Boiled Hippo

Sounds yummy!

This week, your eclectic essayist ventured to The Discovery City, Columbus, Ohio. How does the strange title allude to this trip? Air travel, of course! I do not eschew obfuscation.

My business visit to Ohio's capital necessitated a plane ride. Despite hurtling 30,000 feet above terra firma in excess of 500mph in a cylindrical conveyance which does not accommodate my size, I don't mind flying. I just need a book to distract from the innate horror of plummeting to a fiery demise.

For this journey I chose, And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks. Written in 1945 by William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, it predates their Beat Generation notoriety. Rejected by publishers in the 40s, the book was not printed until 2008.

The co-authors alternated writing chapters. Imitating a pot-boiler detective story, Hippos lacks Kerouac's spontaneous rhythm and Burrough's non-liner, cut-up technique. While reviewers saw the book as flat, I enjoyed this peek at two emerging talents. The book shows glimpses of Burrough's sardonic humor and Kerouac's impromptu prose.

The story is based on Lucien Carr's murder of David Kammerer. Carr was a student at Columbia University introduced to the Beat's inner circle by Allen Ginsberg. Kammerer was older and had been infatuated with Carr for years.

Sensitivity did not seem to be an issue when the two tried to sell the book in the 40s. But later, their friendship of Carr, who served his time and landed a respectable job with the Associated Press, kept the book under the floorboards. Yet the tell-tale beat of its notoriety sounded for over sixty years. Carr died in 2005 and Hippo saw light of day in 2008.

Many view the title as the book's most interesting feature. The gory, bizarre, enigmatic visual captivates. Burrough's claimed phrase came from a radio report of a circus fire. He believed it made a perfect title for a book. Kerouac agreed it was a radio report, but of a fire in a London Zoo. In later interviews he said an Egyptian zoo.

After my trek to the Buckeye State, my favorite part of the book were the double-takes I received from people who espied the title as I read. As ever- BB

“I began to get a feeling (...) of being the only sane man in a nut house. It doesn't make you feel superior but depressed and scared, because there is nobody you can contact.” - William Burroughs, And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks