The Last Mimzy

[masraum]

Anytime I end up talking to someone about sci-fi stories I always end up bringing up a short story that I read >20 years ago when I was a young teenager. I've never remembered the name or author of the story which has always been frustrating. In the story two kids find some weird toys. To the children's parents the toys looks random and patternless, but the kids see patterns in them which seem to educate the children. The gist is that the adults can't figure them out because they have been taught our math, science, etc... and so have preconceptions. The toys function on different principles and truths than our math and science, but because the children haven't learned our principles they are able to figure the toys out. Their lack of preconceptions was key.

The story really made an impression on me, I suppose because of the message.

When I saw the previews for "The Last Mimzy " the other night I thought it looked interesting. I looked it up tonight. It's based on that short story that I read so long ago which I now know is called "Mimsy Were The Borogoves" which is credited as being by Lewis Padgett which is a pseudonym for the husband and wife team of Henry Kuttner and C L. Moore. I'm stoked. I have to see this movie.

Synopsis/Review of the short story

The title of the short story comes from the poem Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll

[Evans, Marv]

Hey, I read that same story, but I think it was a bunch more than 20 years ago. Don't remember much about the story, but I recognized the title.

[WolfeMacleod]

What I find paticularly interesting about this...

Mimsy – Combination of "miserable" and "flimsy."[2]
Borogove – A thin shabby-looking bird with its feathers sticking out all round, something like a live mop.[2] The initial syllable of borogove is pronounced as in borrow, rather than as in worry.[3]

I wonder if there may be a connection to Jabberwocky?

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
'Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!'
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,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
'And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

[WolfeMacleod]

apparently so...
In 1943, Henry Kuttner, writing with his wife as Lewis Padgett, published a science fiction short story called Mimsy were the Borogoves in the magazine Astounding, which has since been republished in several anthologies. It posits that the poem is actually a communication with hidden meaning from the future.

[masraum]

Originally posted by WolfeMacleod
I wonder if there may be a connection to Jabberwocky?

Or you could have just read the last line of my post that said

The title of the short story comes from the poem Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll

[WolfeMacleod]

Originally posted by masraum
Or you could have just read the last line of my post that said

D'oh.