I need help with this word from somebody who has a dictionary older than 1940.

In an old book I am reading, the writer bemoans the fact that critics hinder the enjoyment and appreciation of art.

The writer uses this sentence:

...I say, the critic, if he were or could be, as critic, to any degree a considerate human being, or graced by even the amenity of a Boojum, would "softly and silently vanish away." But critics, sadly, arent't like that. (emphasis mine)

I can't find a definition of Boojum that fits this sentence or what this man is trying to say.

I've found references to boojum trees and, as boojum being a particularly nasty snark, which is a creature invented by Lewis Carrol in 1951.

The book I am reading dates from 1939, so it definitely isn't the snark, and a boojum tree is rather rough and ragged and not anthing in which there would be amenities, so neither definitions fit.

I'm thinking it is a word that has fallen out of use or disappeared. It also seems a proper noun since it is capitalized.

Can anybody help?

Carroll Wrote The Hunting of the Snark in 1876 - he was LONG dead by 1951. The boojum you read about was almost certainly a reference to Carroll's creation.

Did he? Sheesh, the info you get on the net can certainly be off, eh.

I don't know how the snark definition works though. If a Boojum is a particularly nasty snark, then it wouldn't be "graced by amenity", na?

Mind you, if the date was wrong, then the definition of the snark could also be wrong. I'll have to look around some more.

a Boojum was, ostensibly, a particularly dangerous kind of snark. Lewis Carroll invariably described the snark as "unimaginable".

[EA]

The dreadful Boojum of Nothingness. - W. H. Auden

boojum

The boojum (aka Fouquieria columnaris) is also a rather strange tree in Baja California (link). Godfrey Sykes named it.

It sounds to me like the speaker is hoping the critic(s) will magically go away for good.

I would say almost certainly the 1951 reference belMarduk came across was simply the publication date of a Carroll anthology or perhaps dictionary of quotations, or whatever the book was that the word appeared in.

That's a real beauty of the freakish order! For those who overlooked the link in the link:

Boojumbo

Good grief--it looks like it's dying, having had something catastrophic happen to it.

...you mean, like Wall St?

Maybe the writer just wants all critics to be eaten by nasty sharks. I'm guessing he had a bad review.

Ooo, I think you're right there, Zed. The writer had nothing nice to say about critics.

The critic is to be graced by the amenity of the boojum. The amenity of the boojum is its ability to make people disappear which is pleasant and agreeable in the case of critics (and lawyers and politicians).

This seems one of those cases where the dictionary definitions are either not up-to-date or fail to fully capture the way the word is often used.
"I pulled over at the row of port-a-potties to avail myself of the amenities." Nothing pleasant or agreeable there.

It seems that in both contexts the word is ironically used.
The writer is frumious.