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.
― emil.y, Wednesday, 13 January 2010 16:34 (fourteen years ago) link
An example of nominative determinism:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&uid=870138&cmd=showdetailview
― Zelda Zonk, Wednesday, 13 January 2010 16:40 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― thomp, Wednesday, 13 January 2010 16:41 (fourteen years ago) link
Yes, yes you do. Because otherwise you would be wrong. So very very wrong.
― emil.y, Wednesday, 13 January 2010 16:42 (fourteen years ago) link
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'.
― thomp, Wednesday, 13 January 2010 16:47 (fourteen years ago) link
Haha, yes, I have that one. It's not great.
― emil.y, Wednesday, 13 January 2010 16:49 (fourteen years ago) link
Nominative determinism at work
― alimosina, Wednesday, 13 January 2010 23:08 (fourteen years ago) link
do people still do that pomo kafka thing and name their characters n or d? kinda big in the 80's. just wondering.
― scott seward, Wednesday, 13 January 2010 23:11 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― Attention please, a child has been lost in the tunnel of goats. (James Morrison), Thursday, 14 January 2010 04:35 (fourteen years ago) link
Barf Latrigg
― Hans Holbein (Chinchilla Volapük), Sunday, 12 March 2017 07:18 (seven years ago) link