"... a fresh human turd — yes, a turd! — her own, one hoped..."

For the new installment of the "Bonfire" project — where we're reading passages from Tom Wolfe's "Bonfire of the Vanities" — I offer this, from Kindle Location 3222:

Nick Stopping said he had dinner the other night at the home of Stropp, the investment banker, on Park Avenue, and Stropp’s four-year-old daughter, by his second wife, came into the dining room pulling a toy wagon, upon which was a fresh human turd — yes, a turd! — her own, one hoped, and she circled the table three times, and neither Stropp nor his wife did a thing but shake their heads and smile. This required no extended comment, since the Yanks’ treacly indulgence of their children was well known, and Fallow ordered another vodka Southside and toasted the absent Asher Herzfeld, and they ordered drinks all around.

That's from the point of view of Peter Fallow, a British journalist who works in NYC, writing for a trashy tabloid, and who disapproves of "Yanks." It's a running joke that Fallow orders a "vodka Southside" because of Asher Herzfeld, a rich American, who, according to Kindle location 3195, "had always driven the waiters and the bartenders crazy by ordering the noxious American drink, the vodka Southside, which was made with mint, and then complaining that the mint wasn’t fresh."

I'm intrigued by the issue of freshness — first in the mint that the rich American insisted upon and then in the turd that the American child gave a ride in her wagon. The Brits feel superior, but do they care about freshness? I'm looking up recipes for the vodka Southside, and it's quite clear that fresh mint is crucial. And as for the child, well, the turd was fresh too.

The turd was also "human." It's funny to regard the turd as human. I'm inclined to say that "human turd" is jocose and not a proper usage of "human." As for "turd," the word, I was just opining 2 days ago that "turd" is an uglier word than "shit." I hope you'll believe me that it's just by chance that I'm wheeling "turd" around again, so that makes it  fresh turd.

It's interesting to see, so close to "turd," the idea of "treacly indulgence" of children. Not only does the turd circle the table where people are eating, but "treacle" is a food. "Treacle" is syrup, literally, and figuratively, it's "Something sweet or clogging; esp. complimentary laudation, blandishment." The earliest figurative usage, according to the OED, comes from a 1771 novel that I've read, "Humphry Clinker" by Tobias Smollett: "He began to sweeten the natural acidity of his discourse with the treacle of compliment and commendation." It's just by chance that I'm blandishing the name Smollett.



Smollett doesn't look too fresh in that painting, and it was done when he was 45! I don't know what he thought of the Americans. He died the same year "Humphry Clinker" was published, 5 years before the revolution that shook off those censorious Brits.