Friday, August 7, 2009

Hodge

Had you forgotten it's summer of Nabokov? Pretentious-y, yes!
Currently on the awesome and insane Pale Fire.

The intro epigraph is this:



This reminds me of the ludicrous account he gave Mr. Langton, of the despicable state of a young gentleman of good family."Sir, when I heard of him last, he was running about town shooting cats." And then in a sort of kindly reverie, he bethought himself of his own favorite cat and said "But Hodge shan't be shot: no, no Hodge shall not be shot."

JAMES BOSWELL, The Life of Samuel Johnson

Aside being a humdinger of a non-sequiter in light of VN's book (although it's likely not, I'm just too midwesternly peabrained to just nod sagely and chuckle), this is the BEST THING EVER. Moreover, Hodge is famous!


I mean, here is a statue of him!:






He even has his own wikipedia entry:



The start is the best: "Although there is little known about Hodge..."


Where is HIS bio? He may have liked fish, e.g.! And if he did, we want to read about it.


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