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Re: THOUGHTS: "Crystal to crystal in "PF"
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To E M Farrell and List,
In the exerpt of the poem when Shade is paring his nails, there's the line:
"The middle fellow, a tall priest I knew" (line 190)
... this tall priest also exists in Zembla -and the priest in the poem must have been intended to echo the one in Zembla, as no other mention of a priest Shade knew is made either in the poem or commentary- in the long note to line 47-48:
Kinbote, then a young boy "had wandered into the so-called Rose Court at the back of the Ducal Chapel" when "there walked a black shadow: a tall, pale, long-nosed, dark-haired young minister" who without seeing Kinbote "stopped in the middle of the court. Guilty disgust contorted his thin lips. He wore spectacles. His clenched hands seemed to be gripping invisible prison bars. But there is no bound to the measure of grace which man may be able to recieve. All at once his look changed to one of rapture and reverence. I had never seen such a blaze of bliss before but was to percieve something of that splendor, of that spiritual energy and divine vision, now, in another land, reflected upon the rugged and homely face of old John Shade."
Notice that the scene takes place in Rose Court, thus named because of "the sectile mosaïc of the court -realistic rose petals cut out of rodstein and large, almost palpable thorns, cut out of green marble" and that the priest walked "into these roses and thorns."
One cannot help thinking of eros, the rose and the sore (caused by the thorns).
Kinbote interprets the scene as a man "in the act of making contact with God" but the teasing inuendoes make one wonder: What kind of rapture is the young minister experiencing here?
Laurence
Date: Sat, 25 May 2013 22:52:53 -0400
From: nabokv-l@HOLYCROSS.EDU
Subject: [NABOKV-L] THOUGHTS: "Crystal to crystal in "PF"
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
E M Farrell sends the folowing:
Laurence Hochard wrote:
"Crystal to crystal" says Shade, twinning his watch glass and the snowflake and giving birth in the reader's mind to the image of the falling snowflake fusing with its reflection on the wrist glass, two becoming one; and finally they observe two lads similarly dressed in colourful winter clothes -retrospectively evoking Charles Xavier escape in a red winter outfit.
Aside from these arresting clonal images, the reader feels that this scene has a strange charge to it -I think every PF reader remembers it even after a first reading- : the stillness (they stand on the porch), the deliberate slowness (Kinbote pulls his gloves on, finger by finger) the suspended time (Shade is waiting for his wife who is apparently late) ... something strange is taking place: a parthénogenetic split giving birth to Kinbote and Shade.
I see the "two becoming one" in this scene a little differently. In the poem (line 185-195) Shade is paring his nails, associating his fingers with things that are important in his life and end up the themes of his poem. His thumb, the grocer's son, is his life in New Wye, the people and growing up. His forefinger, Starover Blue (Observatory's turquoise dome), is the college, his work and learning. The middle finger, a tall priest, is religion and current religious thought (he doesn't have a high opinion of it.) The ring finger, the old flirt, is his wife and the pinky, Hazel. His hand represents the poem.
The scene in the foreword has the commentator imagining Shade's reaction to his commentary. Finger by finger, it wraps around Shade's poem like a glove ("That was a thorough job"). Like "Crystal to crystal", John Shade's life meshes with the commentator's story.
--
Susan Elizabeth Sweeney
Co-Editor, NABOKV-L
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In the exerpt of the poem when Shade is paring his nails, there's the line:
"The middle fellow, a tall priest I knew" (line 190)
... this tall priest also exists in Zembla -and the priest in the poem must have been intended to echo the one in Zembla, as no other mention of a priest Shade knew is made either in the poem or commentary- in the long note to line 47-48:
Kinbote, then a young boy "had wandered into the so-called Rose Court at the back of the Ducal Chapel" when "there walked a black shadow: a tall, pale, long-nosed, dark-haired young minister" who without seeing Kinbote "stopped in the middle of the court. Guilty disgust contorted his thin lips. He wore spectacles. His clenched hands seemed to be gripping invisible prison bars. But there is no bound to the measure of grace which man may be able to recieve. All at once his look changed to one of rapture and reverence. I had never seen such a blaze of bliss before but was to percieve something of that splendor, of that spiritual energy and divine vision, now, in another land, reflected upon the rugged and homely face of old John Shade."
Notice that the scene takes place in Rose Court, thus named because of "the sectile mosaïc of the court -realistic rose petals cut out of rodstein and large, almost palpable thorns, cut out of green marble" and that the priest walked "into these roses and thorns."
One cannot help thinking of eros, the rose and the sore (caused by the thorns).
Kinbote interprets the scene as a man "in the act of making contact with God" but the teasing inuendoes make one wonder: What kind of rapture is the young minister experiencing here?
Laurence
Date: Sat, 25 May 2013 22:52:53 -0400
From: nabokv-l@HOLYCROSS.EDU
Subject: [NABOKV-L] THOUGHTS: "Crystal to crystal in "PF"
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
E M Farrell sends the folowing:
Laurence Hochard wrote:
"Crystal to crystal" says Shade, twinning his watch glass and the snowflake and giving birth in the reader's mind to the image of the falling snowflake fusing with its reflection on the wrist glass, two becoming one; and finally they observe two lads similarly dressed in colourful winter clothes -retrospectively evoking Charles Xavier escape in a red winter outfit.
Aside from these arresting clonal images, the reader feels that this scene has a strange charge to it -I think every PF reader remembers it even after a first reading- : the stillness (they stand on the porch), the deliberate slowness (Kinbote pulls his gloves on, finger by finger) the suspended time (Shade is waiting for his wife who is apparently late) ... something strange is taking place: a parthénogenetic split giving birth to Kinbote and Shade.
I see the "two becoming one" in this scene a little differently. In the poem (line 185-195) Shade is paring his nails, associating his fingers with things that are important in his life and end up the themes of his poem. His thumb, the grocer's son, is his life in New Wye, the people and growing up. His forefinger, Starover Blue (Observatory's turquoise dome), is the college, his work and learning. The middle finger, a tall priest, is religion and current religious thought (he doesn't have a high opinion of it.) The ring finger, the old flirt, is his wife and the pinky, Hazel. His hand represents the poem.
The scene in the foreword has the commentator imagining Shade's reaction to his commentary. Finger by finger, it wraps around Shade's poem like a glove ("That was a thorough job"). Like "Crystal to crystal", John Shade's life meshes with the commentator's story.
--
Susan Elizabeth Sweeney
Co-Editor, NABOKV-L
Google Search the archive
Contact the Editors
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal"
Visit Zembla
View Nabokv-L Policies
Manage subscription options
Visit AdaOnline
View NSJ Ada Annotations
Temporary L-Soft Search the archive
All private editorial communications are
read by both co-editors.
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/