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Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for May 21, 2008

CAAF: Particularly individualizing and not ungraceful

May 21, 2008 by cfrye

I’ve been thinking a lot about character names lately and admiring other writer’s choices and inventions. For example, in Mark’s novel, Harry, Revised, the main character is named Harry Rent, and it’s such a good name — simple, but suggestive of grief (i.e., the rending that follows a death, which fits as Harry’s a widower) as well as of the provisional, semi-permanent state (i.e., renting, not owning) that sets off Harry’s “revision” process.
Then there’s the less subtle, still marvelous class of character names: Uriah Heep, Augustus Gloop, Undine Sprague (possibly my favorite ever), Fevvers, Stephen Dedalus, the fragile Glass family, and so on.
So, I was amused to come across this letter today in The Notebooks of Henry James. It was written in response to a reader of The Liar with a personal interest in James’s use of “Capadose” for a character name:

34 De Vere Gardens, W.
13 Oct. 1896.
My dear Sir,
You may be very sure that if I had ever had the pleasure of meeting a person of your striking name I wouldn’t have used the name, especially for the purpose of the tale you allude to.
It was exactly because I had no personal or private associations with it that I felt free to do so. But I am afraid that (in answer to your amiable inquiry) it is late in the day for me to tell you how I came by it.
The Liar was written (originally published in The Century Magazine) 10 years ago–and I simply don’t remember.
Fiction-mongers collect proper names, surnames, &c.–make notes and lists of any odd or unusual, as handsome or ugly ones they see or hear–in newspapers (columns of births, deaths, marriages, &c.) or in directories and signs of shops or elsewhere; fishing out of these memoranda in time of need the one that strikes them as good for a particular case.
“Capadose” must be in one of my old note-books. I have a dim recollection of having found it originally in the first column of The Times, where I find almost all the names I store up for my puppets. It was picturesque and rare and so I took possession of it. I wish–if you care at all–that I had applied it to a more exemplary individual! But my romancing Colonel was a charming man, in spite of his little weakness.
I congratulate you on your bearing a name that is at once particularly individualizing and not ungraceful (as so many rare names are).
I am, my dear Sir,
Yours very truly
Henry James

I also like how you could set this letter to “This Is Just To Say“: I have named a character with your surname … Forgive me, it was too tempting: so picturesque, so rare.” (Commas, &c. added to make it suitably Jamesian.)

TT: Almanac

May 21, 2008 by Terry Teachout

“If any one asks me for good advice, I say I will give it, but only on condition that you promise me not to take it.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, quoted in Johann Peter Eckermann, Conversations with Goethe

Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout, who writes this blog, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. In addition to his Wall Street Journal drama column and his monthly essays … [Read More...]

About

About “About Last Night”

This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout. Terry is a critic, biographer, playwright, director, librettist, recovering musician, and inveterate blogger. In addition to theater, he writes here and elsewhere about all of the other arts--books, … [Read More...]

About My Plays and Opera Libretti

Billy and Me, my second play, received its world premiere on December 8, 2017, at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, Fla. Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, ran earlier this season at New Orleans’ Le Petit Theatre. It previously closed off Broadway at the Westside Theatre on June 29, … [Read More...]

About My Podcast

Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I are the panelists on “Three on the Aisle,” a bimonthly podcast from New York about theater in America. … [Read More...]

About My Books

My latest book is Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, published in 2013 by Gotham Books in the U.S. and the Robson Press in England and now available in paperback. I have also written biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine, and H.L. Mencken, as well as a volume of my collected essays called A … [Read More...]

The Long Goodbye

To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here. … [Read More...]

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