Feinberg: Lincoln a novel theme
By Neil Feinberg/ CNC Columnist
Thursday, June 16, 2005
It's been a well-documented (at least in this column) fact that Hollywood has received great inspiration from the stories of Lincoln. Over the decades many movies, from old-time classics like "Gone with the Wind" (the story of the Heck House demolition) to current flicks like the "Lords of Dogtown" (which chronicles the Lincoln Conservation
Commission's attempts to rule Mt. Misery) have used Lincoln themes to create box office hits.
Now it appears that the book publishing world has jumped on the creative bandwagon. A random perusal of current hardcover and paperback bestseller lists reveals many fiction and non-fiction books that borrow heavily from Lincoln stories. Consider the following:
Revenge of the Sith - Is there no end to coverage of the Heck saga? This one's already a blockbuster movie. It's also a best-selling book. It's the timeless story of the epic battle between the Old Republic (selectmen) and the Empire (Rural Land Foundation trustees) for control of the Lincoln galaxy.
Once allies, these two galactic bodies have a falling out over the planet Heck. The Empire finds nothing of value there and wants to destroy the planet so it can rebuild it more to its liking. The Republic wants to preserve everything on the planet as it is, except for adding more affordable housing. We won't give away the plot other than to say that warriors Sarah Cannon Holden and Roger Bergen square off in a light saber duel for a climactic finish.
Freakanomics - This is the shocking account of the town's desperate attempt to increase revenues by allowing a giant Wal-Mart to open on the former Bunsai Gakuen site along Route 2. The town reaps a tax windfall, but traffic on Sandy Pond Road goes up by about 1,000 percent.
The Closers - Here's another take on the Mt. Misery brouhaha. This top-selling
mystery explores the Conservation Commission's motivations for shutting off Mt. Misery to unleashed dogs.
Commission Chairman Mary Lincoln freely admitted the commission has no data to support the argument that dogs have caused environmental degradation. And there were just as many people who commented that they felt safe in the area knowing there were other dog-walkers around as there were those who felt threatened by off-leash dogs. So where's the urgency to make new rules? Could it be some kind of conspiracy? All we can say is that dog-fearing aliens are involved.
Velocity - This supernatural best-seller by Dean Koontz tells the story of a speeding Lincoln driver who, while on his way home from Waltham in his new convertible, hits one of the Winter Street speed bumps at 60 mph. He's propelled out of his vehicle as if shot from a cannon, landing more than a mile away in Sandy Pond. When he wakes up, he finds that the experience has left him with special night vision powers. The Water Department hires him for nocturnal goose-hunting around the town's water supply.
In the Company of Cheerful Ladies - This Ladies' Detective Agency mystery involves a search for the Lincoln League of Women Voters. What happened to this group? Two years ago they were a vibrant force in Lincoln town politics, monitoring town meetings, offering opinions on town issues and hosting Candidates Night. Last year they fell off the planet. The town didn't even have a forum for candidates this past March, not that it mattered much with zero contested races.
The DaVinci Code - This best-selling author's theory is that long before Thoreau hung out at Flint's and Walden Ponds, Leonardo DaVinci visited the area, carving a secret code for eliminating a curse into the trunk of a spreading chestnut tree. Once Stephen King managed to decipher the 500-year-old code last year, the Red Sox were able to win the World Series. It turns out that it was Leonardo, not the Bambino, who had caused that curse.
Wow, with this many books about Lincoln, we're going to need our own Dewey Decimal classification.
Neil Feinberg is a Lincoln resident and a regular columnist for the Lincoln Journal. | |
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