Comments on: Marginalia

By: Slayton I. Mustgo

Slayton I. Mustgo — Sat, 14 May 2005 20:04:55 +0000

Finally (because this thread is dead, no?) “On the Shoulders of Giants”, an inquiry into the source of this phrase used by (and often wrongly attributed to) Newton. He tracks the phrase to Burton, who gives the attribution in an abbreviated footnote (something like “Op. cit. App.”) and the fun begins…

By: Jake

Jake — Fri, 13 May 2005 16:55:08 +0000

A work with both its proponents and detractors here, but which I believe had some rather amusing footnotes, was Sokal’s “Transgressing the Boundaries” article.

I too love Jack Vance’s use of footnotes. I seem to recall one in which a famous tale-teller is brought low by his claim of the uniqueness of a certain planet owing to the sun’s rising in the west there.

By: bunny

bunny — Fri, 13 May 2005 14:09:04 +0000

No mention of the Dictionary of the Khazars in a post mixing reference works and fiction? And don’t forget Lem’s book of introductions to books from the future, Imaginary Magnitude.

By: Martin

Martin — Fri, 13 May 2005 12:10:34 +0000

Nice to see VanderMeer mentioned. Here’s a footnote loaded review of City Of Saints And Madmen:

http://www.locusmag.com/2002/Reviews/Lalumiere03_VanderMeer.html

By: Mr Ripley

Mr Ripley — Fri, 13 May 2005 06:55:25 +0000

Nabokov?

By: Stephen Frug

Stephen Frug — Thu, 12 May 2005 23:07:08 +0000

—Oops, I just noticed that Henry’s earlier post (which he links to) is actually about the Hazel Bell book. Well, let me heartily second his recommendation of Bell, then—and recommend Jackson to anyone who liked the Bell book.

By: Stephen Frug

Stephen Frug — Thu, 12 May 2005 23:04:14 +0000

A good list of fictional works using footnotes (and another of ones using indexes) can be found here:

http://www.miskatonic.org/footnotes.html

May I also recomend Kevin Jackson’s charming book Invisible Forms: a guide to literary curiosities, which includes a chapter on footnotes. And (slightly off-topic) Hazel K. Bell’s Indexers and Indexes in Fact and Fiction—which is really far more charming than one might think from the title.

By: Jim Harrison

Jim Harrison — Thu, 12 May 2005 20:09:03 +0000

Ordinary footnotes are a form of hypertext, though a rather primitive version compared to the printed Talmud or even Pierre Bayle’s Historical and Critical Dictionary.

By: Jasper Milvain

Jasper Milvain — Thu, 12 May 2005 20:05:47 +0000

Sorry (I did say I was being pointlessly picky).

By: Henry

Henry — Thu, 12 May 2005 20:02:36 +0000

Jasper – the title of the post is intended less to refer to the subject matter, than to the fact that I’m not really writing anything original in this post; merely scribbling on the margins of what Langford, Grafton and McLemee have already written. Which is what bloggers do, I suppose.

Am of course a fan of Flann (as I think are most other Timberites, including the non-Irish ones). My grandmother was once proposed to by Niall Montgomery, who used to write the Cruiskeen Lawn columns on those unfortunately frequent occasions when Mr. O’Nolan was indisposed.

By: Jasper Milvain

Jasper Milvain — Thu, 12 May 2005 19:37:53 +0000

To be pointlessly picky, the title of this post may also have King's English/Modern English Usage issues. Marginalia is a whole subject of its own, distinct from printed footnotes (insert references to Coleridge or God's Proofreader to taste) but Flann O'Brien is still the daddy: note the fantastic thing collected in The Best of Myles about a book-reading service, which breaks spines, annotates and throws in lost letters without the purchaser having ever to learn anything.

By: barney

barney — Thu, 12 May 2005 17:47:16 +0000

If I might try to offer a notably puerile footnote from the annals of science, an article from the Journal of the American Chemical Society (Waymouth, et al. “Trinuclear Zr2,Al mu-ketene Complexes Containing Bridging Ligands. Implications for Transmetallation Reactions and CO Reduction Chemistry,” J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1986, 108, 1427), which describes the use of a metal complex to perturb a methyl group (-CH3) away from its normal pyramidal configuration to a planar arrangement of the constituent atoms by the action of two metal atoms on the central carbon, contains as footnote #46 “Waymouth, R. M.; Pierre, L.; Grubbs, R. H. unpublished results.” The first and third authors in this citation are real people, the second, in reference to the fact that the methyl group in the paper is “getting it from both ends,” pays tribute to that old joke about the three French-Canadian brothers (?), specifically the lucky one named Pierre.

Juvenile (as are many organometallic chemists), but pleasingly arcane.

By: rich

rich — Thu, 12 May 2005 16:46:13 +0000

Lou – the “only footnote” footnote was in Cogwheels of the Mind by Anthony Edwards.

By: slolernr

slolernr — Thu, 12 May 2005 16:42:16 +0000

Favorite footnote:

Regarding transcription of Lyndon Johnson in the White House, the text reads, “The few transcripts compiled by Johnson’s secretaries proved unrealiable: one had Johnson refer to a ‘pack them bastards’ waiting outside his office; it turned out to be the Pakistani ambassador.” The footnote remarks that in fairness, “Packs of bastards were more likely to appear in Johnson’s conversation than Pakistani ambassadors.” Bruce Schulman wrote the article.

Favorite reference work to browse: B. H. Mitchell, International Historical Statistics. Yep, well, you’ve never experienced real reference-work degradation until you find yourself plowing aimlessly through columns of numbers.

By: alex

alex — Thu, 12 May 2005 16:31:00 +0000

My particular favorite reference work is the Encyclopedia of Abberations, which is a precursor of the DSM. Delightful things such as “Aphronesia: the complete lack of common sense.” Contains some horrifying bits too, ascribing autism to deficient mothering, for example…

When discussing footnotes, I must mention Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel, which contains a great many, all rewarding.