Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0010423, Wed, 13 Oct 2004 11:19:36 -0700

Subject
Re: Fwd: TT-14 Introductory Notes
Date
Body
My usual offerings placed mostly after the Introductory Notes they
are related to, and otherwise between ones based on flow of story.
>
> ----- Forwarded message from a-nakata@courante.plala.or.jp -----
> Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 08:09:42 +0900
> From: Akiko Nakata <a-nakata@courante.plala.or.jp>
>
>
> 49.06-09: three young athletes, Jack, Jake, and Jacques, whose copper faces

I'll get back to this at the spot on p50 where there is what I consider
relatedd material.
> he had seen grinning around her in one of the latest photographs of the
> fourth album: The athletic J-boy trio enters the stage as if emerging from
> one of Armande's albums. We heard from Mme. Chamar that they all "fitted."
> Jacques is a bobsled champion, but we do not know how the Blake twins fit.
>
> 49.10-11: his Adam's apple: Adam and apple reintroduce the Eden motif.
>
> 49.16-19: *monsieur* should change into sturdier brogues, but Hugh retorted
> that in the States one hiked in any old pair of shoes, even sneakers: Next
> morning, Hugh changes the shoes following his advice. Cf. "The climb he
> contemplated could not be accomplished in town shoes: the first and only
> time he had attempted to do so, he had kept losing his footing on slippery
> slabs of rock" (Ch. 22).
>
> 49.21: tempo turns: Parallel turns (from Brian Boyd's notes to LoA TT).

49.22-23 "I think you should also need a parka"

Un-English phrasing

50.11-22 This passage is full of a number of wild and related double
entendres, which depend on the material of ;
>
49.06-09: three young athletes, Jack, Jake, and Jacques, whose copper faces

First of all, we might point out that "jock" is American (chiefly
university)derogatory slang for "athlete",

As we all realize from the discussions, these names have a number of
asso;ciations. For the current passage on page 50 (and a few others)
we need to bear in mind the "privy" one, alias "outdoor toiled". No
one of my suggestions might stand by itself, but together in
association, they sdd up. First, and least obvious, is that "copper"
drags in some Greek forms based on "kopro-", such as coprophilia.
The color meaning of the english term doesn't contradict, but
enhances this, and thell "faces" lets us speculate on "feces".
Moving (!) on to p 50, we find that while the English twins made up
the rear guard," Hugh labors on "behind Armande's blond bun," wherein
"bun" is a slang term for "buttocks", especially female. {I pass by
the "steep ups and slippery downs" of lines ll and 12"pits...and roots"
of line 13, and the, "sliding down the declivities" of line 20, which
could as easily be considered sexual.)

Line 12 "He refused to borrow the stick he was offered" brings to mind
the exlpression "shitty end of the stick", and German "Dreck am Steck"
(Joyce in the Wake uses the expression "copperstick")_and sits "bending
his head and panting." lines 25-26 By page 51.21 we face up to the
term "ski" which many English speakers (as my old Webster's Collegiate
notes) pronounce in the Scandinavian fashion exactly like English
"she": a pronunciation the French eschew, as for them it is homophopnous
with "chie" a verb form meaning "defecate". By line 22 he was relieved
of his "load." I'll let the reader skim through this short chapter
finding perhaps other suggestive phrasings.

> 50.26: a pearl of sweat: A fairy-tale element in concert with the last
> paragraph. Cf. "pearls into a blindman's cup/cap" (Ch. 12)

The term in English is commonly "bead of sweat", and the French usual
equivalent is "perle de sudeur".

That's all for the moment: martini time!

John.

>
> 51.26-27: A fairy-tale element seemed to imbue with its Gothic rose water
> all attempts to scale the battlements of her Dragon: HP's painful climbing
> as far as the cable car of Draconita is, on another level of the novel, a
> prince's exciting adventure of freeing a princess from a Dragon. "Gothic"
> also directs our notice to some elements of Gothic romances in the
> novel--"the dungeon" (Ch. 6), "a sleeping beauty on a great platter," "a
> choice of tools on a cushion," (Ch. 16), "Chart of Torture" (Ch. 23), and a
> lot of fires as Don Johnson and John Rea have discussed.
>
> Akiko Nakata
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 49.06-09: three young athletes, Jack, Jake, and Jacques, whose copper
> faces he had seen grinning around her in one of the latest photographs
> of the fourth album: The athletic J-boy trio enters the stage as if
> emerging from one of Armande's albums. We heard from Mme. Chamar
> that they all "fitted." Jacques is a bobsled champion, but we do not
> know how the Blake twins fit.
>
> 49.10-11: his Adam's apple: Adam and apple reintroduce the Eden motif.
>
> 49.16-19: *monsieur* should change into sturdier brogues, but Hugh
> retorted that in the States one hiked in any old pair of shoes, even
> sneakers: Next morning, Hugh changes the shoes following his advice. Cf.
> "The climb he contemplated could not be accomplished in town shoes: the
> first and only time he had attempted to do so, he had kept losing his
> footing on slippery slabs of rock" (Ch. 22).
>
> 49.21: tempo turns: Parallel turns (from Brian Boyd's notes to LoA TT).
>
> 50.26: a pearl of sweat: A fairy-tale element in concert with the last
> paragraph. Cf. "pearls into a blindman's cup/cap" (Ch. 12).
>
> 50.34: a bench, eyeless but eager, faced an admirable view: The bench is
> to give HP a chance to embrace Armande. "'I hate life. I hate myself. I
> hate that beastly old bench.' She stopped to look the way his fierce
> finger pointed, and he embraced her" (Ch. 15). "eyeless": suggests HP's
> or living people's blindness.
>
> 50.35-51.01: his party very high above him, blue, gray, pink, red: Cf.
> "Armande in a pink parka" (Ch. 12).
>
> 51.15-16: weird-looking, reptile-green things: "Reptile-green" is also
> the color of ink used for erasures and insertions on the pages of *Faust
> in Moscow*. The color suggests the hidden connection between Giulia and
> Armande. They will be one in HP's dream (Ch. 20).
>
> 51.16-18: Their elaborate bindings looked like first cousins of
> orthopedic devices meant to help a cripple to walk: reflects HP's
> unconscious fear of breaking legs? Cf. "their cruel ice axes and coils
> of rope and other instruments of torture (equipment exaggerated by
> ignorance)" (Ch. 23); If we believe Armande's "boasting," she broke both
> legs in her childhood (Ch. 17). Perhaps while she was skiing?
>
> 51.18-20: He was allowed to shoulder those precious skis, which at first
> felt miraculously light but soon grew as heavy as great slabs of
> malachite, under which he staggered: reminds me of the legend of St.
> Christopher.
>
> 51.24: (four small oranges): Some of them will be eaten in "a nice mossy
> spot" hidden by the trees and the peel will mark the place for Armande's
> next date (Ch. 15).
>
> 51.26-27: A fairy-tale element seemed to imbue with its Gothic rose
> water all attempts to scale the battlements of her Dragon: HP's painful
> climbing as far as the cable car of Draconita is, on another level of
> the novel, a prince's exciting adventure of freeing a princess from a
> Dragon. "Gothic" also directs our notice to some elements of Gothic
> romances in the novel--"the dungeon" (Ch. 6), "a sleeping beauty on a
> great platter," "a choice of tools on a cushion," (Ch. 16), "Chart of
> Torture" (Ch. 23), and a lot of fires as Don Johnson and John Rea have
> discussed.
>
> Akiko Nakata

----- End forwarded message -----