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Re: Fwd: Re: Why did Pale Fire's Disa laugh?
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----- Forwarded message from jansy@aetern.us -----
Date: Wed, 18 May 2005 00:21:52 -0300
From: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello <jansy@aetern.us>
Reply-To: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello <jansy@aetern.us>
---------------- Message requiring your approval (114 lines) ------------------
The system of offering answers within answers to other questions is
confusing but it may reflect something that is peculiar to Pale Fire.
Returning to VN´s "steinmann", via Brian Boyd ( Nabokov´s Pale Fire, page
161):
" A shiver of alfear ( uncontrollable fear caused by elves) ran between his
shoulderblades. He mnurmured a familiar prayer, crossed himself, and
resolutely proceeded toward the pass. At high point upon an adjacent ridge a
steinmann ( a heap of stones erected as a memento of an ascent) had donned a
cap of red wool in his honor. He trudged on. But his heart was a conical
ache..."
A conical cap covers the head of Mithras, a Persian deity assimilated to
Greek and Roman mythology. Mithras was born from a stone and is associated
to the sun and to the bull.
What prompted this association depended more on a fortuitous sequence in
Boyd´s commentaries than on VN´s "Pale Fire". These set off in me a kind of
reverberation of unsolved matters that led me to the idea of initiation
rites ( such as Orphism and Mithraism - about which I know nothing!).
While discussing Disa, Boyd mentioned "Curdy Buff" as a derivation from
"coeur de boeuf" (ox heart). When writing about "Cadenus and Vanessa" he
quoted Kinbote: " It is so like the heart of a scholar in search of a fond
name to pile a butterfly genus upon an Orphic divinity on top of the
inevitable allusion ...." and Boyd noted:" Quite what Orphic divinity
Kinbote has in mind I cannot ascertain"...
The red cap topping a steinmann plus metamorphosis, rebirth, bull and
torches conjured up Mithras .
Could VN be deliberately alluding to old initiation rites?
Jansy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 11:13 PM
Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: Why did Pale Fire's Disa laugh?
> > Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 07:48:04 -0800
> > From: Carolyn Kunin <chaiselongue@earthlink.net>
> ...
> >
> > Dear Mike,
> >
> > The "family jewels" joke, it seems to me, is more of a verbal gag than a
> > visual one, and so the shape of the literal jewels is not essential to
> > the gag.
> >
> > The expression "family jewels" is yours - - Kinbote speaks often, but
> > only,
> > of "crown jewels" - - surely not a distinction that requires any
> > expertise.
>
> Or a distinction that makes a difference, since the Crown Jewels are
> also the royal family's family jewels (in the literal sense).
>
> > The family jewels are, so to speak, where the family jewels would be
> > expected to be.
> >
> > Buried in a hole in the ground?
> >
> > Perhaps a jewelry expert could tell us: is it laughable that some
> > 18th-century Zemblan emperor, maybe even Uran the Last, might have added
> > a piece of paste jewelry to the crown-jewel collection?
>
> It doesn't have to be reasonable any more than the king's chute
> into the swimming pool or his "whole mountain of gift boys" do,
> as you remark below.
>
> Anyway, Merriam-Webster's Collegiate says that that kind of foil is
> "put under an inferior or paste stone", so it doesn't have to be
> paste. Just as the "Black Prince's ruby" in the British crown jewels
> is a spinel, we can imagine inferior stones getting into the Zemblan
> crown jewels. If we feel like it.
>
> > The cold hard fact is that, even in the novel Pale Fire, there is no
> > actual
> > Zembla, hence no actual crown jewels. So if the country & its jewels
> > are
> > paste, why not just let the Russians have them and keep the last laugh
> > for yourself?
> >
> > Let's agree to disagree on this one,
>
> I'll have to disagree with you too. I agree that Zembla is
> Kinbote's invention, but nonetheless we can enjoy the
> correspondences in his inventions--that he takes _Disa_ orchids
> to Disa, that she loathes Curdy Buff because the king deceived her
> with him, and the like. So it's in keeping with Kinbote's character
> as I see it to put clues to his Crown Jewels puzzle into his
> narrative, and we can have the fun of solving them.
>
> By the way, thank you for telling me that "Steinmann" is a real
> German word. I'm a bit disappointed that it's a discovery rather
> than an invention, but such is literature. And thanks to Mike for
> setting me straight on Kinbote's doubleganger, which I had carelessly
> misunderstood.
>
> Jerry Friedman
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Mail
> Stay connected, organized, and protected. Take the tour:
> http://tour.mail.yahoo.com/mailtour.html
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
>
>
>
----- End forwarded message -----
Date: Wed, 18 May 2005 00:21:52 -0300
From: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello <jansy@aetern.us>
Reply-To: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello <jansy@aetern.us>
---------------- Message requiring your approval (114 lines) ------------------
The system of offering answers within answers to other questions is
confusing but it may reflect something that is peculiar to Pale Fire.
Returning to VN´s "steinmann", via Brian Boyd ( Nabokov´s Pale Fire, page
161):
" A shiver of alfear ( uncontrollable fear caused by elves) ran between his
shoulderblades. He mnurmured a familiar prayer, crossed himself, and
resolutely proceeded toward the pass. At high point upon an adjacent ridge a
steinmann ( a heap of stones erected as a memento of an ascent) had donned a
cap of red wool in his honor. He trudged on. But his heart was a conical
ache..."
A conical cap covers the head of Mithras, a Persian deity assimilated to
Greek and Roman mythology. Mithras was born from a stone and is associated
to the sun and to the bull.
What prompted this association depended more on a fortuitous sequence in
Boyd´s commentaries than on VN´s "Pale Fire". These set off in me a kind of
reverberation of unsolved matters that led me to the idea of initiation
rites ( such as Orphism and Mithraism - about which I know nothing!).
While discussing Disa, Boyd mentioned "Curdy Buff" as a derivation from
"coeur de boeuf" (ox heart). When writing about "Cadenus and Vanessa" he
quoted Kinbote: " It is so like the heart of a scholar in search of a fond
name to pile a butterfly genus upon an Orphic divinity on top of the
inevitable allusion ...." and Boyd noted:" Quite what Orphic divinity
Kinbote has in mind I cannot ascertain"...
The red cap topping a steinmann plus metamorphosis, rebirth, bull and
torches conjured up Mithras .
Could VN be deliberately alluding to old initiation rites?
Jansy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 11:13 PM
Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: Why did Pale Fire's Disa laugh?
> > Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 07:48:04 -0800
> > From: Carolyn Kunin <chaiselongue@earthlink.net>
> ...
> >
> > Dear Mike,
> >
> > The "family jewels" joke, it seems to me, is more of a verbal gag than a
> > visual one, and so the shape of the literal jewels is not essential to
> > the gag.
> >
> > The expression "family jewels" is yours - - Kinbote speaks often, but
> > only,
> > of "crown jewels" - - surely not a distinction that requires any
> > expertise.
>
> Or a distinction that makes a difference, since the Crown Jewels are
> also the royal family's family jewels (in the literal sense).
>
> > The family jewels are, so to speak, where the family jewels would be
> > expected to be.
> >
> > Buried in a hole in the ground?
> >
> > Perhaps a jewelry expert could tell us: is it laughable that some
> > 18th-century Zemblan emperor, maybe even Uran the Last, might have added
> > a piece of paste jewelry to the crown-jewel collection?
>
> It doesn't have to be reasonable any more than the king's chute
> into the swimming pool or his "whole mountain of gift boys" do,
> as you remark below.
>
> Anyway, Merriam-Webster's Collegiate says that that kind of foil is
> "put under an inferior or paste stone", so it doesn't have to be
> paste. Just as the "Black Prince's ruby" in the British crown jewels
> is a spinel, we can imagine inferior stones getting into the Zemblan
> crown jewels. If we feel like it.
>
> > The cold hard fact is that, even in the novel Pale Fire, there is no
> > actual
> > Zembla, hence no actual crown jewels. So if the country & its jewels
> > are
> > paste, why not just let the Russians have them and keep the last laugh
> > for yourself?
> >
> > Let's agree to disagree on this one,
>
> I'll have to disagree with you too. I agree that Zembla is
> Kinbote's invention, but nonetheless we can enjoy the
> correspondences in his inventions--that he takes _Disa_ orchids
> to Disa, that she loathes Curdy Buff because the king deceived her
> with him, and the like. So it's in keeping with Kinbote's character
> as I see it to put clues to his Crown Jewels puzzle into his
> narrative, and we can have the fun of solving them.
>
> By the way, thank you for telling me that "Steinmann" is a real
> German word. I'm a bit disappointed that it's a discovery rather
> than an invention, but such is literature. And thanks to Mike for
> setting me straight on Kinbote's doubleganger, which I had carelessly
> misunderstood.
>
> Jerry Friedman
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Mail
> Stay connected, organized, and protected. Take the tour:
> http://tour.mail.yahoo.com/mailtour.html
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
>
>
>
----- End forwarded message -----