Dublin Up

Another post from the airport today as a little later I’ll be boarding a flight up to Philly, and from there will be heading to Ireland for the European Poker Tour Dublin festival.

This’ll be a first trip to Ireland for your humble scribbler. Closest I’ve ever gotten before has been London (several times), so am definitely excited not only to visit a new place, but to go somewhere I’ve focused a decent amount of attention on over the years thanks to degrees in English and many years studying and teaching literature.

The Irish authors I’ve read, studied, and taught the most over the years were undoubtedly Oscar Wilde, Jonathan Swift, and James Joyce. W.B. Yeats, Oliver Goldsmith, Samuel Beckett, and C.S. Lewis come to mind as well, although I don’t believe I ever taught anything by them except for one valiant attempt at carrying a group of undergrads taking World Lit through Waiting for Godot.

Was fascinated by Joyce for a time, reading up through Ulysses and starting Finnegans Wake (though like many, never finishing). I taught several stories from Dubliners over the years, and still have moments from “The Dead” randomly occurring to me as a result.

With Wilde I had a more casual acquaintance, reading The Importance of Being Earnest and Dorian Gray and duly appreciating his many one-liners. I remember De Profundis as well and becoming very interested in his imprisonment and relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas for a time. I taught Earnest a few times, which went over pretty well I recall.

Having focused on Restoration and 18th-century literature for the doctorate, Jonathan Swift is probably the one Irish writer whom I’ve spent the most time with over the decades, routinely teaching Gulliver’s Travels, A Tale of a Tub, Battle of the Books and, of course, “A Modest Proposal.” I even had students reading some of the Drapier’s Letters and a bit of Martinus Scriblerus here and there.

Beyond just appreciating his artistry and wit, the Swiftian world view has probably influenced me as much as the view of any writer I’ve seriously studied. (Vladimir Nabokov is perhaps the only rival.) I’m referring to a perspective that looks upon practically everything that we experience with a skeptical eye that at once seizes on flaws (causing irritation and pain) while also appreciating the humor and even absurdity of what is being witnessed (causing amusement and pleasure). That includes the various “systems” (especially political ones) on which Swift comments, but also just to human nature itself.

Sometimes when taking care of the horses here on the farm and “communicating” with them as I do, I think of Gulliver at the end of Book 4 who by then has decided horses (or the Houyhnhnms) to be much preferable as companions when compared to the hopelessly flawed, irrational humans (or Yahoos). I don’t go as far as to agree with Gulliver’s conclusion, but I’ll admit I find myself understanding his position sometimes.

I’m constantly thinking of episodes from Gulliver’s earlier voyages, too, to Lilliput, Brobdingnag, and the Academy of Lagado. There’s so much truth in all of those fictions.

It’s with a literary frame of mind, then, that I travel to Dublin. Will report back once there, hopefully with some stories that entertain and edify.

Image: “Dublin is located in Ireland,” NordNordWest. CC BY-SA 3.0.

Love, Gambling, and Casanova

The Venetian adventurer and libertine Giacomo Giralamo Casanova’s legacy was such that to this day the mere mention of his name instantly evokes the art of making love. While Casanova lived and died just prior the advent of poker, his predilection for gambling also demonstrates the various seductions of card games, thereby suggesting more than a few connections between love and poker.

Born in Venice to actors in 1725, young Giacomo was destined to endure a childhood marked by abandonment. His father died when he was but eight, and he was sent away from his mother and siblings a year later to stay at a boarding house. Soon he became a gifted student, studying numerous subjects and earning a degree in law by age 17.

He was introduced early on to sex and romance, losing his virginity while still an adolescent. And he started gambling early, too, managing to accrue significant debts even as a teenager.

As a young adult, Casanova would begin a clerical law career and even for a short while was admitted as an abbé before scandals -- including debts that earned him a short stay in prison -- spelled the end of his association with the Catholic church.

He then tried a military career, although again his gambling helped curtail that pursuit after he lost most of his initial earnings at the faro tables. A failed try at being a musician followed before Casanova finally found himself a patron, thereby allowing him the freedom to engage with less restraint in his two favorite pursuits -- women and gambling.

Casanova’s adult years were marked by various escapades and travels throughout Europe, with numerous affairs -- some scandalous -- punctuating his days in Paris, Dresden, Prague, and Vienna. A return to Venice followed where he found himself mired in more scandal and another prison stay before embarking on another romance-filled romp throughout Europe.

As the 18th century came to an end and Casanova’s life was coming to a close he found himself alone and poor, working as a librarian in Bohemia. In his old age the longtime lover had an urge to chronicle his illustrious life, and so would spend his final years writing the 12-volume Histoire de ma vie where much of his amazing story has been preserved.

It is amid those 3,800-plus pages we learn of his prodigious sexual conquests, often cast as adventures with the author as hero while also serving as a kind of tutelage by Casanova to his reader in the art of seduction. All told Casanova recounts himself having affairs with more than 120 women, including one nun (who, he explains, propositioned him). He almost always conducted multiple liaisons at once, at apparently at one time had 20 different Parisian apartments with lovers residing in each.

And no, he never married.

His memoirs additionally relate the many different gambling games he and other Europeans of the day favored, foremost among them faro, but also including various card games like whist, quinze, basset, biribi, and primero, the latter often described as one of poker's precursors. As would be the case in the 19th century when poker came to America, cheating was prevalent in these games, and Casanova relates stories in which he, too, occasionally engages in dishonesty while gambling at cards.

In fact, the practice of deceit might be highlighted as a trait or element of Casanova’s unique “philosophy” that connects his sexual exploits and his repeated dalliances with Lady Luck.

When explaining the art of seduction to his readers, Casanova freely admits that while not all of his many brief relationships were based on lies, many at least began on false pretenses. “I have more than once deceived without the slightest qualm of conscience, both knaves and fools” he wrote, alluding to the various cons he ran throughout his life. “As to the deceit perpetrated upon woman,” he asks his reader to “let it pass, for, when love is in the way, men and women as a general rule dupe each other.”

While Casanova clearly loved women -- and at times speaks of them with a kind of reverence that reveals his having considered them equals during an era when it went against the grain to do so -- he nonetheless recognizes how oftentimes his “victories” over them hinged upon his having outwitted them in some fashion. His interactions with men, including those against whom he gambled, in many cases went similarly.

However, while he insists deceit is simply part of the “game” of love and thus shouldn’t be considered especially noteworthy, he gladly accepts whatever judgment might be delivered upon him for his triumphs over men. When speaking of men he’s successfully duped, Casanova many times sounds like he could be writing a poker strategy text in which he’s advising readers about the benefits of targeting less-skilled opponents.

“I always feel the greatest bliss when I recollect those I have caught in my snares,” he writes, “for they generally are insolent, and so self-conceited that they challenge wit. We avenge intellect when we dupe a fool... in fact, to gull a fool seems to be an exploit worthy of a witty man.”

Of course, it should be noted that on the whole Casanova was not necessarily the most successful of gamblers, his career marked by wild swings both positive and negative, with his “tilting” at the tables sometimes proceeding as far as engaging opponents in duels with pistols. And like many poker players he was susceptible to chasing losses and becoming reckless when running well. “I had neither prudence enough to leave off when fortune was adverse,” he explains, “nor sufficient control over myself when I won.”

Casanova wasn’t uniformly victorious with the ladies, either, with a few failures occasionally damaging his status as a “player.” Most notable among these tales is his lengthy, unhappy pursuit of Marianne de Charpillon, a prostitute from France he encountered in London. In the end he’d squander many hours and significant sums over her without success, and like a successful poker player who suddenly meets with an unfortunate run of cards, his confidence was said to be shaken thereafter.

It would be around the middle of the 19th century -- well after Casanova’s death when poker had begun to emerge as a favorite card game -- that the Italian’s name would start to appear as a synonym for a well-skilled lover, as it still is today.

But Casanova’s life was more complicated than such usage might suggest. And in fact, his fascinating story provided numerous object lessons for lovers and gamblers alike.

Bret Harte’s “The Outcasts of Poker Flat”

First published in 1869, the short story “The Outcasts of Poker Flat” by the American poet and fiction writer Bret Harte presents readers with a thought-provoking sketch of the Old West in which poker’s complicated status within American culture is ably presented.

The story opens in late November 1850 in the interestingly named California town of Poker Flat. John Oakhurst, a professional gambler, correctly senses a sudden alteration in the town’s “moral atmosphere” thanks to the strange behavior of others to his presence. Sure enough, in a “spasm of virtuous reaction,” a secret committee has been formed “to rid the town of all improper persons,” Oakhurst included.

Two men have already been hanged, and soon Oakhurst and three others -- a man known as “Uncle Billy” (a thief) and two women, “Mother Shipton” and the “Duchess” (presumably prostitutes) -- are forcibly exiled. The narrator exposes the hypocrisy of the committee, noting how among those in charge of executing such justice were some who lost to Oakhurst at poker. In fact, he probably would have been hanged as well if not for “the crude sentiment of equity residing in the breasts of those who had been fortunate enough to win from Mr. Oakhurst.”

Oakhurst is described as receiving his punishment with “philosophic calmness.” “He was too much of a gambler not to accept fate,” we are told, and indeed it is this recognition of that which he cannot control Oakhurst has learned at the tables that marks his character and foreshadows the story’s conclusion.

We follow the four outcasts out of town as they travel toward neighboring Sandy Bar, a trek that requires a difficult passage through the Sierras. The trip could be accomplished in a day, but after traversing half its length the group attempt to persuade Oakhurst into stopping and setting up camp for the night. Using a poker metaphor, he argues against their “throwing up their hand before the game was played out,” but ultimately gives in.

While the others get drunk, a young man named Tom Simson happens on the group, accompanied by his girl, Piney. The pair are traveling in the opposite direction, leaving Sandy Bar for Poker Flat in the hopes of getting married starting a new life there.

Oakhurst knows Simson from having played poker with him before at Sandy Bar. In fact, Oakhurst cleaned out the youngster -- referred to in the story as the “Innocent” -- then afterwards gave him back the money he’d won, instructing him never to gamble again. For this gesture Simson remains grateful, and Oakhurst again helps Simson by arranging to allow him and Piney to camp with the others.

The skies -- and story -- take a dark turn, however, as they awake the next day to discover a snowstorm. And making matters worse, Uncle Billy has stolen off with the mules, leaving the remaining five no method of escape.

Only possessed with ten days’ worth of provisions, Oakhurst recognizes the situation as potentially dire, but keeps his concern to himself so as not to worry the others. They pass the time singing and listening to Simson retell stories from Homer’s Iliad, translating them into “the current vernacular of Sandy Bar.”

Meanwhile, Oakhurst is careful not to produce the pack of cards he carries with him, the implication being he doesn’t want to introduce poker into this scene of “square fun.”

Yet poker has prepared him well for the present trial. Long sessions have meant he’s “often been a week without sleep,” thus enabling him better to handle the test of physical endurance the trip has presented. Poker has also helped equip Oakhurst with a kind of mental fortitude to withstand the sudden misfortune that has befallen the travelers.

“Luck... is a mighty queer thing,” he tells Simson. “All you know about it for certain is that it’s bound to change. And it’s finding out when it’s going to change that makes you.”

He additionally notes the “streak of bad luck since we left Poker Flat” and how Simson has now been made to share in it. However, after a lifetime of riding out such downswings in fortune, Oakhurst soon comes to realize this to be one instance in which his luck will not changing.

They reach the end of their provisions, and Mother Shipton -- who, it is discovered, has been starving herself to save food for the others -- perishes. Oakhurst then takes Simson aside, provides him with a pair of snow shoes, then points him in the direction of the town where he and the others cannot go, Poker Flat. When the “Innocent” asks Oakhurst what he intends to do, the answer is brief and to the point.

“I’ll stay here.”

Alas, although we never learn of young Simson’s fate, his attempt to rescue the others fails as the final scene shows “the law of Poker Flat” discovering the Duchess and Piney having died. “You could scarcely have told, from the equal peace that dwelt upon them, which was she that had sinned,” the narrator observes.

The group also find Oakhurst “with a derringer by his side and a bullet in his heart,” having shortened his own life by an extra day or two in the hopes of extending those of the others. Before killing himself, Oakhurst pinned a playing card to a pine tree with his bowie knife, his choice of the deuce of clubs perhaps symbolizing the decreased value he’d estimated his remaining moments to possess.

On the card, the lawmen see that Oakhurst has written his own epitaph: “BENEATH THIS TREE LIES THE BODY OF JOHN OAKHURST, WHO STRUCK A STREAK OF BAD LUCK ON THE 23D OF NOVEMBER, 1850 AND HANDED IN HIS CHECKS ON THE 7TH DECEMBER, 1850.” (To the left is a still from the end of the 1937 film adaptation, one of several that have been made from Harte’s story.)

The story ends somewhat enigmatically with the narrator referring to Oakhurst as “at once the strongest and yet the weakest of the outcasts of Poker Flat,” although such a paradoxical character assessment can be explained.

What distinguishes Oakhurst -- or makes him the “strongest” -- is his correct understanding of the way poker requires one to accept the influence of luck, both good and bad. In other words, it is not an immoral game for “improper persons,” but an activity for mature adults able to accept and withstand the game’s inevitable ups and downs.

Such is life, of course, with the death-causing snowstorm revealing the cruel indifference of Nature (or “fate”) that Oakhurst also accepts with “philosophic calmness.”

That said, poker isn’t for everyone. Young Simson -- the “Innocent” -- isn’t prepared for its challenge, something Oakhurst recognized after playing with him back at Sandy Bar. Nor are those committee members whose response to losing at cards is to punish the victors with execution or exile, and to group poker with other activities thought to violate their self-righteous (and hypocritical) sense of virtue.

Meanwhile, Oakhurst is the “weakest” of the outcasts for the same reason, his understanding of the situation having encouraged his noble self-sacrifice. And it is worth noting that poker has prepared him to accept losing -- to know when it is time to “hand in his checks.”

“The Outcasts of Poker Flat” neither champions nor condemns poker, but rather evokes the game to suggest certain ideas about human nature and our relative willingness and/or ability to withstand misfortune. Harte’s story also provides an interesting commentary on poker’s ambiguous status in American culture both then and now, showing how the game has much to teach us -- if we can be mature enough to accept its lessons, that is.