Time is an illusion. Wasted time doubly so

At least, that is how I feel about the opportunities available by blogging our research process.  In the old days, with traditional methods of research and writing, if I were to research something that ultimately led to a dead end I would have been frustrated and disappointed about all of that wasted time. Not so with this blog.  I can talk about the process and my thoughts behind it and it serves a purpose and guides me to the next part of my research.  This post is about what I learned and what I think about the possible connection between Douglas Adams' Vogon poem and Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky.

The answer is a strong maybe in my mind.

In the foreword to The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Neil Gaiman disputes a claim that Adams was influenced largely by Carroll, but he doesn't really go into the details about why he feels this isn't so.  With this in my mind, I started reading the Guide.  When I got to the poem read to Ford and Arthur by Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz, I couldn't help but notice a similarity to Jabberwocky that got me thinking about the possibility that Adams might have written this poem as a parody to poke fun at Lewis Carroll and his poem Jabberwocky.  Here are the first three stanzas of Carroll's poem and a link to read it completely

"'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves 
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son 
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun 
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand; 
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree, 
And stood awhile in thought." 

After reading this utterly confusing poem, Alice decides she can't understand any of it expect that maybe someone killed something.  That vague someone-did-something is the feeling that Adams leaves you with after reading the Vogon's poem.

"Oh freddled gruntbuggly thy micturations are to me

As plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee.

Groop I implore thee my foonting turlingdromes.

And hooptiously drangle me with crinkly bindlewurdles,

Or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon, see if I don't!"

Arthur is left with quite the same feeling that Alice had after hearing the jabberwocky poem.   He is forced to pretend he liked it, and is so lost as to the meaning of the poem that he can't even say anything substantial about it. "[it] contrives through the medium of the verse structure to sublimate this, transcend that, and come to terms with the fundamental dichotomies. . ."  This is how I felt after reading the Vogon poem myself. The main reason I think that two might have  a connection is because both are full of nonce words.  I bounced this idea off of a few people, and they mostly think that it is because there is no English equivalent to these vogonish terms; therefore, the babelfish couldn't interpret them for Arthur.  While that is true, humor is a craft that doesn't just fall together with random luck.  I think that Adams was very specific about using nonce words here.  Often, Adams' comedy in Hitchhiker's Guide makes fun of conventions and turns the perfectly normal on its head to make it seem bizarre to the reader.  It seems to me that Adams was doing this to show us how silly it can seem to love a fun poem like jabberwocky when it could also be seen as the third worst poetry in the universe. 

Do I have proof for this? Well, not really.

In a former post, I talk about finding an article by Will Nediger called "Lewis Carroll and Douglas Adams."  Nediger talks about several features of Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that appears to borrow from or be inspired by Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland  and Through the Looking Glass.  One of these similarities is the use of the number 42 by both authors.  Nothing is mentioned about "Jabberwocky."

Next, after reading Nediger's article, I consulted Neil Gaiman's Don't Panic: Douglas Adams & the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  In his book, Gaiman elaborates on his reasons for disbelieving the connection between Adams and Carroll.  He quotes an interview in which Adams himself says that he never actually read the book( it scared him so much as a child, that even as an adult he was never able to sit down and read it) and that Carroll was not an influence on him. 

Well, that being the extent of the writing I was able to find on Carroll and Adams, I feel this idea has fallen flat and would never make a good paper.  I still think it is possible, but I have nothing that can support it, and Gaiman's book seems to argue against it.  That, of course, would have been the end of this tangent of my research, but now you've read my process and I've been able to share my ideas.

What do you think? Has this happened to you? What do you do when your research something that falls flat or dead ends?