evaluating Gladstone's luck

[Donald D. Ault]

The two posts (below) about the reassembling of the map in "Secret of
Hondorica" as being perhaps the most improbable example of Gladstone's luck
involve yet another coincidence.

The comment by Stefan Dios--"I smiled when I started reading your post, for
I knew what my answer would be. I, too, spent some time thinking about this
exact question about 20 years ago"-- brought a smile to my face as well.

Almost 20 years ago I, too, was thinking about a similar problem and
published an essay on Gladstone's luck in Set II Volume 3 of the black and
white *Carl Barks Library* (1984) entitled "Luck's Labors Lost" (pages
525-26, 640). On page 640 the following statement of mine appears:

"the fragments of the map converging in the whirlpool constitute perhaps the
most implausible bit of Barks' wizardly in Gladstone's history."


[From:] Kristian Pedersen about Gladstone's unlikely luck:


>Being familiar with the obscenely huge numbers that
>arise in the branch of mathematics known as
>combinatorics, I would venture the guess that the most
>unbelievably lucky event happens to Gladstone in
>Barks' story about Hondorica: As I recall, Donald
>tears up a treasure map in twenty-odd pieces and
>throws it into the river. Whereupon the pieces
>rearrange themselves into a readable map a couple of
>hundred yards further down the river, where Gladstone
>is fishing.


Or how about the coincidence that two donaldists will, separately, reach the
same conclusion from all these vast, huge, enormous sources of
Gladstoneness? :-)

I smiled when I started reading your post, for I knew what my answer would
be. I, too, spent some time thinking about this exact question about 20
years ago. That was before Rosa, so I was mostly "limited" to the Barks
stories. And I, too, was deeply fascinated by the torn Hondorica map
floating together in the stream and decided that without any reasonable
doubt, this must be it.

As far as I can remember, I never discussed this at length with anybody, and
I'm quite certain I never put it in writing. But if I had, it would have
been very similar to what you wrote here. Which also marks the first time I
hear anyone else discuss it at all. Weird. Kristian, I didn't think I knew
you, but if I know myself at all, I obviously know you, too!  ;-)

Stefan Dios
Malmo, Sweden

***

Donald Ault
Professor of English
University of Florida
ault at ufl.edu
http://www.nwe.ufl.edu/~donault/

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