Subject
Boyd re Joyce´s Stephen and Nabokov´s Dedalus Veen
From
Date
Body
----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian Boyd (FOA ENG)" <b.boyd@auckland.ac.nz>
To: "'D. Barton Johnson '" <chtodel@cox.net>
Sent: Sunday, April 25, 2004 9:35 PM
Subject: RE: Joyce´s Stephen and Nabokov´s Dedalus Veen
In confirmation of Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello's lovely link, the first
chapter in Ulysses in which the reader can note the change of styles from
chapter to chapter that Nabokov is describing is, obviously, chapter 2,
which begins with, and remains dominated by, a question-and-answer modus
appropriate to the brief glimpse of Stephen Dedalus as a schoolteacher (cf.
the "Questions for study and discussion" at the end of the description of
Van as handwalker), and specifically with a reference to Tarentum (cf. Van's
description of his brown legs "hoisted like a Tarentine sail"):
--You, Cochrane, what city sent for him?
--Tarentum, sir.
--Very good. Well?
--There was a battle, sir.
--Very good. Where? (Ulysses, Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1993, 24)
The "him" in question is Pyrrhus, King of Epirus.
The Dedalian myth is important in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
The last words in the novel include an address from Stephen to his mythical
forebear: "I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of
experience, and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience
of my race. Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead."
Throughout the novel there has been a pattern of rises at the end of one
chapter followed by falls at the beginning of the next. The fall of Stephen
Dedalus after the apparent apotheosis of this last lofty flight is made
explicit in the library chapter of Ulysses: "Fabulous artificer, the
hawklike man. You flew. Whereto? Newhaven-Dieppe, steerage passenger. Paris
and back. Lapwing. Icarus. Pater, ait. Sebedabbled, fallen, weltering.
Lapwing you are. Lapwing be." (202)
While the link between Nabokov's sense of Joyce's style in Ulysses and
Dedalus Veen's grandson's handwalking under the instruction of Wing seems
incontrovertible, especially in view of "Tarentine" and the catechism at
the end of the description of Van's topsyturviness, its point still seems
puzzling.
Brian Boyd
----- Original Message -----
From: Jansy Berndt de Souza <mailto:jansy@aetern.us> Mello
To: don <mailto:chtodel@cox.net> barton johnson
Sent: Sunday, April 25, 2004 7:38 PM
Subject: Joyce´s Stephen and Nabokov´s Dedalus Veen
There is a clear reference of Nabokov to Joyce´s Ulysses in the novel
Ada, linking Stephen Dedalus and Joyce´s style, to Dedalus Veen´s
mentioned close to Van´s maniambulation that enabled him to look at the
world upside down.
I´ll begin quoting from Ada ( Penguin edition, pag 68/9 ):
" The pleasure of suddenly discovering the right knack of topsy turvy
locomotion was rather like learning to man, after many a painful and
ignominious fall, those delightful gliders called Magicarpets ( ...)
while Grandfather Dedalus Veen, running with upturned face, flourished a
flag and fell into the horsepond.
Van peeled off his polo shirt and took off his shoes and socks (...)
His reversed body gracefully curved, his brown legs hoisted like a
Tarentine sail, his joined ankles tacking, Van gripped with splayed
hands the brow of gravity, and moved to and fro, veering and
sidestepping, opening his mouth the wrong way (...); but that summer
afternoon, on the silky ground of the pineglade, in the magical heart of
Ardis, under Lady Erminin´s blue eye, fourteen-year- old Van treated us
to the greatest performance we have ever seen a brachiambulant give.
Not the faintest flush showed on his face or neck! Now and then, when he
detached his organs of locomotion from the lenient ground,(...) one
wondered if this dreamy indolence of levitation was not a result of the
earth´s canceling its pull in a fit of absentminded benevolence.
Incidentally, one curious consequence of certain muscular changes and
osteal "reclick' caused by the special training with which Wing had
racked him was Van´s inability in later years to shrug his shoulders (
etc).
Nabokov´s lecture on James Joyce ( hard-cover,HBJ ed.page 285/9) :
"Stephen Dedalus, whose surname is that of the mythical maker of the
labyrinth at Knossos, the royal city of ancient Crete; other fabulous
gadgets; wings for himself and Icarus, his son (...)
"There is nothing more tedious than a protracted and sustained allegory
based on a well-worn myth (...)
"Each chapter is written in a different style, or rather with a
different style predominating. There is no special reason why this
should be - why one chapter should be told straight, another through a
stream-of-consciousness gurgle, a third through the prism of a parody.
There is no special reason but it may be argued that this constant shift
of the viewpoint conveys a more varied knowledge, fresh vivid glimpses
from this or that side. If you have ever tried to stand and bend your
head so as to look back between your knees, with your face turned upside
down, you will see the world in a totally different light. Try it on
the beach: it is very funny to see people walking when you look at them
upside down. They seem to be, with each step, disengaging their feet
from the glue of gravitation, without losing their dignity. Well, this
trick of changing the vista, of changing the prism and the viewpoint,
can be compared to Joyce´s new literary technique, to the kind of new
twist through which you see a greener grass, a fresher world (...)
The whole of Ulysses, as we shall gradually realize, is a deliberate
pattern of recurrent themes and synchronization of trivial events(...)
At any other moment, however, Joyce can turn to all sorts of verbal
tricks, to puns, transposition of words, verbal echoes, monstrous
twinning of verbs, or the imitation of sounds. In these, as in the
overweight of local allusions and foreign expressions, a needless
obscurity can be produced by details not brought out with sufficient
clarity but only suggested for the knowledgeable" .
Jansy
From: "Brian Boyd (FOA ENG)" <b.boyd@auckland.ac.nz>
To: "'D. Barton Johnson '" <chtodel@cox.net>
Sent: Sunday, April 25, 2004 9:35 PM
Subject: RE: Joyce´s Stephen and Nabokov´s Dedalus Veen
In confirmation of Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello's lovely link, the first
chapter in Ulysses in which the reader can note the change of styles from
chapter to chapter that Nabokov is describing is, obviously, chapter 2,
which begins with, and remains dominated by, a question-and-answer modus
appropriate to the brief glimpse of Stephen Dedalus as a schoolteacher (cf.
the "Questions for study and discussion" at the end of the description of
Van as handwalker), and specifically with a reference to Tarentum (cf. Van's
description of his brown legs "hoisted like a Tarentine sail"):
--You, Cochrane, what city sent for him?
--Tarentum, sir.
--Very good. Well?
--There was a battle, sir.
--Very good. Where? (Ulysses, Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1993, 24)
The "him" in question is Pyrrhus, King of Epirus.
The Dedalian myth is important in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
The last words in the novel include an address from Stephen to his mythical
forebear: "I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of
experience, and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience
of my race. Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead."
Throughout the novel there has been a pattern of rises at the end of one
chapter followed by falls at the beginning of the next. The fall of Stephen
Dedalus after the apparent apotheosis of this last lofty flight is made
explicit in the library chapter of Ulysses: "Fabulous artificer, the
hawklike man. You flew. Whereto? Newhaven-Dieppe, steerage passenger. Paris
and back. Lapwing. Icarus. Pater, ait. Sebedabbled, fallen, weltering.
Lapwing you are. Lapwing be." (202)
While the link between Nabokov's sense of Joyce's style in Ulysses and
Dedalus Veen's grandson's handwalking under the instruction of Wing seems
incontrovertible, especially in view of "Tarentine" and the catechism at
the end of the description of Van's topsyturviness, its point still seems
puzzling.
Brian Boyd
----- Original Message -----
From: Jansy Berndt de Souza <mailto:jansy@aetern.us> Mello
To: don <mailto:chtodel@cox.net> barton johnson
Sent: Sunday, April 25, 2004 7:38 PM
Subject: Joyce´s Stephen and Nabokov´s Dedalus Veen
There is a clear reference of Nabokov to Joyce´s Ulysses in the novel
Ada, linking Stephen Dedalus and Joyce´s style, to Dedalus Veen´s
mentioned close to Van´s maniambulation that enabled him to look at the
world upside down.
I´ll begin quoting from Ada ( Penguin edition, pag 68/9 ):
" The pleasure of suddenly discovering the right knack of topsy turvy
locomotion was rather like learning to man, after many a painful and
ignominious fall, those delightful gliders called Magicarpets ( ...)
while Grandfather Dedalus Veen, running with upturned face, flourished a
flag and fell into the horsepond.
Van peeled off his polo shirt and took off his shoes and socks (...)
His reversed body gracefully curved, his brown legs hoisted like a
Tarentine sail, his joined ankles tacking, Van gripped with splayed
hands the brow of gravity, and moved to and fro, veering and
sidestepping, opening his mouth the wrong way (...); but that summer
afternoon, on the silky ground of the pineglade, in the magical heart of
Ardis, under Lady Erminin´s blue eye, fourteen-year- old Van treated us
to the greatest performance we have ever seen a brachiambulant give.
Not the faintest flush showed on his face or neck! Now and then, when he
detached his organs of locomotion from the lenient ground,(...) one
wondered if this dreamy indolence of levitation was not a result of the
earth´s canceling its pull in a fit of absentminded benevolence.
Incidentally, one curious consequence of certain muscular changes and
osteal "reclick' caused by the special training with which Wing had
racked him was Van´s inability in later years to shrug his shoulders (
etc).
Nabokov´s lecture on James Joyce ( hard-cover,HBJ ed.page 285/9) :
"Stephen Dedalus, whose surname is that of the mythical maker of the
labyrinth at Knossos, the royal city of ancient Crete; other fabulous
gadgets; wings for himself and Icarus, his son (...)
"There is nothing more tedious than a protracted and sustained allegory
based on a well-worn myth (...)
"Each chapter is written in a different style, or rather with a
different style predominating. There is no special reason why this
should be - why one chapter should be told straight, another through a
stream-of-consciousness gurgle, a third through the prism of a parody.
There is no special reason but it may be argued that this constant shift
of the viewpoint conveys a more varied knowledge, fresh vivid glimpses
from this or that side. If you have ever tried to stand and bend your
head so as to look back between your knees, with your face turned upside
down, you will see the world in a totally different light. Try it on
the beach: it is very funny to see people walking when you look at them
upside down. They seem to be, with each step, disengaging their feet
from the glue of gravitation, without losing their dignity. Well, this
trick of changing the vista, of changing the prism and the viewpoint,
can be compared to Joyce´s new literary technique, to the kind of new
twist through which you see a greener grass, a fresher world (...)
The whole of Ulysses, as we shall gradually realize, is a deliberate
pattern of recurrent themes and synchronization of trivial events(...)
At any other moment, however, Joyce can turn to all sorts of verbal
tricks, to puns, transposition of words, verbal echoes, monstrous
twinning of verbs, or the imitation of sounds. In these, as in the
overweight of local allusions and foreign expressions, a needless
obscurity can be produced by details not brought out with sufficient
clarity but only suggested for the knowledgeable" .
Jansy