133. Grimus by Salman Rushdie

Grimus (1975) was Rushdie’s first novel. The book is a riot of wordplay in which anagrams take a central role. Among its characters are the Gorfs, who live on the planet Thera in the galaxy of Yawy Klim (the Frogs who live on the planet Earth in the Milky Way): and the figure who gives the book its title, the creator Grimus, has a name which is an anagram of Simurg, the mythical bird of Persian mysticism, a symbol that ties the book together.

Books with anagrammatic titles are few and far between. Erewhon by Samuel Butler is an anagram, rather than a perfect reversal of ‘Nowhere’ (see this previous post). Rocket Boys, by Homer Hickam Jr, is an anagram of ‘October Sky’, and October Sky was the name of the film based on the book. Rocket Boys was then re-published as October Sky to tie in with the film.

Francis Heaney’s Holy Tango of Literature is perhaps the ne plus ultra of the phenomenon. ‘Holy Tango’ unscrambles to ‘Anthology’, and each chapter is a parody of a writer based on an anagrammatic rendering of that writer’s name. Among the funniest is ‘Kong Ran My Dealership’ by Gerard Manley Hopkins (below, with permission of the author):

Kong Ran My Dealership

TO OUR SALES LEADER

I hired last summer someone simian, King
Kong of Indies islands, fifty-foot-fierce gorilla, out of hiding
After falling, feigning final death but breathing yet, and biding
Time there, how he swore that he could sell any third-rate thing
In a car lot! To the old, old Ford with a ding,
As a snake oil sales spiel hooks a hill-hick, the ape was guiding
A mark by monstrous hand, the rube then riding
Afar in that car, – to escape him, an appeasement in the wing!

Brute blarney to offer as options wheels, brakes, boot, seat
Buckles, AND to roar. He breaks from his pen, he lumbers
Towards pale patrons, so dangerous, O who will he eat?

No wonder of it: sheer fear makes Kong’s sales numbers
Rise, though swift syringe stuck in his feet
Can tranquilize, so King Kong slumbers.


Any other books with anagrammatic titles? If you know of any let me know.

I'm now off on holiday till the 1st September, but check back soon.