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...Alice was walking beside the White Knight in Looking Glass Land.
"You are sad." the Knight said in an anxious tone: "let me sing you a song to comfort you."
"Is it very long?" Alice asked, for she had heard a good deal of poetry that day.
"It's long." said the Knight, "but it's very, very beautiful. Everybody that hears me sing it - either it brings tears to their eyes, or else -"
"Or else what?" said Alice, for the Knight had made a sudden pause.
"Or else it doesn't, you know. The name of the song is called 'Haddocks' Eyes.'"
"Oh, that's the name of the song, is it?" Alice said, trying to feel interested.
"No, you don't understand," the Knight said, looking a little vexed. "That's what the name is called. The name really is 'The Aged, Aged Man.'"
"Then I ought to have said 'That's what the song is called'?" Alice corrected herself.
"No you oughtn't: that's another thing. The song is called 'Ways and Means' but that's only what it's called, you know!"
"Well, what is the song then?" said Alice, who was by this time completely bewildered.
"I was coming to that," the Knight said. "The song really is 'A-sitting On a Gate': and the tune's my own invention."
So saying, he stopped his horse and let the reins fall on its neck: then slowly beating time with one hand, and with a faint smile lighting up his gentle, foolish face, he began:...
It is almost like my Tamasoma series...1, 2, 3,........24,25,26.
But Julius Caesar was the play we had to read in our Hons class. And there was a huge controversy as to how a man who gets killed in Act III can be accorded the title honors. And we had to defend it in our exam why Brutus or Antony (Mark, not A.K.) who survived till the bitter end didn't deserve the title deed. Cassius was out...he was an antihero...a term not known to Shakespeare I guess...he not being a prolific reader...where was the time to read?
Bernard Shaw was too much of an egotist to bestow attention on the titles of his plays...he must have thought that his name was enough to pull the crowds. I don't recall being excited by any title of his plays. We had to read his 'Candida' in our Hons class and were always reminded of a candy bar...which she was not.
Of all Maugham's novels the one whose title evoked interest in me was 'The Painted Veil'...it ran like the Sarat novel (which no Bengali claims to have read these days) titled 'Grihadaha'. The 'Painted Veil' is lifted from the opening lines of Shelley's sonnet that go as:
RKN was once asked how the name 'Malgudi' came to him. And he said that he suddenly saw a railway station and a street and the whole village teeming with simple folks going about their lives and said to himself:
"This is Malgudi!"
Titles in translation tend to be abominable if the title is a byword in the original language. I recall Father reading and making me read aloud a horrible Telugu translation of Tagore's 'Chokher Bali'. First of all I hated reading aloud and then the title got translated as 'Kanti Mera Mera' which sounded alien to me and too true a translation and offending to my ear. But that was in 1962. I see now that there is a film version of it with a Hindi actress whose chokhs were something to write about alright....without their bali.
When I myself started trying to write during my post-retirement ennui, I asked my son to create a blogspot for me. And he did it. And came up with the query:
"What do you want to call your blog?"
Since I was too lazy to think I said:
"Of course...'gpsastry' "
It turned out ok. Rather than some quaintly anonymous thing like: 'Waiting to Die'
When it came to choosing a title for my first Ishani booklet, I had no need to think. Just a day before that I posted the blog: 'Woolgathering'. And I said to myself:
"So be it!"
It was appreciated by Supratim, thank you!:
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"You are sad." the Knight said in an anxious tone: "let me sing you a song to comfort you."
"Is it very long?" Alice asked, for she had heard a good deal of poetry that day.
"It's long." said the Knight, "but it's very, very beautiful. Everybody that hears me sing it - either it brings tears to their eyes, or else -"
"Or else what?" said Alice, for the Knight had made a sudden pause.
"Or else it doesn't, you know. The name of the song is called 'Haddocks' Eyes.'"
"Oh, that's the name of the song, is it?" Alice said, trying to feel interested.
"No, you don't understand," the Knight said, looking a little vexed. "That's what the name is called. The name really is 'The Aged, Aged Man.'"
"Then I ought to have said 'That's what the song is called'?" Alice corrected herself.
"No you oughtn't: that's another thing. The song is called 'Ways and Means' but that's only what it's called, you know!"
"Well, what is the song then?" said Alice, who was by this time completely bewildered.
"I was coming to that," the Knight said. "The song really is 'A-sitting On a Gate': and the tune's my own invention."
So saying, he stopped his horse and let the reins fall on its neck: then slowly beating time with one hand, and with a faint smile lighting up his gentle, foolish face, he began:...
...Lewis Carroll
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William Makepeace Thackeray is said to have jumped out of his bed and ran around it seven times when the title 'Vanity Fair' hit him. I didn't read the classic though.
But I read Jane Austen's 'Pride & Prejudice' at least a couple of times. I first saw the book in my cousin (sister)'s hand. It was prescribed as her Non-Detailed Text...does that terminology exist anymore...I wonder. The cover of the book had the picture of a man (Darcy) and a woman (Elizabeth) facing each other rather demurely.
And my cousin (then at an impressionable age, like me now) pointed to the man and said: 'This is Pride' and the woman, 'This is Prejudice'. I thought it was rather cute although I didn't know what prejudice meant...I know now...with a vengeance.
Shakespeare was rather uncaring about the titles he gave to his plays...like this:
Henry IV, Part I...Henry IV, Part II...Henry V...Henry VI, Part I...Henry VI, Part II...Henry VI, Part III...Henry VIII...King John...Pericles...Richard II...Richard III
But I read Jane Austen's 'Pride & Prejudice' at least a couple of times. I first saw the book in my cousin (sister)'s hand. It was prescribed as her Non-Detailed Text...does that terminology exist anymore...I wonder. The cover of the book had the picture of a man (Darcy) and a woman (Elizabeth) facing each other rather demurely.
And my cousin (then at an impressionable age, like me now) pointed to the man and said: 'This is Pride' and the woman, 'This is Prejudice'. I thought it was rather cute although I didn't know what prejudice meant...I know now...with a vengeance.
Shakespeare was rather uncaring about the titles he gave to his plays...like this:
Henry IV, Part I...Henry IV, Part II...Henry V...Henry VI, Part I...Henry VI, Part II...Henry VI, Part III...Henry VIII...King John...Pericles...Richard II...Richard III
But Julius Caesar was the play we had to read in our Hons class. And there was a huge controversy as to how a man who gets killed in Act III can be accorded the title honors. And we had to defend it in our exam why Brutus or Antony (Mark, not A.K.) who survived till the bitter end didn't deserve the title deed. Cassius was out...he was an antihero...a term not known to Shakespeare I guess...he not being a prolific reader...where was the time to read?
Bernard Shaw was too much of an egotist to bestow attention on the titles of his plays...he must have thought that his name was enough to pull the crowds. I don't recall being excited by any title of his plays. We had to read his 'Candida' in our Hons class and were always reminded of a candy bar...which she was not.
Of all Maugham's novels the one whose title evoked interest in me was 'The Painted Veil'...it ran like the Sarat novel (which no Bengali claims to have read these days) titled 'Grihadaha'. The 'Painted Veil' is lifted from the opening lines of Shelley's sonnet that go as:
"Lift not the painted veil that those who live call life..."
"This is Malgudi!"
Titles in translation tend to be abominable if the title is a byword in the original language. I recall Father reading and making me read aloud a horrible Telugu translation of Tagore's 'Chokher Bali'. First of all I hated reading aloud and then the title got translated as 'Kanti Mera Mera' which sounded alien to me and too true a translation and offending to my ear. But that was in 1962. I see now that there is a film version of it with a Hindi actress whose chokhs were something to write about alright....without their bali.
When I myself started trying to write during my post-retirement ennui, I asked my son to create a blogspot for me. And he did it. And came up with the query:
"What do you want to call your blog?"
Since I was too lazy to think I said:
"Of course...'gpsastry' "
It turned out ok. Rather than some quaintly anonymous thing like: 'Waiting to Die'
When it came to choosing a title for my first Ishani booklet, I had no need to think. Just a day before that I posted the blog: 'Woolgathering'. And I said to myself:
"So be it!"
It was appreciated by Supratim, thank you!:
...Aniket's eloquent foreword also enabled me to appreciate why your
stories often reminded me of the ones by R.K. Narayan that I read many
years ago. However, "Woolgathering" is a far more evocative title than
the rather prosaic "KGP Days" or the smart alecky "Hyderabad Hues" that I
would have come up with if I was picking a title for your collection...
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