[lit-ideas] "A Corset Around the Absolute"
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2007 20:03:51 EDT
Ritchie:
"I think the shop sold trusses of various sorts, devices for [gentlemen] who
wanted to avoid the surgical repair of hernias. But why young adults had to
be kept out is a bit of a mystery,"
Well, I suppose you would need to have come of age (which I think is 16
years old in Lacaedemonia) to be able to engage in the following dialogue:
SELLER: Yes, sir?
BOY: Looking for a truss.
SELLER. I see. You are looking to avoid
the surgical repair of your hernias?
BOY: No, it's for my uncle.
-- Surgical repair of one's hernias should be decided by a MAJOR, not a
minor.
Ritchie continues:
"hence the speculation that they had a second line of business."
Such as an undercover brothel with fallen women. Quite a bit of a
speculation there. Also, as you describe Charlton -- a grim place -- I would
not think
the area to have a 'sufficient market for fallen women' when everybody could
make it to Piccadilly for that (Borges thought 'piccadilly' is piccadillo --
little sin)
Ritchie:
"It's hard to imagine that there was a sufficient market in trusses. What
else would they sell? Male corsets perhaps? Condoms maybe?"
For what it's worth (much, to R. Paul, who taught me about gruebleen in
Finnegans Wake) there's this quote (obscure typically) from Joyce's Ulysses
(1922, p. 533)
" Corsets for men."
But the OED notes there's no contradiction there -- I find men's fashion a
fascinating subject for study --, since corset is dim. for 'cor', French for
'corpse', body.
A mixed metaphor that Geary will perhaps not enjoy is also cited in the OED
1951 in _M. MCLUHAN_
(http://0-dictionary.oed.com.csulib.ctstateu.edu/help/bib/oed2-m.html#m-mcluhan)
Mech. Bride 93/2
"Bergson has put a corset around the Absolute."
Geary would object that _that_ should read _Absolutes_.
Cheers,
J. L. Speranza
Buenos Aires, Argentina
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