A Compendium of Carrolls

F3 - Much of a Muchness

The Great Roberto Trampolini was signing autographs for his adoring fan. Standing outside the Stage Door, after a particularly moving performance of 'Bouncing Bobby's Follies', he knew there was no limit to his capabilities. When he really put his mind to it, there was nothing he couldn't do, and do well.

Except.

Well, it never quite worked out like that.

He'd identified the problem of course. As a metaphysical speculator par excellence, how could have failed to. It was that, attention is a finite resource. Simply that. Having so many talents Bobby T. wanted to do everything, and often he'd try to.

This resulted in a string of half done projects, which had showed such brilliance, before he'd become distracted with something else. These weren't generally forgotten, indeed he had projects that he'd been 'working on', for years. It irked him that he didn't finish very many of them, although very occasionally one would slip through the net and get done.

There was a knock on effect from this that was actually quite positive. When he committed to doing something, he would move heaven and earth to make sure he did it. Like that time he promised to promote a friend's production of 'Heartfelt Messages', and spent all month writing irritating nonsense with which to poke and prod the public into submission. He was just very, very careful about committing to things.

Naturally he wasn't the first to notice this problem, nosireebob, one of Mr. Roberto T's heroes was the French poet and Encyclopedist Raymond Queneau. Queneau understood the necessity for limitations, and explored their use very successfully, producing books of poetry and prose, and articles and Encyclopedia entries... In short, producing a lot.

Things had recently gone from bad to worse for Bouncing Bobby, when his muse suddenly announced that she wanted to see other writers. He had a tendency to harp back to things, often to see if anyone noticed. If they did, they rarely said. Resorting to desperate measures, he'd secured the help of an expert. A very scary expert.

Output was up, though much of it was still nonsense, and his energies still waxed up and down, but B.T. felt that he was on the up. Presently he was wandering through Wonderland, where anything might happen, but the Indelible Maurice was waiting in the wings, another golden project for the man who never learned.

Unfortunately, no one had mentioned to The Great Trampolini that imagining he was so talented was just as big a problem as never getting around to finishing anything. They do say that 'pride goeth before a fall'. However, we can be reasonably sure that the Great Bobby Trampolini is certain to bounce right back again.

WORD COUNT & PROMPT ▼

Word Count: 453 Words.

3. "Much of a Muchness" – According to the Dormouse, there is such a thing as 'drawing of muchness'; with that in mind, tell us about the good or bad of having too much of any one thing. (<1000 words).