Michael Scheibel on Trying to figure out

Who is Maurice Bossey the Strange Customer?

I had a constant thought that this character had some more importance then a strange pervert that brings comic relief and chaos. I kept coming back to the line in Wallace Stevens poem "Oh! Blessed rage for order" All the parts with Maurice Bossey, Nanson shows his rage for order. The two fit together as a puzzle piece in some way where Bossey is rage or chaos to Nanson who is order or organization. But when the two come together after a period of time Nanson seems to loose is organization to a point of chaos which leads to his rage once Christophe and Eric return.

What intrigues me about Nanson's reaction to Bossey is how he keeps mum about it until the scene with Eric and Christophe. It's almost like Maurice is a second side to Nanson or an anti Nanson that is trying to get out. Also it is weird that Bossey doesn't come into the picture until Fulla and soon after Vera come into Nanson life. This is the place in the story when Phineaus Nanson seems to make no progress in his research even though he finds all Destry-Scholes "suitcase full of authentic things." It is organized chaos.

Another funny thing that I notice reading the book a second time is that even though Maurice Bossey and the Strange Customer are the same person, Nanson treats the two completely different. Because Maurice Bossey is labeled as a pervert and Nanson despises him for it. But the Strange Customer he is intrigued and looks up to the same man. It is something about the mystery or not knowing all the facts that creates an interest in Bossey. So I decided to find a little more about their first meeting in Puck's Girdle on page 150.

Nanson even says "there was a certain reverence about my Strange Customer," and then he approached Nanson and asks about Pim or Pym. This made no sense to me because the book seems to never explain who Pim or Pym is. But after some research I found a wikipedia biography on a marvel superhero named Henry Pym who at first glance I would have thought it unrelated but looking at his powers changed my mind. Henry Pym is a biochemistry genius who transfers the size of objects including himself and he is often related to an ant in most of his comics. This made me think about Ibsen and how he got to know people on a third level that he compared people to ants.

I kept reading on to the next page and I came upon another statement of Nansons deep respect for the Strange Customer. "I could hardly believe I was living in a real world, where Englishmen in suits with buttonholes came in and chatted knowledgeably about Fourier." I looked up the word Fourier and found it meant transform or decomposes a function into and oscillatory functions. I found it is often the process of transforming finite groups for wave motion and optics. All this seemed to explain to me that the meeting with the Strange Customer or Bossey seemed to change Nansons way of looking at things and people.

I have no clue if these things tie into each other, or maybe I am just making crass assumptions but if anyone has some outside knowledge on the topic I would like some help