Loof-weeda

During King Leary­, the author included certain elements that did not appear to add any value to the literature. King Leary was given multiple nick-names during the novel but one of them stood out. Manny’s great uncle gave Leary the nick-name loof-weeda and implied that it meant “wing song” or “wind music”, and that it referred to the way he skated. Later in the novel there were a few occurrences where I questioned the validity of this translation. One such occurrence was in a bar where Leary was talking about his nick-names. When Leary came to loof-weeda, a nearby Native American turned to Leary and apologized for the smell. This led me to believe that Manny’s Uncle was not truthful about the meaning of loof-weeda and that the actually definition was something closer to “flatulence”. Once I discovered this I wondered why the author would include this in the novel because I did not think it added any meaning to the text but upon further contemplation I realized why this was included. Quarrington added this part of the novel to show the reader what people actually thought of Leary. Because the novel is told from Leary’s point of view, we can assume that his account of the story is slightly biased. Leary makes it seem like he is a great man who is loved by everyone but loof-weeda shows at least one characters true opinion of Leary.