LRB LETTERS FUN PART 1

AS SHOWN IN SIMANAITISSAYS FROM TIME TO TIME, the London Review of Books is a most literate —and entertaining—publication, even to its “Letters” column. See, for example, “LRB Letters—A Reader’s Pleasure” and “Lore From LRB Letters.”

The latest LRB letters corroborate this. Here, in Parts 1 and 2 today and tomorrow, are tidbits gleaned from its readers’ comments, together with accompanying ones of mine.

Enoch Powell, the Cyclist. LRB reader Charles Skinner recounts, “David Runciman, writing about the relationship between the UK and Europe since 1945, says a fair bit about that most interesting and intransigent of politicians, Enoch Powell (LRB, 9 October). My uncle spent a lot of time with Powell during the North Africa campaign in the Second World War. He told us that Powell’s preferred mode of transport was the motorcycle (typically, he was a trenchant opponent of compulsory helmet use in the 1973 parliamentary debate).”

“On one occasion he was required to drive a truck. Coming into a bend caused by the presence of a sand dune, Powell did not turn the wheel but leaned his body and head into the bend, as a motorcyclist would. To his surprise, but nobody else’s, the truck chugged straight into the dune.”

Ha. When learning to ride a Honda Scrambler on St. Thomas, I was afflicted with the opposite quandary. Coordinating how to lean was compromised by the Virgin Island practice of keeping to the “opposite” side of the road (remaining from the days of Danish colonization). 

Not that I am completely ignorant of motorcycles and their kin. 

On Dirty Books. Timon Screech, an LRB reader in Kyoto, Japan, responds, “Barbara Newman, writing about Boccaccio, notes that ‘in modern Italian, the adjective boccaccesco means “lascivious” ’ (LRB, 14 August). She might have added that in the UK, ‘Chaucerian’ means about the same, though with a scatological edge. Meanwhile here in Japan the Decameron has a special following because slang for ‘big’ is deca and for ‘penis’ is mara, while ron means ‘a treatise’.” 

Interesting etymology, ne? The Brit “Chaucerian” interpretation is new to me, but recalling “Anthony Comstock, Chaucer’s Lithe-As-A-Weasel Alisoun, and Personal Choice,” I’m not surprised.

A woodcut from Richard Pynson’s 1491/1492 edition of The Canterbury Tales. Image from Wikipedia.

Home? Hone?  LRB reader David Pierce comments, “I would like to congratulate Kasia Boddy on her piece about Dorothy Parker and to thank her for writing that Parker ‘homes in’ on authors’ stylistic mannerisms and not that she ‘hones in’, a misusage that makes hardly any sense (LRB, 11 September).”

Right. But might “Hone on the range” describe a cowboy sharpening his Bowie? Poo. (A proper response to a pun.)

We’ll continue this LRB fun tomorrow in Part 2.

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2025