Viva Niemand

Marx Marvelous

Niemand of the Month

Below is the excerpts from the novel Another Roadside Attraction by Tom Robbins (photo):

"[...] that's why I changed my name when I dropped out of the Institute. I don't plan on paying any more."

"Changed your name?"

"Why yes. Marx Marvelous is not a legitimate appellation."

"That's a pity. It's a handsome name."

"I'm glad you think so. I like it, too. Do you know how I arrived at it?"

"I haven't the remotest idea."

"When I decided to take an alias, I wanted more than to apply a crust to the worn surface of my real identity. I wanted to make a statement, to express something through the unexploited medium of nom de plume. Being in a defiant frame of mind, I asked myself what it its that my fellows at the Institute -- that, indeed, the average American males of my age and economic stratum -- hate most. What do they most loathe? The answer I arrived at was Communism and homosexuality. Communists and homosexuals are the targets of the majority of the normal male's fear-honed barbs. Thus you can see how I in my rebellion selected the given name of 'Marx.' The surname was more difficult. Obviously, I couldn't call myself Marx Homosexual or Marx Queer or even Marx Fag. But I remembered having read in a symdicated newspaper column that the one word no red-blooded he-man would ever ever utter was 'marvelous.' 'Marvelous' is an expression reserved for interior decorators and choreographers and is as taboo in the bleachers, the sales meeting or the pool hall as a rose behind the ear or a velvet snood. So, I embraced that maligned term as if it were a victimized ancestor. And here I am: Marx Marvelous." [...]