NABOKV-L post 0010802, Wed, 15 Dec 2004 10:08:17 -0800

----- Forwarded message from a-nakata@courante.plala.or.jp -----
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 22:10:57 +0900
From: Akiko Nakata <a-nakata@courante.plala.or.jp>


Thank you, Jansy! It is a gem, isn't it? I was aware of the connection
between *Moore*'s paradox, rain and Wittgenstein and I was going to mention
it with some other things I did not include in my notes. But I am sure
Wikipedia's explanation would be better than mine. -- Akiko
----- Original Message -----
From: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Tuesday, December 14, 2004 10:33 AM
Subject: Re:Transparent Things/ More on Moore and Witt´s rains


Moore's paradox
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
G. E. Moore remarked once in a lecture on the peculiar inconsistency
involved in saying something like "It's raining outside but I don't believe
that it is." By contrast, "It's raining outside but he doesn't believe that
it is," is a perfectly consistent statement. This paradox, sometimes known
as Moore's paradox, might well have been forgotten if not for the fact that,
supposedly, when Ludwig Wittgenstein first heard of the paradox he went to
Moore's house in the middle of the night to insist Moore immediately repeat
the lecture. In any case, it probably offers a decent entrance to
Wittgenstein's later philosophy.

Ch23, TT: " 'Raining in Wittenberg, but not in Wittgenstein' An obscure
joke in Tralatitions".



----- Original Message -----
From: D. Barton Johnson
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Monday, December 13, 2004 6:21 PM
Subject: Fw: Transparent Things calculations



----- Original Message -----
From: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello
To: don barton johnson
Sent: Monday, December 13, 2004 2:12 PM
Subject: Fw: Transparent Things calculations


Berndt de Souza Mello
To: don barton johnson
Cc: nabOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2004 8:41 AM
Subject: Transparent Things

After several piece-meal workings on TT, I tried to sum up some
conclusions. I had Akiko´s chronological table with her plea for a
mathematician to aid her with calculations and I think one needs to be both
math and chess expert to follow some clues in TT ( which I´m not! And
sometimes I get the uncomfortable feeling that VN is laughing at us, just as
A.Appel suggested in one of his prefaces ).

Events tend to run into a full circle several times ( same hotel
room, same old dog, same flying cockschuttle, same Transatlantic magazine ).
We have the Burning Barn episode and the various burning windows and hotels
and doll-houses in TT that echo ADA.
Often "flames", "fires", "l´aiguillon rouge" or "bûcher" in TT
refer to the itchings and ardors of sex. The word "bûcher" in French has
various entries: Guy de Maupassant´s " Le bûcher" ( an experience in India)
and Maupassant is often quoted in ADA. There is also Tom Wolffe´s " Bonfire
of Vanities". The "l´ aiguillon rouge", beside the flaming itch of sexual
desire, is also a reference for a moth-butterfly that bears such a mark on
her back ( "le shpinx du liseron" ) .
What about chess moves? We could have a Michelin tour guide with
various hotels and moves from one to another ( Ascot, Locquet, etc and
various cities, as Trux, Geneva, Witt, Versex ) with reference to "turrets".
Concerning the "red songbird" , would a "Canadian Cardinal"
redbird be an equivalent to a Bishop figure in chess?
And what about math? There are formulaic indications of one fifth
of 40 years ( 8 years, recurrently mentioned together with ages 22 for
Hugh). We have also to subtract 10 and 18 years at various points to try and
match Hugh´s four visits to Switzerland. He must have been there twice while
he was 32. There is an "x" date missing. There are indications of ages (
Julia Moore, 16 and her mother, Marion, or Mrs.Robert, 38 ) that invite
some sort of calculation. What kind, though?
We have various "stranglers": (1) Armand Rave and his triangle (
his lover and his incestuous sister ) who sculpted the green figurine of a
skier ( it appears in Hugh´s first and last visit. In bt. we have him
watching Armande in green skiing apparel ); (2) The strangler in
"Translatlantic" magazine who choked his wife ( the magazine had been left
behind by Hugh eight years ago); (3) Hugh as a strangler ( eight years later
than the strangling news in the transatlantic ).(4) Hugh comes from Mass.
and there was a famous Boston strangler also referred by an insistence of
Hugh´s "strong hands".

My favorite sentence in TT was: " The bare wood of its tapered end
has darkened to plumbeous plum, thus merging in tint with the blunt tip of
graphite whose blind gloss alone distinguishes it from the wood" .

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