Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0010497, Mon, 1 Nov 2004 07:22:40 -0800

Subject
Re: Fwd: TT-20 Introductory Notes
Date
Body
Jansy, I think that is really possible. I did not write, but I also thought
"Murphy" could be from morphine, i. e. from Morpheus.

And thank you for the beautiful Cocteau quotation.

Akiko

----- Original Message -----
From: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Sent: Monday, November 01, 2004 9:19 AM
Subject: Re: Fwd: TT-20 Introductory Notes


> A quick question: could Murphy Pills be related to some kind of "Morphy" (
> as in Morpheus?).
> Armande´s flight and Akiko´s reference to time and horizontality reminded
me
> of Jean Cocteau´s:
> " La vie est une chute horizontale" that links nicely time and space...
> Jansy
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
>
> Sent: Sunday, October 31, 2004 1:39 PM
> Subject: Fwd: TT-20 Introductory Notes
>
>
> > EDNOTE. The group reading of Transparent Things has, alas, been
> hampered
> > by technical problems that are now (we hope) overcome. Let us resume the
> > discussion with the acumen and brio displayed by Akiko Nakata. I shall
try
> to
> > recover and send he postings that were lost in the electroninc circutry.
> >
> > ----- Forwarded message from a-nakata@courante.plala.or.jp -----
> > Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2004 22:05:47 +0900
> > 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 -----
> >
> >
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----

----- End forwarded message -----