Dear mathmatiStan,
I'm way ahead of you - - I have heard your beautiful baritone voice and know that you wrote a song made famous by Judy Collins (I've never understood that girl's great appeal but she did sing some wonderful songs including yourn).
The reading you propose of PF - - everyone's first reading I think - - is in itself a masterpiece, no doubt about it. I loved it! But there are disturbances in those waters that I think really should lead one to seek the story behind that story.
I am not trying to prove my reading, if I were an academic I would have to. Thanks God I dodged that shoe. I would be delighted to find others (and as I wrote in previous post there are others) who have solved the puzzle.
In fact when I started writing to the List in '01 or '02 I didn't have the solution. When I found it and derived such pleasure from finding and proving it to myself, I was in fact reluctant to let out the secret. I hoped that others would have the experience I had of
1) understanding that PF is a puzzle
2) the frustration of trying and failing to solve it and
3) the near bliss of breaking through to a possible answer and
4) the sheer exhilarating fun of chasing down the proofs i.e. reading the books I thought VN wanted the reader to read - - the Alice books, J & H, Dorian Gray and the odd Hogg book and finding in them the delightful cherries you and others pooh-pooh.
But I was the object of much ridicule at the time and was more or less forced into divulging the solution though it did me absolutely no good. I was ridiculed the more. At least these days I am ridiculed with r-e-s-p-e-c-t, and believe me I do appreciate the improvement in tone.
I feel rather like ardnassaC - - predicting fun and frolic but no one will believe me!
Carolyn
p.s. I thought picadillos did mean tiny sins - - or does it have something to do with bull-fighting? LC called them "portmanteau words" didn't he? Slithy for example being a portmanteau of blithe and slippery? I forget now.
p.p.s. If you google me you will also find my double, a lovely very liberal reformed Jewish woman and physician who lives in Croton and whose son Seth has written some fascinating books. Please to not confuse us!! I am one of those "horrid" conservatives, both politically and Jewishly, and I live in Pasadena. I did not follow in my medical father's footsteps and have, alas, no children.