Subject
THOUGHTS, if you can call them that (on misspellings,
accent marks, narcissism, metaphors)
accent marks, narcissism, metaphors)
From
Date
Body
SK-B sighting: “ ’Les papillons ne sont que des fleurs envolees un jour de fete,’ ecrivait Georges Sand qui, comme Nabokov, Gerard de Nerval ou Colette, vouait une veritable passion aux papillons.... (Les Papillons d’Europe (Rhopaloceres et Heteroceres Diurnes),”introduction by Gerald Hibon, Delachaux et Nestle, 1989)
JM: Beautiful find. Some time ago, in relation to beards and frills, there was a reference to "papillote"(& butterflies). In America, frills may be used to decorate protuding bones of a roast turkey. In Brazil we used the word "papelote" for paper-made frills applied to bob or curl the hair. Until then I hadn't thought about "butterflies" ( "papillote"), because I heard the sound "paper" ("papel") - but when one sees a small girl with "papillotes" curlers, indeed it looks as if a swarm of butterflies had alighted on her hair.
SK-B: considering that your examples [nacht/acht;ocho/noche;huit/nuit] come from the same (parochial!) Indo-European language family, one might claim that the real mystery is why people are mystified or sent into transcendental shock at inevitable “coincidences” .Whence endless word-sound interactions: I certainly endorse SES’s comment “ ... A typical Nabokovian device, that visual memory becomes animated by sound.” (p 73 “How Nabokov Rewrote America,” Susan Elizabeth Sweeney, in the never-far-from-my-bedside Cambridge Companion to Nabokov). Once linked in the mind, there’s no escaping the sequence L-o-l-i-t-a from images of Humbert succumbing to her labio-dental temptations, even if the movies prudishly substitute ice-creams and lollipops [...] Darwin and others have find common cross-cultural features in HomSap’s body-language and facial expressions [...] Our in-family joke when taking pictures is “Say Gorganzola!” This relates to JF’s recent confession that he does not share VN’s sensayuma, and the subseqent problem of defining “humour” in any objective way[...] Explaining “jokes” has been compared, unfairly, with killing and dissecting a butterfly to see how it works. [...]... apparently influencing Freud’s Oedipal interpretations... Dora catches a glimpse of the best-friend’s wife fellating her father (why do these Austrians have all the fun?) -- is she shocked or jealous?
JM: You wondered why do these Humberts and Austrians have all the fun... Well, I don't think Freud ever did enjoy this kind of fun in his practice, but his books about the psychopathology of everyday life has marvellous examples of humorous situations and, as we all know, he was very efficient when dismantling euphemisms. Besides, he writes beautifully ( he once won a Goethe prize in recognition of his style) No one needs to believe in psychoanalysis to thoroughly enjoy his "Dora". A short answer to your query ( shocked or jealous?): Dora was in love with the wife and not with her husband, so most probably she was...jealous!
Jerry Friedman:[ A written text may have a "suggestive" effect...] "Forward" for "foreword" is a common spelling error [...] I can't argue with you about Kinbote's frequent images of Gradus's forward motion, but lots of people who have never read /Pale Fire/ misspell "foreword". I'd need to see a well-controlled statistical study to be convinced that common spelling errors are more likely when they have some relation to what the person is writing about.
[ JM: I hope I understood your former reference to a "symbolic reading"] Those were Joseph Aisenberg's observations. I should ask, J. A., when you spoke of homosexuality meant to be symbolic of narcissism (as you said incest was), did you mean Kinbote, or the homosexuality scene in /Ada/?[...]
JM: Sorry, JF and JA, for having confused your references.
Lapsus linguae and other parapraxies happen all the time and would be meaningless effects of language were they not related to a particular moment as observed by someone significant. I was wondering about VN's stylistic intention. He'd stated as much as in: "We feel doom, in the image of Gradus, eating away the miles and miles of "feigned remoteness" between him and poor Shade. He, too, is to meet, in his urgent and blind flight, a reflection that will shatter him....] The force propelling him is the magic action of Shade’s poem itself, the very mechanism and sweep of verse, the powerful iambic motor. Never before has the inexorable advance of fate received such a sensuous form.", but this "sensuous form" might have been felt in K's Forward....
Any modern ( not so modern, actually) text about psychology with whiffs of Freud connects a special kind of "narcisism" and "homosexuality" ( analogies,mirrors, reflective surfaces, incapacitu to love except one's likeness etc). There is no "symbolism" or "symbolic reading", as I see it ( Yeah...define love, define metaphor, define symbol etc...) .
SK-Bootle: [ to JM: "You are earnestly hoping that "some people got the o with the Hungarian 'long umlaut'... but I don't get your "long" point."] Jerry refers to the “long” Hungarian umlaut because that is one of its correct technical, typographical names. You were seeking some metaphorical significance to JF’s use of “long” that was entirely literal on this particular occasion! This is no criticism but a reminder that the “perfect” Nabokovian reader would need to be “omniscient” to avoid the following extremes: (i) overlooking real, intended fruitful allusions (ii) inventing far-fetched, daft unintended allusions (often disdainfully disowned by VN Himself);
JF: The diacritical mark is not the ordinary umlaut or dieresis; it's two acute accents next to each other.
JM: Substitute "earnestly" for "literally" in your important caveat, Stan. Actually the fun often lies in having overlooked an allusion and getting the point later on & the same for correcting "daft" mistakes and red-faced inward chuckles.
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/
JM: Beautiful find. Some time ago, in relation to beards and frills, there was a reference to "papillote"(& butterflies). In America, frills may be used to decorate protuding bones of a roast turkey. In Brazil we used the word "papelote" for paper-made frills applied to bob or curl the hair. Until then I hadn't thought about "butterflies" ( "papillote"), because I heard the sound "paper" ("papel") - but when one sees a small girl with "papillotes" curlers, indeed it looks as if a swarm of butterflies had alighted on her hair.
SK-B: considering that your examples [nacht/acht;ocho/noche;huit/nuit] come from the same (parochial!) Indo-European language family, one might claim that the real mystery is why people are mystified or sent into transcendental shock at inevitable “coincidences” .Whence endless word-sound interactions: I certainly endorse SES’s comment “ ... A typical Nabokovian device, that visual memory becomes animated by sound.” (p 73 “How Nabokov Rewrote America,” Susan Elizabeth Sweeney, in the never-far-from-my-bedside Cambridge Companion to Nabokov). Once linked in the mind, there’s no escaping the sequence L-o-l-i-t-a from images of Humbert succumbing to her labio-dental temptations, even if the movies prudishly substitute ice-creams and lollipops [...] Darwin and others have find common cross-cultural features in HomSap’s body-language and facial expressions [...] Our in-family joke when taking pictures is “Say Gorganzola!” This relates to JF’s recent confession that he does not share VN’s sensayuma, and the subseqent problem of defining “humour” in any objective way[...] Explaining “jokes” has been compared, unfairly, with killing and dissecting a butterfly to see how it works. [...]... apparently influencing Freud’s Oedipal interpretations... Dora catches a glimpse of the best-friend’s wife fellating her father (why do these Austrians have all the fun?) -- is she shocked or jealous?
JM: You wondered why do these Humberts and Austrians have all the fun... Well, I don't think Freud ever did enjoy this kind of fun in his practice, but his books about the psychopathology of everyday life has marvellous examples of humorous situations and, as we all know, he was very efficient when dismantling euphemisms. Besides, he writes beautifully ( he once won a Goethe prize in recognition of his style) No one needs to believe in psychoanalysis to thoroughly enjoy his "Dora". A short answer to your query ( shocked or jealous?): Dora was in love with the wife and not with her husband, so most probably she was...jealous!
Jerry Friedman:[ A written text may have a "suggestive" effect...] "Forward" for "foreword" is a common spelling error [...] I can't argue with you about Kinbote's frequent images of Gradus's forward motion, but lots of people who have never read /Pale Fire/ misspell "foreword". I'd need to see a well-controlled statistical study to be convinced that common spelling errors are more likely when they have some relation to what the person is writing about.
[ JM: I hope I understood your former reference to a "symbolic reading"] Those were Joseph Aisenberg's observations. I should ask, J. A., when you spoke of homosexuality meant to be symbolic of narcissism (as you said incest was), did you mean Kinbote, or the homosexuality scene in /Ada/?[...]
JM: Sorry, JF and JA, for having confused your references.
Lapsus linguae and other parapraxies happen all the time and would be meaningless effects of language were they not related to a particular moment as observed by someone significant. I was wondering about VN's stylistic intention. He'd stated as much as in: "We feel doom, in the image of Gradus, eating away the miles and miles of "feigned remoteness" between him and poor Shade. He, too, is to meet, in his urgent and blind flight, a reflection that will shatter him....] The force propelling him is the magic action of Shade’s poem itself, the very mechanism and sweep of verse, the powerful iambic motor. Never before has the inexorable advance of fate received such a sensuous form.", but this "sensuous form" might have been felt in K's Forward....
Any modern ( not so modern, actually) text about psychology with whiffs of Freud connects a special kind of "narcisism" and "homosexuality" ( analogies,mirrors, reflective surfaces, incapacitu to love except one's likeness etc). There is no "symbolism" or "symbolic reading", as I see it ( Yeah...define love, define metaphor, define symbol etc...) .
SK-Bootle: [ to JM: "You are earnestly hoping that "some people got the o with the Hungarian 'long umlaut'... but I don't get your "long" point."] Jerry refers to the “long” Hungarian umlaut because that is one of its correct technical, typographical names. You were seeking some metaphorical significance to JF’s use of “long” that was entirely literal on this particular occasion! This is no criticism but a reminder that the “perfect” Nabokovian reader would need to be “omniscient” to avoid the following extremes: (i) overlooking real, intended fruitful allusions (ii) inventing far-fetched, daft unintended allusions (often disdainfully disowned by VN Himself);
JF: The diacritical mark is not the ordinary umlaut or dieresis; it's two acute accents next to each other.
JM: Substitute "earnestly" for "literally" in your important caveat, Stan. Actually the fun often lies in having overlooked an allusion and getting the point later on & the same for correcting "daft" mistakes and red-faced inward chuckles.
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/