Fabulous review and excerpt, too. Gotta love a guy who takes pains to identify places such as Hardscrabble, Smackover, and Troublesome Creek, e.g.
Oklahoma? It never occurred to me that its "la" was the French one for "there." Home there where the oak grows, loosely, it would appear. My favourite place name for beauty? When I used to drive to The Keys (at least five times a year in the eighties), I always passed through Zeliotrope; and, I have always wondered how it's pronounced (but was too shy to ask the locals because my Ontario plates already marked me as an outsider). I actually put that place name in one of my books, Diary of Desire. So, does it have four or five syllables? I'll never know, now.
Recently read an article by David Eddie, a Canuck journo / novelist who penned Chump Change; and, he was vacationing with his family near here. The guy had the noive to make fun of the road that leads to my hamlet (which reminds us of a certain philosopher as well as a tree that grows wildly in these har parts); but, he additionally mentioned place names I include in another book (with pseudo-condescension, I *hope*):
Distress River, Poverty Bay, Hemlock Road, and so on. There's also a Wilson Lake, FYI. I love place names; Canada also lays claim to some doozies and beauts. For Examps? Comfort, Sunshine Corners, Hope, Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, Eden, and Enough :).
Fabulous review and excerpt, too. Gotta love a guy who takes pains to identify places such as Hardscrabble, Smackover, and Troublesome Creek, e.g.
ReplyDeleteOklahoma? It never occurred to me that its "la" was the French one for "there." Home there where the oak grows, loosely, it would appear. My favourite place name for beauty? When I used to drive to The Keys (at least five times a year in the eighties), I always passed through Zeliotrope; and, I have always wondered how it's pronounced (but was too shy to ask the locals because my Ontario plates already marked me as an outsider). I actually put that place name in one of my books, Diary of Desire. So, does it have four or five syllables? I'll never know, now.
Recently read an article by David Eddie, a Canuck journo / novelist who penned Chump Change; and, he was vacationing with his family near here. The guy had the noive to make fun of the road that leads to my hamlet (which reminds us of a certain philosopher as well as a tree that grows wildly in these har parts); but, he additionally mentioned place names I include in another book (with pseudo-condescension, I *hope*):
Distress River, Poverty Bay, Hemlock Road, and so on. There's also a Wilson Lake, FYI. I love place names; Canada also lays claim to some doozies and beauts. For Examps? Comfort, Sunshine Corners, Hope, Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, Eden, and Enough :).