Akko, or When days were long and knights were short
Fletcher Flora didn't just have one of the more unlikely names in noir; he could also write the stuff.His story "As I Lie Dead" (1953) reminded me of why the American movies later called films noirs were once known as melodramas. It is overheated with sex and doom from the beginning and, as a bonus, I did not see its end coming.
*
The city's real big knights were the Hospitallers, whose "subterranean" Crusader fortress was spectacularly well preserved because subsequent occupiers simply filled its halls with rubble and buried them.
Anyone who was anyone knew about Akko, wrote about it, or invaded it: The pharaohs. The folks who wrote the Bible. Newcomers like the ancient Greeks, the Romans, the Crusaders, and Napoleon. I suggest that you follow them.
© Peter Rozovsky 2012
Labels: Akko, Fletcher Flora, Israel, noir, what I did on my vacation
posted by Peter Rozovsky at 4:24 PM
16 Comments:
I have heard of Acre, but the variation Akko is new to me.
The city is called "Akko" in Hebrew (and something similar in Arabic), and the name is transcribed as "Akko" here. "Acre" sounds French, and it could well be French. This would be no surprise, considering the French association with the city, both during the Crusades and during Napoleon's time. The old city's ramparts add French to the usual Hebrew, Arabic, and English on their historic signs.
From the "Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names® Online":
ʻAkko
Akko
Acca
Acre
Accho (Old Testament name)
Acco
Ace
Saint-Jean-d'Acre (after First Crusade, 1174)
St. Jean-d'Acre
Ptolemais (New Testament name)
Palastina
Aca Ptolemais
Colonia Ptolemais
Palastina
Aca Ptolemais
Colonia Ptolemais
A useful Wikipedia entry states: "The Crusaders called the city 'Acre' or 'Saint-Jean d'Acre' since they mistakenly identified it with the Philistine city of Ekron, in northern Philistia, now southern Israel."
My advice to travelers is to arm one's self with the necessary nomenclatural knowledge before setting out, just as one would when traveling to Mons/Bergen in Belgium.
I somehow see myself standing at some crossroads, staring down at a torn and near illegible piece of paper and reading these aloud to some resident one by one, while watching them growing increasingly perplexed.
For some reason, Monty Python came to mind when I read this post.
The Knights who say Ni...
Beautiful photo, BTW.
Seana, you're a romantic at heart, albeit one who may not have a good sense of direction.
For some reason, Monty Python came to mind when I read this post.
The Knights who say Ni...
Of course it did.
Thanks for the compliment on the photo. That hall must be the most photographed site in Acre/Akko. One sees it all over tourist brochures and so on.
Loving your 'travelogue'.. wish I were there!
L'shana Ha-ba-ah Birushalayim!
I'm just thinking aloud here, but what if Fletcher Flora had been christened Flora Fletcher, somewhat along the lines of 'A Boy Named Sue', and he had gotten his revenge on his father by changing his name, albeit by deed poll, to Fletcher Flora
(even if Fletcher Christian was now known to be somewhat foppish, rather than the more masculine imagining, a la the casting of Clark Gable)
Well, Fletch would make a better dimunitive than Florrie, so you could be right.
I am glad you're treating this matter with the high seriousness it deserves.
Don't mind me, Peter; like I said, just thinking aloud.
I think Florrie was the first name of a character in 'The Irish R.M.'
(that's just by the by)
And Florence was both Lillian Hellman's middle name and the name of Raymond Chandler's mother.
I had an Aunt Florence!
And Chandler's middle name was his mother's maiden name!
Of such stuff is trivia made...
From Charles Kelly's brief bio of "Fletcher Flora" in the Stark House Noir Classics reprint of Park Avenue Tramp: "[Flora] was very amused by one British reviewer's remark that the name Fletcher Floyd Flora [!] 'had to be pen name.' In fact, its origins were English. The writer was descended from a Flora exiled to the New World from England for stealing a handkerchief."
As if Fletcher Flora were not enough, he was also Floyd? What a blessing.
"The writer was descended from a Flora exiled to the New World from England for stealing a handkerchief."
That's the favorite sentence of my day so far.
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