St Veronica's

[Michael Bailey]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Veronica

(Interesting tie-in with V., for that matter.) ( and Archie comics )
St Veronica was supposed to have given Jesus a hankie on his
deathmarch, with  which he wiped the beads of sweat from his suffering
face.
An imprint of his face, quoth Wikipedia, stayed on the linen, and was
preserved among many such relics by the Church, and:
To distinguish at Rome the oldest and best known of these images it
was called vera icon (true image), which ordinary language soon made
veronica"

Ordinary language also made "Bethlehem" Hospital into Bedlam, and St
Audrey's into "tawdry"

Why Veronica would be a fitting saint for the hospital: hmmm, no
surmises come to mind.  But splicing the St Veronica's bus station,
and the St Veronica's hospital scenes, both have to do with singling
out an individual in a crowd and offering comfort after a fashion. 
Especially the bus station scene, where all is departure, departure,
and only occasionally does one soul come towards another -- and that
maps strangely unto Pointsman's wish for a Fox -- which also fits with
the Evacuation scene at the beginning, and a feeling of social
estrangement that nobody yet in the book has surmounted.
But, I feel that Gwenhidwy is going to soon.
And Christmas is coming!

On 12/23/05, jbor at bigpond.com <jbor at bigpond.com> wrote:
> > Note also that the full name is "the Hospital of St. Veronica of the
> > True Image for Colonic and Respiratory Diseases" (46), which seems to
> > be another variation on the theme of "shit, money, and the Word" --
> > well, maybe not "money" so much, except that Pointsman's main gripe is
> > to do with insufficient funding.
>
> And except that, of course, it was built as a private Catholic hospital
> in the city where only the wealthy could afford to go, their
> predominantly excretory and respiratory ailments the result, one might
> infer, of excesses of eating and smoking.
>
> best
>
>


--
"Acceptance, forgiveness, love - now that's a philosophy of life!"
-Woody Allen, as Broadway Danny Rose