Experiments in style: anagrams

... and analysis

This article is a contribution to the December symposium of the STSC - a monthly on-line publication of a collaboration between the STSC writers and artists on a set theme.

The anagrammatiser, by Terry Freedman. This is the device I used to transform the text below.

Introduction

One of the things I’ve been trying out is reworking a piece of text into a completely different style. A full exposition and explanation are given here:

Experimenting with styles

In today’s experiment I’d like to go off piste and not only transform the text, but to explore its hidden meanings. First, though, here is the original text on which these experiments or transformations are based:

The original (template) text

In the middle of the night, I woke up (if you can call being semi-conscious being awake), walked purposefully towards the door to go to the bathroom — and almost knocked myself out.

The reason was that in the twin states of entire darkness and semi-somnambulance I was facing in a different direction from the one I thought I was facing. As a result, instead of walking through the door, I tried to walk through the wall.

The next few days brought nausea and headaches. After much prevarication I went to Accident and Emergency, where I waited petrified among people for whom “social distancing” means not quite touching you, and who wore their masks as a chin-warmer.

An hour and a half later I emerged into the twilight, secure in the knowledge that I had nothing more serious than mild concussion. I failed to do much writing, but I was pleased to have read a further 17% of my book.

The anagrammatised version

The text below has been created by parsing the title and first paragraph of “A bang on the head” through an online anagram generator¹. It was a rather laborious process, copying and pasting just a couple of words at a time, and then selecting the anagram most likely to make some kind of sense. To me, the interesting things about this process are the following:

• The anagrammatised text bears no relation to the original. This is to be expected.

• In true Oulipo fashion, the process has revealed a number of potential literatures. For instance, the first line could be the start of a story. The third line might prove to be an evocative first line of a nature poem. I expand on this below.

This leads me to ponder a new possibility. If one is getting stuck while writing, could the key to unblocking lie in generating some anagrams of the title or part of the text?

With no further ado, here’s the new text:

Aha! Bondage then!

Hindi melted font height, Upi woke. “AI Clancy, foul!”

“Be conscious, Geminis.”

Awaking bee.

(Allys powerful puked.)

Redwood’s throat.

(ET got Otto!)

Arm booth, Aden molts.

Colet smoked — funky!

Analysis

What this process has revealed is that Jung’s hypothesis of the existence of a collective unconscious was correct. According to Wikipedia,

The collective unconscious comprises in itself the psychic life of our ancestors right back to the earliest beginnings.

While there is a nod to Freudian psychology (repressed sexual feelings and so on) in the allusion to bondage in the title, it becomes very clear almost at once that what the poem is actually unveiling is an ancient myth or folklore.

This is hinted at in the very first word: “Aha!” (the exclamation mark is an essential part of the spelling). This, of course, was the origin of the (much later) word, “Hwaet!”, the first word of the epic poem Beowulf, which means, approximately, “Listen up!”. The word “Aha!”, on the other hand, indicates that something has been, or is about to be, revealed.

In the next line we learn that the god Hindi melted the font height, suggesting perhaps that the font was a kind of iceberg. This caused the soon-to-be hero of the piece, Upi, to awake. He immediately has a vision of the future, in which AI plays a prominent role. He tells his friend, Clancy, that such a future is foul.

Upi then calls his clan to action, exhorting them to see what is going on (“Be conscious”). It is interesting to note that, as was often the case in the olden times, he addresses them by their star sign rather than their names or rank.

The awaking bee is an indication that spring has arrived. We can therefore infer that Hindi is the god of the seasons, or perhaps of the Spring, which explains why the “font’ has started to melt.

Unfortunately, the “geminis” cannot yet go into battle because their leader, Alyss, has been violently sick. Whether this is because she has quaffed too much mead, or is nervous at the prospect of the battle to come, is not clear.

However, the poem then brings us back to nature: our attention is drawn to the Redwood’s throat, which in Springtime takes on a bright magenta hue as the mating season begins.

We are not told who Otto is, only that ET got him.

The booth (of the geminis) is armed, and that causes Aden, presumably the leader of the opposing army, to “molt” — with fear, no doubt.

At the end of the battle, Colet, who may perhaps be Upi’s sister, mother or partner, has a cigarette. This, along with the celebratory exclamation of “funky!”, tells us that the battle has been won.

1. Please note that when, in the photo caption, I suggested that the device shown was the anagrammatiser, I was being economical with the truth. The photo is actually of one the exhibits in the Science Fiction exhibition currently running in the Science Museum, London.