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Re: TT-10 Fit (fwd)
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---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Date: Monday, August 09, 2004 1:57 PM -0400
From: Alexander Drescher <bunsan@direcway.com>
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Subject: Re: TT-10 Fit
The two comments below offer wonderfully creative hypotheses, but proof
from the text as to Nabokov's intent and intended meaning is elusive. Joyce
similarly provides a variably interpreted message [post-card rather than
shoe box] in Ulysses: "U.P:up". Although this evokes in Denis Breen a fit
of indignation [mirrorly also a tiff], it is never clear what poor Denis
makes of it. Nabokov, in LL, tries out two readings. No one, to my
knowledge, has commented on the punctuation.
-Sandy Drescher
Regarding the "fit" thread -- I notice that "fit" is one of those words
that resemble themselves when turned upside-down, mirrored, etc. -- in
this case, it's a flipped mirror reflection of itself. A sort of wordplay
that Nabokov is quite fond of -- it reminds me of "bog-gods" from "Nikolai
Gogol", the "pathetic pangs and bathetic bangs" from "Lectures on Don
Quixote" (?), and numerous other examples. Also, it is certainly related
to the mirroring of R. as the Russian "ya", and to the general theme of
reflection (and transparency?) Lower-case "f" as an upside-down relfection
of "t", the cardinal letter of the book ?
Misha
Thanks very much for your discussion and cataloging the "fit"s. I think
"fit" is a Proteusian word that suggests several themes of the novel. HP
revisits Switzerland trying to fit his memory with his past only in vain,
the ghosts try to focus on the fit (something/someone) in spacetime,
several characters are suggested to fit into the others or some pictures as
if they were the same--these could be regarded as some variations of one
theme--and HP murders his fitful wife in a fit, and he is in a different
sort of fit needed to enter the other world at the end of the novel.
Akiko
---------- End Forwarded Message ----------
D. Barton Johnson
NABOKV-L
Date: Monday, August 09, 2004 1:57 PM -0400
From: Alexander Drescher <bunsan@direcway.com>
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Subject: Re: TT-10 Fit
The two comments below offer wonderfully creative hypotheses, but proof
from the text as to Nabokov's intent and intended meaning is elusive. Joyce
similarly provides a variably interpreted message [post-card rather than
shoe box] in Ulysses: "U.P:up". Although this evokes in Denis Breen a fit
of indignation [mirrorly also a tiff], it is never clear what poor Denis
makes of it. Nabokov, in LL, tries out two readings. No one, to my
knowledge, has commented on the punctuation.
-Sandy Drescher
Regarding the "fit" thread -- I notice that "fit" is one of those words
that resemble themselves when turned upside-down, mirrored, etc. -- in
this case, it's a flipped mirror reflection of itself. A sort of wordplay
that Nabokov is quite fond of -- it reminds me of "bog-gods" from "Nikolai
Gogol", the "pathetic pangs and bathetic bangs" from "Lectures on Don
Quixote" (?), and numerous other examples. Also, it is certainly related
to the mirroring of R. as the Russian "ya", and to the general theme of
reflection (and transparency?) Lower-case "f" as an upside-down relfection
of "t", the cardinal letter of the book ?
Misha
Thanks very much for your discussion and cataloging the "fit"s. I think
"fit" is a Proteusian word that suggests several themes of the novel. HP
revisits Switzerland trying to fit his memory with his past only in vain,
the ghosts try to focus on the fit (something/someone) in spacetime,
several characters are suggested to fit into the others or some pictures as
if they were the same--these could be regarded as some variations of one
theme--and HP murders his fitful wife in a fit, and he is in a different
sort of fit needed to enter the other world at the end of the novel.
Akiko
---------- End Forwarded Message ----------
D. Barton Johnson
NABOKV-L