Re: The Books Thread (non-fiction) Is there a name in oneirology for dreams where we claw with our fingers for something or where we exert ourselves to gain or do something all to no avail? – for that is the sense we obtain after onerously plodding through the pages of Herbert Asbury’s “The Gangs of New York.” Now, “The Gangs”, around 350 pages, was first published in 1928 and, therefore, is Asbury’s view into his past tense comprising around 75 years – verily, the story starts in the 1820s. It will not be wrong if we are questioned about a 2020 viewpoint of the 1927 viewpoint into the time between the 1820s and 1920s. When we accept these kaleidoscopic boundaries, we do so with the express intention that that kaleidoscope elucidates those colorful characters so that we can mindfully see them, smell them, understand them, and above all live with them, as they ransack the Lower Manhattan.
The cosmeticized romanticism of the gangsters has been clavered into the oeuvre of the mass media, both print and screen, in our age of instant instantiation. Inevitably, our curiosity into gangsterism – in no small measure fired by our own Bombay underworld, although it has to be averred here that there is nothing “under-“ about the gangs of New York – having first satiated itself upon the local lore, but being of an itinerant predilection, slakes its thirst upon the yakuza, mafiosi, and other such distinguished thuggery. Piqued by Mario Puzo’s hoodlums and goaded by umpteen directors, actors, and such other connoisseurs of classic carnage, we cathect onto the seedbed of organized crime and its bosses and thus, inexorably, end up with the storied Al Capone, and then segue into other equally prismatic overlords such as Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky. These distinguished gangsters are thought to be forerunners of the modern-day crime syndicates; however, often, within the US, these initial figures rose from the dying embers of their illustrious predecessors in New York and Chicago, faded and felled by history – a history that starts almost a century before. This book is about those founding fathers.
The striking difference between the modern-day gangs and the old, despite matched in ferocity and bloodthirst, is the modernism steeped in the modern criminals – these moderns often, although on several occasions sprang from cruddy poverty and privation, are superrich, suave, educated, arty, and punctilious, and reigned over large cross-functional swathes such as business, politics, and, be surprised if you will, philanthropy. Au contraire, the gangs of yore comprised the very dregs of society, born and raised in abject poverty, without any skills or competences, and therefore, not surprisingly, without jobs and therefore without a decent way to earn their roof and bread – mostly uneducated and unlettered so much so that a ruffian who can read or write is a person of note and the one who can write poetry can claim the high seat in the gang as its bard. Their only source of livelihood is their bodies, for both men and women, and their skills range from simple pocket picking to murder and mayhem, and within the continuum, lie artisans such as gamblers, peddlers, sluggers, sneak thieves, confidence men, and these used assorted weapons such as bludgeon, knife, blade, and later pistols. “The Gangs” provides an up-close view of the original gangs such as “The Five Pointers,” “The Bowery Boys,” and “The Gophers” and their popular protagonists such as Mighty Mose, Biff Ellison, and Monk Eastman. It also covers their geography of operations such as the docks, dives, dance houses, resorts et al. Asbury conjures a vast miasma interspersed with vapors of politics, gender, race, nationality, poverty, and, above all, the overarching fear of uncertainty.
“The Gangs” is a monumental work and a vast repository of chronology and events and therein lies its flaws. “The Gangs” is not so much an engaging materialization of the macabre as a staccato of unrhythmic data. Asbury’s diligence of details is exemplary and the “The Gangs” is a veritable database of streets, dates, and characters, and we can only sympathize with him the apparent lack of characterization. In fact, the book reads like an agglomeration of newspaper clippings made into a papier-mâché through the agency of copious ink. The riffraff pass-through our minds like quiet shadows of retreating apparitions, perhaps shamefaced for their failures to light up the lamps of our knowledge. Even so, the information gathered in this book will be mighty helpful to those inside the grottos of the academe. Asbury had provided, at the end, a list of the slang words of the early gangsters, which can be of interest to the reader if not useful, followed by a bibliography and an index. A move was made with this book as a base, directed by Martin Scorsese and featured Leonardo DiCaprio; however, the movie has its own independent storyline with only its ambience borrowed from “The Gangs.”
While we get desperate to conclude this book anon, we found ourselves assailed by a constant fusillade of dates and data. All these would have been fruitful if only Asbury lets us live among his hooligans so that we may know them better; however, for some unknown reason, he keeps us at an arm’s length, only showing us a fleeting glimpse of his men and women so that, realizing that we are taken on a wild goose chase, we are forever clawing with our fingers for something or exerting ourselves to gain or do something all to no avail.
Cover source: Google
Name: The Gangs of New York
Author: Herbert Asbury
Rating: 2/5 stars
Recommendation: Avoid
Last edited by murillo : 10th May 2020 at 12:42.
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