Review by Mack Hassler
And when
the couple had enjoyed their lovemaking,
they shared another pleasure –telling stories.
Odysseus told her how much he hurt
So many people, and in turn
How much he had endured himself. She loved
to listen and she did not fall asleep
until he told it all.
The Odyssey of Homer, translated by Emily Wilson (2018)
Book 22, ll 298-308.
In this short book Old Victoria: A Copper Country Ghost Town, published two years ago, Classen ventures far to the west of his home by the Sault and even beyond the site of the spectacular sinking of the “Edmund Fitzgerald” into the vortex of the deepest section of the Big Lake (like Charybdis) and just North of Pictured Rocks. His historical journey with his wonderful photojournalism seems, in fact, to be transformed here into his own voyage home across the Greek world from Troy. I know very little about the Penelopes in the life of Classen, but he is a great voyager across our mythic and dangerous part of the United States. With his full beard, he even resembles Matt Damon, though Classen is considerably shorter in stature than the actor. I remember Damon’s cleverness as a voyager in the film several years ago fully worthy of the cleverness of Odysseus in the adventure film called The Martian. Classen has the wit and the cleverness to be our Odysseus , and he has the camera eye in his continuing work with photojournalism in a number of past books to supplement what he learned from his double major when he would make the trip into Marquette from his home in the Sault. I sat next to him at a conference In Negaunee and heard him praise both what he had leanrned about writing and the camera eye for communication. In the latter field, he has done several great covers for our U.P. Reader.
O-Kun-De-Kun Waterfall
Like Odysseus, he is a good storyteller, also. Penelope did not fall asleep. Classen’s prose is smooth and expressive. In True Tales: The Forgotten History of the U.P., he reounts “The strange story of stagecoach robber ‘Black Bart” Holzhey” (p. 26 in this volume)—as if one of the suitors that Odysseus had to deal with harshly. I sincerely hope Classen has a Penelope waiting for him at home to listen to his storytelling and to look at the many excellent photos in his archive of the shut down mine operation south of Ontonagon. I used to hear about the shut down of the Victoria mine during our summers in nearby Baraga County. Now thanks to Modern History Press and to our own history voyager, I have the whole story with pictures.
Mikel B. Classen
The important translation that I use in the epigraph to this review by the Englishwoman Emily Wilson makes the point that the Greek used as the poem was recited and that has come down to us as “Homeric” is neither the ancient Greek nor the Pauline Greek of our New Testament scripture. It is a strange language with distortions in syntax and actual words that are different and new. Yet it is what Wilson translates into modern English, blemishes and all. Therefore it does not seem so outrageous to make the comparison with “short in stature” Mikel B. Classen and his work as his publisher claims as he describes the book on the back cover,…the inaugural volume of the Yooper History Hunter Series, Old Victoria: A Copper Country Ghost Town offers a colorful, up close look at the life of a small mining town in one of the remotest corners of Michigan. Painstakingly researched, but an effortless read. (Victor R. Volkman, Marquette Monthly). So my reviewing attempt here to label the tale “legendary” even though its author is much shorter in stature than the important actor referenced in my epigraph. Legends may have their special language. I think Classen writes like a creator of legends.
Old Victoria: A Copper Mining Ghost Town in Ontonogan County, by Mikel B. Classen 2024 (Book #1 in the Yooper History Hunter Series, Modern History Press,
5145 Pontiac Trail, Ann Arbor MI 48105) 27 pages. PBK, $14.95.
