The Mouse on the Moon
Feb. 19th, 2012 08:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
siglinde99This book, by Leonard Wibberley, is now fifty years old. It is a silly, fast read, but with some clever satirical bits. I got it as a discard from the public library in the town where my grandparents lived, so I have probably owned it for nearly 30 years. I keep trying to pitch it out, but then have "one last read" and it ends up back on my shelf.
The character I like best is (unsrprisingly) the Count of Mountjoy, head of government of the Duchy of Grand Fenwick, a community of 5,000 souls ucked in along the French/Swiss border. He is a brilliant statesman and diplomat, who cunningly arranges a loan from the USA in order to send a rocket to the moon, install indoor bathrooms in the castle, and buy the Duchess (Gloriana XII, may she live forever) a full length Imperial sable coat.
The book has some great lines.
If people knew everything that was going on in their governments, everything that was planned for them in the future, they'd lose their nerve. If they were brought fact to face with every crisis their governments face every day, there would be natinal hysteria followed by anarchy. governments are elected so that nations may prosper while really not knowing what is going on at all. That is the art of succesful government. .....
Deceit, my dear boy, is the very lubricant of the machinery of international diplomacy. It is by subterfuge that the whole complicated mechanism works smoothly, and nothing is so embarrassing for governments as to be brought together at at round-table conferences, charged with doing that one thing which cannot be done if progress is to be achieved - talk frankly to each other. It is for this reason that huge staffs have to draw up the agendas for such time-wasting devices and whole corps of experts have to provide the chiefs of state with a mass of information on all kinds of questions which can be dragged in to obscure the objectives which each wishes to achieve. At the end of these conferences (and there have, as you know, been a plethora of them since World War Two) all that can be announced is that progress has been made, and a cordial atmosphere has prevailed throughout the talks. Then the whole thing is put back where it belongs, in the hands of experienced statesment who, proceeding by the time-honored techniques of indirection, achieve what is best for their countries. Meanwhile the public is assured that all is well and tenions are relaxed....
Upon reaching the moon, Vincent, son of the Count of Montjoy plants the flag and claims the moon on behalf of the Duchy of Grand Fenwick. "He had no sooner done this than he was smothered in a shower of tin cans which floated down out of the heavens about him, as if the earth, having listened to his speech, had thrown all its garbage at him. Empty cans of barbecued beans, of frankfurters, sauerkraut, condensed milk, beer, Coca-Cola, together with glass jars that had once contained peanut butter, pickled herrings and grape jelly - in fact, all the garbage which he had thrust out of the rocket during their nine-day journey from earth, now clattered around in a pile which buried both him and the flag. 'Damnation!' roared Vincent, fighting his way out of this pile. 'Who did that?' 'You did,' said Kokinz (the brilliant physicist). 'That's all the garbage you threw out of the rocket.' He surveyed the odious pile sadly. 'Even without a flag,' he said, 'it would be plain that people from earth were here.'.....
The character I like best is (unsrprisingly) the Count of Mountjoy, head of government of the Duchy of Grand Fenwick, a community of 5,000 souls ucked in along the French/Swiss border. He is a brilliant statesman and diplomat, who cunningly arranges a loan from the USA in order to send a rocket to the moon, install indoor bathrooms in the castle, and buy the Duchess (Gloriana XII, may she live forever) a full length Imperial sable coat.
The book has some great lines.
If people knew everything that was going on in their governments, everything that was planned for them in the future, they'd lose their nerve. If they were brought fact to face with every crisis their governments face every day, there would be natinal hysteria followed by anarchy. governments are elected so that nations may prosper while really not knowing what is going on at all. That is the art of succesful government. .....
Deceit, my dear boy, is the very lubricant of the machinery of international diplomacy. It is by subterfuge that the whole complicated mechanism works smoothly, and nothing is so embarrassing for governments as to be brought together at at round-table conferences, charged with doing that one thing which cannot be done if progress is to be achieved - talk frankly to each other. It is for this reason that huge staffs have to draw up the agendas for such time-wasting devices and whole corps of experts have to provide the chiefs of state with a mass of information on all kinds of questions which can be dragged in to obscure the objectives which each wishes to achieve. At the end of these conferences (and there have, as you know, been a plethora of them since World War Two) all that can be announced is that progress has been made, and a cordial atmosphere has prevailed throughout the talks. Then the whole thing is put back where it belongs, in the hands of experienced statesment who, proceeding by the time-honored techniques of indirection, achieve what is best for their countries. Meanwhile the public is assured that all is well and tenions are relaxed....
Upon reaching the moon, Vincent, son of the Count of Montjoy plants the flag and claims the moon on behalf of the Duchy of Grand Fenwick. "He had no sooner done this than he was smothered in a shower of tin cans which floated down out of the heavens about him, as if the earth, having listened to his speech, had thrown all its garbage at him. Empty cans of barbecued beans, of frankfurters, sauerkraut, condensed milk, beer, Coca-Cola, together with glass jars that had once contained peanut butter, pickled herrings and grape jelly - in fact, all the garbage which he had thrust out of the rocket during their nine-day journey from earth, now clattered around in a pile which buried both him and the flag. 'Damnation!' roared Vincent, fighting his way out of this pile. 'Who did that?' 'You did,' said Kokinz (the brilliant physicist). 'That's all the garbage you threw out of the rocket.' He surveyed the odious pile sadly. 'Even without a flag,' he said, 'it would be plain that people from earth were here.'.....
