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Fw: [NABOKV-L] [NABOKOV-L] [HELP} English text for Didier-Machu
on Humbert Humbert and Byron
on Humbert Humbert and Byron
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A.Bouazza brings the link to Brian Boyd's article tracking down the mythological dogs: http://www.theamericanscholar.org/the-art-of-literature-and-the-science-of-literature/ and adds: "My note [ "Lord Byron's Pack" (1993)], which memorious Jansy mentions, appeared in the Fall issue of 1994 and not 1993, a correction I owe to Brian."
JM: Please note that the word "memorious" is "a rare word in modern English"* Without a little help from my Nab-friends (Carolyn Kunin,Stan K-Bootle, Jim Twiggs, Dave Haan, Steve Norquist and many more...), and the imprescindible (ie:irreplaceable) "Google-Search" cum "Wikipedia," I'd be left by the roadside of any discussion, cast out by Cavall or Melampus.
I hadn't realized that Bouazza's note bore "Lord Byron's pack" in its title, circling nicely back to Didier Machu's article. What has pleased me in particular in Prof. Machu's text is the way he developped Nabokov's own ennumeration about the evolutionary process of the Romantic idea to situate,historically, Pushkin's EO as a "Romantic Epic."
However, in 2008, http://revel.unice.fr/cycnos/index.html?id=1079, Brian Boyd writes: "In fact Cavall is indeed not only Arthur's favorite hound (as in Tennyson's Idylls of the King),but the first of his hounds to turn the stag, in a hunting episode in The Mabinogion, and Melampus is the name of the first hound of Actaeon, in Ovid's telling of the story of Diana and Actaeon in Ovid's Metamorphoses, III....The precision of these allusions startles: two hounds from very different literary traditions that are the first to chase or turn a stag. Like the other ironies around the word "Waterproof," the precision itself makes us want to annotate more, and to expect more. And there is more, and it will connect with central elements of Lolita.Actaeon, remember, is the hunter who spies Diana, the virgin goddess of hunting, naked. Diana, enraged, turns him into a stag, and his hounds pursue him, Melampus leading, and tear him to pieces."
Also in 2008, http://www.theamericanscholar.org/the-art-of-literature-and-the-science-of-literature/ when Boyd writes"Even if we track down Cavall and Melampus, and link them to the Enchanted Hunters, and through Cavall as King Arthur's dog link to the Arthurian pattern that Nabokov seems to have attached from the first to the Lolita theme, I am not satisfied with what we can interpret of either the Enchanted Hunters or the Arthurian (and Merlinesque) pattern. Nabokov's patterns have powerful implications, once we trace them far enough, and in the case of Lolita I don't think I or anyone else has yet reached that point."
It strikes me that, in both articles, the connection between the two names and Lord Byron's dogs is missing. Inspite of Nabokov's ingenious patterning and contrapunctal genius what, for Boyd, are "startling allusions" that approach "two hounds from very different literary traditions", if they are admittedly derived from a reference to Byron's pack, must be first creditted to Byron.
.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
*- "Funes the Memorious" (original Spanish title: "Funes el memorioso") is a fantasy short story by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. First published in La Nación in June 1942, it appeared in the 1944 anthology Ficciones, part two (Artifices). The first English translation appeared in 1954 in Avon Modern Writing No. 2. The title has also been translated as "Funes, His Memory." (The Spanish "memorioso" means "having a vast memory," and is a fairly common word in both Spanish and Portuguese languages. Because "memorious" is a rare word in modern English, some translators opt for this alternate translation.)
Plot summary: "Funes the Memorious" tells the story of a fictional version of Borges himself as he meets Ireneo Funes, a teenage boy who lives in Fray Bentos, Uruguay, in 1884. Borges's cousin asks the boy for the time, and Funes replies instantly, without the aid of a watch and accurate to the minute.
Borges returns to Buenos Aires, then in 1887 comes back to Fray Bentos, intending to relax and study some Latin. He learns that Ireneo Funes has meanwhile suffered a horseback riding accident and is now hopelessly crippled. Soon enough, Borges receives a note from Funes, requesting that the visitor lend him some of his Latin books and a dictionary. Borges, disconcerted, sends Funes what he deems the most difficult works "in order fully to undeceive him".
Days later, Borges receives a telegram from Buenos Aires calling for his return due to his father's ill health. As he packs, he remembers the books and goes to Funes's house. Funes's mother escorts him to a patio where the youth usually spends his dark hours. As he enters, Borges is greeted by Funes's voice speaking perfect Latin, reciting "the first paragraph of the twenty-fourth chapter of the seventh book of the Historia Naturalis" (by Pliny the Elder).
Funes enumerates to Borges the cases of prodigious memory cited in the Historia Naturalis, and adds that he marvels that those are considered marvellous. He reveals that, since his fall from the horse, he perceives everything in full detail and remembers it all. He remembers, for example, the shape of clouds at all given moments, as well as the associated perceptions (muscular, thermal, etc.) of each moment. Funes has an immediate intuition of the mane of a horse or the form of a constantly changing flame that is comparable to our (normal people's) intuition of a simple geometric shape such as a triangle or square.
In order to pass the time, Funes has engaged in projects such as reconstructing a full day's worth of past memories (an effort which, he finds, takes him another full day), and constructing a "system of enumeration" that gives each number a different, arbitrary name. Borges correctly points out to him that this is precisely the opposite of a system of enumeration, but Funes is incapable of such understanding. A poor, ignorant young boy in the outskirts of a small town, he is hopelessly limited in his possibilities, but (says Borges) his absurd projects reveal "a certain stammering greatness". Funes, we are told, is incapable of Platonic ideas, of generalities, of abstraction; his world is one of intolerably uncountable details. He finds it very difficult to sleep, since he recalls "every crevice and every moulding of the various houses which [surround] him".Borges spends the whole night talking to Funes in the dark. When dawn reveals Funes's face, only 19 years old, Borges sees him "as monumental as bronze, more ancient than Egypt, anterior to the prophecies and the pyramids".Later Borges learns that Funes died of natural causes a couple of years after their meeting.
Actual persons with similar conditions: The real-life case of Daniel Tammet bears a certain similitude to fictional Ireneo Funes: he had epileptic seizures that may have a part in his unusual talents; his memory for numbers is prodigious (he can recite the number pi correctly to its 22514th digit), and finally, he has explained that he "sees" numbers as shapes, some of them more pleasant than others.Solomon Shereshevskii, a stage memory-artist (mnemonist) with a condition known as "hypermnesia",[2] is described by the Russian neuropsychologist Alexander Luria in his book, The Mind of a Mnemonist',[3] which some speculate was the inspiration for Borges's story.[2] Luria discusses explicitly some of the trade-offs - hinted at by Borges - that come with supernormal memory power. (Further Skywriting on this topic.) American neuropsychologist Oliver Sacks cites Luria's book as the inspiration for his own book, Awakenings, which is dedicated to Luria.
Jill Price can remember everything that she experienced since 1980. The scientific term for her unique condition is "hyperthymestic syndrome". She has stated that she, like Funes, views her memory as a curse.
In cinema and literature: Chris Doyle's film Away with words is largely inspired by the story of Funes (as well as Luria's account of Shereshevskii's life and psychology).
David Mitchell's novel Cloud Atlas alludes to this story; the character Sonmi-451 is said, as part of her intellectual development, to have read "Ireneo Funes's Remembrances". (Wikipedia)
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JM: Please note that the word "memorious" is "a rare word in modern English"* Without a little help from my Nab-friends (Carolyn Kunin,Stan K-Bootle, Jim Twiggs, Dave Haan, Steve Norquist and many more...), and the imprescindible (ie:irreplaceable) "Google-Search" cum "Wikipedia," I'd be left by the roadside of any discussion, cast out by Cavall or Melampus.
I hadn't realized that Bouazza's note bore "Lord Byron's pack" in its title, circling nicely back to Didier Machu's article. What has pleased me in particular in Prof. Machu's text is the way he developped Nabokov's own ennumeration about the evolutionary process of the Romantic idea to situate,historically, Pushkin's EO as a "Romantic Epic."
However, in 2008, http://revel.unice.fr/cycnos/index.html?id=1079, Brian Boyd writes: "In fact Cavall is indeed not only Arthur's favorite hound (as in Tennyson's Idylls of the King),but the first of his hounds to turn the stag, in a hunting episode in The Mabinogion, and Melampus is the name of the first hound of Actaeon, in Ovid's telling of the story of Diana and Actaeon in Ovid's Metamorphoses, III....The precision of these allusions startles: two hounds from very different literary traditions that are the first to chase or turn a stag. Like the other ironies around the word "Waterproof," the precision itself makes us want to annotate more, and to expect more. And there is more, and it will connect with central elements of Lolita.Actaeon, remember, is the hunter who spies Diana, the virgin goddess of hunting, naked. Diana, enraged, turns him into a stag, and his hounds pursue him, Melampus leading, and tear him to pieces."
Also in 2008, http://www.theamericanscholar.org/the-art-of-literature-and-the-science-of-literature/ when Boyd writes"Even if we track down Cavall and Melampus, and link them to the Enchanted Hunters, and through Cavall as King Arthur's dog link to the Arthurian pattern that Nabokov seems to have attached from the first to the Lolita theme, I am not satisfied with what we can interpret of either the Enchanted Hunters or the Arthurian (and Merlinesque) pattern. Nabokov's patterns have powerful implications, once we trace them far enough, and in the case of Lolita I don't think I or anyone else has yet reached that point."
It strikes me that, in both articles, the connection between the two names and Lord Byron's dogs is missing. Inspite of Nabokov's ingenious patterning and contrapunctal genius what, for Boyd, are "startling allusions" that approach "two hounds from very different literary traditions", if they are admittedly derived from a reference to Byron's pack, must be first creditted to Byron.
.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
*- "Funes the Memorious" (original Spanish title: "Funes el memorioso") is a fantasy short story by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. First published in La Nación in June 1942, it appeared in the 1944 anthology Ficciones, part two (Artifices). The first English translation appeared in 1954 in Avon Modern Writing No. 2. The title has also been translated as "Funes, His Memory." (The Spanish "memorioso" means "having a vast memory," and is a fairly common word in both Spanish and Portuguese languages. Because "memorious" is a rare word in modern English, some translators opt for this alternate translation.)
Plot summary: "Funes the Memorious" tells the story of a fictional version of Borges himself as he meets Ireneo Funes, a teenage boy who lives in Fray Bentos, Uruguay, in 1884. Borges's cousin asks the boy for the time, and Funes replies instantly, without the aid of a watch and accurate to the minute.
Borges returns to Buenos Aires, then in 1887 comes back to Fray Bentos, intending to relax and study some Latin. He learns that Ireneo Funes has meanwhile suffered a horseback riding accident and is now hopelessly crippled. Soon enough, Borges receives a note from Funes, requesting that the visitor lend him some of his Latin books and a dictionary. Borges, disconcerted, sends Funes what he deems the most difficult works "in order fully to undeceive him".
Days later, Borges receives a telegram from Buenos Aires calling for his return due to his father's ill health. As he packs, he remembers the books and goes to Funes's house. Funes's mother escorts him to a patio where the youth usually spends his dark hours. As he enters, Borges is greeted by Funes's voice speaking perfect Latin, reciting "the first paragraph of the twenty-fourth chapter of the seventh book of the Historia Naturalis" (by Pliny the Elder).
Funes enumerates to Borges the cases of prodigious memory cited in the Historia Naturalis, and adds that he marvels that those are considered marvellous. He reveals that, since his fall from the horse, he perceives everything in full detail and remembers it all. He remembers, for example, the shape of clouds at all given moments, as well as the associated perceptions (muscular, thermal, etc.) of each moment. Funes has an immediate intuition of the mane of a horse or the form of a constantly changing flame that is comparable to our (normal people's) intuition of a simple geometric shape such as a triangle or square.
In order to pass the time, Funes has engaged in projects such as reconstructing a full day's worth of past memories (an effort which, he finds, takes him another full day), and constructing a "system of enumeration" that gives each number a different, arbitrary name. Borges correctly points out to him that this is precisely the opposite of a system of enumeration, but Funes is incapable of such understanding. A poor, ignorant young boy in the outskirts of a small town, he is hopelessly limited in his possibilities, but (says Borges) his absurd projects reveal "a certain stammering greatness". Funes, we are told, is incapable of Platonic ideas, of generalities, of abstraction; his world is one of intolerably uncountable details. He finds it very difficult to sleep, since he recalls "every crevice and every moulding of the various houses which [surround] him".Borges spends the whole night talking to Funes in the dark. When dawn reveals Funes's face, only 19 years old, Borges sees him "as monumental as bronze, more ancient than Egypt, anterior to the prophecies and the pyramids".Later Borges learns that Funes died of natural causes a couple of years after their meeting.
Actual persons with similar conditions: The real-life case of Daniel Tammet bears a certain similitude to fictional Ireneo Funes: he had epileptic seizures that may have a part in his unusual talents; his memory for numbers is prodigious (he can recite the number pi correctly to its 22514th digit), and finally, he has explained that he "sees" numbers as shapes, some of them more pleasant than others.Solomon Shereshevskii, a stage memory-artist (mnemonist) with a condition known as "hypermnesia",[2] is described by the Russian neuropsychologist Alexander Luria in his book, The Mind of a Mnemonist',[3] which some speculate was the inspiration for Borges's story.[2] Luria discusses explicitly some of the trade-offs - hinted at by Borges - that come with supernormal memory power. (Further Skywriting on this topic.) American neuropsychologist Oliver Sacks cites Luria's book as the inspiration for his own book, Awakenings, which is dedicated to Luria.
Jill Price can remember everything that she experienced since 1980. The scientific term for her unique condition is "hyperthymestic syndrome". She has stated that she, like Funes, views her memory as a curse.
In cinema and literature: Chris Doyle's film Away with words is largely inspired by the story of Funes (as well as Luria's account of Shereshevskii's life and psychology).
David Mitchell's novel Cloud Atlas alludes to this story; the character Sonmi-451 is said, as part of her intellectual development, to have read "Ireneo Funes's Remembrances". (Wikipedia)
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/