TR: Actually, Old McNab is having a go at Guy de
Maupassant (Guillaume de
Monparnasse) and his 'worst short story ever
written'
True, but "Old McNab" has also in mind Dr
Larivière, a character in Flaubert's Madam Bovary, and Montparnasse, a
character in Hugo's Les Misérables. One also remembers Dr Poupart, a character in Flaubert's Un coeur
simple. Cf. in Ada (1.21): "the mating habits of the fly Serromyia amorata Poupart.
Copulation takes place with both ventral surfaces pressed together and the
mouths touching. When the last throb (frisson) of intercourse is
terminated the female sucks out the male's body content through the mouth of her
impassioned partner. One supposes (see Pesson et al.) [another copious
footnote] that the tidbits, such as the juicy leg of a bug enveloped in a webby
substance, or even a mere token (the frivolous dead end or subtle beginning of
an evolutionary process - qui le sait!) such as a petal carefully
wrapped up and tied up with a frond of red fern, which certain male flies (but
apparently not the femorata and amorata morons) bring to the
female before mating, represent a prudent guarantee against the misplaced
voracity of the young lady."
In my Russian article in Zembla, "Terra and Antiterra:
Different Worlds, Different Truths", I suggest that the name Pesson, of the
invented entomologist, hints, as also Mlle Larivière's penname does, at
Maupassant.
Pesson + frivolous = frisson + peu + slovo
slovo = volos
slovo - Russ.,
word
volos - Russ., hair
cheers,
Alexey
Sklyarenko