The Raven and the Writing Desk (Was: Cabbages and Kings)

---- by J. L. S.
-------- for the GC

---- IT IS WELL KNOWN THAT GRICE REFERRED TO Lewis Carroll's cabbages and kings in "Aspects of reason", the Locke Lectures, now repr. 2001. (In the context of his teleology of expressions: a cabbage cabbages, a king kings, etc).

Have just seen (today) Johnny Depp in Burton's Alice in Wonderland and failed to be overimpressed, but I think it is very good that the younger generations (it's for kids, right?) should be exposed to the Jabberwocky as recited by Depp. It is a fascinating poem. Alice was nicely portrayed by this 20-year-old (in 'fiction') which made a good change in comparison to the usual pre-teen Alice.

The dialogue is mostly disimplicated, but the script-writers -- a couple of ladies from what I recall -- seem to have done a good job -- there are metafictional, metatextual references, and I loved to see Mrs. Burton, Helena Bonham Carter, whose career I follow, as the Queen of Hearts (or "Red Queen" since they manage to merge the first and the second Alice books onto one).

"Why is a raven like a writing desk?" is the 'riddle' that Johnny Depp keeps asking Alice. Since this is like a later-day nightmare, Alice is already AWARE that it's no riddle, and that, thus, the most efficient reply, along Gricean lines is:

MH: Why is a raven like a writing desk?
A: Oh, good. I love riddles!
(conversation proceeds)
MH: Have you found out the answer yet?
A: No, I give up. Why?
MH: I haven't the faintest idea.

--- This is the only move in the Burton release, "I haven't the faintest idea" with Alice smiling co-operatively.

Now, the fact that in the original "Mad Tea Party", the Mad Hatter does not correct Alice ("Nay, girl, this is no riddle") is interesting. Of course, riddles are a part of Anglo-Saxon culture, and an answerless riddle _is_ a riddle, or meta-riddle. Indeed there is this book by this lady, "The Raven and the Writing Desk" which I quoted in the essay on Humpty Dumpty I presented to the Jabberwocky (The journal of the Lewis Carroll Society), as she deals with the meaning of 'glory' as well.

MH: Why is a raven like a writing desk?

has been analysed mainly by Gardner in his Annotated Alice -- now Penguin paperback:

(i) Poe wrote on both.

being my favourite.

But how would we formalise this. Is this an Irwin Coreyism:

Why is a raven like a writing desk?
Two questions packed into one:

Why? (which we can skip on grounds of profundity)
Is a raven like a writing desk? No.

But the why resonates.

"Just because" doesn't seem to work at this level.
"Because" simpliciter does.

"I haven't the faintest idea" works best because we know the Mad Hatter and have come to love him. I mean, the thing was published in 1862, so it's already a locus classicus.

It's also metalinguistic in that the Mad Hatter would have been pleased, perhaps -- he IS a nice character, especially as portrayed by Depp, those deep emerald eyes are moving -- with Alice, he would have been pleased I say, -- with Alice going, "I haven't the sligthest idea".

We tend to assume conversation is epaogic: gladiatorial (as Roger Bishop Jones prefers -- not that he enjoys this type of conversation). But it can also be plain cooperative, or diagogic as Grice calls it. "Why is a raven like a writing desk, darling?" "I haven't the slightest idea" "Neither do I, dear". The question arises as to why he thought up the question in the first place. But as Kramer would say: riddle this.

In fact, everything IS like anything else.
So a raven IS like a writing desk. The veritable riddle would perhaps have been, How or how come -- to use Pennsylvania Dutch -- ain't a raven like a writing desk?