Owl-light and Comets

[squirmelia]

Chuck Palahniuk's novels often contain random interesting facts and his latest novel, Rant, is no exception. Near the end, he mentions liminal and liminoid events, and then French phrases relating to twilight (a liminal time between day and night).

In French, dusk can be described as "entre chien et loup", which means "between dog and wolf" - the hour of the day when one cannot distinguish a dog from a wolf.

Another phrase that is mentioned in Rant is "la nuit, tous les chats sont gris", which means "every cat is grey in the twilight".

In the 1898 Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, a "Blindman's Holiday" is defined as "The hour of dusk, when it is too dark to work, and too soon to light candles." "Owl-light" is another phrase for dusk and a quote is also provided, “The best time to talk of difficult things is entre chien et loup, as the Guernsey folk say.”—Mrs. Edwardes: A Girton Girl, chap. xlvi.

Entre chien et loup: A Study of French Animal Metaphors in The French Review: Vol. 63, No.3, February 1990, has a list of metaphors, such as "peigner la girafe" (literally: "to comb the giraffe"), which means "to waste time on a pointless task".

The list of French expressions you won't learn at school.. also contains some cool phrases like "Tirer des plans sur la comète - To build castles in the air (literally: "to draw plans on the comet")".

I better get back to combing the giraffe and drawing plans on comets, before it is the time between dog and wolf.

Comments

[laslandes.livejournal.com]

This is good. I've recently been reading Camus' La Chute. At one point the narrator in describing himself as having the looks of a rugby player, but a certain refinement of speech, suggests that:

'Le chameau qui a fourni le poil de mon pardessus souffrait sans doute de la gale; en ravanche, j'ai les ongles faits'

...or literally 'The camel who provided the hairs for my coat, no doubt suffered from the mange; but in revenge I am well manicured...'

:)

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

Excellent. :)

Entre chien et loup: A Study of French Animal Metaphors also mentions "sobre comme un chameau" - sober like a camel. Is the narrator sober like a camel also?

[laslandes.livejournal.com]

Alas not, he's been at the genièvre :)

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

I realised The French Review isn't free for people outside of academia, etc, so that link is probably useless for most people. Oops.

[laslandes.livejournal.com]

aye :)

Orchestral work: Arthur Butterworth (aebutterworth@tiscali.co.uk) "Entre Chien et Loup" 23.06.07

[(Anonymous)]

For the Settle Orchestra's fortieth anniversary (summer concert) this new work was commissioned; depicting the creatures in the English countryside observed after dusk: Moths, Bats, Owls, Badgers,Cats, Foxes, Cock-Crow, Hounds at dawn etc. (Phalenes,Chauve Souris,Chats, Blaireaux,Hiboux, Courlis, Renards, Chant du Coq, Chiens de Chasse etc)

[assmonkeydiary.livejournal.com]

Between dog and wolf... that's lovely.

Chuck Palahniuk novels constantly send me running to wikipedia to find out more about his little factoids.

Me too

[erinaf.livejournal.com]

i was very sad there wasn't much there about Rant yet.

Love the giraffe quote! Speaking of which I wonder what sinistergiraffe has been up to

Re: Me too

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

I haven't combed sinistergiraffe. She posts photos on Flickr quite often.

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

Here's the quote:

'Dr. Erin Shea, Ph.D.: Examples of liminality in language include the French phrase for dusk or twilight: "Between dog and wolf." This same phrase is used to describe the final months of life, as a human being's mental and physical abilities dwindle. In English, the phrase for twilight, "when all cats are gray," demonstrates the flattening of social hierarchy and obvious status indicators.'