Igenlode Wordsmith > Recent Status Updates

Interesting that rats and mice were apparently introduced to Europe - as subsequently so many islands - only by human traders, and are unknown in the fossil record before the Iron Age!

Sadly the "Turakina"/"City of Perth", named as being a survivor in 1912 along with the "Cutty Sark" as "two of the fastest and most beautiful ships ever built", was according to the records broken up shortly afterwards, in 1914 :-(

"leur roi et leur reine, dont ils étaient privés depuis une année" - historically probably true, but Dumas has only shown us a couple of months of winter since Athos and Aramis left to save the English King :-p

We have now had 12 years of outward tables, and space and, no doubt, the patience of the reader are both growing exhausted...
:-D

"Like all converted steamers she was a very fast sailer" - odd, I should have expected the opposite to be the case!

And I thought a romance between the Comte de La Fère and Madame de Chevreuse was an invention of Khilkevich for the purposes of his film.... but Athos, do I see you *flirting* with her? Inviting her to stay with you....?

A fascinating alternate history suggestion to go with the alternate religion - Edward II is still alive, put in secret captivity by Mortimer (which means that everybody, including his son, has a motive to see him dead...)

I was originally extremely sceptical of the typically romantic fan-theory that Aramis is the secret father of the son of Madame de Longueville... but d'Artagnan is undoubtedly seen to hint explicitly at just that here.
"M. de Longueville est de race royale. Son fils, Madame... doit en être, puisque le mari de sa mère en est" :P
In other words, the baby is *not* the son of "his mother's husband" :-p

Manipulation of Aramis: "Distrust Porthos and Athos, who may be moved by pity". Manipulation of Porthos: "Distrust Aramis, who is selfish, and Athos, who is too unselfish to appreciate that men like you and I may have legitimate desires". Manipulation of Athos: "Do this to save my life".

:-(

"You mentioned it before. I'm sorry that it happened, " said Dow - an unexpected blooper, given that minutes before "It was agony to talk" and in the next scenes "his mouth and throat were in no fit state for speech", and "his throat so raw and swollen he could emit no more than a grunt". And his English really isn't shown as being up to sympathetic platitudes anyway...

"You must achieve a proper 'creative state'....[then] the unexpectedness of the incident will excite you and your nature will rush forward.... your head will swim from the excitement of the sudden and complete fusion of your life with your part."
This is recognisable as the writer's experience when the subconscious suddenly throws up an unexpected action or response from one of the characters, and everything flows...

One has to wonder what Boyarsky's proposed but financially frustrated idea for a 'fourth series' was - surely not the bizarre resurrection plot that Khilkevich eventually filmed as "Cardinal Mazarin's Treasure", subsequent to the publication of these memoirs?

"Ah! fit Mousqueton, qui était placé près de d'Artagnan" - we know what Grimaud did when his master was arrested, but where has Mousqueton been all this while?
He was last seen following Porthos and d'Artagnan on the way to Paris, and apparently wasn't arrested with them... now he suddenly reappears on the journey from Rueil!

The amount of incidental information I have acquired is a amazing; I had not previously heard of Marshal Budyonny until Smekhov ruefully alluded to him in the context of his own lack of horsemanship ("not blessed by old Budyonny")

The choice of words to gloss here (after listing some very obvious usages at the startof the book) is really rather odd. They explain that "nailed onto the tree" means Christ's Cross, but don't gloss "starve thy sin, not bin" (corn-bin?) or the meaning of "tetter", surely obscure to almost anybody... (The OED says it is a generic term for skin diseases such as ringworm or impetigo.)

This book is basically the 1066 and All That of Balkan history - all the really memorable (i.e. preposterous) bits that stick out amid the mass of pointless misery, depopulation, massacres and general mutual detestation...

At one point I put an enormous amount of effort into trying to translate this poem ("Kino-horoscope") into plausible English.
Alas, without going back to my pencilled notes the obscure bits are still obscure!

The fascinating thing is that now, twenty years later, the "Kinopanorama" broadcast in question is actually available to watch on YouTube, and I've seen it (in fact, if it hadn't been for the poem he quotes here I should never have encountered this book!)
So we can compare his memories with what actually happened - e.g. the reason why Starygin was the main butt of teasing was that he had declined to turn up...