In Competition No. 2533 you were invited to submit an obituary of a well-known fictional character, which gave you the opportunity to try your hand at what is an often underrated art. The only fictional character that I am aware of who has been honoured with an obituary in the real world is Hercule Poirot, whose death was marked by a front-page splash on 6 August 1975 — in the New York Times, no less.
There was a record postbag this week, with a welcome influx of newcomers. Popular subjects included William Brown, Sherlock Holmes and various members of the cast of the Pooh stories. While some of you stuck fairly closely to the fictional facts, others indulged in flights of fancy. Thus Nigel Harding had Gandalf the Grey, post-battle with the Balrog, metamorphosing into Gandalf the White and developing the first biological washing powder. Commendations to Noel Petty, Alanna Blake, Dorothy Pope and Basil Ransome-Davies. The life-enhancing winners, printed below, earn £25 each. Brian Murdoch gets £30.
The death has occurred of Adam, protoplast, progenitor, park-keeper and agriculturalist. He was 930. Created fully formed, he thus avoided most formal education, but in later years he sometimes expressed regret at ‘missing out on Oxford’. After a widely reported dispute with a celebrity employer, Adam’s family hit the headlines again with the notorious fratricide case, when his son Cain was accused of killing his brother. There were no witnesses, but the stigma stuck, and Cain left the district. Adam and his wife Eve (née Rib) had numerous other children. In the first Who’s Who (in which his was the sole entry) he listed only animal taxonomy under hobbies, but later editions added delving, begetting, and eventually Scrabble, a game he invented. He is survived by his wife, and all of humanity except Abel. His estate, subject to probate, is believed to encompass the earth and all things in it.
Brian Murdoch/Adam
The world of English letters has suffered a loss; and there being no natural law on these matters on the conservation of genius, there has been no corresponding gain in French or other —––. For the great opiner has met an argument that he may not brush aside, or evade through digression. What, you know not of whom I am speaking? Well sir, or madam, but you do, and I can tell you that if his birth were indeed a long time in the coming, then news of his departing of this world is also to be deferred. If nobody were was able exactly to diagnose his malady, it was perhaps his own hand that did it; for he drew an empty box around his last sheet of paper and was discovered with his face in it, convulsed in the last stages of mirth: it was —––
William Powell/Tristram Shandy
Georges Godot, proprietor of the largest estate on the planet, was perhaps better known for his extremely reclusive nature. For many years, he had kept his own company in ‘The Wings’, a fortified mansion in the middle of the Saharan expanse, on what was nominally French territory. His birth-year was variously estimated as 1904, 1911 and 1918, a subject which exercised and defeated the authors of many short biographies. He promulgated a kind of anti-philosophy, and extracts of his unpublished memoir, There’ll Be Another One Along In A Minute, suggested that he eschewed all forms of theology in favour of alienation. He had latterly employed a boy — or twin boys, it was rumoured — to keep the inquisitive at bay, by announcing his impending arrival at an oasis where he had achieved a horticultural reputation, cultivating a solitary tree. News of his death has not deterred supplicants from maintaining their vigil.
Bill Greenwell/Godot
The death of J. Alfred Prufrock must be regarded as his apotheosis, the cri de coeur of one whose earthly sojourn represented a master-class in negativity. While an ‘overwhelming question’ was his to ask, he demurred, averring only that ‘there will be time’. Alfred effectually established himself as a paradigm of non-participation; truly, a digressor’s digressor. Unlike Hamlet, manically torn between duty and desire, ‘Prince’ Prufrock simply failed to identify and address his problem. Foggy October nights, stylish women glimpsed at galleries; coffee spoons — no one, nothing connected.
In later years he sought reluctant solace in walking along beaches, wild-haired, white flannels rolled, clutching the trademark peach (never tasted). As his dementia advanced, embarrassed holidaymakers were entreated to heed the siren songs of mermaids; Prufrock’s undisclosed greatness had irreversibly flickered; the snickering Footman awaited.
Mike Morrison/J. Alfred Prufrock
He was gloomy but he was right to be so. A lonely, neglected old donkey with half his stuffing coming out and his tail falling off; a loser, the butt of every-body’s humour. A pessimistic curmudgeonly outcast, that’s him, or rather was him. Condemned to a diet of thistles in a rather boggy and sad corner of 100 Aker Wood — a rather special little corner if you like cold, wet, ugly bits; yes, that’s me, Eeyore. Well, I might as well write it myself as no one else is likely to bother and I know I’m going to die in the end, as we all do. At least it’s something to look forward to — then things can’t get any worse. I’m not complaining but that’s the way it is. ‘Rest in peace, Eeyore — he didn’t die laughing.’ What is there to laugh about anyway?
Shirley Curran/Eeyore
Educated at Elsinore Grammar School, Hamlet went to Wittenberg, graduating with First Class Honours in Philosophy. He played an active part in the Drama Society and made a palpable hit in fencing, becoming the university’s only Danish Blue. Returning following the sudden death of his father, he unexpectedly found the throne occupied by his uncle, now his mother’s husband. Romantically, his name was linked with the First Minister’s daughter prior to her tragic demise, and he became increasingly introspective, notably in his disconcerting habit of talking to himself. Popular with palace staff nevertheless, he will be particularly missed by the cemetery employees, not least for the steady supply of work he brought them.
The circumstances are unclear but he died during an exhibition rapier bout in which he was well ahead on points. He is survived by hardly anyone — see adjoining obituaries of the King, Queen and First Minister’s son.
Derek Morgan/Hamlet
No 2536: Persuasion
You are invited to take an apparently unpromising holiday location, or a superficially unappealing activity holiday, and give it the hard sell in prose or verse form (150 words/16 lines maximum). Entries to ‘Competition 2536’ by 13 March or email lucy@spectator.co.uk.
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