“For the Snark was a Boojum, you see”

I've been looking through the archive of Michael Dirda's essays again. Here, he writes an appreciation of Lewis Carroll, especially The Hunting of the Snark:

On July 18, 1874, Carroll was out walking when a sentence suddenly popped into his head: “For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.” Most people would immediately wonder: What’s a Snark? What’s a Boojum? In fact, 150 years later, we’re still wondering whenever we read or reread his great nonsense poem, The Hunting of the Snark — which, by the way, has no established connection with the contemporary use of “snark,” meaning mockingly sarcastic.

At this time, Carroll was already quite familiar with bizarre creatures bearing strange names. Hadn’t he previously imagined the Jabberwock — “the jaws that bite, the claws that catch” — as well as the Jubjub bird and the frumious Bandersnatch? Those fearsome beasts first appeared in the heroic ballad “Jabberwocky,” part of Through the Looking-Glass, which also includes that other favorite of versified nonsense, “The Walrus and the Carpenter”:

The time has come,” the Walrus said,

To talk of many things;

Of shoes — and ships — and sealing wax —

Of cabbages — and kings

And why the sea is boiling hot —

And whether pigs have wings.

In “Jabberwocky” — a frequent choice for grade-school recitation — an intrepid young champion, using a vorpal blade that goes snicker-snack, defeats a fearsome dragon-like creature. Its tale of derring-do grew out of four lines that, years earlier, Carroll had titled “Stanza From the Anglo-Saxon”:

Twas brillig and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

....Like any classical epic, The Hunting of the Snark starts in medias res. After sailing for many months and weeks, 10 adventurers finally land on an island that is — in the very first words of the poem — “Just the place for a Snark!” ....

Throughout these wonderfully lilting 141 stanzas one mystery or puzzle succeeds another. To begin with, we’re not precisely sure why the group is searching for a Snark. However, we do learn five ways to identify one that is “genuine,” implying that there are fake or imitation Snarks running about. A true Snark, says the Bellman, tastes crispy when cooked, gets up late in the morning, can’t take a joke, is ambitious and has a “fondness for bathing-machines/ Which it constantly carries about,/ And believes that they add to the beauty of scenes —/ A sentiment open to doubt.”

Some Snarks, we’re also told, have feathers and bite; others have whiskers and scratch. You might also occasionally encounter one that is a Boojum. This would be particularly dire for the Baker, the most agitated figure in the poem. Not only did he absent-mindedly leave his 42 boxes of luggage behind, but he is apparently called the Baker because he has somehow forgotten his actual name. Still, he vividly remembers the parting words of his uncle:

But oh, beamish nephew, beware of the day,

If your Snark be a Boojum! For then

You will softly and suddenly vanish away,

And never be met with again!

.... (more)

The book illustrated above is from my library. Martin Gardner also authored annotated editions of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass in The Annotated Alice.

Michael Dirda, "What is a Snark? For Lewis Carroll, a whimsical creature we’ll never know," The Washington Post, August 22, 2024.