerful ‘Lava-Four’ bombs to destroy the Earth. The ship is refitted for the new mission.

They have traced the trajectory of the ‘bomb’ to Florida, so they head there accordingly. This place is unfortunately surrounded and soaked with the theoretically deadly substance ‘water’. They land, and when Matthew and his Uncle separate to do some scouting, they encounter flamingos and alligators, which are taken to be possible Earthlings. A sudden rain is interpreted as an attack, and in the commotion to return to the ship and escape, Matthew (partly through the malice of Hector) is left behind. There is not enough fuel to land and take off again, so Uncle Lucky and crew are reluctantly forced to return to the Moon and leave Matthew stranded.

Things look pretty bad when Matthew is captured by Wiley Kalmuck, a grumpy security official at Cape Canaveral, who locks him up as a childish prankster on government property. But Dr. Leonard O. Davinchy is soon convinced of his story when Matthew demonstrates some of his high tech, melting his prison door with a ray gun and using his anti-gravity device to float up to the ceiling.

It is decided that, with the help of this device, they will secretly speed up their own proposed launch to the Moon and return Matthew home. Matthew only agrees after the government has signed a non-aggression pact with the Moon. He, Kalmuck, and Davinchy blast off.

Once there, however, Kalmuck reveals that the treaty has been secretly altered and is not worth the paper it is written on. The Earth ship is equipped with a nuclear warhead which he threatens to use if the Moon does not surrender. But, not being used to the lighter gravity, he accidentally launches himself upward, and is soon subdued.

Davinchy, being a much more peaceable man (how old is this trope of the gung-ho war hawk as opposed to the reasonable scientist?) agrees to return to the Earth to procure a proper treaty with all the nations of the Earth, as opposed to being Lava-Four bombed into oblivion.  

To Matthew’s delight, as it is a three-man rocket, Hector is shanghaied into being the third ‘man’ and is soon winging his way unwillingly back to Earth. And here the book ends.

Well, that settles that point: I have no memory of this volume, so Journey is the only Matthew Looney book I ever read. This copy of Invasion is much smaller than the reprint of Journey and is in pretty good shape for a 52-year-old paperback kid’s book. I am enjoying this trip to an Alternate Childhood, and can hardly wait to get the next in the series, Matthew Looney in the Outback (put a shrimp on the barbie!); after that I can finally read Matthew Looney and the Space Pirates (‘you know, pirates … but in space!’) which I’ve had for years.  

Into the Archives: Two Tiny Tomes

Catholic Tales and Christian Songs (1918), by Dorothy L. Sayers (This edition 2015; a mere 33 pages)

I had this volume on Kindle, but the way it was laid out annoyed me. Then when I got this actual book on Thursday, I opened it and saw it was laid out the same way, every verse bunched up into a paragraph instead of laid out as a verse as Sayers intended. I imagine the company just printed the Kindle edition. This is why you should read the reader reviews on Amazon. The poetry is very good, however; I must still be on the lookout for a better reading copy.

 

Matthew Looney’s Voyage to Earth (1961), by Jerome Beatty, Jr. (An Avalon/Camelot Book; this reprint 2019; 133 pages)

“Matthew Looney is the title character in a series of four science fiction books for children by Jerome Beatty Jr (1916—2002). Matthew's sister Maria Looney is the title character in Beatty's three subsequent books. The entire Looney series is illustrated by the renowned cartoonist Gahan Wilson.” – Wikipedia.

This is the one volume in the Matthew and Maria Looney series that I am absolutely sure I read back in the 4^th Grade (1972-1973); by then it had been at least a dozen years and we had actually gone to the Moon in the meantime, a fact that was woven into subsequent Looney books, I understand. Until now I had only had Matthew Looney and the Space Pirates (1972) bought at Half Price Books many years later, and which I have never read for fear of ‘spoilers’ on the middle Matthew books. I may now read it soon. I already have the 2^nd book, Matthew Looney and the Invasion of Earth, on order, and I’m not sure but I seem to have vague memories of reading it. The proof will be in the pudding. I will probably stop when I have all the Matthew books but may get the Maria books at a later time. This 2019 reprint has amazingly large margins, at least an inch wider all around than the old editions.

I spent all Friday taking a break from reading Maurice Baring Restored and spent the time breezing through Voyage on a nostalgic journey. I have written elsewhere how the Looney books were one of the three science fiction series that I read before Star Trek happened to us (the other two were the Sprockets and Mushroom Planet books). As I read, old synapses were sparked into life, old memories emerged, and my literary thoughts were brought to bear on a vanished form of writing for children.

Part of these delights were the illustrations by Gahan Wilson, who in 1961 was not quite as ‘renowned’ as he would become. But even then, his simple designs were masterpieces of showing emotion and character. His Moon people are rather like a cross between Charlie Brown with Gidney and Cloyd from Rocky and Bullwinkle,

or Quisp,

another product of Jay Ward’s animation. I remember they also recalled to me the Tang mascots at the time,

Moon people who were popular in the wake of the powdered orange drink’s voyage to our satellite. We had a little ‘ramp walker’ prize from a Tang jar, like this but yellow, and the flag had a stars and stripes sticker.

Oh, the story. Matthew Looney gets the job as cabin boy on his Uncle Lucky’s expedition to Earth. There is quite a bit of business explaining how the Moon people live. They think that because Earth has so much deadly, deadly sunshine, water, and oxygen, that life as they know it is unlikely there. If it exists, it must be in the cooler polar regions, which is where they visit. Matthew smuggles his pet ‘murtle’ (basically a long-tailed turtle) along with him which gets him into trouble. But the murtle’s actions when he escapes from Matthew prove that the planet may not be as barren as they think.

Here are all the Looney books, in order of publication. You can see all the covers elsewhere in this blog by searching 'Matthew Looney'.

• Matthew Looney's Voyage to the Earth (1961)
• Matthew Looney's Invasion of the Earth (1965)
• Matthew Looney in the Outback (1969)
• Matthew Looney and the Space Pirates (1972)
• Maria Looney on the Red Planet (1977)
• Maria Looney and the Cosmic Circus (1978)
• Maria Looney and the Remarkable Robot (1978)

 

Items from the Wish List: Matthew and Maria Looney

Matthew Looney's Voyage to the Earth: A Space Story by Jerome Beatty Jr., Gahan Wilson 

Matthew Looney's Invasion of the Earth by Jerome Beatty Jr. and Gahan Wilson

Matthew Looney in the Outback by Jerome Beatty Jr., Gahan Wilson

Maria Looney on the Red Planet by Jerome Beatty Jr., Gahan Wilson

Maria Looney and the Cosmic Circus by Jerome Beatty Jr., Gahan Wilson

Maria Looney and the Remarkable Robot by Jerome Beatty Jr., Gahan Wilson

I was rather fond of the two or three books available in this series when I was in grade school. Matthew Looney's design kind of reminded me of Charlie Brown or the Moon Men on "Rocky and Bullwinkle", and maybe even a little of Quisp. Of course, I had no idea who Gahan Wilson was back then.