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Fw: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3392 PALE FIRE
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----- Original Message -----
From: "pynchon-l-digest" <owner-pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
>
> pynchon-l-digest Friday, July 11 2003 Volume 02 : Number
3392
>>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 10:25:02 -0400
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <jasper@hatguild.org>
> Subject: RE: NPPF Preliminary - Jasper Fidget
>
> >
>
> I've just posted something related to the discovery and creation of
meaning
> in Pale Fire -- albeit brief for such an extensive subject. I think
> Kinbote's paranoia might have something to do with it, so in order to both
> advance our discussion and to help calm the list down a bit, maybe it
would
> be useful to discuss the presence and function of paranoia in Pynchon's
work
> in order to relate those ideas to VN (and, as we read, back to Pynchon).
>
> ------------------------------
>
>> By the way, I'm not advocating a Pale Fire discussion
> boycott -- instead, I encourage the discussants to
> refocus the discussion to include Pynchon.
>
>
>
>
> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 07:35:20 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Preliminary: Chance Inn Log Cabin
>
> >>>There is also the matter of where Kinbote is, holed up
> outside an amusement park. <<<
>
> Although later he says he is in a log cabin and that the noise was not
from
> an amusement park but from camping tourists. (p.235)
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 10:38:29 -0400
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <jasper@hatguild.org>
> Subject: RE: NPPF Preliminary - Jasper Fidget
>
>>
> On Behalf of jbor:
>
> > on 11/7/03 12:56 PM, s~Z wrote:
> >
> > > Historian Thomas Macaulay (1800-1859) called Boswell's worship of Dr.
> > > Johnson "Lues Boswelliana, or disease of admiration."
> >
> > Pynchon's satiric depiction of the relationship between Boswell and
> > Johnson
> > in _M&D_ has some affinities with the similarly satiric purport of
> > Nabokov's
> > chosen epigraph. There are also similarities in the parodic mirroring of
> > Boswell and Johnson in Kinbote and Shade, and in Cherrycoke and M & D.
> >
> > 718.4 Some horrible Boswell pursues them, asking questions.
> >
> > 746.1 " ... he intends to go to the Hebrides, to the furthest Isle ... "
> >
> > 747.21 "I had my Boswell, once," Mason tells Boswell, "Dixon and I. We
> > had a joint Boswell. Preacher nam'd Cherrycoke. Scribbling
everything
> > down, just like you, Sir. Have you," twirling his Hand in
Ellipses,--
> > "you know, ever...had one yourself? If I'm not prying."
> > "Had one what?"
> > "Hum...a Boswell, Sir,-- I mean, of your own. Well you couldn't
> > very well call him that, being one yourself,-- say, a sort of Shadow
> > ever in the Room who has haunted you, preserving your ev'ry spoken
> > remark,-- "
> >
> > best
> >
>
>
> Another potentially fruitful line to follow is the one Rob started with
the
> three pairs of Shade/Kinbote, Johnson/Boswell, Mason/Dixon (not quite
> parallel but mirrors nonetheless). Why do we write biographies in the
first
> place? In what ways does it serve the biographer to produce commentary on
> another? How does recording the subject of human being(s) differ from
that
> of the natural world (hunting butterflies for instance, or mapping
terrain),
> and that of writing criticism for works of literature? Is this the role
of
> one who is essentially *outside* that world (paring his nails), of one who
> fundamentally wants to be *in* that world, or of one who must already be
> part of it? (Just brainstorming really, but anyway....)
>
> ------------------------------
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 08:02:51 -0700 (PDT)
> From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> - --- Malignd <malignd@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > I had forgotten (and was corrected by Jaspar) that Kinbote had access to
at
> least some part of Boswell's Johnson; I don't think that can be assumed of
no
> consequence.
>
> I'm sure you're right.
>
> I've not read it, but here is the complete text online:
>
> http://newark.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/BLJ/
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
> http://sbc.yahoo.com
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 08:03:43 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Malignd <malignd@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: Vera's Veracity
>
> <<Has there ever been verification that Pynchon even
> took a course from Nabokov? I thought there had been
> some research debunking the Vera anecdote. >>
>
> I mentioned about two weeks ago that Vera said she
> remembered TP's handwriting and said in that post that
> this was anecdotal and that I thought it had been
> challenged. But I can't verify one way or another.
>
> __________________________________
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 11:19:46 -0400
> From: The Great Quail <quail@libyrinth.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Preliminary - biography
>
> Jasper asks,
>
> > Why do we write biographies in the first
> > place?
>
> Because, generally speaking, nothing in the world is more interesting than
> human beings. Obsessions such as butterfly collecting and hunting may not
be
> very interesting in themselves, but their actual manifestation in another
> person, that interests us. We are fascinated by the obsessed, and we are
> fascinated by those who we find "greater" or "different," for good or bad.
> Most people find Einstein more fascinating than the photoelectric effect,
> most people find Nixon more fascinating than his actual policies. In
> biography, stories are told about another person, by another person, and
> read by a third person. Other people are distorted mirrors.
>
> I speak in generalities, and I understand that artists and writers exert a
> different kind of fascination through their very act of expression,
turning
> private into public. And yet still we want to biograph, to chronicle, to
> comment. To create an axis between our story and their story.
>
> Shade's poem is more interesting because of Kinbote's misreadings;
Kinbote's
> insanity is more interesting because of its relationship to Shade. They
are
> both more interesting because they are creations of Nabokov. And Nabokov
has
> become more interesting, at least right now, because we are all discussing
> him.
>
> Just brainstorming too, lots and lots of coffee this morning, so forgive
if
> this all seems off the cuff,
>
> - --Quail
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 08:20:34 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> Anyone have access to any of these?
>
> de Vries, Gerard. "Pale Fire and The Life of Johnson: The Case of Hodge
and
> Mystery Lodge." The Nabokovian, Spring 1991, 26, pp. 44-49.
>
> Morris, Matthew Charles Evans. Parody in Pale Fire: A Re-Reading of
> Boswell's Life of Johnson. Ph.D. thesis, University of North Carolina at
> Greensboro, 1996.
>
> Stewart, Maaja A. "Nabokov's Pale Fire and Boswell's Johnson." Texas
Studies
> in Literature and Language (Austin, TX), Summer 1988, 30:2, pp. 230- 245.
>
> ------------------------------
> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 08:32:31 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Malignd <malignd@yahoo.com>
> Subject: RE: NPPF Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> <<Now, what was that you were saying about the P-list
> never discussing, before yesterday, the Nabokovs'
> response to queries about Pynchon being his student?>>
>
> I said nothing of the kind. And wouldn't have, since
> I had recently posted on the topic myself. What I
> said was that you remembered wrongly. Which you did.
> You said:
>
> <<So, a rumor that was disavowed by Nabokov himself
> ....>>
>
> VN didn't disavow the rumor; he said he didn't recall
> Pynchon. Vera, however, said she did.
>
> As I posted on June 16:
>
> <<Vera (in an account that, I believe, has been
> challenged) remembered Pynchon's handwriting (from
> Cornell) as a combination of written and printed
> letters.>>
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
> http://sbc.yahoo.com
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 08:48:22 -0700 (PDT)
> From: pynchonoid <pynchonoid@yahoo.com>
> Subject: RE: NPPF Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> - --- Malignd <malignd@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > VN didn't disavow the rumor; he said he didn't
> > recall
> > Pynchon. Vera, however, said she did.
>
> And this -- whether or not Pynchon took a class with
> Nabokov, whether Nabokov remembered him and what he
> said about it later, and what Vera remembered -- has
> all been discussed on Pynchon-L several times before
> (beginning in '95), as I noted, and which you denied:
>
> Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 16:56:25 -0700 (PDT)
> From: pynchonoid <pynchonoid@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Pynchon in Nabokov's class discussed on
> P-list before?
>
> pynchonoid:
> > That's what I recall being posted to Pynchon-L
> > some time ago, in the
> > > context of a discussion about Pynchon.
>
> - - --- MalignD@aol.com wrote:
> > Well, you recalled it wrong, dumb-dumb.
>
>
> You would appear to be mistaken, my trash-talking
> friend:
>
>
<http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=9504&msg=1152&keywords=Nabokov>
>
> 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
> To: bickman@[omitted]
> Cc: pynchon-l@[omitted]
>
>
> 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
>
> - ---
>
> ..... Quite breathtaking, really, your disregard for
> simple fact. But an intellectual dishonesty that
> you've demonstrated again and again here.
>
>
> Duffy
>
>
>
> =====
> <http://www.pynchonoid.org/>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
> http://sbc.yahoo.com
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 08:57:49 -0700 (PDT)
> From: pynchonoid <pynchonoid@yahoo.com>
> Subject: formatting correction RE: NPPF Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> - --- pynchonoid <pynchonoid@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > --- Malignd <malignd@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > VN didn't disavow the rumor; he said he didn't
> > > recall
> > > Pynchon. Vera, however, said she did.
> >
> > And this -- whether or not Pynchon took a class with
> > Nabokov, whether Nabokov remembered him and what he
> > said about it later, and what Vera remembered -- has
> > all been discussed on Pynchon-L several times before
> > (beginning in '95), as I noted, and which you
> > denied:
> >
> > Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 16:56:25 -0700 (PDT)
> > From: pynchonoid <pynchonoid@yahoo.com>
> > Subject: Pynchon in Nabokov's class discussed on
> > P-list before?
> >
> > pynchonoid:
> > > That's what I recall being posted to Pynchon-L
> > > some time ago, in the
> > > > context of a discussion about Pynchon.
> > >
> >
>
<http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=9504&msg=1152&keywords=Nabokov>
> >
> > 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
> > To: bickman@[omitted]
> > Cc: pynchon-l@[omitted]
> >
> >
> > 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
> > ---
> >
> pynchonoid:
> > .... Quite breathtaking, really, your disregard for
> > simple fact. But an intellectual dishonesty that
> > you've demonstrated again and again here.
> >
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
> http://sbc.yahoo.com
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 12:04:11 -0400
> From: Terrance <lycidas2@earthlink.net>
> Subject: re: Who Cares about a Punch & Judy Pathos?
>
> In The Carrick" and in "The Metamorphosis" there is a central figure
> endowed with a certain amount of human pathos among grotesque, heartless
> characters, figures of fun or figures of horror, asses parading as
> zebras, or hybrids between rabbits and rats. In "The Carrick" the human
> quality of the central figure is of a different type from Gregor in
> Kafka's story, but this human pathetic quality is present in both. In
> "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" there is no such human pathos, no throb in the
> throat
> of the story, none of that intonation of "'I cannot get out, I cannot
> get out,' said the starling" (so heartrending in Sterne's fantasy A
> Sentimental Journey). True, Stevenson devotes many pages to the horror
> of Jekyll's plight, but the thing, after all, is only a superb
> Punch-and-Judy show. The beauty of Kafka's and Gogol's private
> nightmares is that their central human characters belong to the same
> private fantastic world as the inhuman characters around them, but the
> central one tries to get out of
> that world, to cast off the mask, to transcend the cloak or the
> carapace. But in Stevenson's story there is none of that unity and none
> of that contrast. The Uttersons, and Pooles, and Enfields are meant to
> be commonplace, everyday characters; actually they are characters
> derived from Dickens, and thus they constitute phantasms that do not
> quite belong to Stevenson's own artistic reality, just as Stevenson's
> fog comes from a Dickensian studio to envelop a conventional London. I
> suggest, in
> fact, that Jekyll's magic drug is more real than Utterson's life. The
> fantastic Jekyll-and-Hyde theme, on the other hand, is supposed to be in
> contrast to this conventional London, but it is really the difference
> between a Gothic medieval theme and a Dickensian one. It is not the
> same kind of difference as that between an absurd world and pathetically
> absurd Bashmachkin, or between an absurd world and tragically absurd
> Gregor.
>
> The Jekyll-and-Hyde theme does not quite form a unity with its setting
> because its fantasy is of a different type from the fantasy of the
> setting. There is really nothing especially pathetic or tragic about
> Jekyll. We enjoy every detail of the marvelous juggling, of the
> beautiful trick, but there is no artistic emotional throb involved, and
> whether it is Jekyll or Hyde who gets the upper hand remains of supreme
> indifference to the good reader. I am speaking of rather nice
> distinctions, and it is difficult to
> put them in simple form. When a certain clear-thinking but somewhat
> superficial French philosopher asked the profound but obscure German
> philosopher Hegel to state his views in a concise form, Hegel answered
> him harshly, "These things can be discussed neither concisely nor in
> French." We shall ignore the question whether Hegel was right or not,
> and still try to put into a nutshell the difference between the
> Gogol-Kafka kind of story and Stevenson's kind.
>
> In Gogol and Kafka the absurd central character belongs to the absurd
> world around him but, pathetically and tragically, attempts to struggle
> out of it into the world of humans≈and dies in despair. In Stevenson
> the unreal central character belongs to a brand of unreality different
> from that of the world around him. He is a Gothic character in a
> Dickensian setting, and when he struggles and then dies, his fate
> possesses only conventional pathos. I do not at all mean that
> Stevenson's story is a
> failure. No, it is a minor masterpiece in its own conventional terms,
> but it has only two dimensions, whereas the Gogol-Kafka stories have
> five or six.
>
> http://www.monica.com.br/mauricio/cronicas/cron141.htm
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 09:08:08 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Malignd <malignd@yahoo.com>
> Subject: RE: NPPF Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> <<And this -- whether or not Pynchon took a class with
> Nabokov, whether Nabokov remembered him and what he
> said about it later, and what Vera remembered -- has
> all been discussed on Pynchon-L several times before
> (beginning in '95), as I noted, and which you
> denied.>>
>
> You're out of your mind. I discussed it myself.
>
> I said "you recalled it wrong." And you did. VN
> didn't "disavow" any rumors. Try reading what you
> post.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 09:08:09 -0700 (PDT)
> From: pynchonoid <pynchonoid@yahoo.com>
> Subject: new ACLU report & Pynchon re D
>
> ------------------------------
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2003 02:19:53 +1000
> From: jbor <jbor@bigpond.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> on 11/7/03 10:12 PM, Malignd wrote:
>
> >> There is also the matter of where Kinbote is, holed up
> >> outside an amusement park. His having access to
> >> Boswell's Life of Johnson is unlikely, as is his
> >> having such a quote committed to memory.
>
> on 11/7/03 11:33 PM, Jasper Fidget wrote:
>
> > C. 172 (p. 154): "In a black pocketbook that I fortunately have with me
I
> > find, jotted down, here and there, among various extracts that had
happened
> > to please me (a footnote from Boswell's Life of Dr. Johnson[...])"
> >
> > It's not direct evidence linking the epigraph to Kinbote, but it allows
for
> > the possibility. It may be that this is the *only* part of Life of
Johnson
> > that Kinbote possesses -- why he has it is another question.
>
> on 11/7/03 11:55 PM, Malignd wrote:
>
> > I stand corrected.
>
> Ah, but is the extract used for the novel's Epigraph actually in "a
> footnote" in Boswell's _Life of Dr Johnson_? If it had been, then that
would
> pretty much confirm the Kinbote hypothesis re. the Epigraph. But it isn't.
>
> The fact that Kinbote cites the actual lines from Shakespeare's _Timon_
but
> misses the derivation of Shade's poem's title in them because it's a
> "Zemblan" translation of the play he possesses ("Commentary: Lines 39-40")
> makes me think this might similarly be a red herring. (And, it gives pause
> to wonder which actual footnote from Boswell's _Life_ he might have
written
> down in that pocketbook of his.)
>
> best
>
> ------------------------------
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 09:33:17 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> >>> (And, it gives pause
> to wonder which actual footnote from Boswell's _Life_ he might have
written
> down in that pocketbook of his.) <<<
>
> 6. This anecdote of the duck, though disproved by internal and external
> evidence, has nevertheless, upon supposition of its truth, been made the
> foundation of the following ingenious and fanciful reflections of Miss
> Seward, amongst the communications concerning Dr. Johnson with which she
has
> been pleased to favour me: -- "These infant numbers contain the seeds of
> those propensities which through his life so strongly marked his
character,
> of that poetick talent which afterwards bore such rich and plentiful
fruits;
> for, excepting his orthographick works, every thing which Dr. Johnson
wrote
> was Poetry, whose essence consists not in numbers, or in jingle, but in
the
> strength and glow of a fancy, to which all the stores of nature and of art
> stand in prompt administration; and in an eloquence which conveys their
> blended illustrations in a language, 'more tuneable than needs or rhyme or
> verse to add more harmony.' "The above little verses also shew that
> superstitious bias which 'grew with his growth, and strengthened with his
> strength,' and, of late years particularly, injured his happiness, by
> presenting to him the gloomy side of religion, rather than that bright and
> cheering one which gilds the period of closing life with the light of
pious
> hope." This is so beautifully imagined, that I would not suppress it. But,
> like many other theories, it is deduced from a supposed fact, which is,
> indeed, a fiction.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2003 02:46:15 +1000
> From: jbor <jbor@bigpond.com>
> Subject: Pynchon and Nabokov at Cornell
>
> on 12/7/03 1:03 AM, Malignd wrote:
>
> > I mentioned about two weeks ago that Vera said she
> > remembered TP's handwriting and said in that post that
> > this was anecdotal and that I thought it had been
> > challenged. But I can't verify one way or another.
>
> That Pynchon took Nabokov's course or sat in on some of the lectures is
> repeated in several critical sources (eg. Winston 1975, Chambers 1992). It
> would be hard to imagine that Pynchon avoided going to hear N's lectures,
> which were open to all comers and often overflowed, even if he never
> actually enrolled in N's course.
>
> Don't know for sure about the Vera N. anecdote, but if she did say she
> remembered P's handwriting, and his handwriting is actually as she
described
> it, then that's pretty conclusive for mine. (How else would she know what
> his handwriting was like? And why would she even have mentioned it?) I
think
> the question is whether or not she ever actually said this (I remember
> reading the report at the Pynchon Files site, and I have a vague
> recollection of seeing it somewhere else as well), rather than whether she
> was telling the truth about it.
>
> Even without the obvious stylistic and thematic resonances, there are
overt
> references to _Lolita_ (in _Lot 49_) and Nabokov (in the _SL_ 'Intro').
>
> best
>
>.
>
> Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2003 10:05:49 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Malignd <malignd@[omitted]>
> Subject: RE: Creative Freedom in Nabby and the Pynch
> To: pynchon-l@[omitted]
>
> <<Very nice, that last bit. Thanks for the fragments.
> Is N on record anywhere with an opinion of P in
> particular?>>
>
> I believe not. He was asked at least once about
> Pynchon and Barth and others who might be seen as
> writers he had influenced, but claimed not to be
> familiar with their writing; nor did he, when asked,
> remember Pynchon from Cornell.
>
> Vera (in an account that, I believe, has been
> challenged) remembered Pynchon's handwriting (from
> Cornell) as a combination of written and printed
> letters.
>
> *****
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 12:45:52 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Kevin Troy <kevin@useless.net>
> Subject: for pete's sake
>
> "Man, what happened to you? We used to be _beautiful_ together."
> - --Sam Jackson's character in _Jackie Brown_
>
> I've been taking notes and doing research for several short notes -- or
> maybe it will turn out to be one or two mid-length papers -- on PF and
> Pynchon. For example, I'd like to examine the connections between
> paranoia and gnosticism in PF, Lot 49, and GR. I guess my approach is
> similar to the "short paper" thing Dave Marc proposed, but I don't know,
> really, because I haven't actually done it yet....
>
> But maybe I won't bother, now that the list has gone to hell.
>
> Did Nabokov influence Pynchon? You bet your sweet bippy he did. Did PF,
> specifically, influence Pynchon, in a way that is evident in his works?
> Gee, I'd like to find out. If that question is the general hypothosis of
> the NPPF (it is for me, at least, your mileage may vary) then obviously
> the first phase of the NPPF should be exploratory: before demonstrating
> or proving any PF-Pynch connection, one has to get a sense of PF and the
> criticism surrounding it.
>
> What Doug and (I'm surprised to find) Tim have been doing in the last few
> days is the e-mail of equivalent of poking someone on the shoulder every
> five minutes, asking "are we there yet? Have we reached the Radiant Hour?
> Huh? Huh?" This, Tim, alienates me, your friendly neighborhood
> semi-lurker, far more than the prospect of an NP book being seriously and
> systematically analyzed on pynchon-l.
>
> Pynchon-l has the opportunity to do something really great. We (by which
> I mean "you suckers") have a choice of either
>
> a) Taking up the challenge and conducting simultaneous group reads of two
> well-crafted and difficult books, each of which has different merits, or
> b) Kicking and screaming like a bunch of infants.
>
> Your choice, kids.
>
> Bye,
> Kevin T.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 13:10:24 -0400
> From: Terrance <lycidas2@earthlink.net>
> Subject: Re: Pynchon and Nabokov at Cornell
>
> It's actually quite easy for me to imagine P attending Cornell and
> never meeting VN. This sort of thing happens.
>
>
> Sam Shoe: So, where did you go?
> Jim Been: Ah, Cornell.
> Sam Shoe: What did you major in?
> Jim Been: English.
> Sam Shoe: So, did you take anything with Nar boe cough?
> Jim Been: Nope, never even seen him on the campus. My roommate used to
> try to drag me over to check out one of his lectures, but like, I was
> busy. Know what I mean?
> Sam Shoe: So, what wuz her name?
> Jim Been: Lolita.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >
> > Even without the obvious stylistic and thematic resonances, there are
overt
> > references to _Lolita_ (in _Lot 49_) and Nabokov (in the _SL_ 'Intro').
> >
> > best
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 13:17:07 -0400
> From: Terrance <lycidas2@earthlink.net>
> Subject: Re: for Kevin's sake
>
> For Kevin's sake Kevin, get back to work.
>
> What boots it with incessant CARE to
> get off your high horse and stare
> at Arcite and Palamon knee deep in bloody words?
>
> Bother. Oh Bother, Pooh Bear. Care Bear. Smarter than the average P-list
> Bear out there. Pleaze and pretty please and gobs and goops of flying
> elephants and fairy-tales dust down on my knees pleeeeeeze, for Kevin's
> sake please ..... work, my man, work.
>
>
>
>
> Kevin Troy wrote:
> >
> > "Man, what happened to you? We used to be _beautiful_ together."
> > --Sam Jackson's character in _Jackie Brown_
> >
> > I've been taking notes and doing research for several short notes -- or
> > maybe it will turn out to be one or two mid-length papers -- on PF and
> > Pynchon. For example, I'd like to examine the connections between
> > paranoia and gnosticism in PF, Lot 49, and GR. I guess my approach is
> > similar to the "short paper" thing Dave Marc proposed, but I don't know,
> > really, because I haven't actually done it yet....
> >
> > But maybe I won't bother, now that the list has gone to hell.
> >
> > Did Nabokov influence Pynchon? You bet your sweet bippy he did. Did
PF,
> > specifically, influence Pynchon, in a way that is evident in his works?
> > Gee, I'd like to find out. If that question is the general hypothosis
of
> > the NPPF (it is for me, at least, your mileage may vary) then obviously
> > the first phase of the NPPF should be exploratory: before demonstrating
> > or proving any PF-Pynch connection, one has to get a sense of PF and the
> > criticism surrounding it.
> >
> > What Doug and (I'm surprised to find) Tim have been doing in the last
few
> > days is the e-mail of equivalent of poking someone on the shoulder every
> > five minutes, asking "are we there yet? Have we reached the Radiant
Hour?
> > Huh? Huh?" This, Tim, alienates me, your friendly neighborhood
> > semi-lurker, far more than the prospect of an NP book being seriously
and
> > systematically analyzed on pynchon-l.
> >
> > Pynchon-l has the opportunity to do something really great. We (by
which
> > I mean "you suckers") have a choice of either
> >
> > a) Taking up the challenge and conducting simultaneous group reads of
two
> > well-crafted and difficult books, each of which has different merits, or
> > b) Kicking and screaming like a bunch of infants.
> >
> > Your choice, kids.
> >
> > Bye,
> > Kevin T.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> End of pynchon-l-digest V2 #3392
> ********************************
>
From: "pynchon-l-digest" <owner-pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
>
> pynchon-l-digest Friday, July 11 2003 Volume 02 : Number
3392
>>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 10:25:02 -0400
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <jasper@hatguild.org>
> Subject: RE: NPPF Preliminary - Jasper Fidget
>
> >
>
> I've just posted something related to the discovery and creation of
meaning
> in Pale Fire -- albeit brief for such an extensive subject. I think
> Kinbote's paranoia might have something to do with it, so in order to both
> advance our discussion and to help calm the list down a bit, maybe it
would
> be useful to discuss the presence and function of paranoia in Pynchon's
work
> in order to relate those ideas to VN (and, as we read, back to Pynchon).
>
> ------------------------------
>
>> By the way, I'm not advocating a Pale Fire discussion
> boycott -- instead, I encourage the discussants to
> refocus the discussion to include Pynchon.
>
>
>
>
> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 07:35:20 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Preliminary: Chance Inn Log Cabin
>
> >>>There is also the matter of where Kinbote is, holed up
> outside an amusement park. <<<
>
> Although later he says he is in a log cabin and that the noise was not
from
> an amusement park but from camping tourists. (p.235)
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 10:38:29 -0400
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <jasper@hatguild.org>
> Subject: RE: NPPF Preliminary - Jasper Fidget
>
>>
> On Behalf of jbor:
>
> > on 11/7/03 12:56 PM, s~Z wrote:
> >
> > > Historian Thomas Macaulay (1800-1859) called Boswell's worship of Dr.
> > > Johnson "Lues Boswelliana, or disease of admiration."
> >
> > Pynchon's satiric depiction of the relationship between Boswell and
> > Johnson
> > in _M&D_ has some affinities with the similarly satiric purport of
> > Nabokov's
> > chosen epigraph. There are also similarities in the parodic mirroring of
> > Boswell and Johnson in Kinbote and Shade, and in Cherrycoke and M & D.
> >
> > 718.4 Some horrible Boswell pursues them, asking questions.
> >
> > 746.1 " ... he intends to go to the Hebrides, to the furthest Isle ... "
> >
> > 747.21 "I had my Boswell, once," Mason tells Boswell, "Dixon and I. We
> > had a joint Boswell. Preacher nam'd Cherrycoke. Scribbling
everything
> > down, just like you, Sir. Have you," twirling his Hand in
Ellipses,--
> > "you know, ever...had one yourself? If I'm not prying."
> > "Had one what?"
> > "Hum...a Boswell, Sir,-- I mean, of your own. Well you couldn't
> > very well call him that, being one yourself,-- say, a sort of Shadow
> > ever in the Room who has haunted you, preserving your ev'ry spoken
> > remark,-- "
> >
> > best
> >
>
>
> Another potentially fruitful line to follow is the one Rob started with
the
> three pairs of Shade/Kinbote, Johnson/Boswell, Mason/Dixon (not quite
> parallel but mirrors nonetheless). Why do we write biographies in the
first
> place? In what ways does it serve the biographer to produce commentary on
> another? How does recording the subject of human being(s) differ from
that
> of the natural world (hunting butterflies for instance, or mapping
terrain),
> and that of writing criticism for works of literature? Is this the role
of
> one who is essentially *outside* that world (paring his nails), of one who
> fundamentally wants to be *in* that world, or of one who must already be
> part of it? (Just brainstorming really, but anyway....)
>
> ------------------------------
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 08:02:51 -0700 (PDT)
> From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> - --- Malignd <malignd@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > I had forgotten (and was corrected by Jaspar) that Kinbote had access to
at
> least some part of Boswell's Johnson; I don't think that can be assumed of
no
> consequence.
>
> I'm sure you're right.
>
> I've not read it, but here is the complete text online:
>
> http://newark.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/BLJ/
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
> http://sbc.yahoo.com
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 08:03:43 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Malignd <malignd@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: Vera's Veracity
>
> <<Has there ever been verification that Pynchon even
> took a course from Nabokov? I thought there had been
> some research debunking the Vera anecdote. >>
>
> I mentioned about two weeks ago that Vera said she
> remembered TP's handwriting and said in that post that
> this was anecdotal and that I thought it had been
> challenged. But I can't verify one way or another.
>
> __________________________________
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 11:19:46 -0400
> From: The Great Quail <quail@libyrinth.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Preliminary - biography
>
> Jasper asks,
>
> > Why do we write biographies in the first
> > place?
>
> Because, generally speaking, nothing in the world is more interesting than
> human beings. Obsessions such as butterfly collecting and hunting may not
be
> very interesting in themselves, but their actual manifestation in another
> person, that interests us. We are fascinated by the obsessed, and we are
> fascinated by those who we find "greater" or "different," for good or bad.
> Most people find Einstein more fascinating than the photoelectric effect,
> most people find Nixon more fascinating than his actual policies. In
> biography, stories are told about another person, by another person, and
> read by a third person. Other people are distorted mirrors.
>
> I speak in generalities, and I understand that artists and writers exert a
> different kind of fascination through their very act of expression,
turning
> private into public. And yet still we want to biograph, to chronicle, to
> comment. To create an axis between our story and their story.
>
> Shade's poem is more interesting because of Kinbote's misreadings;
Kinbote's
> insanity is more interesting because of its relationship to Shade. They
are
> both more interesting because they are creations of Nabokov. And Nabokov
has
> become more interesting, at least right now, because we are all discussing
> him.
>
> Just brainstorming too, lots and lots of coffee this morning, so forgive
if
> this all seems off the cuff,
>
> - --Quail
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 08:20:34 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> Anyone have access to any of these?
>
> de Vries, Gerard. "Pale Fire and The Life of Johnson: The Case of Hodge
and
> Mystery Lodge." The Nabokovian, Spring 1991, 26, pp. 44-49.
>
> Morris, Matthew Charles Evans. Parody in Pale Fire: A Re-Reading of
> Boswell's Life of Johnson. Ph.D. thesis, University of North Carolina at
> Greensboro, 1996.
>
> Stewart, Maaja A. "Nabokov's Pale Fire and Boswell's Johnson." Texas
Studies
> in Literature and Language (Austin, TX), Summer 1988, 30:2, pp. 230- 245.
>
> ------------------------------
> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 08:32:31 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Malignd <malignd@yahoo.com>
> Subject: RE: NPPF Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> <<Now, what was that you were saying about the P-list
> never discussing, before yesterday, the Nabokovs'
> response to queries about Pynchon being his student?>>
>
> I said nothing of the kind. And wouldn't have, since
> I had recently posted on the topic myself. What I
> said was that you remembered wrongly. Which you did.
> You said:
>
> <<So, a rumor that was disavowed by Nabokov himself
> ....>>
>
> VN didn't disavow the rumor; he said he didn't recall
> Pynchon. Vera, however, said she did.
>
> As I posted on June 16:
>
> <<Vera (in an account that, I believe, has been
> challenged) remembered Pynchon's handwriting (from
> Cornell) as a combination of written and printed
> letters.>>
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
> http://sbc.yahoo.com
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 08:48:22 -0700 (PDT)
> From: pynchonoid <pynchonoid@yahoo.com>
> Subject: RE: NPPF Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> - --- Malignd <malignd@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > VN didn't disavow the rumor; he said he didn't
> > recall
> > Pynchon. Vera, however, said she did.
>
> And this -- whether or not Pynchon took a class with
> Nabokov, whether Nabokov remembered him and what he
> said about it later, and what Vera remembered -- has
> all been discussed on Pynchon-L several times before
> (beginning in '95), as I noted, and which you denied:
>
> Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 16:56:25 -0700 (PDT)
> From: pynchonoid <pynchonoid@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Pynchon in Nabokov's class discussed on
> P-list before?
>
> pynchonoid:
> > That's what I recall being posted to Pynchon-L
> > some time ago, in the
> > > context of a discussion about Pynchon.
>
> - - --- MalignD@aol.com wrote:
> > Well, you recalled it wrong, dumb-dumb.
>
>
> You would appear to be mistaken, my trash-talking
> friend:
>
>
<http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=9504&msg=1152&keywords=Nabokov>
>
> 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
> To: bickman@[omitted]
> Cc: pynchon-l@[omitted]
>
>
> 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
>
> - ---
>
> ..... Quite breathtaking, really, your disregard for
> simple fact. But an intellectual dishonesty that
> you've demonstrated again and again here.
>
>
> Duffy
>
>
>
> =====
> <http://www.pynchonoid.org/>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
> http://sbc.yahoo.com
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 08:57:49 -0700 (PDT)
> From: pynchonoid <pynchonoid@yahoo.com>
> Subject: formatting correction RE: NPPF Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> - --- pynchonoid <pynchonoid@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > --- Malignd <malignd@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > VN didn't disavow the rumor; he said he didn't
> > > recall
> > > Pynchon. Vera, however, said she did.
> >
> > And this -- whether or not Pynchon took a class with
> > Nabokov, whether Nabokov remembered him and what he
> > said about it later, and what Vera remembered -- has
> > all been discussed on Pynchon-L several times before
> > (beginning in '95), as I noted, and which you
> > denied:
> >
> > Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 16:56:25 -0700 (PDT)
> > From: pynchonoid <pynchonoid@yahoo.com>
> > Subject: Pynchon in Nabokov's class discussed on
> > P-list before?
> >
> > pynchonoid:
> > > That's what I recall being posted to Pynchon-L
> > > some time ago, in the
> > > > context of a discussion about Pynchon.
> > >
> >
>
<http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=9504&msg=1152&keywords=Nabokov>
> >
> > 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
> > To: bickman@[omitted]
> > Cc: pynchon-l@[omitted]
> >
> >
> > 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
> > ---
> >
> pynchonoid:
> > .... Quite breathtaking, really, your disregard for
> > simple fact. But an intellectual dishonesty that
> > you've demonstrated again and again here.
> >
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
> http://sbc.yahoo.com
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 12:04:11 -0400
> From: Terrance <lycidas2@earthlink.net>
> Subject: re: Who Cares about a Punch & Judy Pathos?
>
> In The Carrick" and in "The Metamorphosis" there is a central figure
> endowed with a certain amount of human pathos among grotesque, heartless
> characters, figures of fun or figures of horror, asses parading as
> zebras, or hybrids between rabbits and rats. In "The Carrick" the human
> quality of the central figure is of a different type from Gregor in
> Kafka's story, but this human pathetic quality is present in both. In
> "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" there is no such human pathos, no throb in the
> throat
> of the story, none of that intonation of "'I cannot get out, I cannot
> get out,' said the starling" (so heartrending in Sterne's fantasy A
> Sentimental Journey). True, Stevenson devotes many pages to the horror
> of Jekyll's plight, but the thing, after all, is only a superb
> Punch-and-Judy show. The beauty of Kafka's and Gogol's private
> nightmares is that their central human characters belong to the same
> private fantastic world as the inhuman characters around them, but the
> central one tries to get out of
> that world, to cast off the mask, to transcend the cloak or the
> carapace. But in Stevenson's story there is none of that unity and none
> of that contrast. The Uttersons, and Pooles, and Enfields are meant to
> be commonplace, everyday characters; actually they are characters
> derived from Dickens, and thus they constitute phantasms that do not
> quite belong to Stevenson's own artistic reality, just as Stevenson's
> fog comes from a Dickensian studio to envelop a conventional London. I
> suggest, in
> fact, that Jekyll's magic drug is more real than Utterson's life. The
> fantastic Jekyll-and-Hyde theme, on the other hand, is supposed to be in
> contrast to this conventional London, but it is really the difference
> between a Gothic medieval theme and a Dickensian one. It is not the
> same kind of difference as that between an absurd world and pathetically
> absurd Bashmachkin, or between an absurd world and tragically absurd
> Gregor.
>
> The Jekyll-and-Hyde theme does not quite form a unity with its setting
> because its fantasy is of a different type from the fantasy of the
> setting. There is really nothing especially pathetic or tragic about
> Jekyll. We enjoy every detail of the marvelous juggling, of the
> beautiful trick, but there is no artistic emotional throb involved, and
> whether it is Jekyll or Hyde who gets the upper hand remains of supreme
> indifference to the good reader. I am speaking of rather nice
> distinctions, and it is difficult to
> put them in simple form. When a certain clear-thinking but somewhat
> superficial French philosopher asked the profound but obscure German
> philosopher Hegel to state his views in a concise form, Hegel answered
> him harshly, "These things can be discussed neither concisely nor in
> French." We shall ignore the question whether Hegel was right or not,
> and still try to put into a nutshell the difference between the
> Gogol-Kafka kind of story and Stevenson's kind.
>
> In Gogol and Kafka the absurd central character belongs to the absurd
> world around him but, pathetically and tragically, attempts to struggle
> out of it into the world of humans≈and dies in despair. In Stevenson
> the unreal central character belongs to a brand of unreality different
> from that of the world around him. He is a Gothic character in a
> Dickensian setting, and when he struggles and then dies, his fate
> possesses only conventional pathos. I do not at all mean that
> Stevenson's story is a
> failure. No, it is a minor masterpiece in its own conventional terms,
> but it has only two dimensions, whereas the Gogol-Kafka stories have
> five or six.
>
> http://www.monica.com.br/mauricio/cronicas/cron141.htm
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 09:08:08 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Malignd <malignd@yahoo.com>
> Subject: RE: NPPF Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> <<And this -- whether or not Pynchon took a class with
> Nabokov, whether Nabokov remembered him and what he
> said about it later, and what Vera remembered -- has
> all been discussed on Pynchon-L several times before
> (beginning in '95), as I noted, and which you
> denied.>>
>
> You're out of your mind. I discussed it myself.
>
> I said "you recalled it wrong." And you did. VN
> didn't "disavow" any rumors. Try reading what you
> post.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 09:08:09 -0700 (PDT)
> From: pynchonoid <pynchonoid@yahoo.com>
> Subject: new ACLU report & Pynchon re D
>
> ------------------------------
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2003 02:19:53 +1000
> From: jbor <jbor@bigpond.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> on 11/7/03 10:12 PM, Malignd wrote:
>
> >> There is also the matter of where Kinbote is, holed up
> >> outside an amusement park. His having access to
> >> Boswell's Life of Johnson is unlikely, as is his
> >> having such a quote committed to memory.
>
> on 11/7/03 11:33 PM, Jasper Fidget wrote:
>
> > C. 172 (p. 154): "In a black pocketbook that I fortunately have with me
I
> > find, jotted down, here and there, among various extracts that had
happened
> > to please me (a footnote from Boswell's Life of Dr. Johnson[...])"
> >
> > It's not direct evidence linking the epigraph to Kinbote, but it allows
for
> > the possibility. It may be that this is the *only* part of Life of
Johnson
> > that Kinbote possesses -- why he has it is another question.
>
> on 11/7/03 11:55 PM, Malignd wrote:
>
> > I stand corrected.
>
> Ah, but is the extract used for the novel's Epigraph actually in "a
> footnote" in Boswell's _Life of Dr Johnson_? If it had been, then that
would
> pretty much confirm the Kinbote hypothesis re. the Epigraph. But it isn't.
>
> The fact that Kinbote cites the actual lines from Shakespeare's _Timon_
but
> misses the derivation of Shade's poem's title in them because it's a
> "Zemblan" translation of the play he possesses ("Commentary: Lines 39-40")
> makes me think this might similarly be a red herring. (And, it gives pause
> to wonder which actual footnote from Boswell's _Life_ he might have
written
> down in that pocketbook of his.)
>
> best
>
> ------------------------------
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 09:33:17 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> >>> (And, it gives pause
> to wonder which actual footnote from Boswell's _Life_ he might have
written
> down in that pocketbook of his.) <<<
>
> 6. This anecdote of the duck, though disproved by internal and external
> evidence, has nevertheless, upon supposition of its truth, been made the
> foundation of the following ingenious and fanciful reflections of Miss
> Seward, amongst the communications concerning Dr. Johnson with which she
has
> been pleased to favour me: -- "These infant numbers contain the seeds of
> those propensities which through his life so strongly marked his
character,
> of that poetick talent which afterwards bore such rich and plentiful
fruits;
> for, excepting his orthographick works, every thing which Dr. Johnson
wrote
> was Poetry, whose essence consists not in numbers, or in jingle, but in
the
> strength and glow of a fancy, to which all the stores of nature and of art
> stand in prompt administration; and in an eloquence which conveys their
> blended illustrations in a language, 'more tuneable than needs or rhyme or
> verse to add more harmony.' "The above little verses also shew that
> superstitious bias which 'grew with his growth, and strengthened with his
> strength,' and, of late years particularly, injured his happiness, by
> presenting to him the gloomy side of religion, rather than that bright and
> cheering one which gilds the period of closing life with the light of
pious
> hope." This is so beautifully imagined, that I would not suppress it. But,
> like many other theories, it is deduced from a supposed fact, which is,
> indeed, a fiction.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2003 02:46:15 +1000
> From: jbor <jbor@bigpond.com>
> Subject: Pynchon and Nabokov at Cornell
>
> on 12/7/03 1:03 AM, Malignd wrote:
>
> > I mentioned about two weeks ago that Vera said she
> > remembered TP's handwriting and said in that post that
> > this was anecdotal and that I thought it had been
> > challenged. But I can't verify one way or another.
>
> That Pynchon took Nabokov's course or sat in on some of the lectures is
> repeated in several critical sources (eg. Winston 1975, Chambers 1992). It
> would be hard to imagine that Pynchon avoided going to hear N's lectures,
> which were open to all comers and often overflowed, even if he never
> actually enrolled in N's course.
>
> Don't know for sure about the Vera N. anecdote, but if she did say she
> remembered P's handwriting, and his handwriting is actually as she
described
> it, then that's pretty conclusive for mine. (How else would she know what
> his handwriting was like? And why would she even have mentioned it?) I
think
> the question is whether or not she ever actually said this (I remember
> reading the report at the Pynchon Files site, and I have a vague
> recollection of seeing it somewhere else as well), rather than whether she
> was telling the truth about it.
>
> Even without the obvious stylistic and thematic resonances, there are
overt
> references to _Lolita_ (in _Lot 49_) and Nabokov (in the _SL_ 'Intro').
>
> best
>
>.
>
> Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2003 10:05:49 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Malignd <malignd@[omitted]>
> Subject: RE: Creative Freedom in Nabby and the Pynch
> To: pynchon-l@[omitted]
>
> <<Very nice, that last bit. Thanks for the fragments.
> Is N on record anywhere with an opinion of P in
> particular?>>
>
> I believe not. He was asked at least once about
> Pynchon and Barth and others who might be seen as
> writers he had influenced, but claimed not to be
> familiar with their writing; nor did he, when asked,
> remember Pynchon from Cornell.
>
> Vera (in an account that, I believe, has been
> challenged) remembered Pynchon's handwriting (from
> Cornell) as a combination of written and printed
> letters.
>
> *****
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 12:45:52 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Kevin Troy <kevin@useless.net>
> Subject: for pete's sake
>
> "Man, what happened to you? We used to be _beautiful_ together."
> - --Sam Jackson's character in _Jackie Brown_
>
> I've been taking notes and doing research for several short notes -- or
> maybe it will turn out to be one or two mid-length papers -- on PF and
> Pynchon. For example, I'd like to examine the connections between
> paranoia and gnosticism in PF, Lot 49, and GR. I guess my approach is
> similar to the "short paper" thing Dave Marc proposed, but I don't know,
> really, because I haven't actually done it yet....
>
> But maybe I won't bother, now that the list has gone to hell.
>
> Did Nabokov influence Pynchon? You bet your sweet bippy he did. Did PF,
> specifically, influence Pynchon, in a way that is evident in his works?
> Gee, I'd like to find out. If that question is the general hypothosis of
> the NPPF (it is for me, at least, your mileage may vary) then obviously
> the first phase of the NPPF should be exploratory: before demonstrating
> or proving any PF-Pynch connection, one has to get a sense of PF and the
> criticism surrounding it.
>
> What Doug and (I'm surprised to find) Tim have been doing in the last few
> days is the e-mail of equivalent of poking someone on the shoulder every
> five minutes, asking "are we there yet? Have we reached the Radiant Hour?
> Huh? Huh?" This, Tim, alienates me, your friendly neighborhood
> semi-lurker, far more than the prospect of an NP book being seriously and
> systematically analyzed on pynchon-l.
>
> Pynchon-l has the opportunity to do something really great. We (by which
> I mean "you suckers") have a choice of either
>
> a) Taking up the challenge and conducting simultaneous group reads of two
> well-crafted and difficult books, each of which has different merits, or
> b) Kicking and screaming like a bunch of infants.
>
> Your choice, kids.
>
> Bye,
> Kevin T.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 13:10:24 -0400
> From: Terrance <lycidas2@earthlink.net>
> Subject: Re: Pynchon and Nabokov at Cornell
>
> It's actually quite easy for me to imagine P attending Cornell and
> never meeting VN. This sort of thing happens.
>
>
> Sam Shoe: So, where did you go?
> Jim Been: Ah, Cornell.
> Sam Shoe: What did you major in?
> Jim Been: English.
> Sam Shoe: So, did you take anything with Nar boe cough?
> Jim Been: Nope, never even seen him on the campus. My roommate used to
> try to drag me over to check out one of his lectures, but like, I was
> busy. Know what I mean?
> Sam Shoe: So, what wuz her name?
> Jim Been: Lolita.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >
> > Even without the obvious stylistic and thematic resonances, there are
overt
> > references to _Lolita_ (in _Lot 49_) and Nabokov (in the _SL_ 'Intro').
> >
> > best
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 13:17:07 -0400
> From: Terrance <lycidas2@earthlink.net>
> Subject: Re: for Kevin's sake
>
> For Kevin's sake Kevin, get back to work.
>
> What boots it with incessant CARE to
> get off your high horse and stare
> at Arcite and Palamon knee deep in bloody words?
>
> Bother. Oh Bother, Pooh Bear. Care Bear. Smarter than the average P-list
> Bear out there. Pleaze and pretty please and gobs and goops of flying
> elephants and fairy-tales dust down on my knees pleeeeeeze, for Kevin's
> sake please ..... work, my man, work.
>
>
>
>
> Kevin Troy wrote:
> >
> > "Man, what happened to you? We used to be _beautiful_ together."
> > --Sam Jackson's character in _Jackie Brown_
> >
> > I've been taking notes and doing research for several short notes -- or
> > maybe it will turn out to be one or two mid-length papers -- on PF and
> > Pynchon. For example, I'd like to examine the connections between
> > paranoia and gnosticism in PF, Lot 49, and GR. I guess my approach is
> > similar to the "short paper" thing Dave Marc proposed, but I don't know,
> > really, because I haven't actually done it yet....
> >
> > But maybe I won't bother, now that the list has gone to hell.
> >
> > Did Nabokov influence Pynchon? You bet your sweet bippy he did. Did
PF,
> > specifically, influence Pynchon, in a way that is evident in his works?
> > Gee, I'd like to find out. If that question is the general hypothosis
of
> > the NPPF (it is for me, at least, your mileage may vary) then obviously
> > the first phase of the NPPF should be exploratory: before demonstrating
> > or proving any PF-Pynch connection, one has to get a sense of PF and the
> > criticism surrounding it.
> >
> > What Doug and (I'm surprised to find) Tim have been doing in the last
few
> > days is the e-mail of equivalent of poking someone on the shoulder every
> > five minutes, asking "are we there yet? Have we reached the Radiant
Hour?
> > Huh? Huh?" This, Tim, alienates me, your friendly neighborhood
> > semi-lurker, far more than the prospect of an NP book being seriously
and
> > systematically analyzed on pynchon-l.
> >
> > Pynchon-l has the opportunity to do something really great. We (by
which
> > I mean "you suckers") have a choice of either
> >
> > a) Taking up the challenge and conducting simultaneous group reads of
two
> > well-crafted and difficult books, each of which has different merits, or
> > b) Kicking and screaming like a bunch of infants.
> >
> > Your choice, kids.
> >
> > Bye,
> > Kevin T.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> End of pynchon-l-digest V2 #3392
> ********************************
>