SLSL "TSR"

[Paul Mackin]

Dave Meury wrote:

>I also found it odd that little Buttercup is never given a real name in
>the story.  Also, while I have never seen or read the play, HMS
>Pinafore, a summary tells me that it involves a case of mistaken
>identity and of class differences.  This seems promising but do the
>contents of the play "count"? or is it a stretch in relation to TSR.  If
>there is a connection, the fact that Levine sleeps with Buttercup hits a
>wrong note since she is an old woman in the play.
>
>  
>
Yes but on the other hand the reason the erstwhile "captain" and 
Buttercup end up together is on account of the identity switch you 
mention. In a reasonably strong sense Lardass has undergone an identity 
switch also--from New York Jewish intellecutal (well, at least a CCNY 
English major) to what can reasonably pass for an uneduated Southern 
good-old-boy. However Buttercup immediately see through the disguise and 
makes her move. Or maybe she likes good old boys too.

On your point about Buttercup having no real name, I remember an 
interesting footnote in a copy of "Combray" (first section of Recherche) 
for English speaking students trying to read Proust. It concerns an 
extended passage in which M. waxes poetic about buttercups (the plant) 
growing alongside the fictitious river "Vivonne." The footnote refer to 
where M. imagines that buttercups (les boutons d'or in French) may have 
originated in Asia. The footnote reads as follows:

It is not known where buttercups originated. Here Proust suggests they 
are Asiatic. In most French fairytales the prince bears no name; he is 
called le fils du roi. But he is often asssocited with gold, 
gold-embroidered clothes, a gold harness, and sometimes a heart of gold.

Is Lardass possibly living a fairytale? Is Buttercup a fairy princess? 
She certain has a heart of gold.

Fancifully,

P.