AS: I wrote at first "neuropathologists" but
then replaced it with a shorter word...What is more interesting, this was
probably the first mention of Freud in the Russian press. Curious that he was
mentioned by the (incorrectly spelt) first name. The existence on Antiterra of
Dr Froit of Signy-Mondieu-Mondieu and his émigré
brother with a passport-changed name (who can be the same
man), a Dr Froid, seems to correspond to the Sigmund/Sigmunt
opposition...
JM: Because I began to favor Umberto Eco
editions in English ( for easy quotations), because I didn't realize that what
has been published in English as "Misreadings," had already been issued in
Brasil, in 1985, in a wonderful translation from the Italian, I ignorantly
blamed editorial criteria for the omission.* Actually, I just found
out that also Umberto Eco invented different
kinds of anagramatic games. One of these he called "Hircocervos,"
(the word in Portuguese, referring perhaps to alchemical "hierosgamos"
), to mingle the names of famous authors and their works in a
special kind of pastiche.
The other he called "Anagrams a
Posteriori." He explains that classic anagrams are created a
priori, when the letters of a name or a first sentence are mingled
under the surge of a confused intuirion related to already
existing names, words or sentences. The other grows out from
anagrams which are applicable to other names, but which have no special
"bearer," so it is necessary to invent a biography to explain the new
coinage (a quick imprecise translation for a part of his paragraph).
Your own anagram theory must certainly
apply to still another kind of creation (which I don't think has irony or
humor as its chief aim). Real life and fiction are intermingled in a different
way.
Nabokov practiced "Anagrams a
Posteriori", for example, in connection to Ada's Charles Nicot
and Nicholas Tobakoff( but I quote from memory). There must be a host
of similar samples. One example from Eco: Bruce O'Moët:
Irish XIX Century nationalist, later exiled in
Reims and co-founder with Paul Chandon of a famous brand
of champagne.
Under the "Hircocervos" kind of anagrams we
find:
VLADIMIR ILITCH NABOKOV - "What can we do
with Lolita?"
other
examples:
Fiodor
Tolstoievsky "War
and Punishment"
Eric
Tati "Hulot
Suite"
Virginia
Wolfe "Who
killed Mrs Dalloway?"
Walter Benjamin Franklin
"The work of art at the time of electric reproductibility"
Walter Scott
Eriugena
"Visio Ricardi a Corde Leonis"
Woddy
Alien
"Starwar Memories"
Mickey
Mauss
"The Mouse as a Gift"
Moby
Duck
"Pequod-quid-quad"
Nikolai Rimski-Gorbatchov
"Shehevardnaaze"
Pink Floyd
Patterson "Sing
on the Ring"
Restif de la
Breton
"Monsieur Nadja"
Roman
Jacoksony "Walkman
Aphasia"
Salvador
Kali
"Un indien andalou"
Samuel Becket
Stowe
"Père Godot's cabin"
Teilhard de
Cardin
"Dressed by God"
aso...
............................................................
* To my vexation I discovered that I owned
the "Misreadings" book (actually there are two, "Diário Mínimo" and
"Segundo Diário Mínimo."). I equally forgot that I'd posted a sighting about
"Nausicaa/Lolita" in 10 March 2009, the only parody I'd read at that
time.
Nonita-Granita here it is titled "Vozita"
& dated 1959. The "Forward" by the new John Ray Jr. is a fundamental
part of the game (it explains the intention of Eco's
parody). The English sample I got
thanks to Fulmerford/Juan Martinez was not as interesting because Eco's
Italian has been unctious and voluptuously translated into
Portuguese while Umberto Umberto's pedantic use of Latin
words can be easily distinguished from the trivial Latin ones,
nicely intermingled).