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Fwd: TT-20 Introductory Notes
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----- Forwarded message from a-nakata@courante.plala.or.jp -----
Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2004 22:05:47 +0900
From: Akiko Nakata <a-nakata@courante.plala.or.jp>
77.3-5: An electric sign, DOPPLER, shifted to violet . . . and illumined the
deadly white papers: The DOPPLER that shifted reappears in HP's nightmare as
"a Doppler shift" Giulia Romeo wears "over her luminous body" (80.27-28) and
as the violet light on her nape: "His square-nailed thumbs digging into her
violet-lit nape" (81.5-6). The "shift" could be another pun when we remember
the Italian sports car after which Giulia Romeo is named. The first
paragraph also includes a verb "finger" alluding to "Fingerman" as well as
the "deadly white" papers lit by the violet sign. They are the proofs of
*Tralatitions* HP was checking in the previous chapter. When HP gets off to
sleep he continues proofreading his thought and makes his real life and
dream a kind of proofs: "that he would have to consult an ophthalmologist
sometime next mouth," "he promised his uncorrected self that he would limit
his daily ration of cigarettes to a couple of heartbeats."
77.23-78.01: the old wood's stupid plaint: Cf. "like a stupid pet it [the
door] whined" (Ch. 2).
78.03: Did that wake her?: We suddenly hear the psychoanalyst question HP as
in Ch. 16 we heard his first question "Why did he give up that specific
remedy for insomnia when he married Armande?" Now we are back to the the
interrogation that has been suspended since then.
78.13-14: the alarmingly effective "Murphy Pill": "Murphy" is the name of
the king of vegetables in *The Vege-Men's Revenge* (1897). The child book,
which seems to appear in the end of the novel, is discussed by Don Johnson
in his "Nabokov's Golliwoggs: Lodi Reads English 1899-1909"
(http://www.libraries.psu.edu/iasweb/nabokov/forians.htm).
This could be just a coincidence, but I think one of the two editors of
McGraw-Hill looking after the publication of TT s also hidden in the pill's
name: Anne Dyer Murphy. Judging from her queries left on the typescript, she
could be sometimes "alarmingly effective."
78.23-25: he too betrayed her . . . premaritally, in terms of time, but
spatially in this very room: Unusual concept of time and space reminding us
of Vadim, the protagonist of LATH, who confuses direction and duration,
space and time.
79.06: Fitfully: One of the "fit's" we find in the fit-full novel.
80.09-10: You'd really hate to watch her changes of facial expression during
the process?: HP really loved to watch her changes of facial expression
during the process of love making (Ch. 17).
80.15-16, 31-34: Flames spurted all around and whatever one saw come through
scarlet strips of vitreous plastic . . . . the selfsame flames moved like
those tongues of red paper which a concealed ventilator causes to flicker
around imitation yule logs in the festive shopwindows of snowbound
childhoods: The dream prefigures the scene of dying HP at the end of the
novel, where plastic will be glass and the imitation flames the real ones.
"Those tongues of red paper . . . flicker": awakes the memory of the fire in
the theater where we saw "serpentines of . . . toilet paper" (Ch. 11).
80.34: snowbound childhoods: As well as the "country of ice and fire," here
seem to invade VN's memories of his Russian childhood or perhaps that of Mr.
R.'s in Germany--at least, HP's childhood could not be called "snowbound."
81.01-02: a medievalish, sort of Flemish, long-necked shopgirl: Flemish
paintings are from ADA? Cf. "as if by a Flemish master's hand" (Ch. 15).
81.17: Superman carrying a young soul in his embrace!: According to Brian
Boyd, VN wrote a poem about Superman: "'The Man of Tomorrow's Lament.' On
Superman's wedding night, the Man of Steel's vigor causes his honeymoon
suite to explode. Alas, poor Lois! The prim *New Yorker* turned it down, and
no manuscript survives" (*Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years* 44).
81.19-20: This is a bravura piece and not a patient's dream, Person: The
other dream HP described was also dismissed by the mediocre psychoanalyst as
"much too direct" (Ch. 16).
81.21: her night table collapsed with the lamp, a tumbler, a book: HP tried
to crush the night table shaking off books, an ashtray and an alarm clock
(Ch. 7) as if he was practicing the fatal scene in another nightmare.
81.26: her fair hair spread as if she were flying: HP's father "died before
reaching the floor, as if falling from some great height" (Ch. 5). Their
deaths are regarded as related with moving--horizontally and vertically--in
the air. Though Don was not convinced, I still think Armande's snort in the
beginning of the chapter also suggests the existence of HP's dead father
around there.
Flying Armande with her fair hair spreading, connected with the image of
Satan aroused by the flickering tongues above, might suggest a witch.
----- End forwarded message -----
Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2004 22:05:47 +0900
From: Akiko Nakata <a-nakata@courante.plala.or.jp>
77.3-5: An electric sign, DOPPLER, shifted to violet . . . and illumined the
deadly white papers: The DOPPLER that shifted reappears in HP's nightmare as
"a Doppler shift" Giulia Romeo wears "over her luminous body" (80.27-28) and
as the violet light on her nape: "His square-nailed thumbs digging into her
violet-lit nape" (81.5-6). The "shift" could be another pun when we remember
the Italian sports car after which Giulia Romeo is named. The first
paragraph also includes a verb "finger" alluding to "Fingerman" as well as
the "deadly white" papers lit by the violet sign. They are the proofs of
*Tralatitions* HP was checking in the previous chapter. When HP gets off to
sleep he continues proofreading his thought and makes his real life and
dream a kind of proofs: "that he would have to consult an ophthalmologist
sometime next mouth," "he promised his uncorrected self that he would limit
his daily ration of cigarettes to a couple of heartbeats."
77.23-78.01: the old wood's stupid plaint: Cf. "like a stupid pet it [the
door] whined" (Ch. 2).
78.03: Did that wake her?: We suddenly hear the psychoanalyst question HP as
in Ch. 16 we heard his first question "Why did he give up that specific
remedy for insomnia when he married Armande?" Now we are back to the the
interrogation that has been suspended since then.
78.13-14: the alarmingly effective "Murphy Pill": "Murphy" is the name of
the king of vegetables in *The Vege-Men's Revenge* (1897). The child book,
which seems to appear in the end of the novel, is discussed by Don Johnson
in his "Nabokov's Golliwoggs: Lodi Reads English 1899-1909"
(http://www.libraries.psu.edu/iasweb/nabokov/forians.htm).
This could be just a coincidence, but I think one of the two editors of
McGraw-Hill looking after the publication of TT s also hidden in the pill's
name: Anne Dyer Murphy. Judging from her queries left on the typescript, she
could be sometimes "alarmingly effective."
78.23-25: he too betrayed her . . . premaritally, in terms of time, but
spatially in this very room: Unusual concept of time and space reminding us
of Vadim, the protagonist of LATH, who confuses direction and duration,
space and time.
79.06: Fitfully: One of the "fit's" we find in the fit-full novel.
80.09-10: You'd really hate to watch her changes of facial expression during
the process?: HP really loved to watch her changes of facial expression
during the process of love making (Ch. 17).
80.15-16, 31-34: Flames spurted all around and whatever one saw come through
scarlet strips of vitreous plastic . . . . the selfsame flames moved like
those tongues of red paper which a concealed ventilator causes to flicker
around imitation yule logs in the festive shopwindows of snowbound
childhoods: The dream prefigures the scene of dying HP at the end of the
novel, where plastic will be glass and the imitation flames the real ones.
"Those tongues of red paper . . . flicker": awakes the memory of the fire in
the theater where we saw "serpentines of . . . toilet paper" (Ch. 11).
80.34: snowbound childhoods: As well as the "country of ice and fire," here
seem to invade VN's memories of his Russian childhood or perhaps that of Mr.
R.'s in Germany--at least, HP's childhood could not be called "snowbound."
81.01-02: a medievalish, sort of Flemish, long-necked shopgirl: Flemish
paintings are from ADA? Cf. "as if by a Flemish master's hand" (Ch. 15).
81.17: Superman carrying a young soul in his embrace!: According to Brian
Boyd, VN wrote a poem about Superman: "'The Man of Tomorrow's Lament.' On
Superman's wedding night, the Man of Steel's vigor causes his honeymoon
suite to explode. Alas, poor Lois! The prim *New Yorker* turned it down, and
no manuscript survives" (*Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years* 44).
81.19-20: This is a bravura piece and not a patient's dream, Person: The
other dream HP described was also dismissed by the mediocre psychoanalyst as
"much too direct" (Ch. 16).
81.21: her night table collapsed with the lamp, a tumbler, a book: HP tried
to crush the night table shaking off books, an ashtray and an alarm clock
(Ch. 7) as if he was practicing the fatal scene in another nightmare.
81.26: her fair hair spread as if she were flying: HP's father "died before
reaching the floor, as if falling from some great height" (Ch. 5). Their
deaths are regarded as related with moving--horizontally and vertically--in
the air. Though Don was not convinced, I still think Armande's snort in the
beginning of the chapter also suggests the existence of HP's dead father
around there.
Flying Armande with her fair hair spreading, connected with the image of
Satan aroused by the flickering tongues above, might suggest a witch.
----- End forwarded message -----