Talk:Bandersnatch

Memory jog required. About 30 years ago- I think 1978/9, there was a tale serialised on BBC Radio 4 about a woman who found and adopted a creature which turned out to be a Bandersnatch. The creature was revealed to be highly intelligent and whilst she was out at work it embarked on a programme of self-education. It surprised her one day by speaking to her and over the months/years developed a sophisticated cultural and intellectual relationship with her. I cannot remember how the story ended but I found it amusing and entertaining at the time.

Does anyone have the book and can provide some concrete details to add to the Bandersnatch page?

Snatchbander (talk) 15:22, 30 July 2010 (UTC)


 * That was Omar. I have the book at home and will add the information when I get a chance. JayareIL (talk) 18:06, 18 February 2011 (UTC)


 * 2603:3004:3A:6F0:69D3:1B6B:C7C5:4EFA (talk) 22:08, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

Re: In other media: Dutch composer Theo Verbey has just completed a piece for cello and pianola entitled Bandersnatch (premiere 11-11-10, Amsterdam). Would it be alright to include this information? Thanks, Stevey-22 (talk) 07:49, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm confused as to why my edit was taken out- There is a Bandersnatch character in the webcomic Skin Deep, and I just had added that into "Bandersnatch in other media." Why is that not allowed? Floppybelly (talk) 17:04, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

I am saddened that one of my favorite 70's novels is not mentioned at all in "Other Media." Kevin O'Donnell, Jr. wrote the book Bander Snatch in 1979 about a jungle lord who gets his name from "a secondary character from a minor poem"(12) with the Jabberwock in it. It's Kevin O'Donnell, Jr.'s first novel.

I don't have the authority so if one of y'all could put that in there, I'd be very happy. --S.F. October 23, 2009

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.219.176.16 (talk) 15:58, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Haha I love the first part of this page. The way it is written completely fits the poem.


 * No kidding. I can't decide whether to laugh, or mark this for cleanup. --maru  (talk)  contribs 06:44, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

-- Were Niven's creatures Bandersnatch or Bandersnatchi or is Bandersnatchi the plural of Niven's characters called Bandersnatch? It needs to be clarified. If they were actually called Bandersnatchi then that entry needs to be moved to appropriately named page.


 * They are called Bandersnatchi, since it's taken from a Latinized species name Frumius Bandersnatchus. However, the Wikipedia standard is to use the singular for the page name, so it ought to stay at "Bandersnatch" unless some actual disambiguation is involved, whether of the earlier Larry Niven/Bandersnatch form or the parenthetical Bandersnatch (Larry Niven) form or some other, similar approach. -- John Owens 20:05 19 May 2003 (UTC)


 * Then maybe the article could be at Frumius Bandersnatchus? RickK 04:51, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Can Tenniel's illustration be considered canonical? If so, that should be mentioned in the description. RickK 04:48, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

In Niven's books, bandersnatch is the English singular and bandersnatchi is plural. "World of Ptavvs" has a thorough description of them.

Also in Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark, Fit the Seventh, an encounter with a bandersnatch is described. It is described as moving swiftly, having a neck it can extend, and having snapping, frumious jaws (which with it tries to grab the Banker).

Single cell but with a skeleton?
I want to take issue with the description of Niven's Bandersnatchi. I happened to pick up a copy of Ringworld at the Chicago airport this week (having missed it during my high school days), and during the visit to the flying castle the bandersnatch skeleton is discussed, including the skull. The Wikipedia entry says that they are single-celled and reproduce by budding. Having not read all of Niven's books, I cannot speak authoritatively, but this does seem to present a problem.


 * From World of Ptavvs:


 * "...The whitefood [bandersnatch] is an artificial animal, created by the tnuctipun as a meat animal. A whitefood is as big as a dinosaur and as smooth and white as a shmoo.  They're a lot like shmoos.  We can use all of their bodies, except the skeleton, and they eat free food, which is almost as cheap as air.  Their shape is like a caterpillar reaching for a leaf.  The mouth is at the front of the belly foot...


 * "They can't mutate. They were designed that way.  A whitefood is one big cell, with a chromosome as long as your arm and as thick as your little finger.  Radiation could never affect them, and the first thing that would be harmed by any injury would be the budding apparatus."


 * And later:


 * "...this animal is one big cell. Nerves are similar to human nerves in structure, but have no cell body, no nuclei, nothing to separate them from other specialized protoplasm.  The brain is long and narrow, and is packed into a bone shell at the elevated tapering tip.  This skull is one end of a jointless, flexible, very strong internal cage of bone..."


 * Presumably the skeleton is built by similarly specialized organelles rather than cells as occurs in Earth life forms.

Additions
I've added a little more insight on the creature from Anna M. Richards book A New Alice in the Old Wonderland, which describes the Bandersnatch a little more. Piecraft 18:22, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I added one of the pictures from the same book. -- Evertype·✆ 23:08, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Pop Bandersnatch deflation
The latter-day dissemination of bandersnatch— a nonce word instantly recognizable to the post-literati as a would-be hip allusion to an unread classic of funky reputation— has given an easily-won but quite spurious air of humorful quaintness to unimaginative mediocrities and of a tongue-in-cheek cultural literacy to those whose street creds outweigh their library cred, but who do enjoy that -snatch phoneme. This accounts for the constant reappearance of bandersnatch in the lingo of marginal pop figures listed at the end of the article. Hasn't Tom Wolfe or anyone made a passing remark on this familiar devaluation of bandersnatch? one that can be quoted in the article— and referenced, made secure from the outcries of the Offended Humorless and the Closeted Para-literate? --Wetman (talk) 01:09, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Accusations of pseudo-intellectualism rarely fly when the person making the accusation doesn't present any sort of reasonable way to judge the pseudo-intellectual from the ones he or she considers actual intellectual. It usually just comes down to a poser trying to paint others as posers. DreamGuy (talk) 21:17, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Bandersnach Vs. Jabberwack —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.135.177.105 (talk) 00:27, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Quite strange i must say, that a thought has always been in my mind, that from the first time i read Jabberwocky i thought that "shun the frumious Bandersnatch" would mean that the Jabberwock himslef is the Bandersnatch. At the begining of the verse he describes the Jabberwock "the jaws that bite, the claws that catch", so i've always thought that the "shun the frumious Bandersnatch" was a way for him to finish talking about the Jabberwack. Maybe Bandersnach is another way of saying Jabberwock, or the Jabberwock is a personal name for the Bandersnatch or the other way around. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.135.177.105 (talk) 00:24, 7 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Chuck Dodgson might have a great deal to answer for; however, his only failure was that he did not anticipate the modern proclivity for fastening on to the trivial and manufacturing something important from it by simply repeating it a few times.  He can hardly be blamed for modern society's love of the irrelevant.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:30A:2C4A:1CB0:9C95:11BF:7679:350D (talk) 17:28, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Ed Mcbain (pseudonyn for Evan Hunter)
This author wrote the screenplay for the Hitchcock film 'The Birds', and also a novel titled, 'the frumious bandersnatch'. I believe it was his last. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mumadadd (talk • contribs) 19:41, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

What is this?
The line "In Pandora Hearts (2006), Lily's chain is a large black dog named Bandersantch." makes no sense whatsoever to someone who doesn't know what Pandora Hearts even is (a movie? A game?) much less anything about it, namely myself. Now I understand I can (and did) click the link to find out more, but someone who is actually familiar with the subject should elaborate because it still really doesn't make sense what a "chain" is nor how it can be a dog. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.247.91.210 (talk) 03:09, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

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