Help with the meaning of names/words in Henry Miller's The Colossus of Maroussi
Hello,
I came to this forum hoping I can get some help deciphering a couple of names and words that appear in Henry Miller's The Colossus of Maroussi. I have translated this book (into Bulgarian) and am working on the final edits before it is sent to the publisher.
The words/names that trouble me appear in a section of the book where Miller produces a fictional account of an ancient past, mixed with his present, inhabited with all the big names of the jazz scene of the 1940s, which is his irked response to a French lady who loves the European civilisation but hates the wilderness of Crete.
The abstract begins on page 138 ["Madame, since you were speaking of gardens..."] and ends on page 145 ["This is positively the end. Bink-bink!"] of the edition I have (31st but basically a reprint, so pagination should be roughly the same).
1. The word "rats":
Quote:
Louis had by this time made a few friends as he went riffin' his way through the new land. One was a Count and-another was a Duke. They carried little white rats on their finger-tips and when they couldn't stand it any longer, the sad, white gut bucket of a world, they bit with the endS 'of their fingers and where they bit it was like a laboratory of guinea pigs going crazy with experimentation. ... He stopped sudden like, and the piano sank with him and the little white rats too. Until the next time...
The names here are Louis Armstrong, Count Basie and Duke Ellington. A friend (US native, writer) suggested the "white rats" might refer to the white piano keys but wasn't sure.
Quote:
Madame, I'm gonna blow you down so low you're gonna quiver like a snake. I'm gonna take a fat rat bustin' note and blow you back: to Kingdom Come. ... Tish and pish and pish and cish. Rats movin'. Three rats, four rats, ten rats. One cockerel, one rat. Locomotive make choo-choo. Sun out and the road is hot and dusty.
2. Two names. The first appears in the middle of the second quote from above:
Quote:
Hear that screamin' high and shrill? That's Meemy the Meemer. She's little and low, sort of built up from the ground. Jam to-day, jam to-morrow. Nobody care, nobody worry.
And the other one, just above it:
Quote:
No more missionary culturization, no more Pammy Pamondas.
One would most probably need to re-read the entire excerpt before one is able to produce a satisfactory explanation, I imagine, unless one is perfectly conversant with Miller and with his jazz-references.
I would greatly appreciate your responses.
