Wacky names in fiction

I was just reading a review of Jonathan Lethem's latest novel. He's not a writer I've read anything of, although I've vaguely thought he might be someone I should check out. But then in the review I learn that the protagonist's name is Chase Insteadman. And that other characters are Perkus Tooth, Georgina Hawkmanaji, Richard Abneg, etc., and I get the feeling this is not for me. It suddenly occurs to me that wacky names are a kind of marker for me. If a book has them, or at least has more than one of them, I'm fairly confident that I'm not going to like it. I'm sure there are exceptions - I liked Catch 22, or at least I did when I was a teenager - but in general it seems a good rule of thumb for me. I imagine this is more of an American affliction. I don't think the French really do it, although in the eighties the British were getting into it. Martin Amis does it; I can't remember if Rushdie does it, but I bet he does. I guess it's a turn-off for me because it indicates a showy self-conscious style and I'm not particularly into that. Anyway, prove me wrong. Name me terrific novels with wackily-named characters...

http://m.assetbar.com/achewood/autaux?b=M%5ea11f09b8576e606bcb5038dfdb92fb821&u=http%3A%2F%2Fachewood.com%2Fcomic.php%3Fdate%3D12222009

every pynchon ever

every Dickens ever

Dickens is an exception to my personal rule. Pynchon is emblematic of it. I've never been able to get on with Pynchon.

Simplicius Simplicissimus.

dfw, in curious hair especially

Martin Amis does this in the good Dickensian way.

dfw, in curious hair especially

― max, Sunday, January 10, 2010 11:10 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i mean broom

I'm not opposed to the idea in principle, but it strikes me that the writers already meantioned (Dickens, Pynchon, Rushdie, Martin Amis) are serious candidates for my personal 10-most-overrated list. But I love Wodehouse, for example, and names like Catsmeat Potter Pirbright, Oofy Prosser, Barmy Fothingay-Phipps and Tuppy Glossop only add to the charm.

ok also Evelyn Waugh

Oofy Prosser is fantastic

Akaky Akakievich

It saddens me that Lethem should have got himself mixed up in this. The scene in Motherless Brooklyn where he looks up other Essrogs in the phone book is lovely, and I'm persuadable that Fortress of Solitude's names serve the story (plus there aren't many of them). But this lot don't fill me with enthusiasm.

An early review of DeLillo called the practice "Pynchon Central Casting."

I have to admit that Wodehouse and Waugh punch a hole in my wacky names theory because I like both, Waugh in particular: Handful of Dust is one of the outstanding novels of the 20th century for me. Both are very controlled writers though, unlike many of the baggy, running-off-at-the-mouth American authors who go for the wacky name thing.

in general I like wacky names in fiction and while I liked Lethem's Chronic City the names are awful. Perkus Tooth & Chase Insteadman -- feh.

it's always struck me as an early warning marker that subtlety isn't going to be a major concern, which is fine for wodehouse (and aren't his quite often nicknames public school nicknames anyway?- different device entirely) and maybe even dickens (yeah but not really obviously because he uses them as an easy substitute for characterisation) but it has a real jarring effect (speaking personally) in a work that's in it for anything but laughs.

On reflection, I don't really think Waugh fits in here. Sure, he does indulge in some wacky Wodehousian names, but only for minor characters I think, and he doesn't deploy the wacky name strategy in his novels that are largely non-comic, as far as I can remember. As for Wodehouse, as not a reactionary git points out, they're satires on public school names and are not in fact that wide of what they're satirising. They don't stick out like Chase Insteadman or Perkus Tooth.

Another related gripe: names that are screamingly obvious metaphors, puns, anagrams etc. Paul Auster is a prime culprit here. I think you can do the name-as-metaphor/pun thing as long as it doesn't jump out at the reader, ie I assume Beckett's Malone = Me Alone, but because Malone is a pretty common Irish name anyway the pun doesn't hit you over the head.

Re Waugh - depends what you mean by "largely non-comic" - the Sword of Honour trilogy, for example, has Trimmer, Ritchie-Hook, Jumbo Trotter et al - even Guy Crouchback as the put upon decent man fits the pattern. I'd accept that these are comic novels, but they have a serious and satirical purpose and if you exclude them from the "largely non-comic" category you're pretty much left with the overwritten gloop that is Brideshead and - what else?

Hans Reiter and Lalo Cura in 2666.

tom marvolo riddle ftw

Neal stephenson

xpost

Yeah, I guess you're right about Waugh. And I guess all his novels are comic - even Brideshead has plenty of comic interludes. The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold is not comic but then again, "Gilbert Pinfold" itself is a borderline wacky name. But what Waugh often does is have an everyman protagonist with a normal name, who descebds into an anarchic world peopled with fruitily named characters. Actually no, scratch even that, I just looked up the protagonist of Decline & Fall and his name's Paul Pennyfeather... no, I'll just have to accept that Waugh is a serial wacky name user, in the Dickensian vein...

Humbert Humbert

But those Waugh names from Sword of Honour aren't really wacky (if you give Jumbo the public-school-nickname get-out clause); and surely it's not a comic novel in the sense that everything up to Put Out More Flags is? I think Zelda was about right in the first place; Waugh tends to really break out the wacky names in the comic novels, for minor characters, tho' he does like choosing borderline weird or seeming-to-signify names throughout & for all characters.

This is case-by-case for me - plenty of my favourite writers do it (I am FOR Dickens & Pynchon & Waugh & Wodehouse), and there are others who get it away with it sometimes (M. Amis). But I do feel a bit 'o shit - that' if I flick through or get wind of a random book where this is going on.

& Nabokov's another I love, but does both comic-sounding & seeming-to-signify names - Humbert, Hugh Person, Van Veen, etcetc. (t/s: Literary strategy revealing textuality & artifice of the construction you are reading vs lol words.)

t/s: Literary strategy revealing textuality & artifice of the construction you are reading vs lol words

actually bugs me more in the former instance

Yeah, tbh I am bone-deep untheoretical so in Nabokov's case I mostly enjoy the comic & irrational sound engineering with the names. I think maybe I am just easily entertained by this kind of thing, deep love for the name-guessing sequences in The Third Policeman/Father Ted.

The whole naming thing is interesting and I've never really thought about it before. Obviously, it is impossible not to think of what a name might signify in fiction, as opposed to real life. Even if you the writer choose the most bland, random name for your protagonist, it's going to send the message that your protagonist is a bland, random everyman/woman...

humbert humbert is not his "real" name, though, is it? towards the end, he toys with a bunch of pseudonymns iirc.

There's also the ploy of not naming the protagonist at all, sometimes used with first person narratives.

xp

Yeah, right, this is why Nabokov's complicated - in HH's case it's a pseudonym, chosen by himself, & HH is creating pseudonyms throughout (Haze only rhymes with Lo's surname?), and iirc there's something tricksy about the narrator in most of the novels that'll mess with the reader in that way. Sometimes find that a bit wearing with him tbh.

Like Zelda, the naming thing I find the naming thing fascinating in a very minor way - it bugged me slightly that Anthony Powell would almost always choose place names for his characters (Widmerpool aside I think). Or I'm curious why I find that Jocelyn Brooke's names always seem very unlikely (not in a lolway, just, well unlikely; difficult to imagine anyone having them).

Machen has a tiny pool of names for often quite varied characters, so that you quite often find people with very similar names across stories with no connection.

Dickens is wonderful, no doubt - they have a wonderful heft and feel to them, appropriate with being forced. Martin Amis' ones annoy me. Nabokov's have that half-reflection of something aspect that links in with his aesthetic.

Widmerpool aside I think

Wikipedia says a village in Nottinghamshire

Supposedly Amis has a character in a forthcoming book - not the Pregnant Window - called Lionel Asbo. I loled.

Sounds like the kind of name you'd come up with if you wanted to parody an Amis novel, though.

... and having googled it, he's a "lottery-winning criminal who hooks up with someone rather like Katie Price". Don't think I'll be reading this one.

It's quite nice to read Zelda Zonk, Frankie Machine and Isambard Kingdom Buñuel decrying this practice.

But those Waugh names from Sword of Honour aren't really wacky........................tho' he does like choosing borderline weird or seeming-to-signify names throughout & for all characters..

I confess your distinction between "wacky" and "borderline weird or seeming-to-signify" is too subtle for me.

Sorry woofwoofwoof rereading that is sounds snotty in a way that wasn't intended.

It's quite nice to read Zelda Zonk, Frankie Machine and Isambard Kingdom Buñuel decrying this practice.

Pwned. Although the semiotics of Internet handles is probably a whole different kettle of poissons!

Nah, that's cool realised I was a bit unclear and the grey area's bigger than I was acknowledging. Basically, I'd be distinguishing between names that wouldn't wouldn't make you go 'wut?' if you met them socially (in 1930), and those that would: so I think Paul Pennyfeather, Basil Seal, Tony Last, John Beaver, Guy Crouchback, William Boot are all passable in that way, odd or significant though they might seem if you stop for a sec. Whereas the aristo titles in eg Decline & Fall are wacky - Metroland, Tangent, Circumference; also uses it a bit elsewhere - Miles Malpractice, Mrs Ape, Miss Thanatogenos in The Loved One. Those out-and-out weird names are closer to the Dickens/Pynchon thing, but the centre-stage stuff tends to be restrained - but my threshold is maybe high for this.

he's a "lottery-winning criminal who hooks up with someone rather like Katie Price". Don't think I'll be reading this one.

Haha no I am totally in. Think Amis might be at his best now when he's just spewing about repulsive caricatures living in some hysterical lazily imagined version of pop culture. Better that than saying important about men & women, or commenting on Islam or, if Yellow Dog is anything to go by, constructing plots.

Lionel Asbo. That is f'in lazy.

'importnat things' I think that should be. & spelt like that.

Lionel!

His signature dance move is the 'Big Lionel' which comprises hiatus in tapping before an elaborate theatrical twirl. This is typically followed by a grin and one clap of the hands before the tap dance is resumed.

A friend in Manchester writes;

Martin Amis has been giving some really creepy talks on sex and old age on campus

Predictable news.

Albert Albert. House Mother Normal.

I'd forgotten Waugh's having a character named Metroland. That's great I think.

I still like two of the four names mentioned in Chronic City. I kind of wonder whether there's actually anyone with a real sounding name in the book.

Albert Albert. House Mother Normal.

Being positioned next to each other, am I to assume that you mean Albert Angelo? Which isn't 'wacky' at all... Also, I can't remember if the House Mother is actual meant to be called House Mother Normal... she is referred to solely as House Mother in the text.

I'm finding this thread interesting, actually, as my pet writing project now is based on nominative determinism and aptronyms.

The main character of Albert Angelo is (it is strongly implied) called Albert Albert. Actually I think in one of the later sections the narrator-as-Johnson calls himself out for trying to be clever with this?

I couldn't remember what the House Mother is actually called.

I'm finding this thread interesting, actually, as my pet writing project now is based on nominative determinism and aptronyms.

i don't understand this sentence

—Not that I am not fond of Albert, for I am, very; Albert, a slightly comic association with the name, offset today, as a name, and Albert Albert, to emphasize his Albertness, hisness, itness, uniqueness, yes, fond of him I am, very, even though I have hardly provided you with a description of him, a corporate being, I know, but he stands for me, i don't need one: Albert, who stands for me, poor fool.

Ah, you could be right on AA, the comparison with Nabokov is starting to ring a vague bell... and it is the only one of his I haven't re-read recently. I have a suspicion that he did intend for House Mother to be called House Mother Normal, but kept it out of the main text on purpose - it works for her as the author's puppet, but not as a human, and that artifice needs to be maintained until the end. (xpost, okay, you are right on Albert!)

As for the other sentence, which bit don't you understand? It is intended to convey the fact that I currently have a writing project, the main body of which is directed by the idea that one's name can have an effect on one's future (nominative determinism)... An aptronym is similar, but doesn't imply causation, merely correlation between name and e.g. occupation.

An example of nominative determinism:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&uid=870138&cmd=showdetailview

well, now i know what those are it makes sense

first paperback eds of 'trawl' and 'albert angelo' have shown up where i work. can't really justify buying them. curious whether i still like johnson or not.

Yes, yes you do. Because otherwise you would be wrong. So very very wrong.

trawl has the most awful cover: a mixed-media picture of a mermaid, with a photo of a topless model for the top half and a painted tail. and then 'winner of the Somerset Maugham award'.

Haha, yes, I have that one. It's not great.

Nominative determinism at work

do people still do that pomo kafka thing and name their characters n or d? kinda big in the 80's. just wondering.

But those Waugh names from Sword of Honour aren't really wacky...

I'm thinking if you're a man called Evelyn, who marries a woman called Evelyn, your real life is so full of name-related unlikeliness that you can name your characters whatever you like.

Barf Latrigg