A few things

[regshoe]

raremaleslashex works are revealed are this evening! I'm very excited, both to read my own gift (which has some pleasing tags) and to see what's around the collection. Reveals are at 9pm here, and I could stay up for them but I think I won't—I'll let it be a nice thing to look forward to first thing tomorrow.

If any of you are a) able to go to the theatre in the UK and b) fans of Dracula, this may be of interest: the National Theatre of Scotland are producing a new northeast Scottish-set adaptation, starring Danielle Jam (of the Kidnapped ensemble) as Mina and starting its tour of locations in Scotland and England next month. It looks pretty cool, though I don't think I will go—I'm not that into Dracula and it seems like it'll be a bit horror-ish.

I have cleared up a minor mystery: yes, Robert Louis Stevenson did pronounce his middle name like Lewis with an S, not like Louis without an S. I had heard both pronunciations and also knew that he'd changed the spelling from Lewis, and I was puzzled—why change your name to a different spelling of the same name that suggests a different pronunciation but then keep the same pronunciation anyway? But that's exactly what he did, as confirmed in this biography by a cousin, 'due, it is said, to a strong distaste, shared by his father, for a fellow-citizen, who bore the name in the form in which Lewis had received it.' So there you go. The NTS play, and Isobel McArthur in interviews, did pronounce it Louis, I'm not sure whether due to a lack of research (which was certainly not lacking in general) or because that's just the pronunciation that's most often used now. It's not clear why he dropped Balfour, his other middle name; according to the linked biography he 'loathed' his 'third initial', but surely he can't have loathed the name that much or he wouldn't have given it to Davie! Perhaps he just disliked having so many names—as someone also saddled with excessive middle names, I can sympathise with that.

Comments

[sanguinity]

Is "Louis" customarily pronounced "Louie" in the UK, then? Here it would be customarily pronounced "Lewis", which is the way I've always heard RLS's name said.

One of our local theaters is doing a "feminist" production of Dracula next season, which makes me head-tilt a bit: is this a return to the original novel (which is very loving and celebratory of its female characters), or is this something else entirely? But we liked the previous productions by the same team, and we do like the novel, so we're likely to go.

[muccamukk]

Huh, I've always pronounced it Lou-EE. Oh well.

[troisoiseaux]

Oh, man, that Dracula production looks so cool!! Alas, I am on the other side of the Atlantic...

[sylvanwitch]

Your Stevenson story reminded me of a girl who shared my first name in middle school but hated me so much that her parents agreed that she could legally change the spelling so that it would no longer be the same as mine.

In my defense, I had never done anything to earn the girl's enmity except have the poor manners to transfer into her small, Catholic middle school in the seventh grade, which, to be fair to me, was my parents' idea altogether. I was almost immediately unpopular, and I think she didn't want her name associated with mine, even though it was still pronounced the same (and also there were at least three other girls in the class with the same name, so...).

Anyhoo, I guess I can relate to Stevenson's story. As a high school teacher at an all-boys school, I think one of the (many) benefits of being childfree is that I don't have to try to find a boys' name that won't have negative associations for me, assuming I had a boy. Lol! I have colleagues who have lamented this very situation in their own, more prolific lives. ;-)

[sovay]

yes, Robert Louis Stevenson did pronounce his middle name like Lewis with an S, not like Louis without an S.

I'd never heard his name pronounced any way other than with an S! That's interesting.

'due, it is said, to a strong distaste, shared by his father, for a fellow-citizen, who bore the name in the form in which Lewis had received it.'

(That's hilarious.)

[luzula]

I had no idea 'Louis' was usually pronounced without the 's' in British English! I also didn't know he was originally named Balfour as well.

Awww, what a lovely Armadale gift you got--it felt so tailored to your tastes. : )

[adore]

Balfour is a beautiful name. Worthy of the hero of a historical romance. //makes note