----- Original Message -----
From: David Haan
To: chtodel@cox.net
Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2003 6:30 AM
Subject: Re: The majestic touch: Life Everlasting -- based on a misprint!

Thanks!

But the parodic involution of my post shouldn't overshadow the query. I've been fumbling around this issue of intentional error, of which C98 ("Red Sox beat Yanks 5-4/On Chapman's Homer") seems exemplary: Ben Chapman (better known as a Yank, and for leading league in steals) was not on the Sox in any 5-4 game ('37 instance preceded his arrival), but as a fellow NYT bookforumer put it, "One thinks of Big Ben as hitting a two run blast to beat the Yanks, in the bottom of the ninth, following a two-out single, and wonders, who was On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer." (And then there's the "For other vivid misprints see note to line 802" on typos, which is really in C803.)

This dovetails with paradiorthosis, not only in the definitional sense of an incorrect correction, but the use TSEliot made of it with regard to proverbs; and with issues of translation (on which I must rely, sorry monoglot that I am [excepting spectral Latin]); and with other questions rhetorical (e.g. preterition, but that goes without saying); and with literary allusion (and misprision) more generally. And so I'm genuinely interested in whether any commentator has taken this tack.

Nabokov (Pale Fire in particular) has served as my Lit 202 (in combination with the List and the NYT bookforum, where the above is further adumbrated) with supplementary readings provided by Boyd, yourself and others (e.g. RLT24; a tidbit on Bend Sinister I didn't see mentioned: reverse mag-durak to KaRUdGam). Which brings me to the point: would you have a copy of the out-of-print "Worlds in Regression" available for purchase directly? If so I'll gladly send a check additionally covering cost of shipping and any other inconvenience to wherever you say.

Regards, DH


Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8.