ZOO er en fiktion 2

Det kan jo altså
ikke være Gud
eller evolutionen,
der har skabt
flamingoen, så
standhaftigt syret
og pinligt pink
den står dér og
hypnotiserer os
med sin urimelighed,
ingen vej udenom,
at Lewis Carroll
er den ansvarlige

Yndlingsforfatterpuns

 

 

Finnegans Wake ‏@finnegansreader

— Lewd’s carol!

 - og fra Roald Dahls BFG:

  "Sophie took the book out of his hand. 'Nicholas Nickleby' she read aloud.
  'By Dahl's Chickens', the BFG said.
  'By who?' Sophie said."

Bogspejl (Alice-føljeton e)

"He ha already shown how sensitive he was to Alice Lidell's 'awkward' physical changes, and now his plans for the presentation copy of Through the Looking-Glass took this idea a stage further. 'I want to have the presentation-copy of the Looking-Glass (I mean the one for Miss A. Liddell) bound with an oval piece of looking-glass let into the cover,' he told Macmillan; 'Will you consult your binder as to whether the thing is practicable?' He included a sketch of what he wanted, and from this it appears that the mirror was to be trimmed into an oval of roughly the same proportions as many of his photographs, like the hand-colored print of (Alice i rollen som (LB)) The Beggar Maid he presented to the Liddell family, in which she looks at the viewer form a gilt-edged hole set in a purple velvet display case. The key difference was that the cover was not going to be a mirror with a memory. It was just a mirror. Perhaps he hoped that she would see it as an invitation to jump into the story to renew her youth; or perhaps it was to remind her how much she had aged. Either way the plan proved impracticable, and Carroll had to be content with a copy bound in plain red morocco. But despite a reference to 'The pleasance of our fairy-tale' in the opening poem (a late change made in the proof), and the final acrostic on ALICEPLEASANCELIDDELL, this time there was no special dedication page inside. What the gift meant was left for her to decide.

Danske Carroll-links (Alice-føljeton d)

Uklart om Lewis Carroll har læst Niels Klim, men han havde muligheden for at gøre det og kombinationen af omstændeligt-falde-ned-i-hul og spise-kage forbinder sig så fint - har virkelig ingen fået øje på det før - med Alice:

"Modern science fiction provided Carroll with a more recent set of narratives to play with, because pltos in which characters fell to the centre of the earth, og discovered strange new civilisations underground, were increasingly popular in the nineteenth century. Earlier examples had included Ludvig Holbergs utopian satire Niels Klim's Journey Under the Ground (an English tranlastion was published in 1845), which begins when the hero´s rope gives way and he falls into an abyss, although he still has enough time to take a cake out of his pocket and eat it; and Jacques Casanova's five-volume Icosameron (1787), notable chiefly for a creepy plot that features twelve-year-old twins who marry and procreate, and multicoloured hermaphroditic dwarfs who feed by sucking on each other's breasts."

Et andet dansk link, ikke direkte til Alice. ("these ideas" er ideer om omskiftelig alders-identitet):

"Other kinds of writing offered Carroll tempting opportunities to play with these ideas. In january 1867, he read The Fountain of Youth (af Frederik Paludan Müller! LB), a Danish fairy tale published by Macmillan that had been reviewed alongside Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in The Scotsman at the end of 1866 and that carried a full-page advertisment for his book. The story revolves around a gnarled Spanish solider who follows Columbus to America, 'the distant land of gold and wonder', and there finds 'fountain of life' in which wounds are healed and withered flowers borught back to perfumed loveliness. After taking a dip in the fountain, he sleeps for several days, and on awakening discovers that he has been restored to his youthful prime, although with predictably unhappy results: his children fail to recognize him, his wife rejects him, and he realizes that although many people dream of housing a young heart in an old body, this trick does not work the other way around. Recoiling in horror after becoming 'a stranger to himself', he is forced to wait for his blooming exteriot ro catch up with his crabbed insides."

Blue Velvet Oxford-style (Alice-føljeton c)

Lewis Carroll flyttede ind i Oxford-kollegiet Chreist Church 1851 og forlod det aldrig. I juli 1851 gæstede han byens "Great Exhibition":

"his eye was immediately drawn to some of the 'ingenious pieces of mechanisms' on display, including a tree full of 'birds chirping and hopping from branch to branch exactly like life', with another bird depicted 'trying to eat a beetle' in uncomfortable little jerks, as if it was choking'."

Hvad minder det os om?

De undtagelsesvise limericks (Alice-føljeton b)

Nonsens-genren par excellence er limericken, men Lewis Carroll skrev kun 2 af slagsen og skrev dem, da han var 13 år gammel, denne rigtig fine dobbeltdækker:

"The was once a young man of Oporta
Who daily got shorter and shorter
        The reason he said
        Was the hod* on his head,
Which was filled with the heaviest mortar.

His sister named Lucy O'Finner,
Grew constantly thinner and thinner;
         The reason was plain:
         She slept out in the rain,
And was never allowed any dinner."

*
"A brick hod is a three-sided box for carrying bricks or other building materials, often mortar. It bears a long handle and is carried over the shoulder. A hod is usually long enough to accept 4 bricks on their side, however, by arranging the bricks in a chevron fashion, the number of bricks that may be carried is only limited to the weight the labourer can bear and the unwieldiness of that load. Typically 10-12 bricks might be carried.^"

Søn af nonsens (Alice-føljeton a)

Jeg læser Robert Douglas-Fairhursts The Story of Alice. Lewis Carroll and the Secret History of Wonderland, netop udkommet og straks e-bogs-indkøbt af mig efter læsning af New Yorker-anmeldelse, og den flyder over med al mulig og umulig, nyttig og unyttig information om Verdens Bedste Bog (Adventures + Looking Glass)

Carrolls far var en notorisk stivstikker af en anglikansk præst, med nonsens i hjertet. Her er hans svar på en indkøbsliste, 8-årige Carroll havde skrevet:

"As soon as I get to Leeds i shall scream out in the middle of the street, Ironmongers - Ironmongers - Six hundred men will rush out of their shops in a moment - fly, fly, in all directions - ring the bells, call the constables - set the town on fire, I will have a file & screwdriver, & a ring & if they are not brought directly, in forty seconds I will leave nothing but one small cat alive in the whole town of Leeds ... Then what a bawling & a tearing of hair there will be! Pigs & babies, camels & butterflies, rolling in the gutter together - old women rushing up the chimneys & cows after them - ducks hiding themselves in coffee cups, 6 fat geese trying to squezze themselves into pencil cases - at last the Mayor of Leeds will be found in a soup plate covered up with custard & stuck full of almonds to make look like a sponge cake thet he may escape the dreadful destruction of the Town ..."

Off the Nabocuff - 2

In answer to the question: what scenes one would have liked to have filmed -
Shakespeare in the part of the King's Ghost.
The beheading of Louis the Sixteenth, the drums drowning his speech on the scaffold.
Herman Melville a breakfast, feeding a sardine to his cat.
Poe's wedding, Lewis Carroll's picnics.
The russians leaving Alaska, delighted with the deal. Shot of a seal applauding.

My advice to a budding literary critic would be as follows. Learn to distinguish banality. Remember that mediocricity thrives on "ideas". Beware of the modish message. Ask yourself if the symbol that you have detected is not your own footprint. Ignore allegories. By all means place the "how" above the "what" but do not let it be confused with the "so what". Rely on the sudden erection of your small dorsal hairs (ryghår). Do not drag Freud in at this point. All the rest depend on personal talent.

 

It's MR. Mimsy!

2 nonsensiske dage i træk, først undervisning i Nonsens for eleverne på Forfatterskolen for børnelitteratur i forgårs aftes og så i går aftes et lille interview i radio 24syv om Rifbjergs Morgen-lyddigt i hans nye novellesamling, og begge gange oplæste jeg første strofe af Lewis Carrolls nonsenstale/lyddigt-hovedværk "Jabberwocky", og da jeg cyklede ind mod Kgs. Nytorv efter radiotingen for at mødes med dig, min partner i nonsens, på Baresso, opdagede jeg, at jeg nu kunne den strofe CA. udenad, og jeg, som ellers ikke kan noget udenad (endnu en neurotisk/allergisk reaktion mod 80'erne, I suppose), bortset fra 1 digt af Højholt og 1 diapsalmata af Kierkegaard, og nu prøver jeg lige, om den her til morgen stadig er der:

Twas brillig and the slithy toves
did gyre and gimble in the wabe
All mimsy were the borogoves
and the mome raths outgrabe

Og så afskriver jeg den korrekte version:

'Twas brillig and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves
And the mome raths outgrabe

YES! Jeg havde alt rigtigt, bortset fra versalerne! Mit hjerte er et kaninhul med ekko!

Regine er Alice!

Jeg fik ikke sammenlignet den fine gamle dame Regine (Olsen/Schlegel), der blev overrendt af Kierkegaard-entusiaster, med den fine gamle dame Alice (Liddell/Hargreaves), der blev overrendt af Lewis Carroll-fans (og dermed Kierkegaards skrifter med et fantasmagorisk filosofisk Wonderland, (som Regine er på eventyr i (og hvor alle fabelvæsenerne, den gale hattemager såvel som den røde dronning, er Søren i forklædning)))



lille Alice (fotograferet af Carroll)



unge Regine



modne Regine



gamle Alice

Slettede scener, 2011 og 1871

Jeg så i går en fantastisk, deleted scene på dvd-udgaven af den virkelig vellykkede komedie Bridesmaids med Paul Rudd som hovedpersonen Kristen Wiigs perfekte date, der pludselig hysser helt forfærdeligt ud - klart nok er (dobbelt)scenen for lang og digressiv og autonom til at kunne rummes i filmen, men desto skønnere er den at få foræret som overskud med sløjfe på:

Det er sjældent at blive begavet med slettede scener fra de bøger, man holder af, men der er lige præcis fra ugens klassikere den slettede, melankolske/ulykkelige slutning på Great Expectations, hvor Pip IKKE får Estella, som blev offentliggjort få år efter Dickens' død, og det slettede kapitel om "The Wasp in a Wig" fra Through the Looking Glass, der først blev fundet, i en tidlig korrektur, 100 år efter, bogen udkom, i 1977 (og slettet fordi Carrolls illustrator Tenniel virkelig ikke så sig i stand til at illustrere DEN urimelighed)), og hvor Alice møder en meget trist hveps med gul paryk:

"I'm very sorry for you," Alice said heartily: "And I think if your wig fitted a little better, they wouldn't tease you quite quite so much."
  "Your wig fits very well," the Wasp mumured, looking a her with an expression of admiration: "it's the shape of your head as does it. Your jaws ain't that well shaped, though -  - I think you couldn't bite well?"
  Alice began with a little scream of laughter, which she turned into a cough as well as she could. At last she managed to say gravely, "I can bite anything I want."
  "Not with a mouth as small as that," the Wasp persisted. "If you were a-fighting, now - could you get hold of the other one by the back of the neck?"
  "I'm afraid not," said Alice.
  "Well, that's because your jaws are too short," the Wasp went on: "but the top of your head is nice and round." He took of his own wig as he spoke, and stretched out one jaw towards Alice, as if he wished to do the same for her, but she kept out of reach, and would not take the hint. So he went on with his criticisms.
  "Then your eyes - they're too much in front, no doubt. One would have done as well as two, if you must have them so close -"
  Alice dit not like having so many personal remarks made on her, an as the Wasp had quite recovered his spirits, she thought she might safely leave him. "I think I must be going on now," she said. "Goodbye."
  "Goodbye, and thank-ye", said the Wasp, and Alice tripped down the hill again, quite pleased that she had gone back and given a few minutes to making the poor old creature comfortable.

Uundværligt uudslettet!

Bogligt løvfald

Så pludselig i og med denne læsning nr. 10-12 er bogen helt mør, og alle sider så godt som, der ikke er frie allerede, river sig automatisk løs, straks jeg vender dem, med det mindste, sprøde ritsj - bogen: The Annotated Alice, uundværlig, generøst overkommenteret udgave ved Martin Gardner af Alice's Adventures in Wonderland og Through the Looking Glass, i Penguinudgaven, købt af min mor, det superrationelle menneske, i april 1967, halvandet år før jeg kom til verden. Her er Gardners nu fuldstændig løsagtige note til hertugindens bon mot i kapitel 9: "Take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of themselves":

Surely few american readers have recognized this for what it is, an extremely ingenious switch on the British proverb "Take care of the pence and the pounds will take care of themselves". The Duchess' remark is sometimes quoted as a good rule to follow in writing prose or even poetry. Unsound, of course.

Lyksalige lektier

Jeg synes ikke, at jeg vil klage over, at jeg skal læse Store forventninger og Alice i Eventyrland i weekenden, det er overordentligt uordentligt i orden.

Poe og Carroll er tjekkiske surrealister

Jan Svankmajer har (endnu) ikke filmatiseret Kafka, men både Lewis Carroll ("Jabberwocky" (se klip i blogpost nedenfor) og hele Alice) og Edgar Allan Poe ("Usher" og "The Pit and the Pendulum" (se klip i denne blogpost)), som ergo må være tjekkiske surrealister begge to, har han haft under behandling; dette er ikke Professor Tournesols pendul, eller også er det lige netop det, det er:

Yndlingsromanynglinge

Mine 4 samtidsromanfavoritter:

Lewis Carroll: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, 2006

Charles Dickens: Our Mutual Friend, 2004

Per Højholt: Auricula, 2001

Laurence Sterne: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, 2009

Down the Worm-Hole

Jeg kan lige nå et citat af Lewis Carroll:

Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her, and to wonder what was going to happen next. First, she tried to look down and make out what was she was coming to, but it was to dark to see anything; then she looked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled with cupboards and bookshelves : here and there she saw maps and pictures hung upon pegs. She took down a jar from one of the shelves as she passed: it was labeled "ORANGE MARMELADE", but to her great disappointment it was empty: she did not like to drop the jar, for fear of killing somebody underneath, so managed to put it into one of the cupboards as she fell past it.

Og et af Peter Seeberg:

Graves sagde meget alvorligt, at det var planen, at hullet skulle graves helt ned til kineserne, ganske nøjagtigt til spaden rørte ved den første kineserfod.
Herbert spurgte ophidset, om Graves havde tænkt sig, at det skulle gøres ved håndkraft.
"Det var planen" sagde Graves, "I kan jo sikkert regne med, at det tager en rum tid. Da det er jo første gang, det bliver gjort, har man ikke turdet gøre noget overslag. Men det er vel i grunden også det samme?"
Han så på os.
"Helt det samme," sagde Jess.
Vi er i øjeblikket godt to kilometer nede i jorden. Vi er alle på det rene med, at der er et stykke vej igen.

Og så er jeg den der er fløjet!