On Tue, 4 Mar 2003, circadian rhyme wrote: #Philip Hart writes: # > Um, I don't mean to be insulting or anything, but I do want to make # > sure that you are aware of Samuel Beckett's play _Waiting for Godot_? # > [...] # > My impression is that Brust was riffing on that. # SKZB might also have been riffing on Borges - this sort of referential # play is typical of the latter's work, and the former's - I'm thinking # of the joke about Rosenkranz and Guildenstern somewhere in Paarfi. # #For completeness's sake, "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead" is a #Tom Stoppard play. http://world.std.com/~mam/Cracks-and-Shards/jokes.html#Stoppard : "a popular anonymous play of the period, Redwreath and Goldstar Have Traveled to Deathsgate" [FHYAxviii] A reasonable attempt at translating "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead", the title of a play by Tom Stoppard whose principals play a question game analogous to the mannered style of speech being discussed here. This was pointed out to me by Ran Macallan. Note that this allusion is in the Preface, written by Brust's friend and fellow Scribbly Pamela Dean Dyer-Bennet ("D.B., Dean of Pamlar University"). The play might have been the work of Lord Dzurstopper ;-)\ ["pard: a tiger or other large cat" -- American Heritage Dictionary]. -- Mark A. Mandel http://world.std.com/~mam/Cracks-and-Shards/ a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website