Random thoughts on AEG

Matthew Keeley · 30 Oct 2008, 03:29 · from 2008-October.txt.gz

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From: matthew.keeley.1 at gmail.com (Matthew Keeley)
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2008 23:29:14 -0400
Subject: (urth) Random thoughts on AEG
In-Reply-To: <AFEFKBJKJDDJOMBNACBNCECPDNAA.nigelaprice at talktalk.net>
References: <AFEFKBJKJDDJOMBNACBNCECPDNAA.nigelaprice at talktalk.net>
Message-ID: <44fb53d10810292029sf74d8cvf11f2ef635e0567d at mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Oct 29, 2008 at 8:58 PM, Nigel Price <nigelaprice at talktalk.net> wrote:
>
> Yes, and we can include the awful faux English accent of King Kanoa, which
> reproduces the awfully mannered accents used by supposedly British
> characters in American films of the 30s and 40s.
>
> While we're on King Kanoa ("King Canoe"? King Canute?), there are a couple
> of spellings in AEG that had me wondering whether the book was either poorly
> proofread (like my posts!) or set in a parallel universe. King Kanoa refers
> to his school as "Eaton", when he presumably means "Eton", and earlier in
> the book, Gideon Chase quotes a poet he refers to as "Spencer", when he
> actually means Edmund Spenser. (Others have made the same mistake, including
> those who arranged his memorial in Westminster Abbey, if memory serves me
> right, but still, Wolfe should know it's Spenser with an S!)
>
>
> Nigel

Is the pulp being referenced exclusively American? King Kanoa's
English actually wouldn't be too out-of-place in some English novels.
Consider Lord Peter Wimsey's parody / epitome of that sort of chatty
Brit in Dorothy Sayers' novels. Or the two cricket fans in Hitchcock's
film The Lady Vanishes (who reappear in some non-Hitchcock films).

>From a website on names for children:
The boy's name Kanoa \k(a)-noa\ is pronounced ka-NOH-ah. It is of
Hawaiian origin, and its meaning is "the free one."

I remember one interview where Wolfe discussed the importance of
freedom in AEG and how Gid may be "the most free of all."

-Matt

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