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Fw: Fw: Bunny vs Brer Rabbit
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Mary Bellino" <iambe@rcn.com>
> ----------------- Message requiring your approval (22
lines) ------------------
> Wilson's mother called him "Bunny," so it's more than just
> "with a childish flavor"; it actually is a childhood
> nickname. Americans of Wilson's class often kept these
> nicknames through prep school and college into adulthood;
> thus one way for an American novelist to indicate that a
> character is from the old-money upper class is to give him
> such a name -- as for example Donna Tartt did in her novel
> The Secret History, in which one of the characters is
> nicknamed Bunny and is known by this name to his college
> friends. John Cheever also used this technique with some of
> his characters.
>
> In Wilson's case, I don't believe the name has anything to
> do with Brer Rabbit. I checked Wilson's daughter's memoir
> (Rosalind Baker Wilson, Near the Magician) and she says
> merely that that was what Wilson's mother called him. I
> agree with Victor Fet that the name should just be
> transliterated. Even if it did originally refer to the Joel
> Chandler Harris character, his mother didn't call him "Brer
> Rabbit," she shortened it to Bunny, and that's the name that stuck.
>
> Mary
From: "Mary Bellino" <iambe@rcn.com>
> ----------------- Message requiring your approval (22
lines) ------------------
> Wilson's mother called him "Bunny," so it's more than just
> "with a childish flavor"; it actually is a childhood
> nickname. Americans of Wilson's class often kept these
> nicknames through prep school and college into adulthood;
> thus one way for an American novelist to indicate that a
> character is from the old-money upper class is to give him
> such a name -- as for example Donna Tartt did in her novel
> The Secret History, in which one of the characters is
> nicknamed Bunny and is known by this name to his college
> friends. John Cheever also used this technique with some of
> his characters.
>
> In Wilson's case, I don't believe the name has anything to
> do with Brer Rabbit. I checked Wilson's daughter's memoir
> (Rosalind Baker Wilson, Near the Magician) and she says
> merely that that was what Wilson's mother called him. I
> agree with Victor Fet that the name should just be
> transliterated. Even if it did originally refer to the Joel
> Chandler Harris character, his mother didn't call him "Brer
> Rabbit," she shortened it to Bunny, and that's the name that stuck.
>
> Mary