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----- Original Message -----
From: "pynchon-l-digest" <owner-pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
To: <pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2003 7:19 AM
Subject: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3412
>
> pynchon-l-digest Tuesday, July 15 2003 Volume 02 : Number
3412
> Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 05:15:23 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Malignd <malignd@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF - Foreword - Notes (1)
>
> <<I'm not arguing that the college and town aren't
> modeled on Cornell and Ithaca, but why the elaborate
> dodge to direct our attention elsewhere?>>
>
> My guess on this is that all the pertinent places and
> place names (Cedarn, Utana) are fictional so that the
> possibility that Zembla might be other than something
> imagined by Kinbote, can't be disqualified on that
> basis; i.e., as the only made-up place (name) in the
> novel.
>
>
> > ------------------------------
>
> From: Malignd <malignd@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> <<I find it difficult to believe that Shade would
> intentionally write a "second-rate" poem (and it's not
> so much a question of it being "second-rate", which is
> a subjective call made by the reader, as it is of him
> composing and presenting such a mix of ridiculous,
> banal and apparently tragic personal material in this
> manner), certainly not one in this style, of this
> length, and on these subjects and themes. That Nabokov
> has him write it makes all the difference.>>
>
> I get your point, but calling it "a mix of ridiculous,
> banal and apparently tragic personal material" is
> certainly a "subjective call." So I think your point
> still rests on your particular evaluation of the poem.
> I think an objective standard will be, always,
> elusive. Part of the problem, part of the fun.
>
> <<I don't think it's a matter of the quality of
> the poem being "inversely proportional" at all.>>
>
> This was just a rough way of paraphrasing what you're
> saying; Nabokov's satirization of Shade will be at the
> expense of the poem, as considered as Shade's; the
> better the satire, the worse for Shade.
>
> <<There's one other point you've made which I'd
> contest. You wrote of --
>
> "... the membrane between Nabokov's novel and the
> artifact that it contains (and that happens, the
> artifact, to coincide word for word with the entirety
> of Nabokov's novel)."
>
> I don't think this is correct. Nabokov's novel
> incorporates a dedication to VИra, his wife, and
> (arguably, at least) the Epigraph from Boswell's _Life
> of Samuel Johnson_, which are outside "the artifact
> that it contains".>>
>
> True enough.
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 05:39:58 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Malignd <malignd@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> <<Sure (except, to make this point, you, or Rorty,
> *are* mulling over and worrying about it). The fact
> that he's a bond trader doesn't automatically preclude
> him from having a way with descriptive adjectives,
> adverbs and imagery, of course.>>
>
> Well, yes, it's possible, of course, that there are
> bond traders who write like Fitzgerald, but if a
> reader or if Fitzgerald brings that into the novel, it
> becomes the single most interesting thing about the
> novel. Who's this bland chap nextdoor who writes so
> well? Why's he mucking about trading bonds? And yes,
> Rorty and I are mulling it, but so what? The point is
> still the same: Fitzgerald is not intending that
> Carraway be framed by the reader as someone who writes
> like a poet, who is wasting his life on Wall Street.
>
> <<But Pale Fire is a book in part about writers and
> the quality of their writing, and so a good reader
> doesn't so readily suspend disbelief when he notices
> that the mad Kinbote writes like Nabokov.
>
> <<But a "bad" reader does?!>>
>
> I wouldn't say one who misses this is a "bad" reader.
> I'd say he misses something crucial.
>
> <<Is Kinbote totally "mad", or just occasionally
> deluded? (Eg. How would he have kept his job at
> Wordsmith if altogether insane?) This aside, many
> great artists and writers were cot-cases. And, does he
> really write exactly "like Nabokov"? There are quite a
> few assumptions made in this and I'm still not sure
> that I see it as a valid argument.>>
>
> Whether or not he's "mad" is not crucial to my point;
> let's say he isn't. There's still the fact that he
> writes very well and, yes, I'd say "like Nabokov" and
> that fact seems relevant and inescapable in
> considering the question of internal authorship, even
> if one's conclusion is to discard the idea that one
> wrote the other.
>
>
>
> Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 05:44:28 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Malignd <malignd@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF - Foreword - Summary / Commentary (3)
>
> <<..."the galleys I had been sent here" >>
>
> I.e., The galleys had been sent to me here (in
> Cedarn).
>
> I don't see this as a typo, necessarily.
>
>
>
>
> Date: 15 Jul 2003 08:47:54 -0400
> From: Paul Mackin <paul.mackin@verizon.net>
> Subject: Re: Fw: a little re-gurgitated Pynchon/Pale Fire
>
> On Mon, 2003-07-14 at 22:46, D. Barton Johnson wrote:
> > a little re-gurgitated Pynchon/Pale Fire
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Carolyn Kunin
> > To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
> > Sent: Monday, July 14, 2003 6:16 PM
> > Subject: a little re-gurgitated Pynchon/Pale Fire
> >
> >
> > To the List,
> >
> > I hadn't found the Pynchon very digestible (too much, too much!) but,
thanks to David Morris, my attention was drawn to the fact that someone
(besides me) has discovered at least some of the unpleasant facts about John
Shade's sex life. In fact he, Keith Stadlen, has gone me one better -- make
that two or three better. He recognized the sexuality in some of the lines
of the Shade poem I had missed. And I think he is right -- especially about
the fishy-honey and the pre-Jurassic.
> >
> >
> > ***
> > Doesn't the imagery of the first two Cantos suggest Aunt Maud
> > forced Shade to quench her thirst with his pure tongue? Isn't the
truth being hidden from him, not so much truth about survival after death,
but the truth that his memory has dimmed regarding being forced to orally
pleasure Aunt Maud? My favorite references are how his childish palate loved
the taste/Half-fish, half-honey, of that golden paste (nature's glue, lines>
103-5), [... my elipsis ck]
> >
> > Espied on a pine's bark.
> > As we were walking home the day she died,
> > An empty emerald case, squat and frog-eyed,
> > Hugging the trunk; and its companion piece,
> > A gum-logged ant. (235-40)
> >
> > Aunt Maud = a 'gum'-logged aunt.
> >
> > Ant = insect
> > Aunt = incest
> > ***
> > Then read 139-56 as Aunt Maud molesting him as he lay on his bed
watching the clockwork toy:
> >
> > One foot on the mountaintop.
> > One hand under a panting strand.
> > dull throbs in my Triassic
> > icy shiver down my Age of Stone
> >
> > But like some little lad forced by a wench
> > With his pure tongue her abject thirst to quench,
> > I was corrupted, terrified, allured,
> > And though old doctor Colt pronounced me cured
> > Of what, he said, were mainly growing pains,
> > The wonder lingers and the shame remains.
> > ***
> > I'm beginning to wonder if the commentary isn't designed to
reinterpret the
>
> poem to protect Shade from what he perhaps unwittingly reveals about
himself
>
> and his activities in the poem. Is it possible that he was molested by
>
> Aunt Maud and then in turn molested Hazel, and that she either committed
>
> suicide because of having been molested or was killed by Shade? Brian Boyd
>
>
> sees Shade as an embodiment of sanity and propriety, so I'm probably
waxing
>
> loosely and prematurely, but what the hell.
> >
> >
> >
> > Here I think Mr Stadlen is possibly right, but probably wrong. Still he
is very right to wonder. The insect pun will be played by VN in Ada, and
aunt/ant is very good!
> >
> > Carolyn
> >
>
>
> Isn't Shade also an embodiment of excellent marital adjustment with Sybil?
>
> In other words, at least one of the conventional expectations for the
> consequence of early childhood sexual activity with an adult family
> member is not fulfilled. And good relations with Sybil would be likely
> to obviate the need for Hazel's playing a substitute role.
>
> Just thinking. No firm opinion on the matter..
>
> P.
>
> P.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 15:16:42 +0200
> From: "Otto" <ottosell@yahoo.de>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> - ----- Original Message -----
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> To: <pynchon-l@waste.org>
> Sent: Monday, July 14, 2003 4:48 AM
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> >>>Pope has always seemed the touchstone here and Rape of the Lock is a
good
> guess as to Nabokov's intended tone.<<<
>
> > And a subtitle for the poem Pale Fire could be "The Rape of the Shade"
> > couldn't it? Doesn't the imagery of the first two Cantos suggest Aunt
Maud
> > forced Shade to quench her thirst with his pure tongue? Isn't the truth
> > being hidden from him, not so much truth about survival after death,
>
> But that possibility about survival (or whatever kind of "existence" there
> may be) after death necessarily is hidden, to all of us, or not? It's a
main
> theme of the book:
>
> "Nabokov *always* stresses that any form of consciousness beyond the
mortal
> must be either nonexistent or unimaginable: anything we *can* imagine
> collapses under the absurdity of trying to transpose the conditions of
> temporality into eternity."
> (Boyd, 1999, p. 258)
>
> > but the
> > truth that his memory has dimmed regarding being forced to orally
pleasure
> > Aunt Maud? My favorite references are how his childish palate loved the
> > taste/Half-fish, half-honey, of that golden paste (nature's glue, lines
> > 103-5), -- the cryptic erotic description of lines 147-156, "How
ludicrous
> > these efforts to translate/Into one's private tongue a public fate!"
> > (lines 231-2) and
>
> > Life is a message scribbled in the dark.
> > Anonymous.
> > Espied on a pine's bark.
> > As we were walking home the day she died,
> > An empty emerald case, squat and frog-eyed,
> > Hugging the trunk; and its companion piece,
> > A gum-logged ant. (235-40)
>
> > Aunt Maud = a 'gum'-logged aunt.
> >
> > Ant = insect
> > Aunt = incest
> - --------------------------------
>
> The obvious message is that the ant is dead and the cicada has been
> metamorphosed into another/higher form of existence.
>
> The Grasshopper and the Ant
> http://www.lafontaine.net/fables/angl/01/01-01-ang.php
>
> "Here Shade boldly reverses La Fontaine's fable: while the ant is
lifeless,
> the cicada has flown away from its "empty emerald case." It still lives,
it
> can still sing its song. (...) Shade's later conviction that his
near-death
> vision of a "fountain" provides some kind of clue to death proves an
> illusion, and leads him to his artistic motto, "not text, but texture."
The
> direct message that the "fountain" seems to offer is wrong, and so, he
> claims here, with his customary structural stealth, is La Fontaine
(French,
> of course, for "fountain"). Yet his reversal of La Fontaine, his implicit
> affirmation of survival after death (...) is itself only text, not
texture."
> (Boyd, 1999, 189/90)
>
> "Life Everlasting-based on a misprint!" (803)
>
> Your interpretation is very daring, Keith. I'm really impressed and I
think
> it shouldn't be dismissed too easily. Boyd's "theory" is daring as well,
but
> it explains the correspondences between poem and commentary, something
which
> yours does not. Your clues are all from the poem.
>
> > >>>I will leave myself open to other theories that Kinbote is
> > Botkin, or that Shade wrote the whole thing and invented the deposed
king,
> > or that Shade is Kinbote's, uh, ghostwriter.<<<
> >
>
> I'm sure Boyd would love the expression "ghostwriter" but what do you mean
> by it?
>
> >
> > I'm beginning to wonder if the commentary isn't designed to reinterpret
> < the
> > poem to protect Shade from what he perhaps unwittingly reveals about
> > himself
> > and his activities in the poem. Is it possible that he was molested by
> > Aunt
> > Maud and then in turn molested Hazel, and that she either committed
> > suicide
> > because of having been molested or was killed by Shade? Brian Boyd sees
> > Shade as an embodiment of sanity and propriety, so I'm probably waxing
> > loosely and prematurely, but what the hell.
> >
>
> . . .But that I am forbid
> To tell the secrets of my prison-house
> I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
> Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood. . .
> Hamlet, I, v, 13-16
>
> "(...) Suspense is by definition a state that cannot be resolved, a field
of
> force that vanishes once the unknown becomes the known."
> (Douglas Fowler: "A Reader's Guide to Gravity's Rainbow," Ann Arbor,
> Michigan, 1980, p. 13)
>
> Anybody got this? I bet it would be helpful:
> Douglas Fowler: "Reading Nabokov," Cornell University Press, October 1974.
>
> Otto
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 23:20:11 +1000
> From: jbor <jbor@bigpond.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Foreword: "your favorite"
>
> >>>> the odd and
> >>>> inexplicable "your favorite"
> >>>
> >>> I find it to be a bit of anticipatory sarcasm, given K's later
comments on
> >>> that Canto....
> >
> >> And the use of the second person? Who is the "you" being addressed?
> >
> > The Gentle Reader of futurity....
>
> Isn't there a point in the Commentary where Kinbote notes, albeit
> demurringly, that Shade thought most highly of Canto Two? Or am I
> misremembering? I have the impression that Kinbote is apostrophising Shade
> with this "your favorite" remark. It is definitely an anomaly though (and
I
> can imagine it's one of those "signifiers" which the Shadeans, and the
> Shade's shadeans, have latched onto.)
>
> best
>
> ------------------------------
>
> >
> > Now in rereading, I notice quite a few examples of missed communication
in
> > the chapter, ranging from the note left for Zoyd from Prairie, to the
> > telephone call he receives regarding his "rescheduled" window jumping
> > performance. Of course, the "You'll see" conversation with Slide, the
Log
> > Jam onlookers' perception that Zoyd's name is "CHERYL," the Log Jam/Cuke
> > Lounge mishap, the "Blind-Side Gazette," the candy sheet window
incident -
> > - all contribute to the overall sense of missing the true meaning of the
> > reality at hand.
> >
> > Do Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune add to this motif? How?
> >
> > How does the motif of "missed communications" (or miscommunication)
> > function in Chapter One of Vineland in a variety of ways? Is there a
> > pattern to the examples?
> >
> > In what ways is this a common motif in the works of Pynchon?
> >
> > Does Pynchon seem to suggest that this is a personal human factor, or is
> > it a sign of something larger, more bureaucratic?
> >
> >
> > from Pale Fire:
> >
> > "A few days later, however, namely on Monday, February 16, I was
> > introduced to the old poet at lunch time in the faculty club. [...]
'Come,
> > come,' said Professor Hurley, 'do you mean, John, you really don't have
a
> > mental or visceral picture of that stunning blonde in the black leotards
> > who haunts Lit. 202?' Shade, all his wrinkles beaming, benignly tapped
> > Hurley on the wrist to make him stop. [...] and they all laughed"
(Vintage
> > Edition, 21-2).
> >
> > How is "missed communication" a factor in Charles Kinbote's "Foreward"
to
> > Pale Fire? Aside from the obvious misinterpretations of Shade's poem
> > (discussed in full in the Commentary sections), how does Kinbote's
> > "Foreward" utilize this motif to establish the characterization of
> > Kinbote?
> >
> > Does "missed communication" help in the characterization of Shade?
> >
> >
> >
>
> If missed communication can be taken as Zoyd's disconnectedness with the
> world around him, then Kinbote becomes an easy parallel. My sense of
> chapter one of VL (and I haven't read it in over a decade, so this one
> chapter I read yesterday feels fairly new to me), is of a sort of Rip van
> Winkle waking up to a world that has changed while he slept, but not
> realizing it right away (not getting the message).
>
> Similarly, one approach to PF is to view Kinbote (as the alias of Russian
> scholar V. Botkin) as one who feels dispossessed by his homeland, left in
> the past as it were by the new Soviet system to which he doesn't find any
> connection, and Zembla is the homeland he creates to replace it. Neither
> character is living in the world as it is in the present.
>
> I took the Wheel of Fortune bit in VL to be Zoyd's wishing for some means
to
> help guide him through the choices he must but seems unable to make, and
to
> soften the blow as it were, to make more palatable the ultimate receipt of
> that message he knows is coming but wishes to avoid. Television then is
> Zoyd's Zembla, a fantasy world that acts as intermediary between himself
and
> reality, as a filter for life.
>
> akaJasper
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 09:44:41 EDT
> From: Elainemmbell@aol.com
> Subject: Re: NPPF Foreword: "the composition he saw in a glass, darkly"
>
> - --part1_1d7.d8b7123.2c455f49_boundary
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
> In a message dated 7/15/2003 12:56:07 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
> jbor@bigpond.com writes:
>
> > The second citation from the newspaper interview with Professor Hurley
> > which
> > has so irked Kinbote:
> >
> > "None can say how long John Shade planned his poem to be, but it is
not
> > improbable that what he left represents only a small fraction of the
> > composition he saw in a glass, darkly."
> >
>
> Irksome to Kinbote because he cannot tolerate the notion of knowing only
"in
> part"; his obsession with Shade requires knowing in full!
> Elaine M.M. Bell, Writer
> (860) 523-9225
>
>
> Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 09:39:41 -0400
> From: "Don Corathers" <gumbo@fuse.net>
>
>
>
> Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 09:55:16 -0400
> From: The Great Quail <quail@libyrinth.com>
> Subject: NPPF - Incest theme
>
> Keith's observation:
>
> >> Espied on a pine's bark.
> >> As we were walking home the day she died,
> >> An empty emerald case, squat and frog-eyed,
> >> Hugging the trunk; and its companion piece,
> >> A gum-logged ant. (235-40)
> >>
> >> Aunt Maud = a 'gum'-logged aunt.
> >>
> >> Ant = insect
> >> Aunt = incest
>
> This recalls "Finnegans Wake," as well, with the "insectuous longing" felt
> by HCE for his daughter, Issy. And of course, even though Kinbote mangles
> the spelling, the book is referenced by Nabokov in the text. (Though IFRC,
> Nabokov disliked the Wake...?)
>
> - --Quail
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 09:58:57 -0400
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <jasper@hatguild.org>
> Subject: RE: NPPF: Keith's Shocking Theory (was Preliminary: The Epigraph)
>
> On
> > Behalf Of Otto
> [...]
> >
> > Your interpretation is very daring, Keith. I'm really impressed and I
> > think
> > it shouldn't be dismissed too easily. Boyd's "theory" is daring as well,
> > but
> > it explains the correspondences between poem and commentary, something
> > which
> > yours does not. Your clues are all from the poem.
>
>
> There's every chance K would miss such a theory as Keith's, given his
> disregard for any effects his pederastic behavior might have. Instead
there
> may be a link between causes found in the commentary and effects found
only
> in the poem. (Shade and Kinbote are mirrored in so many other ways, these
> characters are practically begging to be read that way.) For instance you
> might argue (as I believe Boyd's Shadean approach does) that Shade's title
> "Pale Fire" is borrowed from Kinbote and his version of _Timon of Athens_
in
> the Commentary -- that Shade fills in the title in the poem as an effect
of
> Kinbote's both using that phrase and missing it in his edition of
> Shakespeare.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 10:05:59 -0400
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <jasper@hatguild.org>
> Subject: RE: NPPF - Incest theme
>
> On
> > Behalf Of The Great Quail
> >
> > Keith's observation:
> >
> > >> Espied on a pine's bark.
> > >> As we were walking home the day she died,
> > >> An empty emerald case, squat and frog-eyed,
> > >> Hugging the trunk; and its companion piece,
> > >> A gum-logged ant. (235-40)
> > >>
> > >> Aunt Maud = a 'gum'-logged aunt.
> > >>
> > >> Ant = insect
> > >> Aunt = incest
> >
> > This recalls "Finnegans Wake," as well, with the "insectuous longing"
felt
> > by HCE for his daughter, Issy. And of course, even though Kinbote
mangles
> > the spelling, the book is referenced by Nabokov in the text. (Though
IFRC,
> > Nabokov disliked the Wake...?)
> >
> > --Quail
>
>
> Line 501 reminds me of FW too:
>
> "L'if, lifeless tree! Your great Maybe, Rabelais:" (PF: 52)
>
> "My leaves have drifted from me. All. But one clings still. I'll bear
it
> on me. To remind me of. Lff!" (FW: 628)
>
> ------------------------------
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 07:11:12 -0700 (PDT)
> From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF - Incest theme
>
> - --- The Great Quail <quail@libyrinth.com> wrote:
> > Keith's observation:
> >
> > >> Espied on a pine's bark.
> > >> As we were walking home the day she died,
> > >> An empty emerald case, squat and frog-eyed,
> > >> Hugging the trunk; and its companion piece,
> > >> A gum-logged ant. (235-40)
> > >>
> > >> Aunt Maud = a 'gum'-logged aunt.
> > >>
> > >> Ant = insect
> > >> Aunt = incest
> >
> > This recalls "Finnegans Wake," as well, with the "insectuous longing"
felt
> > by HCE for his daughter, Issy. And of course, even though Kinbote
mangles
> > the spelling, the book is referenced by Nabokov in the text. (Though
IFRC,
> > Nabokov disliked the Wake...?)
>
> And as Ms. Kunin has already noted, the insect/incest word play is
explicitly
> used by Van Veen in "Ada" because his lover/sister is an avid insect
> collector/scholar.
>
> DM
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
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>
> ------------------------------
>> End of pynchon-l-digest V2 #3412
> ********************************
From: "pynchon-l-digest" <owner-pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
To: <pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2003 7:19 AM
Subject: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3412
>
> pynchon-l-digest Tuesday, July 15 2003 Volume 02 : Number
3412
> Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 05:15:23 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Malignd <malignd@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF - Foreword - Notes (1)
>
> <<I'm not arguing that the college and town aren't
> modeled on Cornell and Ithaca, but why the elaborate
> dodge to direct our attention elsewhere?>>
>
> My guess on this is that all the pertinent places and
> place names (Cedarn, Utana) are fictional so that the
> possibility that Zembla might be other than something
> imagined by Kinbote, can't be disqualified on that
> basis; i.e., as the only made-up place (name) in the
> novel.
>
>
> > ------------------------------
>
> From: Malignd <malignd@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> <<I find it difficult to believe that Shade would
> intentionally write a "second-rate" poem (and it's not
> so much a question of it being "second-rate", which is
> a subjective call made by the reader, as it is of him
> composing and presenting such a mix of ridiculous,
> banal and apparently tragic personal material in this
> manner), certainly not one in this style, of this
> length, and on these subjects and themes. That Nabokov
> has him write it makes all the difference.>>
>
> I get your point, but calling it "a mix of ridiculous,
> banal and apparently tragic personal material" is
> certainly a "subjective call." So I think your point
> still rests on your particular evaluation of the poem.
> I think an objective standard will be, always,
> elusive. Part of the problem, part of the fun.
>
> <<I don't think it's a matter of the quality of
> the poem being "inversely proportional" at all.>>
>
> This was just a rough way of paraphrasing what you're
> saying; Nabokov's satirization of Shade will be at the
> expense of the poem, as considered as Shade's; the
> better the satire, the worse for Shade.
>
> <<There's one other point you've made which I'd
> contest. You wrote of --
>
> "... the membrane between Nabokov's novel and the
> artifact that it contains (and that happens, the
> artifact, to coincide word for word with the entirety
> of Nabokov's novel)."
>
> I don't think this is correct. Nabokov's novel
> incorporates a dedication to VИra, his wife, and
> (arguably, at least) the Epigraph from Boswell's _Life
> of Samuel Johnson_, which are outside "the artifact
> that it contains".>>
>
> True enough.
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 05:39:58 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Malignd <malignd@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> <<Sure (except, to make this point, you, or Rorty,
> *are* mulling over and worrying about it). The fact
> that he's a bond trader doesn't automatically preclude
> him from having a way with descriptive adjectives,
> adverbs and imagery, of course.>>
>
> Well, yes, it's possible, of course, that there are
> bond traders who write like Fitzgerald, but if a
> reader or if Fitzgerald brings that into the novel, it
> becomes the single most interesting thing about the
> novel. Who's this bland chap nextdoor who writes so
> well? Why's he mucking about trading bonds? And yes,
> Rorty and I are mulling it, but so what? The point is
> still the same: Fitzgerald is not intending that
> Carraway be framed by the reader as someone who writes
> like a poet, who is wasting his life on Wall Street.
>
> <<But Pale Fire is a book in part about writers and
> the quality of their writing, and so a good reader
> doesn't so readily suspend disbelief when he notices
> that the mad Kinbote writes like Nabokov.
>
> <<But a "bad" reader does?!>>
>
> I wouldn't say one who misses this is a "bad" reader.
> I'd say he misses something crucial.
>
> <<Is Kinbote totally "mad", or just occasionally
> deluded? (Eg. How would he have kept his job at
> Wordsmith if altogether insane?) This aside, many
> great artists and writers were cot-cases. And, does he
> really write exactly "like Nabokov"? There are quite a
> few assumptions made in this and I'm still not sure
> that I see it as a valid argument.>>
>
> Whether or not he's "mad" is not crucial to my point;
> let's say he isn't. There's still the fact that he
> writes very well and, yes, I'd say "like Nabokov" and
> that fact seems relevant and inescapable in
> considering the question of internal authorship, even
> if one's conclusion is to discard the idea that one
> wrote the other.
>
>
>
> Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 05:44:28 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Malignd <malignd@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF - Foreword - Summary / Commentary (3)
>
> <<..."the galleys I had been sent here" >>
>
> I.e., The galleys had been sent to me here (in
> Cedarn).
>
> I don't see this as a typo, necessarily.
>
>
>
>
> Date: 15 Jul 2003 08:47:54 -0400
> From: Paul Mackin <paul.mackin@verizon.net>
> Subject: Re: Fw: a little re-gurgitated Pynchon/Pale Fire
>
> On Mon, 2003-07-14 at 22:46, D. Barton Johnson wrote:
> > a little re-gurgitated Pynchon/Pale Fire
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Carolyn Kunin
> > To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
> > Sent: Monday, July 14, 2003 6:16 PM
> > Subject: a little re-gurgitated Pynchon/Pale Fire
> >
> >
> > To the List,
> >
> > I hadn't found the Pynchon very digestible (too much, too much!) but,
thanks to David Morris, my attention was drawn to the fact that someone
(besides me) has discovered at least some of the unpleasant facts about John
Shade's sex life. In fact he, Keith Stadlen, has gone me one better -- make
that two or three better. He recognized the sexuality in some of the lines
of the Shade poem I had missed. And I think he is right -- especially about
the fishy-honey and the pre-Jurassic.
> >
> >
> > ***
> > Doesn't the imagery of the first two Cantos suggest Aunt Maud
> > forced Shade to quench her thirst with his pure tongue? Isn't the
truth being hidden from him, not so much truth about survival after death,
but the truth that his memory has dimmed regarding being forced to orally
pleasure Aunt Maud? My favorite references are how his childish palate loved
the taste/Half-fish, half-honey, of that golden paste (nature's glue, lines>
103-5), [... my elipsis ck]
> >
> > Espied on a pine's bark.
> > As we were walking home the day she died,
> > An empty emerald case, squat and frog-eyed,
> > Hugging the trunk; and its companion piece,
> > A gum-logged ant. (235-40)
> >
> > Aunt Maud = a 'gum'-logged aunt.
> >
> > Ant = insect
> > Aunt = incest
> > ***
> > Then read 139-56 as Aunt Maud molesting him as he lay on his bed
watching the clockwork toy:
> >
> > One foot on the mountaintop.
> > One hand under a panting strand.
> > dull throbs in my Triassic
> > icy shiver down my Age of Stone
> >
> > But like some little lad forced by a wench
> > With his pure tongue her abject thirst to quench,
> > I was corrupted, terrified, allured,
> > And though old doctor Colt pronounced me cured
> > Of what, he said, were mainly growing pains,
> > The wonder lingers and the shame remains.
> > ***
> > I'm beginning to wonder if the commentary isn't designed to
reinterpret the
>
> poem to protect Shade from what he perhaps unwittingly reveals about
himself
>
> and his activities in the poem. Is it possible that he was molested by
>
> Aunt Maud and then in turn molested Hazel, and that she either committed
>
> suicide because of having been molested or was killed by Shade? Brian Boyd
>
>
> sees Shade as an embodiment of sanity and propriety, so I'm probably
waxing
>
> loosely and prematurely, but what the hell.
> >
> >
> >
> > Here I think Mr Stadlen is possibly right, but probably wrong. Still he
is very right to wonder. The insect pun will be played by VN in Ada, and
aunt/ant is very good!
> >
> > Carolyn
> >
>
>
> Isn't Shade also an embodiment of excellent marital adjustment with Sybil?
>
> In other words, at least one of the conventional expectations for the
> consequence of early childhood sexual activity with an adult family
> member is not fulfilled. And good relations with Sybil would be likely
> to obviate the need for Hazel's playing a substitute role.
>
> Just thinking. No firm opinion on the matter..
>
> P.
>
> P.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 15:16:42 +0200
> From: "Otto" <ottosell@yahoo.de>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> - ----- Original Message -----
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> To: <pynchon-l@waste.org>
> Sent: Monday, July 14, 2003 4:48 AM
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> >>>Pope has always seemed the touchstone here and Rape of the Lock is a
good
> guess as to Nabokov's intended tone.<<<
>
> > And a subtitle for the poem Pale Fire could be "The Rape of the Shade"
> > couldn't it? Doesn't the imagery of the first two Cantos suggest Aunt
Maud
> > forced Shade to quench her thirst with his pure tongue? Isn't the truth
> > being hidden from him, not so much truth about survival after death,
>
> But that possibility about survival (or whatever kind of "existence" there
> may be) after death necessarily is hidden, to all of us, or not? It's a
main
> theme of the book:
>
> "Nabokov *always* stresses that any form of consciousness beyond the
mortal
> must be either nonexistent or unimaginable: anything we *can* imagine
> collapses under the absurdity of trying to transpose the conditions of
> temporality into eternity."
> (Boyd, 1999, p. 258)
>
> > but the
> > truth that his memory has dimmed regarding being forced to orally
pleasure
> > Aunt Maud? My favorite references are how his childish palate loved the
> > taste/Half-fish, half-honey, of that golden paste (nature's glue, lines
> > 103-5), -- the cryptic erotic description of lines 147-156, "How
ludicrous
> > these efforts to translate/Into one's private tongue a public fate!"
> > (lines 231-2) and
>
> > Life is a message scribbled in the dark.
> > Anonymous.
> > Espied on a pine's bark.
> > As we were walking home the day she died,
> > An empty emerald case, squat and frog-eyed,
> > Hugging the trunk; and its companion piece,
> > A gum-logged ant. (235-40)
>
> > Aunt Maud = a 'gum'-logged aunt.
> >
> > Ant = insect
> > Aunt = incest
> - --------------------------------
>
> The obvious message is that the ant is dead and the cicada has been
> metamorphosed into another/higher form of existence.
>
> The Grasshopper and the Ant
> http://www.lafontaine.net/fables/angl/01/01-01-ang.php
>
> "Here Shade boldly reverses La Fontaine's fable: while the ant is
lifeless,
> the cicada has flown away from its "empty emerald case." It still lives,
it
> can still sing its song. (...) Shade's later conviction that his
near-death
> vision of a "fountain" provides some kind of clue to death proves an
> illusion, and leads him to his artistic motto, "not text, but texture."
The
> direct message that the "fountain" seems to offer is wrong, and so, he
> claims here, with his customary structural stealth, is La Fontaine
(French,
> of course, for "fountain"). Yet his reversal of La Fontaine, his implicit
> affirmation of survival after death (...) is itself only text, not
texture."
> (Boyd, 1999, 189/90)
>
> "Life Everlasting-based on a misprint!" (803)
>
> Your interpretation is very daring, Keith. I'm really impressed and I
think
> it shouldn't be dismissed too easily. Boyd's "theory" is daring as well,
but
> it explains the correspondences between poem and commentary, something
which
> yours does not. Your clues are all from the poem.
>
> > >>>I will leave myself open to other theories that Kinbote is
> > Botkin, or that Shade wrote the whole thing and invented the deposed
king,
> > or that Shade is Kinbote's, uh, ghostwriter.<<<
> >
>
> I'm sure Boyd would love the expression "ghostwriter" but what do you mean
> by it?
>
> >
> > I'm beginning to wonder if the commentary isn't designed to reinterpret
> < the
> > poem to protect Shade from what he perhaps unwittingly reveals about
> > himself
> > and his activities in the poem. Is it possible that he was molested by
> > Aunt
> > Maud and then in turn molested Hazel, and that she either committed
> > suicide
> > because of having been molested or was killed by Shade? Brian Boyd sees
> > Shade as an embodiment of sanity and propriety, so I'm probably waxing
> > loosely and prematurely, but what the hell.
> >
>
> . . .But that I am forbid
> To tell the secrets of my prison-house
> I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
> Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood. . .
> Hamlet, I, v, 13-16
>
> "(...) Suspense is by definition a state that cannot be resolved, a field
of
> force that vanishes once the unknown becomes the known."
> (Douglas Fowler: "A Reader's Guide to Gravity's Rainbow," Ann Arbor,
> Michigan, 1980, p. 13)
>
> Anybody got this? I bet it would be helpful:
> Douglas Fowler: "Reading Nabokov," Cornell University Press, October 1974.
>
> Otto
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 23:20:11 +1000
> From: jbor <jbor@bigpond.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Foreword: "your favorite"
>
> >>>> the odd and
> >>>> inexplicable "your favorite"
> >>>
> >>> I find it to be a bit of anticipatory sarcasm, given K's later
comments on
> >>> that Canto....
> >
> >> And the use of the second person? Who is the "you" being addressed?
> >
> > The Gentle Reader of futurity....
>
> Isn't there a point in the Commentary where Kinbote notes, albeit
> demurringly, that Shade thought most highly of Canto Two? Or am I
> misremembering? I have the impression that Kinbote is apostrophising Shade
> with this "your favorite" remark. It is definitely an anomaly though (and
I
> can imagine it's one of those "signifiers" which the Shadeans, and the
> Shade's shadeans, have latched onto.)
>
> best
>
> ------------------------------
>
> >
> > Now in rereading, I notice quite a few examples of missed communication
in
> > the chapter, ranging from the note left for Zoyd from Prairie, to the
> > telephone call he receives regarding his "rescheduled" window jumping
> > performance. Of course, the "You'll see" conversation with Slide, the
Log
> > Jam onlookers' perception that Zoyd's name is "CHERYL," the Log Jam/Cuke
> > Lounge mishap, the "Blind-Side Gazette," the candy sheet window
incident -
> > - all contribute to the overall sense of missing the true meaning of the
> > reality at hand.
> >
> > Do Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune add to this motif? How?
> >
> > How does the motif of "missed communications" (or miscommunication)
> > function in Chapter One of Vineland in a variety of ways? Is there a
> > pattern to the examples?
> >
> > In what ways is this a common motif in the works of Pynchon?
> >
> > Does Pynchon seem to suggest that this is a personal human factor, or is
> > it a sign of something larger, more bureaucratic?
> >
> >
> > from Pale Fire:
> >
> > "A few days later, however, namely on Monday, February 16, I was
> > introduced to the old poet at lunch time in the faculty club. [...]
'Come,
> > come,' said Professor Hurley, 'do you mean, John, you really don't have
a
> > mental or visceral picture of that stunning blonde in the black leotards
> > who haunts Lit. 202?' Shade, all his wrinkles beaming, benignly tapped
> > Hurley on the wrist to make him stop. [...] and they all laughed"
(Vintage
> > Edition, 21-2).
> >
> > How is "missed communication" a factor in Charles Kinbote's "Foreward"
to
> > Pale Fire? Aside from the obvious misinterpretations of Shade's poem
> > (discussed in full in the Commentary sections), how does Kinbote's
> > "Foreward" utilize this motif to establish the characterization of
> > Kinbote?
> >
> > Does "missed communication" help in the characterization of Shade?
> >
> >
> >
>
> If missed communication can be taken as Zoyd's disconnectedness with the
> world around him, then Kinbote becomes an easy parallel. My sense of
> chapter one of VL (and I haven't read it in over a decade, so this one
> chapter I read yesterday feels fairly new to me), is of a sort of Rip van
> Winkle waking up to a world that has changed while he slept, but not
> realizing it right away (not getting the message).
>
> Similarly, one approach to PF is to view Kinbote (as the alias of Russian
> scholar V. Botkin) as one who feels dispossessed by his homeland, left in
> the past as it were by the new Soviet system to which he doesn't find any
> connection, and Zembla is the homeland he creates to replace it. Neither
> character is living in the world as it is in the present.
>
> I took the Wheel of Fortune bit in VL to be Zoyd's wishing for some means
to
> help guide him through the choices he must but seems unable to make, and
to
> soften the blow as it were, to make more palatable the ultimate receipt of
> that message he knows is coming but wishes to avoid. Television then is
> Zoyd's Zembla, a fantasy world that acts as intermediary between himself
and
> reality, as a filter for life.
>
> akaJasper
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 09:44:41 EDT
> From: Elainemmbell@aol.com
> Subject: Re: NPPF Foreword: "the composition he saw in a glass, darkly"
>
> - --part1_1d7.d8b7123.2c455f49_boundary
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
> In a message dated 7/15/2003 12:56:07 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
> jbor@bigpond.com writes:
>
> > The second citation from the newspaper interview with Professor Hurley
> > which
> > has so irked Kinbote:
> >
> > "None can say how long John Shade planned his poem to be, but it is
not
> > improbable that what he left represents only a small fraction of the
> > composition he saw in a glass, darkly."
> >
>
> Irksome to Kinbote because he cannot tolerate the notion of knowing only
"in
> part"; his obsession with Shade requires knowing in full!
> Elaine M.M. Bell, Writer
> (860) 523-9225
>
>
> Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 09:39:41 -0400
> From: "Don Corathers" <gumbo@fuse.net>
>
>
>
> Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 09:55:16 -0400
> From: The Great Quail <quail@libyrinth.com>
> Subject: NPPF - Incest theme
>
> Keith's observation:
>
> >> Espied on a pine's bark.
> >> As we were walking home the day she died,
> >> An empty emerald case, squat and frog-eyed,
> >> Hugging the trunk; and its companion piece,
> >> A gum-logged ant. (235-40)
> >>
> >> Aunt Maud = a 'gum'-logged aunt.
> >>
> >> Ant = insect
> >> Aunt = incest
>
> This recalls "Finnegans Wake," as well, with the "insectuous longing" felt
> by HCE for his daughter, Issy. And of course, even though Kinbote mangles
> the spelling, the book is referenced by Nabokov in the text. (Though IFRC,
> Nabokov disliked the Wake...?)
>
> - --Quail
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 09:58:57 -0400
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <jasper@hatguild.org>
> Subject: RE: NPPF: Keith's Shocking Theory (was Preliminary: The Epigraph)
>
> On
> > Behalf Of Otto
> [...]
> >
> > Your interpretation is very daring, Keith. I'm really impressed and I
> > think
> > it shouldn't be dismissed too easily. Boyd's "theory" is daring as well,
> > but
> > it explains the correspondences between poem and commentary, something
> > which
> > yours does not. Your clues are all from the poem.
>
>
> There's every chance K would miss such a theory as Keith's, given his
> disregard for any effects his pederastic behavior might have. Instead
there
> may be a link between causes found in the commentary and effects found
only
> in the poem. (Shade and Kinbote are mirrored in so many other ways, these
> characters are practically begging to be read that way.) For instance you
> might argue (as I believe Boyd's Shadean approach does) that Shade's title
> "Pale Fire" is borrowed from Kinbote and his version of _Timon of Athens_
in
> the Commentary -- that Shade fills in the title in the poem as an effect
of
> Kinbote's both using that phrase and missing it in his edition of
> Shakespeare.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 10:05:59 -0400
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <jasper@hatguild.org>
> Subject: RE: NPPF - Incest theme
>
> On
> > Behalf Of The Great Quail
> >
> > Keith's observation:
> >
> > >> Espied on a pine's bark.
> > >> As we were walking home the day she died,
> > >> An empty emerald case, squat and frog-eyed,
> > >> Hugging the trunk; and its companion piece,
> > >> A gum-logged ant. (235-40)
> > >>
> > >> Aunt Maud = a 'gum'-logged aunt.
> > >>
> > >> Ant = insect
> > >> Aunt = incest
> >
> > This recalls "Finnegans Wake," as well, with the "insectuous longing"
felt
> > by HCE for his daughter, Issy. And of course, even though Kinbote
mangles
> > the spelling, the book is referenced by Nabokov in the text. (Though
IFRC,
> > Nabokov disliked the Wake...?)
> >
> > --Quail
>
>
> Line 501 reminds me of FW too:
>
> "L'if, lifeless tree! Your great Maybe, Rabelais:" (PF: 52)
>
> "My leaves have drifted from me. All. But one clings still. I'll bear
it
> on me. To remind me of. Lff!" (FW: 628)
>
> ------------------------------
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 07:11:12 -0700 (PDT)
> From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF - Incest theme
>
> - --- The Great Quail <quail@libyrinth.com> wrote:
> > Keith's observation:
> >
> > >> Espied on a pine's bark.
> > >> As we were walking home the day she died,
> > >> An empty emerald case, squat and frog-eyed,
> > >> Hugging the trunk; and its companion piece,
> > >> A gum-logged ant. (235-40)
> > >>
> > >> Aunt Maud = a 'gum'-logged aunt.
> > >>
> > >> Ant = insect
> > >> Aunt = incest
> >
> > This recalls "Finnegans Wake," as well, with the "insectuous longing"
felt
> > by HCE for his daughter, Issy. And of course, even though Kinbote
mangles
> > the spelling, the book is referenced by Nabokov in the text. (Though
IFRC,
> > Nabokov disliked the Wake...?)
>
> And as Ms. Kunin has already noted, the insect/incest word play is
explicitly
> used by Van Veen in "Ada" because his lover/sister is an avid insect
> collector/scholar.
>
> DM
>
> __________________________________
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> ------------------------------
>> End of pynchon-l-digest V2 #3412
> ********************************