BS: Mermaid/Dickens question

Subject: BS: Mermaid/Dickens question
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 28 May 03 - 10:40 AM

Reading "Little Dorrit", I came upon this passage:
All of which Flora said with so much headlong vehemence as if she
really believed it. There is not much doubt that when she worked
herself into full mermaid condition, she did actually believe
whatever she said in it.

Flora is a good honest pleasant girl, but when she opens her mouth, she talks ninteen to the dozen until she stops to draw her next breath: I presume this is the full mermaid condition. Any ideas what full mermaid condition alludes to?

A few paras later, Dickens refers to an invalid lady as being "laid up in ordinary in her chamber". I happen to know this allusion: when wooden sailing ships were not in use, they were "parked" with their rigging and upper masts taken down -- laid up in ordinary, an expression that woulds have been familiar and comprehensible to Dickens' readers ... as, no doubt, would the memrmaid business.

Any Victoriologists out there with the answer?

Steve

Subject: RE: BS: Mermaid/Dickens question
From: Nemesis
Date: 28 May 03 - 10:42 AM

Dunno .. but great name for a band possibly!!

Subject: RE: BS: Mermaid/Dickens question
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 28 May 03 - 11:03 AM

I know one of his grandsons, but I don't think that's going to help much.

I suspect it's the condition of being a chatterbox, rattling on and on, with no form, structure or content. Mermaids are supposed to be flighty and insecure.... and quite vindictive too.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Mermaid/Dickens question
From: MMario
Date: 28 May 03 - 11:11 AM

I would read it as being in the condition that Sailors are when they see mermaids. So out of touch with reality that they believe what they WANT to rather then what is truth.

Subject: RE: BS: Mermaid/Dickens question
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 28 May 03 - 11:51 AM

Ah -- I hadn't thought of that, Mmario: sounds likely, doesn't it? My first thought was of H C Anderson's Little Mermaid, which Dickens would have known, being published in 1836, but the point was that she couldn't speak. The sailor explanation would tie in with the content of her ramblings, rather than the volume.

Steve

Subject: RE: BS: Mermaid/Dickens question
From: GUEST
Date: 28 May 03 - 12:16 PM

Ordinary- Naut. laid up, out of condition (OED). I think you are correct in using the nautical meaning.
I couldn't find any help on the 'mermaid condition," except that mermaid was an old sailors term for a prostitute, not what is wanted here. I think that is means that the gel wound herself up to 'sing' long and loud, like sirens do. Agreeing with Liz the Squeak.

Subject: RE: BS: Mermaid/Dickens question
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 May 03 - 05:23 PM

Can't mean loquacity in itself, because mermaids don't talk. I take it as meaning that she is off in a world of her own, out of touch with reality.

In fact a search engine throws up a passage earlier in the bookm, as well as another later on, which explains what Dickens is doing here:

"With these words, and with a hasty gesture fraught with timid
caution--such a gesture had Clennam's eyes been familiar with in
the old time--poor Flora left herself at eighteen years of age, a
long long way behind again; and came to a full stop at last.

Or rather, she left about half of herself at eighteen years of age
behind, and grafted the rest on to the relict of the late Mr F.;
thus making a moral mermaid of herself, which her once boy-lover
contemplated with feelings wherein his sense of the sorrowful and
his sense of the comical were curiously blended."

Taht's the first use of the term in relation to Flora - the idea is that a mermaid is half a fish and half a human, and Flora is half an adult and half still an adolescent. Not quite in touch with the world as it is.

Subject: RE: BS: Mermaid/Dickens question
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 28 May 03 - 06:23 PM

Who says mermaids don't talk? Christian Andersens' mermaid only didn't talk because she gave her voice to the sea witch. Selkies and other sea creatures talk when in human form.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Mermaid/Dickens question
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 May 03 - 06:34 PM

But surely Silkies aren't the same as mermaids? They go in for that shape changing stuff, which real mermaids don't, as a rule.

Subject: RE: BS: Mermaid/Dickens question
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 29 May 03 - 03:34 AM

I'd forgotten the earlier mermaid reference, McG: in fact, I don't remember it now; I wonder if I'm reading an abridged version, or one with a few bits unintentionally missing? In the context of what she says, it makes perfect sense if the second mermaid alludes to the first: she is half Clennan's ex-lover (this in the romantic sense only) and half the unromantic Finching's widow. Well, sorry I started a thread under false pretences; still, it's provoked some interesting discussion, hasn't it?

Steve

Subject: RE: BS: Mermaid/Dickens question
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 29 May 03 - 05:25 AM

Mumble mumble,,, bloody plebs who pretend to read Dickens.... grumble rumble......

Please note, re: Selkies, silkies whatever, I did say, 'when in human form'... if they talk to you in any other form I'd say you need a spell at the Neil Young Centre for the Terminally Screwed.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Mermaid/Dickens question
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 29 May 03 - 10:07 AM

Can't remember the name of the song now, in which the sailor's "Spy a fair mermaid, with a comb and a glass in her hand." Preparing herself for company, because the ship is going to sink.

"Three times round, went our gallant ship,
Three times round went she.
Three times round, went our gallant ship,
Then she sank to the bottom of the sea."

Dickens didn't mean her as some kind of harbinger? I haven't read this novel, so I'm just contributing what little I know of mermaids (other than the text of "The Eddystone Light" which has an entirely different outcome).

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Mermaid/Dickens question
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 29 May 03 - 11:34 AM

Liz, if you read an excellent book called The Tao of Pooh, The Té of Piglet (may be two books, actually) you'll find the Bear says "lots of people talk to animals, but not any of them listen"; which I've always found to be a Good Thing to remember.

Vis-à-vis "pretending to read Dickens", I find I forget about 60% of what I read. Lady Isobel Barnett (or one of those upper-crust literary types) said a poor memory is a great asset for a voracious reader, as you can read the same book several times and still get something new out of it.

And I don't have a problem with my lowly origins: my grandfater was a cobbler who spoke nothing but thick Brummie; my father was a thick Brummie who spoke nothing but cobblers. (We really come from Bloxwich in Staffordshire, but that doesn't work.)

Steve

Subject: RE: BS: Mermaid/Dickens question
From: Peter T.
Date: 29 May 03 - 12:47 PM

Elegant detective work, McGrath, a tip of the hat. yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Mermaid/Dickens question
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 30 May 03 - 07:56 AM

Great line Steve (chuckling)
Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: BS: Mermaid/Dickens question
From: EBarnacle1
Date: 30 May 03 - 09:55 AM

Another possible interpretation is that, as with Andersen's mermaid, she might find herself unable to speak to defend her needs in the relationship, this ultimately losing to a more articulate opponent.