The Hunting of the Boojum: An Inanity in Eight Deliria

By Samuel Sigdon

The Hunting of the Boojum is a ‘poetic’ sequel to Lewis Carroll’s, The Hunting of the Snark (An Agony in Eight Fits). In The Hunting of the Snark, a crew of ten unlikely characters, under the direction of the Bellman, pursue their quarry the ‘Snark’. They discover, however, that the Snark is actually a ‘Boojum’ when met by one of their number, the Baker. The Baker is apparently lost in the encounter and there The Hunting of the Snark ends.

The Hunting of the Boojum is an, ‘Inanity in Eight Deliria’ and literally takes off where The Hunting of the Snark ends. The crew hunts the Boojum to avenge the Baker and in the course of the hunt travel back through time under the direction of the Bellman, as guided by the backward flying ouzelum bird. As a result, they end up back where they started at the beginning of The Hunting of the Snark where the Baker is reintroduced, albeit a little bruised.

“Poetry” probably designed for children, with a nod to the eccentric educational and a slant toward the adult. Mad, surreal and possibly utter nonsense, but then again...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brown Dog Books
• Release date: Nov 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9781839522185

Book preview

First published 2020

Copyright © Samuel Sigdon 2020

The right of Samuel Sigdon to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Published under licence by Brown Dog Books and

The Self-Publishing Partnership, 7 Green Park Station, Bath BA1 1JB

www.selfpublishingpartnership.co.uk

ISBN printed book: 978-1-83952-217-8

ISBN e-book: 978-1-83952-218-5

Cover design by Andrew Prescott

Internal design by Andrew Easton

Illustrations by Betty Woodhouse

Printed and bound in the UK

This book is printed on FSC certified paper

Dedication

This brief poem is dedicated with all my fondest love to my dear wife, Valerie, and our three wonderful, and sometimes challenging, children Angharad, Robert and Charles. I am intensely grateful for all that they have done for me and extremely proud of all four of them in respect of all that they have achieved.

As for me, please, ‘Piece out [my] imperfections with your thoughts’,¹ if indeed thought can achieve that feat!

S. S.

Terling

June 2020

Preface

If the reader is to make true nonsense, of what follows, then he, or she, must first read The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll². A proper understanding of the nonsense here, can only follow a true understanding of the nonsense there.

The good news, in my view, is that there is no hardship in reading The Hunting of the Snark, irrespective of the point upon life’s extraordinary voyage that the reader finds himself or herself. In any event, for those without the time or inclination to read The Hunting of the Snark, footnotes are contained in the text which follows, by way of explanation of points which might not otherwise be understood and, The Hunting of the Snark, is printed following those footnotes.

The reader might wonder whether The Hunting of the Snark was, in fact, nonsense at all, or whether the maths, geography, theology, history and social commentary, which is possibly embedded in that brief work, contains something more.

I have very much enjoyed The Hunting of the Snark myself, over a considerable period, the poem having been referred to me whilst an undergraduate at the Royal Holloway College, University of London, by my friend Nicholas de Salis. Nicholas and I were members of a ‘Snark Club’. I harbour no pretension that The Hunting of the Boojum will in any way approach the quality of Lewis Carroll’s work, but it has given me pleasure to write, and I hope that it may give the reader some pleasure also.

Encryption is not a forte as far as I am concerned, although ironically I believe that, in certain circles, it is at the Royal Holloway College these days, but I like to think that in some respects my own nonsense may embed something more. Probably everything is reflective of something.

In any case, if the reader has got this far, and better still enjoyed The Hunting of the Snark and even better still remains inclined to read the inanity that follows, might I suggest that he or she reads on without too much focus or concentration, for in my experience it is in those unguarded moments, with a mind uncluttered by detail, that the truth dawns or the solution is found.

To those who might think that time should not be wasted on ‘literature’ such as this, might I refer to a point made by the theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli, in the context of describing Albert Einstein’s early life, ‘you don’t get anywhere by not wasting time – something, unfortunately, which the parents of teenagers tend frequently to forget’.³

Acknowledgements

I take this opportunity to thank Betty Woodhouse for the illustrations that accompany the text, my brother Jonathan for his practical and artistic advice, my daughter Angharad who has kindly assisted with the technicalities of production and those of my friends including Lindsay Crutchett, Edward Preston, John Stephenson, Philipp Meier and Shamila Musafer-Lax, who have looked at the text and offered helpful comment, either of their own or of their children.

Finally, thanks to Nicholas de Salis. Had he not suggested the Snark Club dinners, I might never have had the fun that I have had with this concept: who knows?

The Hunting of the Boojum

The Deliria