A Picaresque Tale

This past week, I began reading "The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle", an eighteenth century novel by Tobias Smollett, and one of the archetypal picaresque tales.  "What is a picaresque tale?" you might ask, assuming you are locked in a sensory-deprivation chamber and desperate for stimulation.  Well, I'm glad you asked.  It is a story focused on the adventures of a roguish hero (or anti-hero) as he lives by his wits in a corrupt society, characterized by satire and a lack of moral redemption of the scoundrel hero.  In other words, it is Cory Brundage's biography.

(For those of you who believe that this is a world in which virtue is rewarded and wickedness is punished, that everything happens for a reason, and that the universe is unfolding as it should, I hope that the image you have just seen doesn't scar you for life.)

It does strike me that I may be following in Cory's footsteps in this regard.  I certainly find myself routinely following in his running footsteps, since he actually is a superior runner and athlete, so it would make sense that I would be following in his footsteps in a metaphysical sense, too--except that would mean that the universe operates in a rational manner, which Cory's very existence disproves.  Hmmm, quite the mental enigma.

Anyway, one of the standard features of the picaresque novel is that the knave at the center of the story does not deign to hold a job.  Well, that fits me perfectly, as I am a college teacher.  And,  because I am not gainfully employed, I get to have the kinds of wild adventures that others only dream of--starting with reading 700 page 18th century novels.

 And--of course--there are the wild adventures of running those many miles.  Why, just last Sunday, as Cory and I were running our cosmically required 20 miles [see prior posting], we passed two people running in the other direction.  Well, "people" may not be the right term.  One of them was clearly a moving cadaver.  On the one hand, it was a disturbing sight.  On the other hand, forewarned is forearmed.  Now that we know that there is a zombie mutation that can move at more than a stagger, we can fine tune our training to be able to outrun this new "super-zombie."  And I trust that you, the faithful readers of this blog, will do likewise.  As for those poor souls who are not following these ill-advised adventures   .   .   .   well   .   .   .   somebody has to be zombie food.

It's good to know that no one will ever say that about anyone who follows the picaresque sagas of Cory and Jim.