Subject
Re: NABOKV-L E. Naiman on pearl and umbra A. Brown on same
From
Date
Body
Cata stophe! Or a word to that effect, a Pninian cry of dismay.
The message below was written in weary haste last night and meant as a reply
to Eric Naiman only. Unfortunately, I apparently sent it out to the whole
list.
What I would like to add, as a corrective is the, well, the corrected,
extensively corrected scramble of notes I wrote last night. I spent the
first hour of dawn on this, and since it has already been sent to Mr.
Naiman, I may as well share it with any who may be interested. It¹s much
better than the first draft.
My apologies to all, for this egregious howling, blooming, act of
foolishness.
A humble and contrite Andrew Brown begs you to please read the real Pichon
Papers below.
On 9/1/06 12:28 AM, "Andrew Brown" <as-brown@COMCAST.NET> wrote:
>
>
>
> Pichon, the Milton of early Humbert's Eden
>
>
> The passage that nears its end with young Humbert's describing a sumptuous art
> book filched from beneath the old National Graphics in the generous Hotel
> Library starts on the previous page with a description of Humbert¹s childhood
> universe.
> His generous, Godlike father, so different from the God of Milton¹s paradise
> lost, has apparently left the gates open to Adam and Eve on the Mediterranean
> side of Eden.
>
> Happy, healthy young Humbert delights in a world of illustrated books. clean
> sand, orange trees, friendly dogs and other items that will appear again (and
> again) as Young Humbert¹s first real love affair takes place.
>
> Note that as this passage moves from fresh outdoor beauty to the indoors. More
> talk of the beneficent and loving and debonair dad. The rose garden discussion
> where the American kid fills in theoretical details in the puberty talk.
>
> Note, the poor American kid, son of a motion picture actress he seldom saw in
> real life. Neither youngsters have their true beauties on hand. Such is life.
>
> But one day, searching through the depths of what the library has to offer,
> Humbert pulls out a plum, one of the most famed volumes of nude photography of
> the day. Pichon¹s La Beaute Humaine. Not single figures doing pointless
> gardening, but shots made on a slow setting, with sepia film and low light,
> with sometimes entangled figures, beautiful figures, daring artists¹ models,
> figures from the demimonde, cavalrymen, nobility, whose skin tones,
> particularly where they fold timelessly, barely draped, or undrapped, supine
> on curtains and rugs, bent and straining limps, muscular arms, stirred and
> passionate eyes, smiles and tears, generous bellies with navels that glowed as
> they furled timelessly. Gleaming and eloquent buttocks, nearly surreal works
> of the body in which dimples and side indentations held twin luminescent
> beaming folds suggesting a thousand things, from excellent muffins to the slow
> fading sunrise or sunset lustre of pearl and umbra, and the suggestion that
> the thirteen year old, through a tensing of muscles and total concentration of
> the will could somehow enter this scene.
>
> So, I submit that Humbert¹s education is adumbrated in eternal animal spirits
> and incuriousity, to evolve to include a happy, sun-bronzed childhood, to
> further develop through instructive friends and father, and finally to the
> Hotel Library, where some (Not VN) might claim that the unconscious mind, OR,
> if you are infinitely lucky, so lucky the seraphs in heaven envy you and the
> fast approaching she, before the great fall from innocence that was about to
> befall the Mirana and all Europe, then you might have your one tangled
> encounter in the mimosa grove, under a haze of stars, that aching of all
> muscles, the biscuity odor of the Spanish maids stolen powder ... ³the
> tingle, the flame, the honey-dew, and that ... little girl with her seaside
> limbs and ardent tongue haunted me forever since.²
>
> And then the fall. The knight has received the unhealing wound. A grail has
> appeared, and disappeared. Dead in Corfu. No way back.
>
>
> Andrew Stuart Brown
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 8/30/06 9:40 AM, "Nabokv-L" <nabokv-l@UTK.EDU> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> -------- Original Message --------
>> Subject: pearl and umbra
>> Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2006 00:00:34 -0700 (PDT)
>> From: naiman@berkeley.edu
>> To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
>> <mailto:NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
>> References: <44E36424.8030001@utk.edu> <mailto:44E36424.8030001@utk.edu>
>> <200608161855.k7GItUaM041467@smtp-vbr10.xs4all.nl>
>> <mailto:200608161855.k7GItUaM041467@smtp-vbr10.xs4all.nl>
>> It might not be as enticing as "swooners" but I wonder if the term "pearl
>> and umbra" is Nabokov's coinage. From Humbert's usage, I had assumed it
>> was a technical -- but richly connotative -- term with prior use. Having
>> tried to find other uses, I'm not so sure. The Russian
>> "zhemchuzhno-matovye" sounds more clearly poetic and descriptive. Does
>> anyone know if "pearl and umbra" was used before Lolita? (Most Google
>> hits refer to a 1999 collaborative music album put together by Russell
>> Mills.)
>> Eric Naiman
>>
>>
>> Search the Nabokv-L archive at UCSB
>> <http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html>
>> Contact the Editors <mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu>
>> All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both
>> co-editors.
>> Visit Zembla <http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm>
>> View Nabokv-L Policies <http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm>
>>
>
>
> Search the Nabokv-L archive at UCSB
> <http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html>
> Contact the Editors <mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu>
> All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both
> co-editors.
> Visit Zembla <http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm>
> View Nabokv-L Policies <http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm>
>
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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
The message below was written in weary haste last night and meant as a reply
to Eric Naiman only. Unfortunately, I apparently sent it out to the whole
list.
What I would like to add, as a corrective is the, well, the corrected,
extensively corrected scramble of notes I wrote last night. I spent the
first hour of dawn on this, and since it has already been sent to Mr.
Naiman, I may as well share it with any who may be interested. It¹s much
better than the first draft.
My apologies to all, for this egregious howling, blooming, act of
foolishness.
A humble and contrite Andrew Brown begs you to please read the real Pichon
Papers below.
On 9/1/06 12:28 AM, "Andrew Brown" <as-brown@COMCAST.NET> wrote:
>
>
>
> Pichon, the Milton of early Humbert's Eden
>
>
> The passage that nears its end with young Humbert's describing a sumptuous art
> book filched from beneath the old National Graphics in the generous Hotel
> Library starts on the previous page with a description of Humbert¹s childhood
> universe.
> His generous, Godlike father, so different from the God of Milton¹s paradise
> lost, has apparently left the gates open to Adam and Eve on the Mediterranean
> side of Eden.
>
> Happy, healthy young Humbert delights in a world of illustrated books. clean
> sand, orange trees, friendly dogs and other items that will appear again (and
> again) as Young Humbert¹s first real love affair takes place.
>
> Note that as this passage moves from fresh outdoor beauty to the indoors. More
> talk of the beneficent and loving and debonair dad. The rose garden discussion
> where the American kid fills in theoretical details in the puberty talk.
>
> Note, the poor American kid, son of a motion picture actress he seldom saw in
> real life. Neither youngsters have their true beauties on hand. Such is life.
>
> But one day, searching through the depths of what the library has to offer,
> Humbert pulls out a plum, one of the most famed volumes of nude photography of
> the day. Pichon¹s La Beaute Humaine. Not single figures doing pointless
> gardening, but shots made on a slow setting, with sepia film and low light,
> with sometimes entangled figures, beautiful figures, daring artists¹ models,
> figures from the demimonde, cavalrymen, nobility, whose skin tones,
> particularly where they fold timelessly, barely draped, or undrapped, supine
> on curtains and rugs, bent and straining limps, muscular arms, stirred and
> passionate eyes, smiles and tears, generous bellies with navels that glowed as
> they furled timelessly. Gleaming and eloquent buttocks, nearly surreal works
> of the body in which dimples and side indentations held twin luminescent
> beaming folds suggesting a thousand things, from excellent muffins to the slow
> fading sunrise or sunset lustre of pearl and umbra, and the suggestion that
> the thirteen year old, through a tensing of muscles and total concentration of
> the will could somehow enter this scene.
>
> So, I submit that Humbert¹s education is adumbrated in eternal animal spirits
> and incuriousity, to evolve to include a happy, sun-bronzed childhood, to
> further develop through instructive friends and father, and finally to the
> Hotel Library, where some (Not VN) might claim that the unconscious mind, OR,
> if you are infinitely lucky, so lucky the seraphs in heaven envy you and the
> fast approaching she, before the great fall from innocence that was about to
> befall the Mirana and all Europe, then you might have your one tangled
> encounter in the mimosa grove, under a haze of stars, that aching of all
> muscles, the biscuity odor of the Spanish maids stolen powder ... ³the
> tingle, the flame, the honey-dew, and that ... little girl with her seaside
> limbs and ardent tongue haunted me forever since.²
>
> And then the fall. The knight has received the unhealing wound. A grail has
> appeared, and disappeared. Dead in Corfu. No way back.
>
>
> Andrew Stuart Brown
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 8/30/06 9:40 AM, "Nabokv-L" <nabokv-l@UTK.EDU> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> -------- Original Message --------
>> Subject: pearl and umbra
>> Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2006 00:00:34 -0700 (PDT)
>> From: naiman@berkeley.edu
>> To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
>> <mailto:NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
>> References: <44E36424.8030001@utk.edu> <mailto:44E36424.8030001@utk.edu>
>> <200608161855.k7GItUaM041467@smtp-vbr10.xs4all.nl>
>> <mailto:200608161855.k7GItUaM041467@smtp-vbr10.xs4all.nl>
>> It might not be as enticing as "swooners" but I wonder if the term "pearl
>> and umbra" is Nabokov's coinage. From Humbert's usage, I had assumed it
>> was a technical -- but richly connotative -- term with prior use. Having
>> tried to find other uses, I'm not so sure. The Russian
>> "zhemchuzhno-matovye" sounds more clearly poetic and descriptive. Does
>> anyone know if "pearl and umbra" was used before Lolita? (Most Google
>> hits refer to a 1999 collaborative music album put together by Russell
>> Mills.)
>> Eric Naiman
>>
>>
>> Search the Nabokv-L archive at UCSB
>> <http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html>
>> Contact the Editors <mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu>
>> All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both
>> co-editors.
>> Visit Zembla <http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm>
>> View Nabokv-L Policies <http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm>
>>
>
>
> Search the Nabokv-L archive at UCSB
> <http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html>
> Contact the Editors <mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu>
> All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both
> co-editors.
> Visit Zembla <http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm>
> View Nabokv-L Policies <http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm>
>
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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