2 7 8 NAKEDNESS

view of a family life in which simple, innocent pleasures are enjoyed together.

Stewart's early life, I learnt, was rather sweet and Waltons-like. He loved his father and mother. He went to church.

WILLIAM LEITH in The Observer, 1997

Wild Boy of Aveyron The Wild Boy of Aveyron was an 11-year-old boy who was found running wild and naked in a wood near Aveyron in the south of France in the early part of the 19th century. The French physician Jean Itard tried to train and educate him and published an account of his experiences in Rapports sur le Sauvage d'Aveyron (1807). 'The Wild Boy of Aveyron' can be used to describe someone who has absolutely no experience of the ways of the world, society, or people.

'People divide writers into two categories,' she went on, deeply embarrassed by his silence. 'Those who are preternaturally wise, and those who are preternaturally naive, as if they had no real experience to go on. I belong in the latter category' she added, flushing at the truth of what she said, like the Wild Boy of the Aveyron.' ANITA BROOKNER Hotel du Lac, 1984

Nakedness

There is a common theme to the stories of ACTAEON, LADY CODIVA, and

SUSANNA, that of a man catching sight of a naked woman and ultimately

being punished for it.

Actaeon In Greek mythology, Actaeon was a hunter who, because he accidentally saw Artemis (the virgin goddess of the hunt) bathing naked, was changed into a stag and torn to pieces by his own hounds.

Adam and Eve Adam and Eve lived naked in the Garden of Eden 'and were not ashamed' (Gen. 2: 25). Only after they ate the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge did they become self-conscious: 'Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons.' • See special entry o on p. 5.

So there they were, naked as Adam and Eve.

PHILIP ROTH Epstein, 1959

Lady Codiva Lady Godiva (d. 1080) was an English noblewoman, wife of Leofric, earl of Mercia. According to a 13th-century legend, she rode naked through the market-place of Coventry, clothed only in her long, golden hair, to persuade her husband to reduce the heavy taxes he had imposed on the people. All the townspeople stayed indoors and shut up their windows, except for Tom the Tailor, who looked at her through a window as she rode past (and was consequently known thereafter as Peeping Tom). He was struck blind as a consequence of his action.

To say I was cold would be like saying Lady Codiva was underdressed.

KATHY REICHS Death du Jour, 1999

NOAH AND THE FLOOD 2 7 9

Susanna In the Apocrypha, Susanna was a beautiful and virtuous woman of Babylon who was lusted after by two elders who secretly spied on her when she was bathing naked in a garden. When she subsequently repelled their advances, they falsely accused her of adultery and she was condemned to death. She was proved innocent by Daniel, who exposed inconsistencies in her accusers' accounts, and the elders were themselves executed.

'I went for a walk. It was warm and I was aching to be outside.' 'Did you leave the island?' 'No. I hiked to the pond and wound up skinny-dipping! 'Anybody see you?' 'You mean paddling around in my birthday suit like Susanna and the Elders?' MICHAEL MEWSHAW True Crime, 1991

Noah and the Flood

The Book of Genesis in the Bible relates how God, seeing that 'the wickedness of man was great in the earth', decided to send a great flood to destroy the whole of mankind. Only Noah 'found grace in the eyes of the Lord' and so God warned him of the coming flood and instructed him to build an ark (a large boat about 133 m. long) in which to save himself and his family and also two of every species of creature on the earth. Apart from those in the ark, all inhabitants of the earth drowned in the Flood, which lasted for forty days and forty nights. The floodwaters rose high with the ark on their surface, and after the rain stopped gradually receded. The ark came to rest on Mount Ararat. Noah sent out birds from the ark in the hope they would bring back evidence of dry land. First he sent out a raven, and then a dove. After a week the dove returned with an olive leaf so Noah knew the waters had completely receded. When Noah and his family were able to walk again on land, God blessed them, saying: 'Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.' God promised Noah that he would never again send a flood to destroy all living things and produced a rainbow as 'a token of a covenant between me and the earth'. Noah lived to the age of 950 and his sons, Ham, Shem, and Japhet, became the ancestors of many nations.

Throughout this book there are references to the story of Noah and the Flood.

• See ARK at Outdatedness

FLOOD at Danger and Past

NOAH at Escape and Survival and Past

NOAH'S DOVE at Movement

NOAH'S FLOOD at Water.

2 8 0 NONCONFORMITY

Nonconformity

Most of the entries below typify the rebelliousness of adolescence. The other major strand is the idea of heresy. • See also Conformity and Rebellion and Disobedience.

Bohemia Bohemia was formerly a central European kingdom, now forming the western part of the Czech Republic. The name is often applied to any district frequented by artists, writers, and other socially unconventional people.

This, in the social order, is the diversion, the permitted diversion, that your original race has devised: a kind of superior Bohemia, where one may be respectable without being bored.

EDITH WHARTON The Custom of the Country, 1913

Holden Caulfield Holden Caulfield is the adolescent hero of J. D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye, published in 19 51. He is an archetypal adolescent rebel, full of angst and disaffection and rebelling against all that is 'phoney', 'corny', and 'old bull'. After being expelled from an expensive private school, Caulfield goes to New York but after a series of unsuccessful adventures, including an encounter with a prostitute and an abortive reunion with an old girlfriend, he is forced to go back home and is sent by his parents for psychiatric treatment.

James Dean James Dean (1931-55) was an American actor best remembered for his role in the 1955 film Rebel Without a Cause. The film opened just weeks after Dean's death in a car crash, and he became strongly associated with the character he played in the film, a confused, rebellious, and self-destructive adolescent.

The one riding shotgun had the James Dean look, dark, wavy hair over a fuck-you pout. They thought they were badasses and I was an old fart. That made two surprises they had coming.

JOHN DUNNING The Bookman's Wake, 1995

Huckleberry Finn Huckleberry Finn is the main character in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) by Mark Twain. He is a spirited, self-reliant, and unconventional boy who fakes his own death in order to escape from his drunken, brutal father and he has many adventures.

Galileo Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) was an Italian astronomer and physicist. He accepted the Copernican system, a theory stating that the sun is the centre of the universe, although it was strenuously opposed by the Catholic Church. Under threat of torture he publicly recanted his views, but is later reported as declaring 'Eppur si muove' ('but it does move'). His name is now associated with the defiant upholding of scientific truth and integrity.

Remember Calilyo. Always stick up for yourself!

v. s. NAIPAUL A House for Mr Biswas, 1969

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who rejects the conventional values of hard work, honesty, and cleanliness.

I was the winner, Miss Illinois. All I could do was laugh. I'm twenty-two, standing up there in a borrowed evening gown, thinking: What am I doing here? This is like Tom Sawyer becomes an altar boy.

STUDS TERKEL American Dreams: Lost and Found, 1980

Socrates Socrates (469-399 BC) was a Greek philosopher concerned with the search for truth and reason in questions of morality and ethics. Through his discourse and careful questioning, he challenged accepted beliefs and attempted to expose foolishness, irrationality, and error. He wrote nothing himself, but is known through the works of one of his pupils, Plato, who recorded his dialogues and teachings. Socrates was charged with impiety and corrupting the young, and condemned to die by taking hemlock.

I hope that you will be glad to know that I have decided to make my own dowry. I think that my father has no sense of shame, and sometimes I feel very angry with him for refusing the very thing that is normal for every other girl. He is not fair because he is too rational. He thinks that he is a Socrates who can fly in the face of custom.

LOUIS DE BERNIÈRES Captain Corelli's Mandolin, 1994

Noses

As can be seen from the entries below, notable noses tend to be either

long, large, or bright red.

Bardolph In Shakespeare's Henry IV and Henry V, Bardolph is one of Falstaff s companions. His bright red nose inspires Falstaff to say to him: 'Thou art our admiral, thou bearest the lantern in the poop, but 'tis in the nose of thee; thou art the Knight of the Burning Lamp' (Henry IV, Part 1).

If beauty is a matter of fashion, how is it that wrinkled skin, grey hair, hairy backs and Bardolph-like noses have never been 'in fashion?

Frontiers: Penguin Popular Science, 1994

Cyrano de Bergerac Cyrano de Bergerac (1619-55) was a French soldier, duellist, and writer of comedies and satires. He is supposed to have had a prodigiously long nose. He is celebrated in the play that bears his name by Edmond Rostand (1897).

282 NOSES

Derek Griffiths is a young coloured comedian with a face like crushed rubber... and a hooter to rival Cyrano de Bergerac.

The Times, 1972

Jimmy Durante Jimmy Durante (1893-1980) was a US pianist-comedian who had a long career in vaudeville, nightclubs, and films. He referred to his splendid nose as his 'schnozzola'.

Even Jimmy Durante's famous schnozzola, which Keith had had a chance to see up close . . . was a peanut compared to Sperry's.

VINCE STANTON Keith Partridge Master Spy, 1971

Pinocchio Pinocchio is the puppet hero of the story Le Avventure di Pinocchio (1883) by G. Lorenzini, who wrote under the name of Carlo Collodi. Made by the carpenter Geppetto, Pinocchio is a wooden puppet that comes to life and eventually becomes a real boy. His nose magically grows longer every time he tells a lie.

Also, the characters can be transformed or 'morphed' on screen. For example, when Mario tells lies to a viewer, his nose can be made to grow like Pinocchio's.

New Scientist, 1993

Rudolph According to the popular song, Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, despite being ridiculed by the other reindeer because of his shiny red nose, is chosen to pull Santa Claus's sledge.