Fit 6, Pg. 66/1 … the snark in the grey flannel suit

THE HUNTING OF THE SNARK by Lewis Carroll, a graphic novel by this artist and explained here, page by page, panel by panel … right now we're in Fit the Sixth, where the Barrister (played by Martin Heidegger) is dreaming of prosecuting a pig …

Wipe the smirk from your face, dear reader, stifle the groan in your throat … yes, we are punning today and the punnee is a legal suit and the punnor is a gentleman’s suit, size 42.

Of course, you already know that puns are the bittersweet linguistic memory of that long-ago time when any word meant anything, and some of ‘em meant as much as six different things before breakfast. In those prelapsarian times when language was first evolving from the sonic ooze of grunts and snorts into more upright, ambulatory fricatives and uvular trills, the assignment of one particular sound to one particular object was a slapdash, fritter-my-wig sort of business. In truth, we might say that once upon a time all words were puns and Nonsense reigned upon the land.

All of this came to a sticky end with the invention of reeling and writhing, as I’m sure you’ve heard before. Equipped with such skills, even circus and theater folk could interpret the written marx of contract law and stymie the Pig and his legal Snark, all by invoking the Sanity Clause.

What’s this, the Judge sputters! Sanity Clause? You can’t fool me, there ain’t no Sanity Clause! Exactly, milord, 'tis the perfect Christmas Alibi, the Snark replies!

A Snarkimental Education

Yet another visual conundrum to grace these hapless pages of The Hunting of the Snark by the safely dead Lewis Carroll. I say safely for I cannot know how Carroll would have taken this particular bit of sketchy jobbery and like all illustrators, I am a bit of an inky rascal who prefers to avoid outraged authors.

The duenna on the right is a generic optical illusion found in all the better sorts of psychology textbooks, the sort of textbooks which prefer not to delve too deeply into why a grown man feels the need to be pelted with salad and ice whilst clutching a giant muffin.

Such mysteries form the very bedrock of Human Stupidity and as such, are best left to the experts in such matters, psychologists, behavioral scientists, theologians and philosophers, all of whom concur in answering the question thus: because!

More Snark Cinematic News! It appears that another animated version of the Snark is in the works, produced by Saranne Bensusan and 3rd Story Productions. It appears to be a stop-motion production in the UK, more info here.

Elsewhere on The Hunting of the Snark …
• On le nomme aussi BOUJUM par erreur

Life’s a Joke and All Things Show It, I Thought So Once and This SNARK Shows It!

There’s a pun of sorts lurking about somewhere in this inky mess although I am well aware that certain of my readers don’t go in for that sort of thing at all.

Puns are proof positive that the words which we employ are ready to betray us at the first opportunity, and visual puns are doubleplus-proof-positive of the illusory nature of Things As They Are. Let’s face it, most everything we say and see is just a fib and it is this which drives pun-o-phobes nuts, they like a bit of order in their chaos.

But we Snark Hunters are made of sterner stuff! It is we, and we alone, who have the unmitigated semiotic gall to stand up in the midst of the stuffed-shirt cocktail party of Reality, our hair awry, our curry-soaked ties undone, our bloodshot eyes rolling madly, and proclaim loudly to our hostess that the Baker’s Tale has a point after all, the point being that it entails a waist of time.

Elsewhere on The Hunting of the Snark …
• Look on my snark, ye mighty, and despair!

Fit the Sixth, Page 42+1, Panel 1 … a snark at the opera

“The fact of Desertion I will not dispute;
But its guilt, as I trust, is removed
(So far as related to the costs of this suit)
By the Alibi which has been proved.

Wipe the smirk from your face, dear reader, stifle the groan in your throat … yes, we are punning today and the punnee is a legal suit and the punnor is a gentleman’s suit, size 42.

Of course, you already know that puns are the bittersweet linguistic memory of that long-ago time when any word meant anything, and some of ‘em meant as much as six different things before breakfast. In those prelapsarian times when language was first evolving from the sonic ooze of grunts and snorts into more upright, ambulatory fricatives and uvular trills, the assignment of one particular sound to one particular object was a slapdash, fritter-my-wig sort of business. In truth, we might say that once upon a time all words were puns and Nonsense reigned upon the land.

All of this came to a sticky end with the invention of reeling and writhing, as I’m sure you’ve heard before. Equipped with such skills, even circus and theater folk could interpret the written marx of contract law and stymie the Pig and his legal Snark, all by invoking the Sanity Clause.

What’s this, the Judge sputters! Sanity Clause? You can’t fool me, there ain’t no Sanity Clause! Exactly, milord, 'tis the perfect Christmas Alibi, the Snark replies!