Subject
Fw: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3389 PALE Fire
From
Date
Body
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 17:57:44 EDT
> From: MalignD@aol.com
> Subject: Re: (Nabokov-free) Re: Block that metaphor
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 15:14:22 -0700 (PDT)
> From: pynchonoid <pynchonoid@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF -- no need to relate to Pynchon
>
> - --- MalignD@aol.com wrote:
> > Your suggestion is that those interested in Pale
> > Fire aren't Pynchon readers?
>
> Of course not (I don't know about the Pale Fire
> readers who aren't P-listers, of course). I'm just
> wondering why these Pynchon readers can't make a
> discussion of Pale Fire illuminate Pynchon's works, as
> they said they would. Nothing has been published yet
> in this discussion of Pale Fire that's been found
> inappropriate for the moderated, highly-focused
> Nabokov list -- that should tell you something about
> which forum is best suited for it.
>
> I remain happy to see a consensus forming around the
> idea that any topic is OK for discussion here as long
> as enough of the Pynchon readers on Pynchon-L want to
> discuss it, as opposed to the focus of Pynchon-L as
> defined at http://www.waste.org/pynchon-l. That's an
> significant shift for a handful of folks who have
> previously ruled discussion of Pynchon's politics off-topic.
>
> __________________________________
> >
>
>
> I'm not sure if you mean tree or flower references in PF taken from
Romantic
> poetry? I don't see anything at a glance; there's the Eliot parody in
> Shade's "Sacred Tree" poem, all the Shakespeare trees at Wordsmith, and
the
> flowers linking to Ophelia, but nothing for Romantics. I'll keep an eye
out
> though.
>
> akaJasperFidget
>
>>
> From: <Mascaro@[omitted]>
> To: agon@[omitted], owner-pynchon-l@[omitted]
> Date: 18 Apr 1995 10:31:15 PST
> Subject: Re: meeting TP
>
> RE: TP ice-breaker:
>
> I'd ask him why he thought Nabokov always claimed not
> to remember that he
> took his class at Cornell.
>
> John Mascaro
> UCLA Writing Programs
>
>
<http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=9507&msg=1930&keywords=Nabokov>
>
> From: <PNOTESBD@[omitted]>
> Date: Fri, 14 Jul 1995 11:12:34 -0500 (CDT)
> Subject: Re: Nabokovia In reply to 0000300476D2
>
> In reply to Pine.SOL.3.9
>
>
> Marty--
>
> Thanks for the reply. Someone else who didn't also
> post to the list reminded
> me of the annecdote of Nabokov's wife, and for all I
> know it's true, But I'd
> like one more piece of corroboration before I go out
> on a limb and phrase the
> connection as Susan Elizabeth Sweeney did in her
> abstract.
>
> As B/4
>
> Duffy
>
>
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
> http://sbc.yahoo.com
>
> ------------------------------
>>
> Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 18:37:08 -0400
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <jasper@hatguild.org>
> Subject: RE: NPPF -- no need to relate to Pynchon
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-pynchon-l@waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l@waste.org] On
> > Behalf Of pynchonoid
> > Sent: Thursday, July 10, 2003 6:14 PM
> > To: pynchon-l@waste.org
> > Subject: Re: NPPF -- no need to relate to Pynchon
> >
> > --- MalignD@aol.com wrote:
> > > Your suggestion is that those interested in Pale
> > > Fire aren't Pynchon readers?
> >
> > Of course not (I don't know about the Pale Fire
> > readers who aren't P-listers, of course). I'm just
> > wondering why these Pynchon readers can't make a
> > discussion of Pale Fire illuminate Pynchon's works, as
> > they said they would. Nothing has been published yet
> > in this discussion of Pale Fire that's been found
> > inappropriate for the moderated, highly-focused
> > Nabokov list -- that should tell you something about
> > which forum is best suited for it.
> >
> > I remain happy to see a consensus forming around the
> > idea that any topic is OK for discussion here as long
> > as enough of the Pynchon readers on Pynchon-L want to
> > discuss it, as opposed to the focus of Pynchon-L as
> > defined at http://www.waste.org/pynchon-l. That's an
> > significant shift for a handful of folks who have
> > previously ruled discussion of Pynchon's politics off-topic.
> >
> > __________________________________
> > Do you Yahoo!?
> > SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
> > http://sbc.yahoo.com
>
>
>
> Perhaps a one-to-one correspondence is asking too much in this context;
> perhaps by studying *what* VN does and *how* he does it, we can come to
some
> better understanding of what TRP does and how he does it. Pynchon's work
is
> tremendously complicated (far beyond Government is Bad or Corporation is
> Evil references), and by looking at other works of similar complexity --
the
> concepts and patterns involved, the means of incorporating them -- we
might
> discover new ways of reading TRP. In that context it is far too early in
> the discussion to begin to relate back to Pynchon; I have no doubt however
> that such will take place. This is after all, as you say, frequently,
with
> every other breath, like a maniac, the PYNCHON-LIST.
>
> akaJasperFidget
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 15:46:33 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF -- no need to relate to Pynchon
>
> >>>Perhaps a one-to-one correspondence is asking too much in this context;
> perhaps by studying *what* VN does and *how* he does it, we can come to
some
> better understanding of what TRP does and how he does it. <<<
>
> And while I have no desire to read any other VN novel on P-list, Pale Fire
> may offer insights into what we as readers do and how we do it. I think
Pale
> Fire would be an appropriate group read on many author-identified
discussion
> lists.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 15:47:20 -0700 (PDT)
> From: pynchonoid <pynchonoid@yahoo.com>
> Subject: RE: NPPF -- no need to relate to Pynchon
>
> - --- Jasper Fidget <jasper@hatguild.org> wrote:
> > Perhaps a one-to-one correspondence is asking too
> > much in this context;
> > perhaps by studying *what* VN does and *how* he does
> > it, we can come to some
> > better understanding of what TRP does and how he
> > does it.
>
> That's a good point, but it will happen only if some
> effort is made to show the relationship of what
> Nabokov does in Pale Fire to what Pynchon does in his
> novels.
>
> > In that context
> > it is far too early in
> > the discussion to begin to relate back to Pynchon; I
> > have no doubt however
> > that such will take place.
>
> In theory, yes. It remains to be seen if that will
> happen. It certainly won't if the answer to the
> question, what does this have to do with Pynchon,
> remains: don't worry about it, go away, we're talking
> about what we want to talk about no matter what
> anybody says, & etc. You're all extraordinarily
> sensitive to the notion that what you're doing doesn't
> belong here -- if you were delivering the goods as
> promised, I don't think you'd feel that way.
>
> Having said that, Mr. Fidget has done a fine job of
> beginning the Nabokov discussion. Like davemarc, and
> more than a few others here, however, I'm still
> wondering what this Nabokov discussion is doing here
> on Pynchon-L. But perhaps we will be pleasantly
> surprised.
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
> From: <Mascaro@[omitted]>
> To: agon@[omitted], owner-pynchon-l@[omitted]
> Date: 18 Apr 1995 10:31:15 PST
> Subject: Re: meeting TP
>
> RE: TP ice-breaker:
>
> I'd ask him why he thought Nabokov always claimed not
> to remember that he
> took his class at Cornell.
>
> John Mascaro
> UCLA Writing Programs
>
>
<http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=9507&msg=1930&keywords=Nabokov>
>> Duffy
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 10:35:07 +1000
> From: jbor <jbor@bigpond.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF&VLVL2 Preliminaries: The Epigraphs
>
> on 11/7/03 12:20 AM, Burns, Erik wrote:
>
> > My inner Kinbote prompts me to note that the Epigraph of _Pale Fire_ is
> > about a cat having his day.
>
> Aha! Haha. Indeed it is. Early on Jasper asked of the _Pale Fire_ epigraph
> from Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson: "but if we are to make
substitutions,
> then which (or who) is Johnson's favorite cat? And why?"
>
> I'd say that the relationship between Nabokov's epigraph and his novel is
> more oblique than that between Pynchon's and _Vineland_. For me, Zoyd is
the
> "dog" ("dogg", "dirty dog", "you dog/old dog" etc) who had his day in the
> sun in the 60s when he squired Frenesi and fathered Prairie, and then had
> his second "day" in 1984 when he managed to keep things all together in
the
> face of seemingly insurmountable (and absurdly bizarre and comical)
> obstacles which are the main substance of the narrative. With _Pale Fire_
I
> get the sense that the satiric connection is between Kinbote (as Boswell)
> and Shade (as Johnson), but the specific content of the anecdote doesn't
> correlate with the narrative in the same way that the modified proverb or
> clichИ does in _Vineland_. (In other words, no cat.)
>
> Another difference is in the sources of the epigraphs: I doubt that
Nabokov
> would ever have considered using a near-contemporary song lyric as a
motto,
> though there is evidence of that characteristic postmodern splicing
together
> of artefacts taken from High and low cultures in his work as in, to a far
> greater degree, Pynchon's. On the other hand, Pynchon's epigraph stands in
a
> much less ironic relationship to the narrative which proceeds than
Nabokov's
> does. (The four section mottos from _GR_ -- a couple of them at least --
are
> closer to Nabokov's epigraph in this respect I guess.) All in all, I think
> Nabokov's choice of this particular quote is meant to poke fun at Boswell
> *and* Johnson, their relationship, their pretensions, the text generated
> therefrom and so forth, *as well as* at Kinbote *and* Shade and theirs.
>
> best
>
>
> This reminds me of the ludicrous account he
> gave Mr. Langton, of the despicable state of a
> young gentleman of good family. 'Sir, when I
> heard of him last, he was running about town
> shooting cats.' And then in a sort of kindly
> reverie, he bethought himself of his own
> favourite cat, and said, 'But Hodge shan't be
> shot: no, no, Hodge shall not be shot.'"
>
> - -- James Boswell, the _Life of Samuel Johnson_
>
> Every dog has his day,
> and a good dog
> just might have two days.
>
> -- Johnny Copeland
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 20:04:38 -0500
> From: "Tim Strzechowski" <dedalus204@comcast.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF -- no need to relate to Pynchon . . . .?
>
> Jeez, I spend an afternoon at Wrigley Field and the whole list implodes!
>
> Basically, I stand by my previous assertion: a few people who "pushed"
for
> a group reading of PF assured the P-list that, among other things, it
would
> help us understand and appreciate the works of Pynchon. Now a few PF
folks
> are balking at that. It wouldn't take all that much effort to equate the
> work of Nabokov to the works of P, would it? Not everyone on this list is
> reading Pale Fire, for whatever reason(s), but everyone is subscribed to
the
> P-list because of an interest in Pynchon (I think that's a fair
assuption).
> Wouldn't it be nice to make your examination of PF relevant to *everyone*
on
> this list, rather than just the 20 or so who showed an interest in reading
> Nabokov (remember the headcount?)? Mightn't tying Nabokov into what we
know
> of Pynchon entice a few *more* listers to try reading PF? As I said, it's
> not too tough to make the connections when they arise, and it would
> certainly be worth the effort to make the connections as much as possible
> for the readers of PF, the readers of VL, the lurkers who dare not post a
> word for fear of chastisement, for the N-listers watching us, etc.
>
> If anything, it's beginning to sound like *not making connections to
> Pynchon's works* is an excuse for literary laziness and slovenly
> scholarship.
>
> Tim Strzechowski
>
> ------------------------------
>
> End of pynchon-l-digest V2 #3389
> ********************************
>
> To unsubscribe, send a message to waste@waste.org
> with "unsubscribe pynchon-l-digest" in the message body.
>
> Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 17:57:44 EDT
> From: MalignD@aol.com
> Subject: Re: (Nabokov-free) Re: Block that metaphor
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 15:14:22 -0700 (PDT)
> From: pynchonoid <pynchonoid@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF -- no need to relate to Pynchon
>
> - --- MalignD@aol.com wrote:
> > Your suggestion is that those interested in Pale
> > Fire aren't Pynchon readers?
>
> Of course not (I don't know about the Pale Fire
> readers who aren't P-listers, of course). I'm just
> wondering why these Pynchon readers can't make a
> discussion of Pale Fire illuminate Pynchon's works, as
> they said they would. Nothing has been published yet
> in this discussion of Pale Fire that's been found
> inappropriate for the moderated, highly-focused
> Nabokov list -- that should tell you something about
> which forum is best suited for it.
>
> I remain happy to see a consensus forming around the
> idea that any topic is OK for discussion here as long
> as enough of the Pynchon readers on Pynchon-L want to
> discuss it, as opposed to the focus of Pynchon-L as
> defined at http://www.waste.org/pynchon-l. That's an
> significant shift for a handful of folks who have
> previously ruled discussion of Pynchon's politics off-topic.
>
> __________________________________
> >
>
>
> I'm not sure if you mean tree or flower references in PF taken from
Romantic
> poetry? I don't see anything at a glance; there's the Eliot parody in
> Shade's "Sacred Tree" poem, all the Shakespeare trees at Wordsmith, and
the
> flowers linking to Ophelia, but nothing for Romantics. I'll keep an eye
out
> though.
>
> akaJasperFidget
>
>>
> From: <Mascaro@[omitted]>
> To: agon@[omitted], owner-pynchon-l@[omitted]
> Date: 18 Apr 1995 10:31:15 PST
> Subject: Re: meeting TP
>
> RE: TP ice-breaker:
>
> I'd ask him why he thought Nabokov always claimed not
> to remember that he
> took his class at Cornell.
>
> John Mascaro
> UCLA Writing Programs
>
>
<http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=9507&msg=1930&keywords=Nabokov>
>
> From: <PNOTESBD@[omitted]>
> Date: Fri, 14 Jul 1995 11:12:34 -0500 (CDT)
> Subject: Re: Nabokovia In reply to 0000300476D2
>
> In reply to Pine.SOL.3.9
>
>
> Marty--
>
> Thanks for the reply. Someone else who didn't also
> post to the list reminded
> me of the annecdote of Nabokov's wife, and for all I
> know it's true, But I'd
> like one more piece of corroboration before I go out
> on a limb and phrase the
> connection as Susan Elizabeth Sweeney did in her
> abstract.
>
> As B/4
>
> Duffy
>
>
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
> http://sbc.yahoo.com
>
> ------------------------------
>>
> Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 18:37:08 -0400
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <jasper@hatguild.org>
> Subject: RE: NPPF -- no need to relate to Pynchon
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-pynchon-l@waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l@waste.org] On
> > Behalf Of pynchonoid
> > Sent: Thursday, July 10, 2003 6:14 PM
> > To: pynchon-l@waste.org
> > Subject: Re: NPPF -- no need to relate to Pynchon
> >
> > --- MalignD@aol.com wrote:
> > > Your suggestion is that those interested in Pale
> > > Fire aren't Pynchon readers?
> >
> > Of course not (I don't know about the Pale Fire
> > readers who aren't P-listers, of course). I'm just
> > wondering why these Pynchon readers can't make a
> > discussion of Pale Fire illuminate Pynchon's works, as
> > they said they would. Nothing has been published yet
> > in this discussion of Pale Fire that's been found
> > inappropriate for the moderated, highly-focused
> > Nabokov list -- that should tell you something about
> > which forum is best suited for it.
> >
> > I remain happy to see a consensus forming around the
> > idea that any topic is OK for discussion here as long
> > as enough of the Pynchon readers on Pynchon-L want to
> > discuss it, as opposed to the focus of Pynchon-L as
> > defined at http://www.waste.org/pynchon-l. That's an
> > significant shift for a handful of folks who have
> > previously ruled discussion of Pynchon's politics off-topic.
> >
> > __________________________________
> > Do you Yahoo!?
> > SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
> > http://sbc.yahoo.com
>
>
>
> Perhaps a one-to-one correspondence is asking too much in this context;
> perhaps by studying *what* VN does and *how* he does it, we can come to
some
> better understanding of what TRP does and how he does it. Pynchon's work
is
> tremendously complicated (far beyond Government is Bad or Corporation is
> Evil references), and by looking at other works of similar complexity --
the
> concepts and patterns involved, the means of incorporating them -- we
might
> discover new ways of reading TRP. In that context it is far too early in
> the discussion to begin to relate back to Pynchon; I have no doubt however
> that such will take place. This is after all, as you say, frequently,
with
> every other breath, like a maniac, the PYNCHON-LIST.
>
> akaJasperFidget
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 15:46:33 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF -- no need to relate to Pynchon
>
> >>>Perhaps a one-to-one correspondence is asking too much in this context;
> perhaps by studying *what* VN does and *how* he does it, we can come to
some
> better understanding of what TRP does and how he does it. <<<
>
> And while I have no desire to read any other VN novel on P-list, Pale Fire
> may offer insights into what we as readers do and how we do it. I think
Pale
> Fire would be an appropriate group read on many author-identified
discussion
> lists.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 15:47:20 -0700 (PDT)
> From: pynchonoid <pynchonoid@yahoo.com>
> Subject: RE: NPPF -- no need to relate to Pynchon
>
> - --- Jasper Fidget <jasper@hatguild.org> wrote:
> > Perhaps a one-to-one correspondence is asking too
> > much in this context;
> > perhaps by studying *what* VN does and *how* he does
> > it, we can come to some
> > better understanding of what TRP does and how he
> > does it.
>
> That's a good point, but it will happen only if some
> effort is made to show the relationship of what
> Nabokov does in Pale Fire to what Pynchon does in his
> novels.
>
> > In that context
> > it is far too early in
> > the discussion to begin to relate back to Pynchon; I
> > have no doubt however
> > that such will take place.
>
> In theory, yes. It remains to be seen if that will
> happen. It certainly won't if the answer to the
> question, what does this have to do with Pynchon,
> remains: don't worry about it, go away, we're talking
> about what we want to talk about no matter what
> anybody says, & etc. You're all extraordinarily
> sensitive to the notion that what you're doing doesn't
> belong here -- if you were delivering the goods as
> promised, I don't think you'd feel that way.
>
> Having said that, Mr. Fidget has done a fine job of
> beginning the Nabokov discussion. Like davemarc, and
> more than a few others here, however, I'm still
> wondering what this Nabokov discussion is doing here
> on Pynchon-L. But perhaps we will be pleasantly
> surprised.
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
> From: <Mascaro@[omitted]>
> To: agon@[omitted], owner-pynchon-l@[omitted]
> Date: 18 Apr 1995 10:31:15 PST
> Subject: Re: meeting TP
>
> RE: TP ice-breaker:
>
> I'd ask him why he thought Nabokov always claimed not
> to remember that he
> took his class at Cornell.
>
> John Mascaro
> UCLA Writing Programs
>
>
<http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=9507&msg=1930&keywords=Nabokov>
>> Duffy
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 10:35:07 +1000
> From: jbor <jbor@bigpond.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF&VLVL2 Preliminaries: The Epigraphs
>
> on 11/7/03 12:20 AM, Burns, Erik wrote:
>
> > My inner Kinbote prompts me to note that the Epigraph of _Pale Fire_ is
> > about a cat having his day.
>
> Aha! Haha. Indeed it is. Early on Jasper asked of the _Pale Fire_ epigraph
> from Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson: "but if we are to make
substitutions,
> then which (or who) is Johnson's favorite cat? And why?"
>
> I'd say that the relationship between Nabokov's epigraph and his novel is
> more oblique than that between Pynchon's and _Vineland_. For me, Zoyd is
the
> "dog" ("dogg", "dirty dog", "you dog/old dog" etc) who had his day in the
> sun in the 60s when he squired Frenesi and fathered Prairie, and then had
> his second "day" in 1984 when he managed to keep things all together in
the
> face of seemingly insurmountable (and absurdly bizarre and comical)
> obstacles which are the main substance of the narrative. With _Pale Fire_
I
> get the sense that the satiric connection is between Kinbote (as Boswell)
> and Shade (as Johnson), but the specific content of the anecdote doesn't
> correlate with the narrative in the same way that the modified proverb or
> clichИ does in _Vineland_. (In other words, no cat.)
>
> Another difference is in the sources of the epigraphs: I doubt that
Nabokov
> would ever have considered using a near-contemporary song lyric as a
motto,
> though there is evidence of that characteristic postmodern splicing
together
> of artefacts taken from High and low cultures in his work as in, to a far
> greater degree, Pynchon's. On the other hand, Pynchon's epigraph stands in
a
> much less ironic relationship to the narrative which proceeds than
Nabokov's
> does. (The four section mottos from _GR_ -- a couple of them at least --
are
> closer to Nabokov's epigraph in this respect I guess.) All in all, I think
> Nabokov's choice of this particular quote is meant to poke fun at Boswell
> *and* Johnson, their relationship, their pretensions, the text generated
> therefrom and so forth, *as well as* at Kinbote *and* Shade and theirs.
>
> best
>
>
> This reminds me of the ludicrous account he
> gave Mr. Langton, of the despicable state of a
> young gentleman of good family. 'Sir, when I
> heard of him last, he was running about town
> shooting cats.' And then in a sort of kindly
> reverie, he bethought himself of his own
> favourite cat, and said, 'But Hodge shan't be
> shot: no, no, Hodge shall not be shot.'"
>
> - -- James Boswell, the _Life of Samuel Johnson_
>
> Every dog has his day,
> and a good dog
> just might have two days.
>
> -- Johnny Copeland
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 20:04:38 -0500
> From: "Tim Strzechowski" <dedalus204@comcast.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF -- no need to relate to Pynchon . . . .?
>
> Jeez, I spend an afternoon at Wrigley Field and the whole list implodes!
>
> Basically, I stand by my previous assertion: a few people who "pushed"
for
> a group reading of PF assured the P-list that, among other things, it
would
> help us understand and appreciate the works of Pynchon. Now a few PF
folks
> are balking at that. It wouldn't take all that much effort to equate the
> work of Nabokov to the works of P, would it? Not everyone on this list is
> reading Pale Fire, for whatever reason(s), but everyone is subscribed to
the
> P-list because of an interest in Pynchon (I think that's a fair
assuption).
> Wouldn't it be nice to make your examination of PF relevant to *everyone*
on
> this list, rather than just the 20 or so who showed an interest in reading
> Nabokov (remember the headcount?)? Mightn't tying Nabokov into what we
know
> of Pynchon entice a few *more* listers to try reading PF? As I said, it's
> not too tough to make the connections when they arise, and it would
> certainly be worth the effort to make the connections as much as possible
> for the readers of PF, the readers of VL, the lurkers who dare not post a
> word for fear of chastisement, for the N-listers watching us, etc.
>
> If anything, it's beginning to sound like *not making connections to
> Pynchon's works* is an excuse for literary laziness and slovenly
> scholarship.
>
> Tim Strzechowski
>
> ------------------------------
>
> End of pynchon-l-digest V2 #3389
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