PICARESQUE

[Dr. Goodword]

• picaresque •

Pronunciation: pi-kê-resk • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Adjective

Meaning: Having to do with a rascal or scalawag, usually of the lower class, whose life is a series of adventures in which he or she plays hypocritical and corrupt wealthy people for fools.

Notes: Picaresque folks usually lead picturesque lives but don't confuse the two words. Do remember the French 4-letter spelling of the [sk] sound, -sque. The first picaresque novel was Spanish, Vida de Lazarillo de Tormes (Life of Lazarillo de Tormes), published anonymously in 1554. The earliest English picaresque novel is Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders, whose hero takes advantage of the hypocrisy and gullibility of the upper class to make her way through life, victim by victim.

In Play: We do hear of people who lead picaresque lives outside novels: "Martina climbed a picaresque ladder from the shanty town where she was born to the executive suite of the corporation where she works now." More broadly, today's adjective may be used to depict an adventuresome life that pays little attention to the line between right and wrong: "Jimmy Chonga must have traveled a picaresque road between his career as a professional wrestler and his current position as a minister in the local church."

Word History: Today's word is a French adjective based on the Spanish noun pícaro, the hero of picaresque novels. It comes from picar "to peck, nibble" but once meant "attack with a barbed tongue". This verb descended from Vulgar Latin piccare, for which we have no written evidence. However, it must have existed, since we find its descendants in Romance languages, languages that derived from Latin. Another is French piquer "to prick", which English borrowed for use in such expressions as pique my curiosity. The Old French noun pique meant "irritation", a meaning it still bears in English today, as to insult someone in a fit of pique. (Join other verbiculturists today in our Alpha Agora to discuss this fascinating words and other Good Words in our series.)

[Palewriter]

A great word and a great, classic literary form. It's often confused with the peripatetic form, in which our hero (or anti-hero) wanders about or is engaged in some journey of realization or fulfillment. A road story (or road movie) if you will.

Many modern novels (and movies) are based on the road story, in which the protagonist travels somewhere, and matures, learns, develops or disintegrates along the way. But such tales are really peripatetic. What's special about the picaresque form is the fact that it's more about revealing the foibles of the surrounding characters than it is about the fate (one way or the other) of the central character. Very un-Hollywood, in fact. So we don't see too many purely picaresque novels/movies these days.

I would categorize some of Kurt Vonnegut's writing as being picaresque -- Slaughterhouse Five being an obvious example. Billy Pilgrim doesn't really change at all, but he's surrounded by people shown to be amoral, callous, generally goofy, etc. I could probably make a case that the movie Thelma & Louise is picaresque. A couple of female rogues go on a journey and show us what a$$holes the folks they run into are. The central characters don't really change much; only their situation does.

I'd give other examples, but time is short and bed awaits.



Interesting, though.


-- PW

[Dr. Goodword]

You mention Keruoac, Palewriter: On the Road is a classic example of an American picaresque novel. Travels are an integral part of picaresque novels since the hero always goes overboard at some point and must move on.

Gogol's Inspector General has been cited by some critics as a semi-picaresque play but it represents only one incident of a picaro outwitting officials. To me (and to most critics, I think), a picaresque novel must be a series of incidents connected by a road, each incident in the series bringing out some particular foible of the ruling class.

You are right: the important point is that wealth accumulates to relatively stupid people and the humor comes from the wit of the "picaro" in outwitting them. It is always enjoyablt to see the high and mighty fall but the true picaresque hero can take advantage of the high and mighty without their even noticing it--until they are completely done it.

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[Susan]

Re: piccare, the hypothetical latin verb from which picaresque descended--any chance that peccare (to make a mistake, to sin) is involved? Attacking with a barbed tongue is sure to be a sin.

[skinem]

Great words--
Reminds me of the peripatetic book by Thomas Wolfe--The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test about Ken Kesey (whom I've had the pleasure of eating with on sevaral occasions--he was my uncle's neighbor--never saw anything outrageous about him or unusual--except he didn't have a "job"). Definately a document of "realization."

One of my favorite books of a picaresque nature is The Travels of Jamie McPheeters by Robet Lewis Taylor. Great "road trip" book.

Susan, great observation...(code for "I don't know.")

[Stargzer]

Great words--
Reminds me of the peripatetic book by Thomas Wolfe--The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test about Ken Kesey (whom I've had the pleasure of eating with on sevaral occasions--he was my uncle's neighbor--never saw anything outrageous about him or unusual--except he didn't have a "job"). Definately a document of "realization."

Yes, a strange book about strange people. I picked it up at a roommate's friend's apartment back in college but only got halfway through it before we left. I never got back to finish it. One of these days . . .

Also, one of my favorite musicians is Mary Prankster. I first saw her at an HFStival (a large multiband rock concert sponsored by radio station WHFS in the Balt/DC area) several years ago and remarked that she didn't seem old enought to remember the Merry Pranksters. She replied she was old enough to have read about them. (Her lyrics, while decidedly Adult and X-rated, do show some serious poetic ability. She was allegedly banned from just about every club in the Annapolis area for her lyrics. There are a few, though, that could be considered G-rated: Green Eggs and Hamlet, Rational Bohemian (a play on National Bohemian, a local brew), Blue Skies Over Dundalk, Student Loan, The Bottle's Talking Now, and Punk Rock Heaven. Read the other lyrics at your own risk. )

Susan, great observation...(code for "I don't know.")

Nice code phrase. Reminds me of this cartoon (took me a while to find it in the archives!)