The mores of Zorro

Yesterday during a quick day-trip to see my parents with my older kids we listened to a great favorite: The Mark of Zorro, a radio drama starring Val Kilmer. I reviewed it here a few years ago. It’s great. Give it a listen.

Something that struck me upon this third or fourth listen was the character of Don Diego de la Vega’s public disguise. Like his most famous imitator, Bruce Wayne, Don Diego adopts a foppish, ineffective persona to prevent his alter ego’s detection. But his playacting goes well beyond providing cover.

Almost all of the other characters have flaws, most of which are characteristic of their class. The old aristocrats of the caballeros fuss over pedigree, protocol, and inheritance. The young caballeros are idlers eager for any ruckus so long as it’s diverting. The merchants and traders care only about money, whether honest businessmen like the tavernkeeper, who is sincerely anxious about being paid by the drunken soldiers who frequent his bar, or swindlers like the hide dealer who tries to defraud a monastery. Low-class soldiers like Sergeant Gonzalez are characterized by pride, braggadocio, and pointless cruelty, while officers like Captain Ramón are pragmatically ruthless and ambitious. And the actual rulers of Alta California are either openly corrupt or easily misled by lying subordinates.

These are recognizable types—all too familiar, I’d say—and understandable. They have all given into the besetting sins of their social station.

But Don Diego’s public weaknesses go much further. Not only is he a weakling and a dandy, he is indifferent to the customs and community that usually incentivize men like him to stand up for others. Nothing has a claim on him. He “abhors violence” of any kind, views marriage as a mutually beneficial economic arrangement, pooh-poohs honor for making men “thin-skinned” and quarrelsome, and is not interested in “being a man” as he prefers simply to be “a human being.” He is a parody of modern culture.

All of which, tellingly, places him beneath contempt. Even the rapacious Captain Ramón despises him. Justifiably.

These themes are present in Johnston McCulley’s original Zorro novel, but the radio adaptation plays them up to great effect. It’s well worth your time to listen to, and think about.

Señor Zorro en la radio

I have a soft spot for swashbucklers—stories of nobility, derring-do, skill with a blade, and unflappable wit in the face of danger—and that’s almost certainly because of Zorro. We had a Disney singalong tape with the “Zorro” theme song when I was a kid, and one of my earliest memories is telling my mom that, when I grew up, I wanted to legally change my name to Zorro. Happily, she dissuaded me—not that I needed convincing once I was actually grown up.

So I shed the enthusiasm for the name but my love of swashbucklers has only deepened with time, especially once I got around to reading a bunch of the classics a few years ago—among them The Scarlet Pimpernel, Captain Blood, and my two favorites, The Prisoner of Zenda and The Mark of Zorro. The last of these introduced the world to my favorite swashbuckling hero and has been adapted for film, however loosely, several times. It’s also the basis of the excellent audio drama I want to review today.

When romance and rapiers ruled in Old California

The story takes place in “Old California,” specifically the pueblo of Reina de los Angeles—a considerably sleepier LA than we’re accustomed to imagine—and begins in medias res, as the drunken layabout Sergeant Gonzalez demands more wine of the local tavern keeper and boasts of what he plans to do when he finally catches up to the notorious bandit El Zorro. El Zorro shortly presents himself, the first of many unexpected, ninja-like appearances, and humiliates Gonzalez by slashing a Z into the brute’s cheek before disappearing, unharmed, into the night. The scene is set.

This semi-comic opening also establishes Don Diego de la Vega, the handsome young scion of one of California’s aristocratic caballero families. Don Diego is well-educated and fantastically wealthy, belonging to one of the only caballero families that seems to be thriving under the corrupt rule of California’s governor, but he’s timid, unmotivated, horrified by the violence often required of men of his station, and—relatedly—uninterested in any of the duties or recreational pursuits of his class, whether marriage, bull-fighting, or farming. He’s a dandy. No one takes him seriously.

While Gonzalez and his villainous, resentful superior, Captain Ramón, step up their hunt for Zorro, Don Diego’s father Don Alejandro puts fatherly pressure on Diego to find a wife. Don Alejandro recommends the family of Don Carlos Pulido, who has a beautiful and eligible only daughter. Don Diego duly pays the Pulidos a visit, impressing the whole family with his looks and wealth—seemingly his only good features. Doña Catalina immediately presses her daughter to marry Don Diego just to save their family, which has been caught on the wrong side of political disputes, from disaster. But their daughter, the spirited and virtuous Señorita Lolita Pulido, is repulsed by Don Diego’s foppishness and resists her parents’ insistence on the match.

Unfortunately, as Don Diego feebly pursues courtship with her she also becomes the object of Captain Ramón’s interest—but not his affections, as he is strictly an ambitious and cruel striver.

Meanwhile, Señor Zorro continues his Robin Hood attacks on corrupt officials, especially those who are cruel to the poor—the laboring peons and native indios—or clergymen like Fray Felipe, a hardworking and pious Franciscan with close ties to the Pulidos and Vegas. Captain Ramón takes extreme measures to root out Zorro, who enjoys widespread support among the downtrodden, including arresting and publicly whipping Fray Felipe on false charges. Zorro’s sudden appearance and rescue of the monk—not to mention the vengeance Zorro wreaks as a result—is one of the story’s most thrilling scenes.

There’s much more. Don Diego’s continues his tonedeaf and awkward courtship of Señorita Lolita, while she falls for a man who is Diego’s opposite in every way, the dashing and courageous Señor Zorro. The young, up and coming caballeros of Reina de los Angeles—minus Don Diego, to the derisive amusement of the other young men and the embarrassment of his father—form an honor-bound league to track down and defeat Zorro and save California from his depredations. And Captain Ramón, with increasing desperation and disregard for protocol or morality, attempts to win—or simply acquire—Señorita Lolita.

Part comedy of manners, part adventure story, part superhero thriller, part historical melodrama, party mystery (though you won’t have to try hard at all to guess Zorro’s secret identity)—the swashbuckling and charismatic central character ties all of these elements together, and by the end of The Mark of Zorro all of these threads come together in a fun and exciting climax. It’s pulp, but it’s fun, clever pulp, with a few nice surprises along the way and just the right combination of daring, danger, and death.

The audio drama

The Mark of Zorro originally appeared—as The Curse of Capistrano—in serial installments in All Story Weekly in the late summer of 1919. Over the 102 years since, the plot has been treated as disposable by its numerous adapters, but this 2010 full-cast audio dramatization by Yuri Rasovsky follows the original very faithfully. The plot is condensed and streamlined but most of the major incidents remain in three nicely constructed one-hour episodes. Señorita Lolita has been given a light feminist update, asking for a sword in the final confrontation rather than standing by for Zorro to finish the job, but these touches are purely cosmetic and don’t actually alter the story or its themes.

The music and sound effects, crucial in an audio drama like this, are also top quality, comparable to any of the well-produced stuff I grew up listening to. This dramatization, I am unsurprised to learn, earned a Grammy nomination.

The cast are excellent, with the two standouts being Val Kilmer, who successfully pulls off both the confident and strong Zorro and his weakling alter ego Don Diego with a great deal of wit, panache, and—for Señorita Lolita—charm; and Meshach Taylor as Sergeant Gonzalez, a real miles gloriosus whose swagger, braggadocio, and oblivious selfishness make him both a figure of fun and a genuine threat, especially under the leadership of Captain Ramón. Gonzalez, as my description suggests, is a literary type that goes back to the Romans, but Taylor’s performance removes him from the world of cliché and makes him a believable and entertaining character.

Keith Szarabajka as Captain Ramón and Ruth Livier as Señorita Lolita are also good, with Szarabajka’s Ramón being cold and threatening but not over-the-top. Elizabeth Peña, as Doña Catlina, Lolita’s marriage-obsessed mother, seems to be performing her part sarcastically sometimes but this does not detract from the overall production. Armin Shimerman, as the landlord of the tavern where Gonzalez runs up a huge tab, is also great fun, put-upon but ironic, and his framing narration also sets the imaginative stage quite excellently.

The Mark of Zorro was great fun to listen to both for myself, the lifelong Zorro fan, and my wife and kids. Both the six- and four-year olds enjoyed it a great deal even if they didn’t follow every contortion of the plot, and thrilled to the chases and swordfights.

What makes The Mark of Zorro great

While The Mark of Zorro is enormously entertaining, what makes the story great and worth revisiting is its serious treatment of honor and virtue. These move the plot, motivate the characters, and make their actions comprehensible.

Don Diego adopts his alter ego out of his sense of obligation to the less fortunate, the despised and abused, and the audio drama explicitly invokes the idea of noblesse oblige—an idea running all the way through but never named in the novel. (An understanding of noblesse oblige is also what’s missing in all those idiotic internet discussions of Batman as a “fascist.”) Zorro is a check on the abuses of his peers and a boon to his inferiors, and holds himself to the same exacting standards as any opponent, refusing to engage in an unfair fight, to “punch down” against an inferior with disproportionate force, or to exaggerate his deeds—or allow others to lie about him. Even his use of deception and disguise is a form of filial piety, as he does not want his vigilantism in the face of a corrupt government to endanger his innocent father. Zorro observes limits, because there are greater things than himself at stake.

And this concern with honor and virtue runs through all of the characters—all of the good ones, that is. Señorita Lolita values courage, good looks, education, and wealth, but rejects all of them when they appear in a coward. She rightly expects more, and her hierarchy of virtues, her priorities, are correct and as exacting as Don Diego’s. Don Carlos and Doña Catilina, while played for laughs at first as they attempt, with embarrassing desperation, to get her daughter to marry Don Diego, reveal hidden depths when Zorro, a man they believe to be a villain, appears in their home. Don Carlos in particular repeatedly proves himself to be tougher than he lets on. Don Alejandro, Don Diego’s father, drives his son toward marriage not out of naked interest in wealth or inheritance but out of sense of obligation and stewardship, a trait that is also highly developed in his son, as it turns out.

And even the dashing, high-living young caballeros of California’s aristocratic elite have been so formed and educated that, when they finally confront Zorro and attempt to subdue him, he wins them over not through some kind of cost-benefit analysis or politicking or rhetorical argument about rights and corruption, but by appealing to their understanding of the duty they owe thanks to their status and the honor of serving justice.

(This last was one of my favorite surprises when I first read The Mark of Zorro. As I wrote on Goodreads after that first reading, “Pay attention, Hollywood! You can use character to resolve plot, and not just bigger fight scenes!”)

The only purely pragmatic characters are the villains, especially Captain Ramón, whose virtues in a number of areas—especially courage and skill with a blade—are ruined by his resentment, his ambition, and his self-serving pragmatism. This is never clearer than when he tries to force his courtship (much too fine a word for his intentions) on Señorita Lolita. His dishonorable but effective brutality makes his comeuppance—as well as those of the venal governor of California and the boastful Sergeant Gonzalez, who nevertheless gets the last word—at the hands of the moral and law-abiding all the more satisfying. The finale of the story is almost a dramatization of Burke’s dictum that “When bad men combine, the good must associate.”

In our cynical age, a story like The Mark of Zorro comes across as black-and-white, simplistic, without the lauded “moral ambiguity” so sought after in prestige TV. But look beneath, past that platitudinous criticism, and you’ll witness a balletic dance of virtue, reputation, honor, and honesty that demonstrates, in its fun and pulpy way, just how simplistic the opposite really is.

Conclusion

This is ostensibly a review of the excellent full-cast audio drama by Hollywood Theater of the Ear, and I hope you’ll check that out and enjoy it. With holiday travel approaching as I write this, it may be an excellent way to pass three hours on the road with your family. My wife, kids, and I certainly enjoyed it over our Thanksgiving travels. But I hope you’ll seek out The Mark of Zorro in book or movie form as well. I have the Penguin Classics edition, but it is widely available from other publishers, including for free online at Project Gutenberg, and if you check out a film version, the 1940 adaptation starring Tyrone Power is loose but broadly faithful to the book and a lot of fun, with the excellent Basil Rathbone offering a serious swordfighting challenge to Señor Zorro.

2017 in Books

For the inaugural post of this new blog, I want to highlight a few of the best books I’ve read in the last year. I’ve selected five favorite books from a few broad categories in which I do a lot of reading. I’ve cheated a little, as you’ll see, since it’s always hard to limit myself to a set number, especially when it comes to a really good reading year.

These are just a handful of the books I’ve read this year. You can see the rest in my Goodreads reading challenge summary here.

Keep in mind that these are my favorites from each category, not necessarily the best—although the two mostly overlap.

Fiction

Sword of Honour, by Evelyn Waugh—The first Waugh I’ve read. Sword of Honour is a trilogy of novels about Guy Crouchback, scion of a failing English Catholic family. Despite already being in his thirties, Guy signs up for service in the British army at the outbreak of World War II, inspired by crusader forebears and a keen, traditional sense of duty. The trilogy is the story of his disillusionment in the face of modern warfare, the totally amoral pragmatism of even the good guys in modern war, and ideology—from Nazism to Communism. It’s magnificent and heartbreaking.

The Prisoner of Zenda, by Anthony Hope—One of the most enjoyable adventure stories I’ve ever read, a classic swashbuckler with a clever plot, fascinating setting (Ruritania, the forerunner of every vaguely central or eastern European state from Durmstrang to Elbonia), and enjoyable characters. I also found its old-fashioned sense of duty, honor, and obligation refreshing; if Zenda were written today, it’s ending would be totally different, and inferior. (I’ve since watched both classic film versions, and love the 1937 adaptation starring Ronald Colman.)

Emma, by Jane Austen—Jane Austen’s reputation as a master of manners, motivation, and understanding of the human heart is well earned. To read her is to despair of ever writing anything witty or insightful again. Emma is my wife’s favorite, and I can see why, though I’m still partial to Pride and Prejudice.

News of the World, by Paulette Jiles—A beautifully written novel set in a fascinating time and place: Reconstruction-era Texas, with the miasma of the Civil War still pervading the air and intermixing with the threat of Indian attack. Jefferson Kyle Kidd, an itinerant newsreader, finds himself saddled with delivering a young girl, the survivor of an Indian massacre and years of captivity, to her nearest living relatives. Brilliantly evocative of its time and place, and it also avoids romanticizing any aspect of Western life. 

The Black Flower, by Howard Bahr—A magnificent Civil War novel taking place over approximately twenty-four hours at the Battle of Franklin in 1864. The Black Flower follows Bushrod Carter, a young Mississippi infantryman, his comrades, and Anna Hereford, a cousin staying at the McGavock house, destined to become a Confederate field hospital. The battle both unites and separates them in profoundly moving ways. One of the best Civil War novels I’ve read. Bahr has two related novels that I also recommend: The Year of Jubilo and The Judas Field.

Runners Up:

A Friend of Mr. Lincoln, by Stephen Harrigan—An imaginative story set during Abraham Lincoln’s less well-known early years as a striving lawyer in frontier Illinois.

Nutshell, by Ian McEwan—A weird but clever reimagining of Hamlet, in which the melancholy Dane is Claude and Trudy’s unborn child.

The Mark of Zorro, by Johnston McCulley—Zorro has been a favorite of mine since childhood, and this is his highly entertaining—and very pulpy—debut. The 1940 film version starring Tyrone Power is also excellent.

Duel: Terror Stories, by Richard Matheson—A bit of a cheat, since I haven’t quite finished this book yet, but it’s a great collection of short fiction by an underappreciated master of the genre. The title story is excellent, the this collection includes several other really good ones, including four or five that served as the basis of “Twilight Zone” episodes.

History

The Fall of Berlin 1945, by Antony Beevor—A deeply depressing but necessary study of the last two or three months of World War II in Europe, the nearest I believe we’ve ever come to literal hell on earth. 

Brand Luther, by Andrew Pettegree—A view of Luther through his relationship with print. Turns out Luther was persnickety about more than indulgences, Zwingli, rebellious peasants, and the Jews—he demanded quality printing and exercised tight control over not just the content but the presentation of his books. I was more genuinely interested and learned more from this book than many others I’ve read in the last few years. Outstanding.

The Earth is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West, by Peter Cozzens—An excellent narrative history of the Indian Wars that presents all sides fairly, good and bad, and avoids ideological axe-grinding. It’s also a thrilling read, which isn’t necessary in a work of history but is always appreciated—especially as rare as it’s become today.

The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won, by Victor Davis Hanson—An engrossing topical history of World War II. Hanson analyzes the war from a variety of angles—command, leadership, armor, siege warfare, naval power, air power, industrial production, and many more—rather than chronologically, and pulls on some fascinating threads in order to approach the war from a fresh angle. I had the chance to interview Hanson just before Thanksgiving and hope to post a link soon.

The Autobiography of Frederick Douglass—Justly regarded as a classic. Douglass’s spare, unadorned prose, his brutal narrative, and his unflinching moral lucidity should be a challenge to any reader.

Runners Up:

Summer of Blood: England’s First Revolution, by Dan Jones—An excellent short look at the Wat Tyler rebellion, a brutal peasant uprising from the south of England crushed by a young Richard II in 1381.

Communism: A History, by Richard Pipes—An excellent short history of Communism. Pipes does not back away from pointing out what should be obvious—the problem with Communism is, and always has been, Communism.

Children’s and Picture Books

Shooting at the Stars, written and illustrated by John Hendrix—A beautifully illustrated account of the 1914 Christmas truce, one of the few bright spots in the miserable opening act of history’s bloodiest century.

The Silver Chair, by C.S. Lewis—A classic that should need no introduction. For all the Lewis I’ve read, I still haven’t read all of the Chronicles of Narnia. I’m one step closer to fixing that. Puddleglum should rank as one of the great characters of twentieth century fiction.

The Tale of Troy, by Roger Lancelyn Green—Excellent distillation and adaptation of the myriad Trojan War legends. Several passages, for all their brevity in this form, are still quite moving. 

Twenty and Ten, by Claire Huchet Bishop—A favorite from fourth or fifth grade, the story of twenty French Catholic school children who come together to protect ten Jewish children from the Nazis during World War II. 

Pompeii: Buried Alive! by Edith Kunhardt Davis, illustrated by Michael Eagle—A very good account of the destruction of Pompeii suitable for young readers. What attracted me to this book was the illustrations by Michael Eagle, who also illustrated The Trojan Horse, one of my favorite books as a child.

Runners Up:

The Princess and the Goblin, by George MacDonald
The Shakespeare Stealer and Shakespeare’s Scribe, by Gary Blackwood
Found, by Sally Lloyd-Jones, illustrated by Jago
Medallion, by Dawn L. Watkins

Classics

How to Grow Old, by Cicero—A translation of De Senectute (On Old Age), one of a batch of philosophical treatises Cicero produced in his last two years of life. A very good meditation on aging—not just consolation as one grows older, but encouragement to embrace the changes and positives of age in accordance with the Stoic principles of Reason and Nature. Excellent.

The Saga of the Volsungs, translated by Jackson Crawford—An excellent new translation of one of the great pieces of Norse literature, the source of most of our stories about Sigurd, the dragon-slayer, and his violent family. This edition includes a sequel of sorts, The Saga of Ragnar Lothbrok, which I had never read before. If you haven’t subscribe to Crawford’s excellent YouTube channel and follow him on Twitter. He’s one of the best academic social media presences out there.

Jason and the Argonauts, by Apollonius of Rhodes—A fun adventure from the Hellenistic Age, combining subversion of literary convention with real excitement and pathos. It’s also short compared to something like the Iliad, so if you’re trying to read some classics but you’re on a tight schedule, check it out.

Beowulf, translated by Stephen Mitchell—A good new translation of one of my favorite books. I still prefer those of Seamus Heaney or Michael Alexander, but this is a solid new one and was good excuse for me to reread it over Christmas.

The Aeneid, by Virgil, translated by David Ferry—My second cheat of this list. I got this acclaimed new translation with my Christmas money and have been enjoying it since. It’s been better than a decade since I read the Aeneid, and that’s too long. This coincided with my grandfather’s passing at the age of ninety, and so fathers, leadership, and honor have been on my mind. Virgil is excellent food for the soul under those conditions.

* * * * *

I planned to cover a few books I reread this year, but this piece is quite long enough already.

I’d be remiss if I let this opportunity pass to plug a book I read and reread several times this year as I prepared it for publication—Dark Full of Enemies. Please do check it out if you’re interested, and let me know if you do. I hope it’ll be an entertaining and thought-provoking adventure for you.

I’m looking forward to the new year, to new projects of my own, and to new books to discover and read. I hope you’ve all had a merry Christmas and that you have a happy new year!