Subject
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----- Forwarded message from AAndreu@ilm.pf -----
Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 12:46:36 -1000
From: Alain Andreu <AAndreu@ilm.pf>
Reply-To: Alain Andreu <AAndreu@ilm.pf>
Subject: Posting to remove
To: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
Dear Don please remove my first posting, the moustache photo is not in
VNAY of course, as everybody knows, but in Jane Grayson's book.
Thanks,
*************************************
Alain ANDREU
Laboratoire de Biologie Médicale
Institut Louis Malardé
B.P. 30 PAPEETE- TAHITI
aandreu@ilm.pf
ardismanor@hotmail.com
*************************************
-----Original Message-----
From: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
To: Alain Andreu <AAndreu@ilm.pf>
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 17:46:39 -0700
Subject: Fwd: Re: VN inventor of smileys
> DeAR ALAIN, eNJOY YOUR RE-READ OF tt AND I HOPE MY ESSAY SHEDS SOME
> LIGHT ON IT
> FOR YOU. i FONDLY RECALL HITCH-HIKING IN TAHITI ON A FRUIT TRACK AFTER
> VISITING
> THE BOTANICAL GARDEN. sOMEHOW i LINK YOUR MESSAGES WITH A FELLOW IN
> iCELAND
> WHOM IS PREOCCUPIED WITH "PALE fIRE" AND "uLTIMA tHULE".
>
> bEST , dON
>
> ----- Forwarded message from AAndreu@ilm.pf -----
> Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 10:24:40 -1000
> From: Alain Andreu <AAndreu@ilm.pf>
> Reply-To: Alain Andreu <AAndreu@ilm.pf>
> Subject: Re: VN inventor of smileys
> To: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
>
> Dear Don,
>
> I read your relevant analysis of VN's use of "iconic" devices.
> How wonderful to perceive them in Russian and English... For my
> part,and
> thanks to your essay, I shall reread TT with a new eye... in my french
> translation :-)
>
> Best,
>
> AA
>
> *************************************
> Alain ANDREU
> Laboratoire de Biologie Médicale
> Institut Louis Malardé
> B.P. 30 PAPEETE- TAHITI
>
> aandreu@ilm.pf
> ardismanor@hotmail.com
> *************************************
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
> To: "[Alain ANDREU]" <aandreu@ILM.PF>
> Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 13:33:20 -0700
> Subject: Re: VN inventor of smileys
>
> > Dear Alain,
> > Thank you for the "smiley" citation below. I wrote a short
> article
> > about
> > VN's use of such "iconic" devices for an article on the Nabokov
> Museum
> > web
> > page--although looking at it now I see the editor messed up the
> > Cyrillic
> > lettering. Your note also called to my attention that I failoed to
> > directly
> > cite Fahler's article but only a secondary source containing his
> > information. I
> > include the mangled text of my article below.
> > Best, Don
> > P.S. As it happens, I just yesterday read your intriguing
> "Tahitian"
> > essay in
> > the new NABOKOVIAN issue.
> >
> > ----------------------------------------
> >
> > Quoting "[Alain ANDREU]" <aandreu@ILM.PF>:
> >
> > >> ----------------- Message requiring your approval (11 lines)
> > > ------------------
> > > Dear Don,
> > >
> > > Below a URL with a VN's quotation, regarding the invention of
> smileys
> > which
> > > appeared in the early 1980's.
> > > I thought it could be interesting to notice that these
> typographical
> > signs,
> > > often used in poor written communications might be invented, or at
> > least
> > > imagined, by VN.
> > > (if the topic has already been discussed, please remove my posting)
> > >
> > > here is the URL
> > > http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~sef/sefSmiley.htm
> > ----------------------------------------------
> > D. Barton Johnson
> > University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
> > Nabokov's Typographic Poetics: Transparent Things
> > Vladimir Nabokov's prose style is famously dense thanks to its
> > simultaneous
> > integration
> > of a wide range of devices into the text: theme, plot, motif, device.
> > Each level
> > resonates and
> > inter-echoes with the others. All are cunningly interwoven so as to
> > have maximum
> > aesthetic
> > impact. Most criticism focuses on character, plot, and theme; some,
> > however,
> > explore motif and
> > devicepointing to their systematic use to express and reinforce the
> > former. As
> > I have
> > demonstrated elsewhere, Nabokov sometimes drew heavily on the
> > chromesthetic and
> > iconic
> > properties of letters which are, after all, the building blocks of
> > written
> > language. (1) But there
> > rema ins at least one more level to plumb typographic
> suprasegmentals
> > such as
> > punctuation
> > and typefaces, those formal marks that variously pause, stop,
> > emphasize,
> > isolate, and, one hopes,
> > clarify the sense of the text flow. They are, to be sure, only very
> > imperfect
> > instruments meant to
> > signal intonational features that are so often missing or mangled in
> > the
> > transition from speech to
> > print. The language of printed texts is often far more complex than
> > that of
> > living speech.
> > Nabokov's punctuation and other typographical symbols have gradually
> > acquired a
> > wide range of
> > meanings, far beyond various sorts of pauses.
> > Punctuation has a deservedly bad reputation. There is perhaps even
> > something
> > faintly
> > humorous about the idea of examining the artistic role of punctuation
> > in
> > literary works. The very
> > topic seems to inspire whimsical titles. The august Oxford University
> > Press has
> > published a
> > scholarly tome by John Lennard devoted to the use of parentheses in
> the
> > poetry
> > of Marvell,
> > 2
> > Coleridge, and Eliot (with side glances at other worthies, including
> > Elvis
> > Costello). Lennard
> > entitles his 1991 study But I Digress: the Exploitation of
> Parentheses
> > in
> > English Printed Verse.
> > The doyen of the field seems to be Malcolm Parks, an Oxford
> professor,
> > who calls
> > his erudite
> > and beautifully illustrated study Pause and Effect , while the
> > irrepressible
> > Eric Partridge offers us
> > his short book You Have a Point There.
> > Thanks to the vagaries and exigencies of history Nabokov had
> prolonged
> > tutelage
> > in three
> > and a half languages: his native Russian; British English; French;
> and,
> > lastly,
> > American English.
> > (We omit the vexed question of his German.) He was presumably taught
> > the rules
> > of punctuation
> > in each but showed some carry-over in his linguistic migrations. Then
> > too, there
> > is a career that
> > stretched over sixty years with attendant changes in punctuation
> styles
> > in his
> > different languages.
> > Nicholson Baker, one of the few writers to take a learned interest in
> > matters
> > punctuational,
> > observes that Nabokov's first and quite Edwardian English- language
> > novel, The
> > Real Life of
> > Sebastian Knight, employs over sixty comma-dash pairings, e.g. A
> > title, said
> > Clare, must
> > convey the colour of the book,not its subject. Lolita, on the other
> > hand,
> > contains a mere one,
> > and Speak, Memorynone. (2) Baker conjectures that The New Yorker
> > editorial
> > staff served as
> > Nabokovs American English finishing school.
> > The punctuation patterns of Russian and English are radically
> > differentthanks,
> > in part,
> > to their syntax and morphology. Literary Russian goes in for long
> > sentences with
> > lots of
> > subordinate (and, sometimes, insubordinate) clauses. The Russian
> > translation of
> > Lolita is nearly a
> > third longer than the English original (387 KB vs. 282 KB), although
> > Russian
> > lacks the definite
> > article, the most frequent word in English. One might also note that
> > Russian
> > punctuation tends to
> > be syntactically based, i.e., mechanical, while English relies more
> on
> > semantic
> > and emotional
> > factors. (3) All in all, Nabokov is a heavily punctuated writer.
> > 3
> > Nabokov thought punctuation important as a part of the design of the
> > work of
> > art. In
> > Transparent Things, we may assume that Mr. R. speaks for Mr. N. in
> > saying that
> > [. . .] though
> > perhaps not a master of the very first rank, [he] was at least a true
> > artist who
> > fought on his own
> > ground with his own weapons for the right to use an unorthodox
> > punctuation
> > corresponding to
> > singular thought (504). (4) More direct testimony comes in a 1966
> > letter
> > written by Vera
> > Nabokov in connection with the clandestine edition of Priglashenie na
> > kazn
> > (Invitation to a
> > Beheading). Complaining of the numerous misprints in the galleys, she
> > writes:
> > In order to avoid
> > new misprints, my husband reluctantly accepts the substitution of
> dots
> > for
> > dashes, and dashes for
> > inverted commas, although this substitution is unfortunate in view of
> > the fact
> > that dots, dashes
> > and inverted commas all had their carefully assigned meaning in the
> > original..
> > (5) We shall see
> > that this is not an idle statement nor is it restricted to
> Priglashenie
> > na
> > kazn'.
> > One further comment is in order. We shall restrict our observations
> to
> > only
> > selected
> > punctuation and include type fonts under this heading. We must also
> > forewarn of
> > one everpresent
> > hazard: the need to differentiate between/among marks that are
> employed
> > in their
> > normal
> > uses and those utilized in more artistic or even iconic waysas in
> this
> > example
> > from
> > Transparent Things. Hugh's modest claim to literary fame is a poem in
> a
> > college
> > magazine, a
> > long rambling piece that began rather auspiciously:
> > Blest are suspension dots . . . The sun was setting
> > a heavenly example to the lake . . . (502).
> > The poems suspension dots, the British term for ellipses, are
> > signaled by
> > the three spaced
> > dots that iconically illustrate the sequence of tiny reflected images
> > of the
> > setting sun in the shiny
> > 4
> > water. Here the iconic visualization is direct. In the following
> > examples from
> > Ultima Thule,
> > Nabokov gives only the name of the punctuation mark, leaving it to
> the
> > reader to
> > visualize its
> > physical shape and the resemblance of that shape to the situation
> > described:
> > Kstaticheskaja mysl: voobrazim novejshij pismovnik. K bezrukomu:
> > krepko zhmu
> > vashu (mnogotochie) (113). (6)
> > Here, Nabokov chooses to replace the missing hand with the term
> > mnogotochie
> > [ellipsis,
> > literally multi-dots] rather than the more graphic triad of dots it
> > specifies
> > (. . .). Since the actual
> > dots of omission have been replaced by their parenthesized name, the
> > iconic
> > aspect is once
> > removed. Nabokov's own English version extends the gruesome imagery
> > still
> > further:
> > Let us imaginejust a prepositional thoughtsome totally new
> handbook
> > of
> > epistolary samples. To a lady who has lost her right hand: I kiss
> your
> > ellipsis.
> > (7)
> > The English translation replaces the aborted handshake with a kiss.
> The
> > missing
> > member is
> > replaced by ellipsis which does not graphically spell out the dots,
> > but gains
> > the undeserved
> > bonus of substituting the lips of ellipsis for the missing hand.
> > Most, if
> > not all, of the
> > punctuation marks and typographical signs of Russian and English are,
> > on
> > occasion, employed
> > by Nabokov in unorthodox ways. In The Defense we find parentheses
> > (usually a
> > device used to
> > indicate the incidental) unobtrusively used to lay bare the
> structural
> > elements
> > of the plot: With
> > vague admiration and vague horror [Luzhin] observed how awesomely,
> how
> > elegantly
> > and how
> > flexibly, move by move, the images of his childhood had been repeated
> > (county
> > house . . . town .
> > 5
> > .. school . . . aunt), but he still did not quite understand why this
> > combinational repetition inspired
> > his soul with such dread (214). Lolita offers a very famous, if less
> > obvious,
> > example: My very
> > photogenic mother died in a freak accident ( before picnic,
> lightning)
> > when I
> > was three [ ].
> > The parenthesized words iconically encapsulate an entire death scene,
> > artistically conflating the
> > photoflash of a camera with the fatal lightning flashas well as
> > humorously
> > trivializing the
> > event.
> > Parentheses often specify incidental comment. Ada provides an
> exquisite
> > example
> > of an iconic parenthesis: Van, Ada, and Lucette have returned to his
> > apartment
> > after a night on
> > the town. After sex with Ada, Van falls into a drunken, dream-filled
> > sleep:
> > Tropes are the
> > dreams of speech [ ]. When he reopened his eyes it was nine A.M. She
> > lay curved
> > away from
> > him, with nothing beyond the opened parenthesis, its contents not yet
> > ready to
> > be enclosed, and
> > the beloved, beautiful, treacherous, blue -black-bronze hair smelt of
> > Ardis, but
> > also of Lucette's
> > Oh-de-grace (334). Ada has apparently brought Lucette to their bed
> > after Van
> > has fallen
> > asleep. Strangely, later that morning, the trio find themselves back
> in
> > bed with
> > Van filling the
> > void between the two halves of the sister parentheses. The open
> > parenthesis has
> > been closed.
> > Ada also provides an elaborate example of an iconic exclamation
> point.
> > Ada,
> > closely
> > followed by Van, scrambles up a tree. She slips and both tumble :
> > [ ] the two panting youngsters tangled ignominiously among the
> > branches, in a
> > shower
> > of drupes and leaves [. . .], and the next moment, as they regained a
> > semblance
> > of
> > balance, his expressionless face and cropped head were between her
> legs
> > and a
> > last fruit
> > fell with a thud the dropped dot of an inverted exclamation point
> > (77).
> > 6
> > The exclamation point of shock and surprise marks the end of their
> > innocence and
> > iconically enacts the circumstances. The tree trunk is likened to the
> > inverted
> > stem of the
> > exclamation mark while the dot depicts the fallen fruit.
> > The preceding examples amply illustrate Nabokovs utilization of
> > typographic
> > devices
> > as icons. These illustrations are, however, random and sporadic.
> > At least one Nabokov novel features iconic play with typographic
> > figures in a
> > systemic,
> > thematic role. Transparent Things is an especially promising focus
> for
> > our
> > examination of
> > punctuation and typographics. Hugh Person is, after all, an
> > editor/proofreadera
> > profession he
> > regards as somewhat demeaning. As we know, Mr. R., as a true artist,
> > has very
> > strong feelings
> > about his right to unorthodox punctuation (as well as his arcane,
> > uncommercial
> > book titles).
> > Proofread ing prickly Mr.s galleys is a tricky business. Cautious
> Hugh
> > permitted himself to
> > query, with the utmost diffidence [. . .] certain idiosyncrasies of
> > style and
> > spelling, hoping the
> > great man would understand that not genius but grammar was being
> > questio ned
> > (540). The
> > reader should be no less attentive.
> > Hughs fatal pilgrimage to Switzerland and his attempt to commune
> with
> > Armandes
> > spirit leads the narrator to a curious two-part meditation on the
> rules
> > governing the relationship
> > between the living and the quasi-dead. Rule One is:
> > Direct interference in a persons life does not enter our scope of
> > activity,
> > nor, on the
> > other, tralatitiously speaking, hand, is his destiny a chain of
> > predeterminate
> > links: some
> > future events may be more likely than others, O.K., but all are
> > chimeric, and
> > every
> > cause-and-effect sequence is always a hit-and- miss affair, even if
> the
> > lunette
> > has actually
> > 7
> > closed around your neck, and the cretinous crowd holds its breath. [.
> .
> > .] The
> > most we
> > can do when steering a favorite in the best direction [. . . ] is to
> > act as a
> > breath of wind and
> > to apply the lightest, the most indirect pressure such as trying to
> > induce a
> > dream that we
> > hope our favorite will recall as prophetic if a likely event does
> > actually
> > happen. On the
> > printed page, the words likely and actually should be italicized
> > too, at
> > least slightly to
> > indicate a slight breath of wind inclining those characters (in the
> > sense of
> > signs and
> > personae) (553).
> > Examination of the entire text shows that, in addition to their
> mundane
> > uses to
> > mark
> > emphasis, foreign words, or book titles, italics (often in
> retrospect)
> > evoke
> > another world, one that
> > we view as the world of death. Indeed, on the first page the
> mysterious
> > narrator
> > remarks When
> > we concentrate on a material object, the very act of attention may
> lead
> > to our
> > involuntary sinking
> > into the history of that object. Only later can the reader recognize
> > the
> > significance of the
> > italicized we the dead versus the living. The link is also evoked
> in
> > Hugh's
> > avalanche
> > nightmares in which he finds himself trying to stop or divert a
> > trickle of
> > grain or fine gravel
> > from a rift in the texture of space and being hampered in every
> > conceivable
> > respect [. . .] . He
> > was finally blocked by masses of rubbish, and that was death (530).
> On
> > the
> > book's last page as
> > Hugh is about to die in the flames: This is, I believe, it : not the
> > crude
> > anguish of physical death
> > but the incomparable pangs of the mysterious mental maneuver needed
> to
> > pass from
> > one state of
> > being to another (562). On the evening of Armande's death, Hugh is
> > working on
> > Mr. R's
> > proofs. Although he reads with concentration, he still was
> correcting
> > proof as
> > some of us try to
> > domending a broken letter here, indicating italics there . . .
> > (541). Note
> > that the narrator's
> > voice is singled out just before the reference to italics, i.e.,
> as
> > some of
> > us try to do. The us
> > signals the world of Mr. R. and their messages. And again the
> > ubiquitous we:
> > In fact, we
> > 8
> > depend upon italics to an even greater degree than do, in their arch
> > quaintness,
> > writers of
> > childrens books (553).
> > Transparent Things is not the only novel in which a breeze from
> another
> > dimension is
> > correlated with italics. In Lolita, Humbert describes his cautious
> > approach to
> > the drugged Lolita:
> > A breeze from wonderland had begun to affect my thoughts, and now
> they
> > seemed
> > couched in italics, as if the surface reflecting them were wrinkled
> by
> > the
> > phantasm of that
> > breeze. Time and again my consciousness folded the wrong way, my
> > shuffling body
> > entered the sphere of sleep, shuffled out again, and once or twice I
> > caught
> > myself drifting
> > into a melancholy snore. Mists of tenderness enfolded mountains of
> > longing. Now
> > and
> > then it seemed to me that the enchanted prey was about to meet
> halfway
> > the
> > enchanted
> > hunter [. . .] (55).
> > The import of italics is underlined in another passage from Lolita.
> > During their
> > road trip,
> > Humbert becomes ever more paranoid:
> > I now warn the reader not to mock me and my mental daze. It is easy
> for
> > him and
> > me to
> > decipher now a past destiny; but a destiny in the making is, believe
> > me, not one
> > of those
> > honest mystery stories where all you have to do is keep an eye on the
> > clues. In
> > my youth I
> > once read a French detective tale where the clues were actually in
> > italics; but
> > that is not
> > McFate's way even if one does learn to recognize certain obscure
> > indications
> > (87).
> > Nabokov's character Van also expresses his creator's derision for
> > tritely used
> > italics:
> > More fiercely than ever he execrated all sham art, from the crude
> > banalities of
> > junk sculpture to
> > 9
> > the italicized passage meant by a pretentious novelist to convey his
> > fellow
> > hero's cloudbursts of
> > thought (458).
> > The second rule also has typographic equivalent quotation marks. (8)
> > Ghosts are
> > not
> > supposed to explain the inexplicable:
> > Men have learned to live with a black burden [ ]: the supposition
> that
> > reality
> > may be
> > only a dream. How much more dreadful it would be if the very
> > awareness of your
> > being
> > aware of realitys dreamlike nature were also a dream, a built- in
> > hallucination! One
> > should bear in mind, however, that there is no mirage without a
> > vanishing point.
> > We
> > have shown our need for quotation marks (reality, dream).
> > Decidedly, the
> > signs with
> > which Hugh Person still peppers the margins of galleys have a
> > metaphysical or
> > zodiacal
> > import! Dust to dust (the dead are good mixers, thats quite
> certain,
> > at
> > least) (553-540).
> > The passage goes on to describe a fellow-patient in one of Hughs
> > mental
> > hospitals: [. . .] a bad
> > man but a good philosopher, who was terminally ill (a hideous phrase
> > that no
> > quotes can cure).
> > Much of the plot of Transparent Things centers on Hugh's (relative)
> > inability to
> > distinguish between dream and reality. His inadvertent
> > strangulation of his
> > wife, Armande,
> > in a dream comes about precisely because of this failure. And so does
> > his own
> > death. Hugh has
> > returned to Switzerland to relive his romance with Armande. He has
> > arranged for
> > the hotel
> > receptionist (who resembles his late wife) to come to his room.
> > Drifting in and
> > out of an erotic
> > doze, he thinks of that last, fatal evening in bed with Armande.
> Unable
> > to
> > sleep, he mentally
> > continues the proofreading he had been working on during the evening.
> > The
> > proofreading theme
> > now recurs: Person, this person, was on the imagined brink of
> imagined
> > bliss
> > when Armande's
> > 10
> > footfalls approached striking out both imagined in the proof's
> margin
> > (never
> > too wide for
> > corrections and queries!). This is where the orgasm of art courses
> > through the
> > whole spine with
> > incomparably more force than sexual ecstasy or metaphysical panic
> > (560). A few
> > dreammuddled
> > moments later, he is suffocated by smoke in the burning hotel room.
> By
> > deleting
> > imagined, Hugh has erased the boundary between dream and
> reality
> > once
> > again with
> > fatal consequence.
> > Nabokov's use of italics to suggest ghostly intimations is not
> > restricted to
> > Transparent
> > Things. Nor is his use of quotation marks. In Ada, Van meditates on
> > what exalts
> > his intercourse
> > with Ada to:
> > a level higher than even that of the most exact arts or the wildest
> > flights of
> > pure science. It
> > would not be sufficient to say that in his love-making with Ada he
> > discovered
> > the pang,
> > the ogon, the agony of supreme reality. Reality, better say, lost
> > the quotes
> > it wore like
> > claws in a world where independent and original minds must cling to
> > things or
> > pull
> > things apart in order to ward off madness or death [. . .] (174-5).
> > The same point is made is Strong Opinions:
> > I tend more and more to regard the objective existence of all events
> as
> > a form
> > of impure
> > imaginationhence my inverted commas around reality. Whatever the
> > mind grasps,
> > it
> > does so with the assistance of creative fancy. (8)
> > Note the persistent linkage of curly quotes with those claws
> > clutching at an
> > ever-shifting
> > reality. Note as well that it is those incurved quote marks whose
> > iconic claws
> > segregate and
> > define the infinite layers of reality.
> > 11
> > Dreams and madness form an ill-defined transition zone between
> worlds.
> > Here too,
> > quotation marks are brought into play. A distracted Van lies in the
> > Ardis
> > library reading a tome
> > on the speculative existence of a parallel world (Terra). Nearby
> stands
> > a large
> > globe. As it grows
> > dark, a servant, Bout, enters with a message for Van. In passing, he
> > places a
> > finger on the globe
> > and mutters that Blanche, the incompetent maid, has failed to dust
> it.
> > Van
> > drifts into a doze from
> > which he awakens a few minutes late. Still half-asleep he dimly seems
> > to recall
> > that Blanche had
> > just been there with a message and wiped off the globe. This image
> > remains
> > strong even as he
> > recalls that it was not Blanche but Bout (184-5). The superimposed
> > memories,
> > real and false,
> > lead Van to ponder "the sad fact that (as he knew well from his
> > studies) the
> > confusion of two
> > realities, one in single, the other in double, quotes was a symptom
> of
> > impending
> > insanity" (183).
> > The two rules governing the relationship of the living and the dead
> > thus have
> > their unique
> > typographic representations. The breath of wind from the other world
> > slightly
> > slants, i.e.,
> > italicizes words in the land of the living. They add emphasis by
> > calling
> > attention to certain
> > messages. In his essay On a Book entitled Lolita, Nabokov famously
> > remarked
> > that the word
> > reality is one of the few words which mean nothing without
> quotes..
> > (9) For
> > the dead, reality
> > and dream are distinct categories. The living are doomed to a series
> of
> > relative
> > realities
> > embedded in ever expanding, infinite sets of quote marks that can be
> > deleted
> > only by a master
> > editor at the moment of death. In short, the faint intimations from
> the
> > omniscient dead are
> > italicized, while the living can only distinguish reality and
> > dream,
> > provisionally, i.e., in
> > quotes.
> > Previous studies have demonstrated Nabokovs usage of alphabetic
> letter
> > shapes
> > as iconic
> > literary devices fulfilling both minor decorative and, very
> > occasionally,
> > thematic functions. Both
> > 12
> > functions are prominent in Priglashenie na kazn. That this technique
> > has been
> > extended to other
> > sorts of typographic symbols is not surprising. What is noteworthy is
> > that in
> > Transparent
> > Things, the technique has been elevated beyond the incidental
> ornament
> > to a
> > central thematic
> > mechanism. It is not by chance that Hugh Person, the novels bumbling
> > hero, is
> > a proofreader.
> > (10) His attention to typographic detail is thematically motivated.
> But
> > it is
> > Mr. R. (whose name -
> > initial is an inverted Russian ß, meaning I) who narrates and who
> > is no less
> > intimate with
> > typographic niceties. Hugh is Mr.s galley slave just as Mr. R. is,
> > like all of
> > Nabokov characters,
> > his galley slave.
> > Nabokov use of iconic typography in prose dates back to at least
> 1924.
> > In his
> > story
> > "Pis'mo v Rossiju" (A Letter that Never Reached Russia), the emigre
> > narrator
> > visits a Russian
> > cemetery in Berlin where, the night before, an elderly widow had hung
> > herself on
> > the tomb of
> > her recently deceased husband. He continues:
> > Óòðîì ÿ ñëó÷àéíî ïîáûâàë òàì, è ñòîðîæ . . . ïîêàçàë ìíå áåëûé
> > íåâûñîêèé êðåñò,
> > íà êîòîðîì ñòàðóøêà ïîâåñèëàñü, è ïðèñòàâøèå æåëòûå íèòî÷êè òàì, ãäå
> > íàòåðëà
> > âåðåâêà ("íîâåíüêàÿ",ñêàçàë îí ìÿãêî). Íî òàèíñòâåííåå è ïðåëåñòíåå
> > âñåãî áûëè
> > ñåðïîâèäíûå ñëåäû, îñòàâëåííûå åå ìàëåíüêèìè, ñëîâíî äåòñêèìè,
> > êàáëó÷êàìè â
> > ñûðîé çåìëå ó ïîäíîæüÿ. "Ïîòîïòàëàñü ìàëåíüêî, à òàê, - ÷èñòî",
> çàìåòèë
> > ñïîêîéíî
> > ñòîðîæ, --è, âçãëÿíóâ íà íèòî÷êè, íà ÿìêè, ÿ âäðóã ïîíÿë, ÷òî åñòü
> > äåòñêàÿ
> > óëûáêà
> > ñìåðòè. (11)
> > [The watchman] showed me the white cross on which she hanged herself,
> > and the
> > yellow
> > strands still adhering where the rope [. . .] had chafed. Most
> > mysterious and
> > enchanting of
> > all, though, were the crescent-shaped footprints left by her heels,
> > tiny as a
> > child's on the
> > 13
> > damp soil by the plinth. She trampled the ground a bit, poor thing,
> > but apart
> > from that
> > there's no mess at all, observed the watchman calmly, and glancing
> at
> > those
> > yellow
> > strands and at those little depressions, I suddenly understood that
> one
> > can
> > distinguish a
> > naive smile even in death. (12)
> > The story is a fragment from an unfinished novel called "Schastie
> > (Happiness). The narrator
> > describes his solitary happiness in the routine sights of the rainy,
> > nocturnal
> > streets of Berlin. Our
> > interest focuses on those Ñåðïîâèäíûå Cëåäû, îÑòàâëåííûå åå
> > ìàëåíüêèìè, Ñëîâíî
> > äåòÑêèìè, êàáëó÷êàìè â Ñûðîé çåìëå [. . .] . (crescent-shaped
> > footprints [. .
> > ..] soil). The
> > Cyrillic Cs not merely depicted the shape of the heel prints, but
> also
> > evokes
> > the initial Ñ of the
> > Cyrillic Cìåðòü (smert, death). Beyond this, C turned ninety
> degrees
> > to the
> > left provides the
> > äåòñêàÿ óëûáêà, (childish smile) of a child's outline drawing of
> a
> > smiling
> > moon face.
> > Some forty five years later Nabokov countered an interviewers
> question
> > as to
> > how he
> > ranked himself among living and recently deceased writers: I often
> > think there
> > should exist a
> > special typographical sign for a smilesome sort of concave mark, a
> > supine round
> > bracket,
> > which I would now like to trace in reply to your question. (13)
> > Nabokovs
> > practice and
> > articulation of the concept anticipates the emoticon, also known
> as
> > the
> > Internet's ubiquitous
> > smiley face or smiley: i.e., before the :-). (14) On the
> > twentieth
> > anniversary of the
> > emoticon in 2002, its inventor (who had just recovered his long lost
> > original
> > message)
> > recapitulated its history and ended with a nod to Nabokov for his
> > prescience..
> > (15) Nabokov's
> > pioneering proto-smiley has, like his fiction, returned home. Russian
> > glossaries
> > of computer
> > terminology list an Ýìîãðàììà [< emotion + gram], a ñìýéëèê [a little
> > smile] or
> > an
> > 14
> > Óëûáàþùàÿñÿ ðîæèöà [a smiling little mug] for the humble :-) which,
> in
> > embryo,
> > had long
> > been a part of Nabokov's typographic arsenal of artistic devices.
> > Notes
> > (1) See my Worlds in Regression: Some Novels of Vladimir Nabokov
> > (Ardis: Ann
> > Arbor,
> > 1985), particularly chapters I ("Nabokov as Man of Letters"), and II
> > ("Nabokov
> > as
> > Anagrammist").
> > (2) "The History of Punctuation" in The Size of Thoughts (Vintage:
> New
> > York,
> > 1997), p.
> > 85.
> > (3) Olga Alexa ndrova, "Problems of Russian Syntax" (MGU: 1984) cited
> > in T.
> > Nazarova,
> > "Linguistics and Literary Semiotics" in Applied Semiotics, 1, at URL:
> > http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/french/as-sa/ASSA-No1/TN1.html.
> > (4) Unless otherwise stated, all references to the English novels are
> > to the
> > 1996 Library of
> > America edition; for the Russian novelsto the 2000 Symposium
> edition.
> > (5) Quoted from a letter of July 9, 1966 from Vera Nabokov to Merrill
> > Cody.
> > Partially
> > reproduced by Brian Boyd in his "'Welcome to the Block': Priglashenie
> > na kazn' /
> > Invitation to a Beheading, A Documentary Record." in Nabokov's
> > Invitation to a
> > Beheading: A Critical Companion, ed. Julian W. Connolly (Northwestern
> > University
> > Press: Evanston, 1997), 171. My thanks to Lisa Wakamiya for pointing
> > this out to
> > me.
> > (6) A literal translation might be "An apropos thought: let us
> imagine
> > the
> > latest
> > correspondence manual. To a hand -less person: I firmly grasp your
> > (ellipsis).
> > Its a play
> > on a common Russian letter closing.
> > 15
> > (7) "Ultima Thule" in Vladimir Nabokov, A Russian Beauty and other
> > stories (New
> > York: McGraw-Hill, 1973), 149.
> > (8) Vladimir Nabokov, Strong Opinions (New York: Vintage
> International,
> > 1990),
> > 154.
> > (9) It should be noted that the term "quotation marks" is being used
> > here in a
> > somewhat
> > specialized sense, i.e., not to designate a quotation, but suggest
> the
> > item is
> > being
> > employed in a restricted, qualified sense.
> > (10) In fact, he is an editor, for whom proofreading is an incidental
> > task. That
> > Nabokov
> > foregrounds this aspect of his work is testimo ny of its role in the
> > book.
> > (11) Vol. I, p. 162.
> > (12) Vladimir Nabokov, Details of a Sunset and other stories
> > (McGraw-Hill: New
> > York,
> > 1976), 87.
> > (13) Strong Opinions 1333-134.
> > (14) Katie Hafner, "Typographical Milestones: Happy Birthday :-) to
> > You, A
> > Smiley Turns 20" in The New York Times, September 19, 2002.
> > (15) Ibid.
> >
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
>
----- End forwarded message -----
Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 12:46:36 -1000
From: Alain Andreu <AAndreu@ilm.pf>
Reply-To: Alain Andreu <AAndreu@ilm.pf>
Subject: Posting to remove
To: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
Dear Don please remove my first posting, the moustache photo is not in
VNAY of course, as everybody knows, but in Jane Grayson's book.
Thanks,
*************************************
Alain ANDREU
Laboratoire de Biologie Médicale
Institut Louis Malardé
B.P. 30 PAPEETE- TAHITI
aandreu@ilm.pf
ardismanor@hotmail.com
*************************************
-----Original Message-----
From: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
To: Alain Andreu <AAndreu@ilm.pf>
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 17:46:39 -0700
Subject: Fwd: Re: VN inventor of smileys
> DeAR ALAIN, eNJOY YOUR RE-READ OF tt AND I HOPE MY ESSAY SHEDS SOME
> LIGHT ON IT
> FOR YOU. i FONDLY RECALL HITCH-HIKING IN TAHITI ON A FRUIT TRACK AFTER
> VISITING
> THE BOTANICAL GARDEN. sOMEHOW i LINK YOUR MESSAGES WITH A FELLOW IN
> iCELAND
> WHOM IS PREOCCUPIED WITH "PALE fIRE" AND "uLTIMA tHULE".
>
> bEST , dON
>
> ----- Forwarded message from AAndreu@ilm.pf -----
> Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 10:24:40 -1000
> From: Alain Andreu <AAndreu@ilm.pf>
> Reply-To: Alain Andreu <AAndreu@ilm.pf>
> Subject: Re: VN inventor of smileys
> To: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
>
> Dear Don,
>
> I read your relevant analysis of VN's use of "iconic" devices.
> How wonderful to perceive them in Russian and English... For my
> part,and
> thanks to your essay, I shall reread TT with a new eye... in my french
> translation :-)
>
> Best,
>
> AA
>
> *************************************
> Alain ANDREU
> Laboratoire de Biologie Médicale
> Institut Louis Malardé
> B.P. 30 PAPEETE- TAHITI
>
> aandreu@ilm.pf
> ardismanor@hotmail.com
> *************************************
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
> To: "[Alain ANDREU]" <aandreu@ILM.PF>
> Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 13:33:20 -0700
> Subject: Re: VN inventor of smileys
>
> > Dear Alain,
> > Thank you for the "smiley" citation below. I wrote a short
> article
> > about
> > VN's use of such "iconic" devices for an article on the Nabokov
> Museum
> > web
> > page--although looking at it now I see the editor messed up the
> > Cyrillic
> > lettering. Your note also called to my attention that I failoed to
> > directly
> > cite Fahler's article but only a secondary source containing his
> > information. I
> > include the mangled text of my article below.
> > Best, Don
> > P.S. As it happens, I just yesterday read your intriguing
> "Tahitian"
> > essay in
> > the new NABOKOVIAN issue.
> >
> > ----------------------------------------
> >
> > Quoting "[Alain ANDREU]" <aandreu@ILM.PF>:
> >
> > >> ----------------- Message requiring your approval (11 lines)
> > > ------------------
> > > Dear Don,
> > >
> > > Below a URL with a VN's quotation, regarding the invention of
> smileys
> > which
> > > appeared in the early 1980's.
> > > I thought it could be interesting to notice that these
> typographical
> > signs,
> > > often used in poor written communications might be invented, or at
> > least
> > > imagined, by VN.
> > > (if the topic has already been discussed, please remove my posting)
> > >
> > > here is the URL
> > > http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~sef/sefSmiley.htm
> > ----------------------------------------------
> > D. Barton Johnson
> > University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
> > Nabokov's Typographic Poetics: Transparent Things
> > Vladimir Nabokov's prose style is famously dense thanks to its
> > simultaneous
> > integration
> > of a wide range of devices into the text: theme, plot, motif, device.
> > Each level
> > resonates and
> > inter-echoes with the others. All are cunningly interwoven so as to
> > have maximum
> > aesthetic
> > impact. Most criticism focuses on character, plot, and theme; some,
> > however,
> > explore motif and
> > devicepointing to their systematic use to express and reinforce the
> > former. As
> > I have
> > demonstrated elsewhere, Nabokov sometimes drew heavily on the
> > chromesthetic and
> > iconic
> > properties of letters which are, after all, the building blocks of
> > written
> > language. (1) But there
> > rema ins at least one more level to plumb typographic
> suprasegmentals
> > such as
> > punctuation
> > and typefaces, those formal marks that variously pause, stop,
> > emphasize,
> > isolate, and, one hopes,
> > clarify the sense of the text flow. They are, to be sure, only very
> > imperfect
> > instruments meant to
> > signal intonational features that are so often missing or mangled in
> > the
> > transition from speech to
> > print. The language of printed texts is often far more complex than
> > that of
> > living speech.
> > Nabokov's punctuation and other typographical symbols have gradually
> > acquired a
> > wide range of
> > meanings, far beyond various sorts of pauses.
> > Punctuation has a deservedly bad reputation. There is perhaps even
> > something
> > faintly
> > humorous about the idea of examining the artistic role of punctuation
> > in
> > literary works. The very
> > topic seems to inspire whimsical titles. The august Oxford University
> > Press has
> > published a
> > scholarly tome by John Lennard devoted to the use of parentheses in
> the
> > poetry
> > of Marvell,
> > 2
> > Coleridge, and Eliot (with side glances at other worthies, including
> > Elvis
> > Costello). Lennard
> > entitles his 1991 study But I Digress: the Exploitation of
> Parentheses
> > in
> > English Printed Verse.
> > The doyen of the field seems to be Malcolm Parks, an Oxford
> professor,
> > who calls
> > his erudite
> > and beautifully illustrated study Pause and Effect , while the
> > irrepressible
> > Eric Partridge offers us
> > his short book You Have a Point There.
> > Thanks to the vagaries and exigencies of history Nabokov had
> prolonged
> > tutelage
> > in three
> > and a half languages: his native Russian; British English; French;
> and,
> > lastly,
> > American English.
> > (We omit the vexed question of his German.) He was presumably taught
> > the rules
> > of punctuation
> > in each but showed some carry-over in his linguistic migrations. Then
> > too, there
> > is a career that
> > stretched over sixty years with attendant changes in punctuation
> styles
> > in his
> > different languages.
> > Nicholson Baker, one of the few writers to take a learned interest in
> > matters
> > punctuational,
> > observes that Nabokov's first and quite Edwardian English- language
> > novel, The
> > Real Life of
> > Sebastian Knight, employs over sixty comma-dash pairings, e.g. A
> > title, said
> > Clare, must
> > convey the colour of the book,not its subject. Lolita, on the other
> > hand,
> > contains a mere one,
> > and Speak, Memorynone. (2) Baker conjectures that The New Yorker
> > editorial
> > staff served as
> > Nabokovs American English finishing school.
> > The punctuation patterns of Russian and English are radically
> > differentthanks,
> > in part,
> > to their syntax and morphology. Literary Russian goes in for long
> > sentences with
> > lots of
> > subordinate (and, sometimes, insubordinate) clauses. The Russian
> > translation of
> > Lolita is nearly a
> > third longer than the English original (387 KB vs. 282 KB), although
> > Russian
> > lacks the definite
> > article, the most frequent word in English. One might also note that
> > Russian
> > punctuation tends to
> > be syntactically based, i.e., mechanical, while English relies more
> on
> > semantic
> > and emotional
> > factors. (3) All in all, Nabokov is a heavily punctuated writer.
> > 3
> > Nabokov thought punctuation important as a part of the design of the
> > work of
> > art. In
> > Transparent Things, we may assume that Mr. R. speaks for Mr. N. in
> > saying that
> > [. . .] though
> > perhaps not a master of the very first rank, [he] was at least a true
> > artist who
> > fought on his own
> > ground with his own weapons for the right to use an unorthodox
> > punctuation
> > corresponding to
> > singular thought (504). (4) More direct testimony comes in a 1966
> > letter
> > written by Vera
> > Nabokov in connection with the clandestine edition of Priglashenie na
> > kazn
> > (Invitation to a
> > Beheading). Complaining of the numerous misprints in the galleys, she
> > writes:
> > In order to avoid
> > new misprints, my husband reluctantly accepts the substitution of
> dots
> > for
> > dashes, and dashes for
> > inverted commas, although this substitution is unfortunate in view of
> > the fact
> > that dots, dashes
> > and inverted commas all had their carefully assigned meaning in the
> > original..
> > (5) We shall see
> > that this is not an idle statement nor is it restricted to
> Priglashenie
> > na
> > kazn'.
> > One further comment is in order. We shall restrict our observations
> to
> > only
> > selected
> > punctuation and include type fonts under this heading. We must also
> > forewarn of
> > one everpresent
> > hazard: the need to differentiate between/among marks that are
> employed
> > in their
> > normal
> > uses and those utilized in more artistic or even iconic waysas in
> this
> > example
> > from
> > Transparent Things. Hugh's modest claim to literary fame is a poem in
> a
> > college
> > magazine, a
> > long rambling piece that began rather auspiciously:
> > Blest are suspension dots . . . The sun was setting
> > a heavenly example to the lake . . . (502).
> > The poems suspension dots, the British term for ellipses, are
> > signaled by
> > the three spaced
> > dots that iconically illustrate the sequence of tiny reflected images
> > of the
> > setting sun in the shiny
> > 4
> > water. Here the iconic visualization is direct. In the following
> > examples from
> > Ultima Thule,
> > Nabokov gives only the name of the punctuation mark, leaving it to
> the
> > reader to
> > visualize its
> > physical shape and the resemblance of that shape to the situation
> > described:
> > Kstaticheskaja mysl: voobrazim novejshij pismovnik. K bezrukomu:
> > krepko zhmu
> > vashu (mnogotochie) (113). (6)
> > Here, Nabokov chooses to replace the missing hand with the term
> > mnogotochie
> > [ellipsis,
> > literally multi-dots] rather than the more graphic triad of dots it
> > specifies
> > (. . .). Since the actual
> > dots of omission have been replaced by their parenthesized name, the
> > iconic
> > aspect is once
> > removed. Nabokov's own English version extends the gruesome imagery
> > still
> > further:
> > Let us imaginejust a prepositional thoughtsome totally new
> handbook
> > of
> > epistolary samples. To a lady who has lost her right hand: I kiss
> your
> > ellipsis.
> > (7)
> > The English translation replaces the aborted handshake with a kiss.
> The
> > missing
> > member is
> > replaced by ellipsis which does not graphically spell out the dots,
> > but gains
> > the undeserved
> > bonus of substituting the lips of ellipsis for the missing hand.
> > Most, if
> > not all, of the
> > punctuation marks and typographical signs of Russian and English are,
> > on
> > occasion, employed
> > by Nabokov in unorthodox ways. In The Defense we find parentheses
> > (usually a
> > device used to
> > indicate the incidental) unobtrusively used to lay bare the
> structural
> > elements
> > of the plot: With
> > vague admiration and vague horror [Luzhin] observed how awesomely,
> how
> > elegantly
> > and how
> > flexibly, move by move, the images of his childhood had been repeated
> > (county
> > house . . . town .
> > 5
> > .. school . . . aunt), but he still did not quite understand why this
> > combinational repetition inspired
> > his soul with such dread (214). Lolita offers a very famous, if less
> > obvious,
> > example: My very
> > photogenic mother died in a freak accident ( before picnic,
> lightning)
> > when I
> > was three [ ].
> > The parenthesized words iconically encapsulate an entire death scene,
> > artistically conflating the
> > photoflash of a camera with the fatal lightning flashas well as
> > humorously
> > trivializing the
> > event.
> > Parentheses often specify incidental comment. Ada provides an
> exquisite
> > example
> > of an iconic parenthesis: Van, Ada, and Lucette have returned to his
> > apartment
> > after a night on
> > the town. After sex with Ada, Van falls into a drunken, dream-filled
> > sleep:
> > Tropes are the
> > dreams of speech [ ]. When he reopened his eyes it was nine A.M. She
> > lay curved
> > away from
> > him, with nothing beyond the opened parenthesis, its contents not yet
> > ready to
> > be enclosed, and
> > the beloved, beautiful, treacherous, blue -black-bronze hair smelt of
> > Ardis, but
> > also of Lucette's
> > Oh-de-grace (334). Ada has apparently brought Lucette to their bed
> > after Van
> > has fallen
> > asleep. Strangely, later that morning, the trio find themselves back
> in
> > bed with
> > Van filling the
> > void between the two halves of the sister parentheses. The open
> > parenthesis has
> > been closed.
> > Ada also provides an elaborate example of an iconic exclamation
> point.
> > Ada,
> > closely
> > followed by Van, scrambles up a tree. She slips and both tumble :
> > [ ] the two panting youngsters tangled ignominiously among the
> > branches, in a
> > shower
> > of drupes and leaves [. . .], and the next moment, as they regained a
> > semblance
> > of
> > balance, his expressionless face and cropped head were between her
> legs
> > and a
> > last fruit
> > fell with a thud the dropped dot of an inverted exclamation point
> > (77).
> > 6
> > The exclamation point of shock and surprise marks the end of their
> > innocence and
> > iconically enacts the circumstances. The tree trunk is likened to the
> > inverted
> > stem of the
> > exclamation mark while the dot depicts the fallen fruit.
> > The preceding examples amply illustrate Nabokovs utilization of
> > typographic
> > devices
> > as icons. These illustrations are, however, random and sporadic.
> > At least one Nabokov novel features iconic play with typographic
> > figures in a
> > systemic,
> > thematic role. Transparent Things is an especially promising focus
> for
> > our
> > examination of
> > punctuation and typographics. Hugh Person is, after all, an
> > editor/proofreadera
> > profession he
> > regards as somewhat demeaning. As we know, Mr. R., as a true artist,
> > has very
> > strong feelings
> > about his right to unorthodox punctuation (as well as his arcane,
> > uncommercial
> > book titles).
> > Proofread ing prickly Mr.s galleys is a tricky business. Cautious
> Hugh
> > permitted himself to
> > query, with the utmost diffidence [. . .] certain idiosyncrasies of
> > style and
> > spelling, hoping the
> > great man would understand that not genius but grammar was being
> > questio ned
> > (540). The
> > reader should be no less attentive.
> > Hughs fatal pilgrimage to Switzerland and his attempt to commune
> with
> > Armandes
> > spirit leads the narrator to a curious two-part meditation on the
> rules
> > governing the relationship
> > between the living and the quasi-dead. Rule One is:
> > Direct interference in a persons life does not enter our scope of
> > activity,
> > nor, on the
> > other, tralatitiously speaking, hand, is his destiny a chain of
> > predeterminate
> > links: some
> > future events may be more likely than others, O.K., but all are
> > chimeric, and
> > every
> > cause-and-effect sequence is always a hit-and- miss affair, even if
> the
> > lunette
> > has actually
> > 7
> > closed around your neck, and the cretinous crowd holds its breath. [.
> .
> > .] The
> > most we
> > can do when steering a favorite in the best direction [. . . ] is to
> > act as a
> > breath of wind and
> > to apply the lightest, the most indirect pressure such as trying to
> > induce a
> > dream that we
> > hope our favorite will recall as prophetic if a likely event does
> > actually
> > happen. On the
> > printed page, the words likely and actually should be italicized
> > too, at
> > least slightly to
> > indicate a slight breath of wind inclining those characters (in the
> > sense of
> > signs and
> > personae) (553).
> > Examination of the entire text shows that, in addition to their
> mundane
> > uses to
> > mark
> > emphasis, foreign words, or book titles, italics (often in
> retrospect)
> > evoke
> > another world, one that
> > we view as the world of death. Indeed, on the first page the
> mysterious
> > narrator
> > remarks When
> > we concentrate on a material object, the very act of attention may
> lead
> > to our
> > involuntary sinking
> > into the history of that object. Only later can the reader recognize
> > the
> > significance of the
> > italicized we the dead versus the living. The link is also evoked
> in
> > Hugh's
> > avalanche
> > nightmares in which he finds himself trying to stop or divert a
> > trickle of
> > grain or fine gravel
> > from a rift in the texture of space and being hampered in every
> > conceivable
> > respect [. . .] . He
> > was finally blocked by masses of rubbish, and that was death (530).
> On
> > the
> > book's last page as
> > Hugh is about to die in the flames: This is, I believe, it : not the
> > crude
> > anguish of physical death
> > but the incomparable pangs of the mysterious mental maneuver needed
> to
> > pass from
> > one state of
> > being to another (562). On the evening of Armande's death, Hugh is
> > working on
> > Mr. R's
> > proofs. Although he reads with concentration, he still was
> correcting
> > proof as
> > some of us try to
> > domending a broken letter here, indicating italics there . . .
> > (541). Note
> > that the narrator's
> > voice is singled out just before the reference to italics, i.e.,
> as
> > some of
> > us try to do. The us
> > signals the world of Mr. R. and their messages. And again the
> > ubiquitous we:
> > In fact, we
> > 8
> > depend upon italics to an even greater degree than do, in their arch
> > quaintness,
> > writers of
> > childrens books (553).
> > Transparent Things is not the only novel in which a breeze from
> another
> > dimension is
> > correlated with italics. In Lolita, Humbert describes his cautious
> > approach to
> > the drugged Lolita:
> > A breeze from wonderland had begun to affect my thoughts, and now
> they
> > seemed
> > couched in italics, as if the surface reflecting them were wrinkled
> by
> > the
> > phantasm of that
> > breeze. Time and again my consciousness folded the wrong way, my
> > shuffling body
> > entered the sphere of sleep, shuffled out again, and once or twice I
> > caught
> > myself drifting
> > into a melancholy snore. Mists of tenderness enfolded mountains of
> > longing. Now
> > and
> > then it seemed to me that the enchanted prey was about to meet
> halfway
> > the
> > enchanted
> > hunter [. . .] (55).
> > The import of italics is underlined in another passage from Lolita.
> > During their
> > road trip,
> > Humbert becomes ever more paranoid:
> > I now warn the reader not to mock me and my mental daze. It is easy
> for
> > him and
> > me to
> > decipher now a past destiny; but a destiny in the making is, believe
> > me, not one
> > of those
> > honest mystery stories where all you have to do is keep an eye on the
> > clues. In
> > my youth I
> > once read a French detective tale where the clues were actually in
> > italics; but
> > that is not
> > McFate's way even if one does learn to recognize certain obscure
> > indications
> > (87).
> > Nabokov's character Van also expresses his creator's derision for
> > tritely used
> > italics:
> > More fiercely than ever he execrated all sham art, from the crude
> > banalities of
> > junk sculpture to
> > 9
> > the italicized passage meant by a pretentious novelist to convey his
> > fellow
> > hero's cloudbursts of
> > thought (458).
> > The second rule also has typographic equivalent quotation marks. (8)
> > Ghosts are
> > not
> > supposed to explain the inexplicable:
> > Men have learned to live with a black burden [ ]: the supposition
> that
> > reality
> > may be
> > only a dream. How much more dreadful it would be if the very
> > awareness of your
> > being
> > aware of realitys dreamlike nature were also a dream, a built- in
> > hallucination! One
> > should bear in mind, however, that there is no mirage without a
> > vanishing point.
> > We
> > have shown our need for quotation marks (reality, dream).
> > Decidedly, the
> > signs with
> > which Hugh Person still peppers the margins of galleys have a
> > metaphysical or
> > zodiacal
> > import! Dust to dust (the dead are good mixers, thats quite
> certain,
> > at
> > least) (553-540).
> > The passage goes on to describe a fellow-patient in one of Hughs
> > mental
> > hospitals: [. . .] a bad
> > man but a good philosopher, who was terminally ill (a hideous phrase
> > that no
> > quotes can cure).
> > Much of the plot of Transparent Things centers on Hugh's (relative)
> > inability to
> > distinguish between dream and reality. His inadvertent
> > strangulation of his
> > wife, Armande,
> > in a dream comes about precisely because of this failure. And so does
> > his own
> > death. Hugh has
> > returned to Switzerland to relive his romance with Armande. He has
> > arranged for
> > the hotel
> > receptionist (who resembles his late wife) to come to his room.
> > Drifting in and
> > out of an erotic
> > doze, he thinks of that last, fatal evening in bed with Armande.
> Unable
> > to
> > sleep, he mentally
> > continues the proofreading he had been working on during the evening.
> > The
> > proofreading theme
> > now recurs: Person, this person, was on the imagined brink of
> imagined
> > bliss
> > when Armande's
> > 10
> > footfalls approached striking out both imagined in the proof's
> margin
> > (never
> > too wide for
> > corrections and queries!). This is where the orgasm of art courses
> > through the
> > whole spine with
> > incomparably more force than sexual ecstasy or metaphysical panic
> > (560). A few
> > dreammuddled
> > moments later, he is suffocated by smoke in the burning hotel room.
> By
> > deleting
> > imagined, Hugh has erased the boundary between dream and
> reality
> > once
> > again with
> > fatal consequence.
> > Nabokov's use of italics to suggest ghostly intimations is not
> > restricted to
> > Transparent
> > Things. Nor is his use of quotation marks. In Ada, Van meditates on
> > what exalts
> > his intercourse
> > with Ada to:
> > a level higher than even that of the most exact arts or the wildest
> > flights of
> > pure science. It
> > would not be sufficient to say that in his love-making with Ada he
> > discovered
> > the pang,
> > the ogon, the agony of supreme reality. Reality, better say, lost
> > the quotes
> > it wore like
> > claws in a world where independent and original minds must cling to
> > things or
> > pull
> > things apart in order to ward off madness or death [. . .] (174-5).
> > The same point is made is Strong Opinions:
> > I tend more and more to regard the objective existence of all events
> as
> > a form
> > of impure
> > imaginationhence my inverted commas around reality. Whatever the
> > mind grasps,
> > it
> > does so with the assistance of creative fancy. (8)
> > Note the persistent linkage of curly quotes with those claws
> > clutching at an
> > ever-shifting
> > reality. Note as well that it is those incurved quote marks whose
> > iconic claws
> > segregate and
> > define the infinite layers of reality.
> > 11
> > Dreams and madness form an ill-defined transition zone between
> worlds.
> > Here too,
> > quotation marks are brought into play. A distracted Van lies in the
> > Ardis
> > library reading a tome
> > on the speculative existence of a parallel world (Terra). Nearby
> stands
> > a large
> > globe. As it grows
> > dark, a servant, Bout, enters with a message for Van. In passing, he
> > places a
> > finger on the globe
> > and mutters that Blanche, the incompetent maid, has failed to dust
> it.
> > Van
> > drifts into a doze from
> > which he awakens a few minutes late. Still half-asleep he dimly seems
> > to recall
> > that Blanche had
> > just been there with a message and wiped off the globe. This image
> > remains
> > strong even as he
> > recalls that it was not Blanche but Bout (184-5). The superimposed
> > memories,
> > real and false,
> > lead Van to ponder "the sad fact that (as he knew well from his
> > studies) the
> > confusion of two
> > realities, one in single, the other in double, quotes was a symptom
> of
> > impending
> > insanity" (183).
> > The two rules governing the relationship of the living and the dead
> > thus have
> > their unique
> > typographic representations. The breath of wind from the other world
> > slightly
> > slants, i.e.,
> > italicizes words in the land of the living. They add emphasis by
> > calling
> > attention to certain
> > messages. In his essay On a Book entitled Lolita, Nabokov famously
> > remarked
> > that the word
> > reality is one of the few words which mean nothing without
> quotes..
> > (9) For
> > the dead, reality
> > and dream are distinct categories. The living are doomed to a series
> of
> > relative
> > realities
> > embedded in ever expanding, infinite sets of quote marks that can be
> > deleted
> > only by a master
> > editor at the moment of death. In short, the faint intimations from
> the
> > omniscient dead are
> > italicized, while the living can only distinguish reality and
> > dream,
> > provisionally, i.e., in
> > quotes.
> > Previous studies have demonstrated Nabokovs usage of alphabetic
> letter
> > shapes
> > as iconic
> > literary devices fulfilling both minor decorative and, very
> > occasionally,
> > thematic functions. Both
> > 12
> > functions are prominent in Priglashenie na kazn. That this technique
> > has been
> > extended to other
> > sorts of typographic symbols is not surprising. What is noteworthy is
> > that in
> > Transparent
> > Things, the technique has been elevated beyond the incidental
> ornament
> > to a
> > central thematic
> > mechanism. It is not by chance that Hugh Person, the novels bumbling
> > hero, is
> > a proofreader.
> > (10) His attention to typographic detail is thematically motivated.
> But
> > it is
> > Mr. R. (whose name -
> > initial is an inverted Russian ß, meaning I) who narrates and who
> > is no less
> > intimate with
> > typographic niceties. Hugh is Mr.s galley slave just as Mr. R. is,
> > like all of
> > Nabokov characters,
> > his galley slave.
> > Nabokov use of iconic typography in prose dates back to at least
> 1924.
> > In his
> > story
> > "Pis'mo v Rossiju" (A Letter that Never Reached Russia), the emigre
> > narrator
> > visits a Russian
> > cemetery in Berlin where, the night before, an elderly widow had hung
> > herself on
> > the tomb of
> > her recently deceased husband. He continues:
> > Óòðîì ÿ ñëó÷àéíî ïîáûâàë òàì, è ñòîðîæ . . . ïîêàçàë ìíå áåëûé
> > íåâûñîêèé êðåñò,
> > íà êîòîðîì ñòàðóøêà ïîâåñèëàñü, è ïðèñòàâøèå æåëòûå íèòî÷êè òàì, ãäå
> > íàòåðëà
> > âåðåâêà ("íîâåíüêàÿ",ñêàçàë îí ìÿãêî). Íî òàèíñòâåííåå è ïðåëåñòíåå
> > âñåãî áûëè
> > ñåðïîâèäíûå ñëåäû, îñòàâëåííûå åå ìàëåíüêèìè, ñëîâíî äåòñêèìè,
> > êàáëó÷êàìè â
> > ñûðîé çåìëå ó ïîäíîæüÿ. "Ïîòîïòàëàñü ìàëåíüêî, à òàê, - ÷èñòî",
> çàìåòèë
> > ñïîêîéíî
> > ñòîðîæ, --è, âçãëÿíóâ íà íèòî÷êè, íà ÿìêè, ÿ âäðóã ïîíÿë, ÷òî åñòü
> > äåòñêàÿ
> > óëûáêà
> > ñìåðòè. (11)
> > [The watchman] showed me the white cross on which she hanged herself,
> > and the
> > yellow
> > strands still adhering where the rope [. . .] had chafed. Most
> > mysterious and
> > enchanting of
> > all, though, were the crescent-shaped footprints left by her heels,
> > tiny as a
> > child's on the
> > 13
> > damp soil by the plinth. She trampled the ground a bit, poor thing,
> > but apart
> > from that
> > there's no mess at all, observed the watchman calmly, and glancing
> at
> > those
> > yellow
> > strands and at those little depressions, I suddenly understood that
> one
> > can
> > distinguish a
> > naive smile even in death. (12)
> > The story is a fragment from an unfinished novel called "Schastie
> > (Happiness). The narrator
> > describes his solitary happiness in the routine sights of the rainy,
> > nocturnal
> > streets of Berlin. Our
> > interest focuses on those Ñåðïîâèäíûå Cëåäû, îÑòàâëåííûå åå
> > ìàëåíüêèìè, Ñëîâíî
> > äåòÑêèìè, êàáëó÷êàìè â Ñûðîé çåìëå [. . .] . (crescent-shaped
> > footprints [. .
> > ..] soil). The
> > Cyrillic Cs not merely depicted the shape of the heel prints, but
> also
> > evokes
> > the initial Ñ of the
> > Cyrillic Cìåðòü (smert, death). Beyond this, C turned ninety
> degrees
> > to the
> > left provides the
> > äåòñêàÿ óëûáêà, (childish smile) of a child's outline drawing of
> a
> > smiling
> > moon face.
> > Some forty five years later Nabokov countered an interviewers
> question
> > as to
> > how he
> > ranked himself among living and recently deceased writers: I often
> > think there
> > should exist a
> > special typographical sign for a smilesome sort of concave mark, a
> > supine round
> > bracket,
> > which I would now like to trace in reply to your question. (13)
> > Nabokovs
> > practice and
> > articulation of the concept anticipates the emoticon, also known
> as
> > the
> > Internet's ubiquitous
> > smiley face or smiley: i.e., before the :-). (14) On the
> > twentieth
> > anniversary of the
> > emoticon in 2002, its inventor (who had just recovered his long lost
> > original
> > message)
> > recapitulated its history and ended with a nod to Nabokov for his
> > prescience..
> > (15) Nabokov's
> > pioneering proto-smiley has, like his fiction, returned home. Russian
> > glossaries
> > of computer
> > terminology list an Ýìîãðàììà [< emotion + gram], a ñìýéëèê [a little
> > smile] or
> > an
> > 14
> > Óëûáàþùàÿñÿ ðîæèöà [a smiling little mug] for the humble :-) which,
> in
> > embryo,
> > had long
> > been a part of Nabokov's typographic arsenal of artistic devices.
> > Notes
> > (1) See my Worlds in Regression: Some Novels of Vladimir Nabokov
> > (Ardis: Ann
> > Arbor,
> > 1985), particularly chapters I ("Nabokov as Man of Letters"), and II
> > ("Nabokov
> > as
> > Anagrammist").
> > (2) "The History of Punctuation" in The Size of Thoughts (Vintage:
> New
> > York,
> > 1997), p.
> > 85.
> > (3) Olga Alexa ndrova, "Problems of Russian Syntax" (MGU: 1984) cited
> > in T.
> > Nazarova,
> > "Linguistics and Literary Semiotics" in Applied Semiotics, 1, at URL:
> > http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/french/as-sa/ASSA-No1/TN1.html.
> > (4) Unless otherwise stated, all references to the English novels are
> > to the
> > 1996 Library of
> > America edition; for the Russian novelsto the 2000 Symposium
> edition.
> > (5) Quoted from a letter of July 9, 1966 from Vera Nabokov to Merrill
> > Cody.
> > Partially
> > reproduced by Brian Boyd in his "'Welcome to the Block': Priglashenie
> > na kazn' /
> > Invitation to a Beheading, A Documentary Record." in Nabokov's
> > Invitation to a
> > Beheading: A Critical Companion, ed. Julian W. Connolly (Northwestern
> > University
> > Press: Evanston, 1997), 171. My thanks to Lisa Wakamiya for pointing
> > this out to
> > me.
> > (6) A literal translation might be "An apropos thought: let us
> imagine
> > the
> > latest
> > correspondence manual. To a hand -less person: I firmly grasp your
> > (ellipsis).
> > Its a play
> > on a common Russian letter closing.
> > 15
> > (7) "Ultima Thule" in Vladimir Nabokov, A Russian Beauty and other
> > stories (New
> > York: McGraw-Hill, 1973), 149.
> > (8) Vladimir Nabokov, Strong Opinions (New York: Vintage
> International,
> > 1990),
> > 154.
> > (9) It should be noted that the term "quotation marks" is being used
> > here in a
> > somewhat
> > specialized sense, i.e., not to designate a quotation, but suggest
> the
> > item is
> > being
> > employed in a restricted, qualified sense.
> > (10) In fact, he is an editor, for whom proofreading is an incidental
> > task. That
> > Nabokov
> > foregrounds this aspect of his work is testimo ny of its role in the
> > book.
> > (11) Vol. I, p. 162.
> > (12) Vladimir Nabokov, Details of a Sunset and other stories
> > (McGraw-Hill: New
> > York,
> > 1976), 87.
> > (13) Strong Opinions 1333-134.
> > (14) Katie Hafner, "Typographical Milestones: Happy Birthday :-) to
> > You, A
> > Smiley Turns 20" in The New York Times, September 19, 2002.
> > (15) Ibid.
> >
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
>
----- End forwarded message -----