Subject
Edsel Ford -- another find!
From
Date
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Stop the presses!! I was so excited to find "The Image of Desire" that I
didn't look at the poem on the facing page. Now that I've read it, I
can't
help but think that VN was winking at us again:
Whatever Voice
O my undone biography
Lies restless in the bone:
The dark incumbent colloquy
Of spirit caught in stone.
If I may not myself arrange
The lines, precise and just,
Then I must seek before I change
Another I may trust;
Lest I should stand up from the grave
When I am made to die
And with whatever voice I have,
"Author! Author!" cry.
Wow! I'm sure I and others will have plenty of things to say about this.
Off the top of my head, this seems to me like Shade's voice (or Shade's
ghost's voice) speaking, giving us a clue that he did indeed need
Kinbote
to complete his biography. (And isn't it just like Kinbote to quote from
the WRONG POEM!) Note that the biography is written in "lines" that must
be "arranged." Note also that the speaker is "made to die," which could
imply death by another hand. There's so much here, but I'll leave it to
the rest of you for now.
Matthew Roth
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
didn't look at the poem on the facing page. Now that I've read it, I
can't
help but think that VN was winking at us again:
Whatever Voice
O my undone biography
Lies restless in the bone:
The dark incumbent colloquy
Of spirit caught in stone.
If I may not myself arrange
The lines, precise and just,
Then I must seek before I change
Another I may trust;
Lest I should stand up from the grave
When I am made to die
And with whatever voice I have,
"Author! Author!" cry.
Wow! I'm sure I and others will have plenty of things to say about this.
Off the top of my head, this seems to me like Shade's voice (or Shade's
ghost's voice) speaking, giving us a clue that he did indeed need
Kinbote
to complete his biography. (And isn't it just like Kinbote to quote from
the WRONG POEM!) Note that the biography is written in "lines" that must
be "arranged." Note also that the speaker is "made to die," which could
imply death by another hand. There's so much here, but I'll leave it to
the rest of you for now.
Matthew Roth
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