GRGR: Jessica Swanlake

[jbor at bigpond.com]

> <<I read Jessica's name as evoking the ballet, rather
> than the music -- not the specific plot of Swan Lake
> (which is *the* ballet, after all), but in terms of
> the poise and precision of a prima ballerina. Cf.
> Milton Gloaming explaining Zipf's Principle of Least
> Effort to her, "even her bewilderment graceful"
> (32).>>
>
> ***

On 04/12/2005 dmeury wrote:

> Swan Lake is the dance, the story, and the music.  It
> is also associated with the movie, Dracula, references
> to whom are explicitly and inferrentially made in the
> text.
>
> I am certainly not arguing against your preference but
> I think there can be multiple suggestive properties
> operating here and throughout the work.  This is why
> GR is so much bigger than its page-count. [..]

One can read anything, from assassinations and auto-eroticism to 
Zoroastrianism, into anything. And more power to them.

But one can also decide not to, I hope. Even though 'Dracula' pops up 
in a little while (Bela Lugosi, actually, in relation to Géza 
Rószavöglyi), I don't read a reference to it in Jessica's surname. No 
offence intended.

For me, Jessica's name evokes aspects of her character, the fact that 
she is conscious of her physical beauty and grace, and that she is 
constantly performing, as a ballerina does on stage. (But I do also 
like the correlation with the darts term "swans in a lake" just pointed 
out.) While it's not a "preference", I'm not imposing my reading on 
anyone, and I'd hope others are able to show the same courtesy.

best