The Frumious Bandersnatch Read Online Free PDF Page B

Milan thought.
    â€œLeave me dispense with generalities,” Higgins said, “and invite you directly into my boudoir,” and here his gaze brushed the black girl’s long and shiny legs, and her pert and perky tits, and then her overblown lips and her loam-colored eyes, asking his question to those eyes, asking it with a small inquisitive lifting of his brows, and getting his answer with a slight imperceptible nod, Yes, the girl in the chains was saying, oh yes, yes, yes.
    â€œ ‘Bandersnatch,’ ” Higgins said, “although I feel certain Lewis Carroll didn’t intend it this way, is the story of an attempted rape, the story of a thwarted rape, the story of a victim triumphant. Most importantly, it is in fact a story—a genuine story and not one of those invented film-school stories that have nothing to do with the song they’re selling. ‘Bandersnatch’ is the story of a girl who is warned of the beast out there on those mean streets, but who goes out to find that beast, anyway, and to slay it, my friends, to kill it dead, to emerge victorious, ‘O Frabjous day! Calloo! Callay!’ Yes, you’re right if you’re thinking this is the story of ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ told in nonsense syllables that captivate and mystify, part hard driving rock, part rap, so that we go after and deliver both audiences. You may well ask—especially our friend from Britain here, who may be more familiar with the poem than some of you others…”
    â€œI’m familiar with the poem,” the black girl said.
    Higgins looked at her.
    â€œIn fact, I know it by heart,” she said.
    â€œThen you may be wondering how…”
    â€œI am indeed wondering,” she said.
    â€œâ€¦how the boy in the poem…”
    â€œ ‘Beware the Jabberwock, my son, ’ ” she said, stressing the word.
    â€œExactly,” Higgins said.
    â€œ ‘Come to my arms, my beamish boy, ’ ” the man from London said.
    â€œExactly right,” Higgins said. “How does this boy become a girl, become a rape victim, become in fact Tamar Valparaiso?”
    â€œMy magazine is wondering the same thing,” the black girl said.
    â€œWhich magazine is that?” Higgins asked.
    â€œRolling Stone.”
    Ooops, Higgins thought.
    Â 
    SHE HAD CUT her hair short for the video.
    It was growing back now, but if the album was a hit and Tamar had to go on tour with it, she’d have it trimmed back to the length it was two months ago, when they shot the video at what used to be a bakery but what was now the Sands Spit Studios across the River Dix, which in fact they’d passed not half an hour ago. The River Princess had already come around the tip of the island and was now heading downtown, cruising the waters between the two states, moving at a leisurely pace toward the bridge.
    On the video, the short hair made her look like a blond Prince Valiant. Or more like a Peter Pan, she guessed. No question there was a girl in that tattered tunic at the end of the song, though, the beast clawing and biting at the garment till it came away in shreds under his talons and teeth, no question about that at all. They’d even had to edit out a thirty-second shot where her left nipple distinctly showed, and another longer sequence where too much cheek and almost some pussy were revealed when Jonah lifted her; you couldn’t risk offending all those soccer Moms out there, as if they didn’t have pussies and nipples of their own.
    Started her quest in what looked like a sturdy-enough white thigh-length tunic, sandals strapped to the calf, subtly heeled to give the leg its essential curve…
    He took his vorpal sword in hand:
    Long time the manxome foe he sought —
    So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
    And stood awhile in thought.
    And, as in uffish thought he stood …
    That was when Jonah burst upon the scene wearing the first of his