This thread will cover great works of literature and music, with titles that can be quite off-putting. It either derails off the toungue track, or refers to something common during a time that passed, or simply head scratching. You can mention the title to the ignorant, and they would laugh.
The champion of this is one of the great poems of all time, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, by T.S. Eliot. The initializing of the person’s name comes from the way Thomas Stearns initialized his own name in his works. ‘Prufrock’ is a made up last name, ‘pru’ being a play on terms like ‘prudent’, and frock, a thin body covering. “The Love Song” part is, of course ironic.
Was is the source of your information about The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock?
I think that it is one of the more memorable titles in literature and carefully sculpted. In my opinion, the J. Alfred Prufrock sounds exceedingly impersonal and cold. I can’t imagine anyone with that name burning with passion. But I don’t think the man is cold at all. Maybe numb. But he knows about the call of the sirens.
A Modest Proposal didn’t sound like something that would interest me at all – and that was part of the shock of it. It seemed from the title to be so innocuous. That was part of its deviousness: It suckers you in. Of course by the time I began to grasp what his proposal was, my chin was on the ground. Very effective piece.
Long titles are not necessarily clunky; Harlan Ellison often used long titles that were perfect:
I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream
The Beast the Shouted Love at the Heart of the World
Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans: Latitude 38° 54’ N, Longitude 77° 00’ 13" W
The Man Who Was Heavily Into Revenge
One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty
James Tiptree, Jr. also was good with them:
Love is the Plan, the Plan was Death
Forever to a Hudson’s Bay Blanket
And I Awoke to Find Me Here on the Cold Hill’s Side (which is a truly great title for the story)
Buffalo Gals, Won’t You Come Out Tonight
There was also:
The Last – This is It, No More – The Last Deal with the Devil Story (don’t recall the author, but the title has stuck with me)
Maybe Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck, Was a Little Bit Right – Robin Scott Wilson (as Robin Scott)
Time Considered as a Helix of Semiprecious Stones – Samuel R. Delany
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas – Ursula K. LeGuin
Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang – Kate Wilhelm
Twenty-four Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai – Roger Zelazny
Why I Left Harry’s All-Night Hamburgers – Lawrence Watt-Evans
Enter a Soldier. Later: Enter Another – Robert Silverberg