BtZ42: on the road to Greenwich

[Joseph Tracy]

> And Gogol's Nose:
> 


Critics note that the story's title in Russian (Нос, "Nos") is the reverse of the Russian word for "dream" (Сон, "Son").

> On Mar 25, 2016, at 12:22 PM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> After the banana breakfast, Pirate sets out for the V-2 impact site on p. 11, but won't get there and collect his mail until p. 20. In between, we get mostly -- but not entirely -- flashbacks:
> 
> (11) Rumanian royalist's fantasy: Wartime London was home to Eastern European governments-in-exile from the Baltic states south to the Balkans, and it was not clear in late 1944 which might be re-installed after the war, or at least used as bargaining chips with the Soviets who were overrunning that territory. This seems to be more or less "real time"
> 
> (13) memory (date indeterminate) of the tramp, Girl Guides, and "sizzling night"
> 
> (13-14) memory from 1935 of Loaf's fantasy, the Moslem Messiah -- which alerted the Firm to Pirate's talent
> 
> (14-16) "At last, one proper Sherlock Holmes London evening" -- date after 1935, but indeterminate -- the Adenoid, an outgrowth of Foreign Office Balkan specialist Blatherard Osmo. This sequence ends with Osmo's mysterious death in 1939, so the "2 1/2 years" Pirate spent in daily visits to the Adenoid were within the 1935-1939 span... IF, that is, this recollection is of "real time" rather than of Pirate taking part in an ongoing Osmotic fantasy, which strikes me as more likely in context.
> 
> I doubt it's coincidence that this sequence goes from the Rumanian hint at "what will happen after WWII" to the senior diplomats' fears of "Balkan Armageddon," i.e. a replay of WWI's origin in Serbia (cf. also Against the Day). 
> 
> So... why an adenoid (i.e. a tonsil), rather than an appendix or spleen or hypothalamus? Why human tissue at all, rather than some other stand-in for Osmo's fears? Its slimy protoplasmic aspect led me on first reading to think of SF movies: 
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blob
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Master_X-7
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quatermass_II
> 
> And its _sshhlop_ing of the troops is parodically close to a scene of the Martian death ray in Wells' The War of the Worlds.
> 
> All I got -- not much -- is a vague association of the "adenoidal" voice with a nasal drawl allegedly common among the UK twits and toffs who might have populated the Foreign Office in those days. Still around under new management:
> 
> http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/that-adenoidal-nasally-geek-voice
> 
> And Gogol's Nose:
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nose_(Gogol_short_story)

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