Subject
Fw: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3442 PALE FIRE
From
Date
Body
> > ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2003 12:08:39 +0100
> From: "James Kyllo" <jkyllo@clara.net>
> Subject: Re: CANTO ONE: "slain/By"
>
> 1881 = Iris Acht looking into a mirror
>
> best
>
> James
>
>
> > > I, for one, have a problem with 1881 suggesting "life"
>
> ------------------------------
> From: "Otto" <ottosell@yahoo.de>
> Subject: NPPF short bio
>
> I think Pynchon would like this biography:
>
> "Vladimir Nabokov was born. This much, at least, I can deduce from the
fact
> of his having lived. To say more so soon would be unnecessarily audacious,
> and to say less would be to say, almost, nothing. Unless, perhaps, I might
> emend my first choice thus: Vladimir Nabokov was. VoilЮ. I think it would
be
> impossible to improve upon that."
> http://www.libraries.psu.edu/iasweb/nabokov/silver2.htm
>
> Silvery Light, by Charles Kinbote
> http://www.libraries.psu.edu/iasweb/nabokov/silver1.htm
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2003 05:31:29 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Malignd <malignd@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Canto 1: "smudge of ashen fluff"
>
> <<No, this is pretty much the opposite of what I've
> been saying. Nabokov's poem is an entertaining and
> well-written parody and, as such, of "good quality";
> Shade's poem, however, is bombastic and
> self-indulgent.>>
>
> I haven't lost sight, although I don't always note it,
> of the difference between the poem as Nabokov's and
> the poem as Shade's. But I think in drawing such a
> hard line between VN's excellent parody and Shade's
> less-than-excellent poem (a difference one shouldn▓t
> lose track of), one may gain a useful critical
> foothold, but at the expense of much of VN's subtlety.
>
>
> The poem, with (I think intended (by VN)) lapses, is
> still far better (as Shade's) than you're giving it
> credit for being. And my best guess would be that
> that's intended; i.e., Nabokov might be winking, but
> not quite so obviously or consistently that a reader
> can be certain of it.
>
> <<http://art3idea.ce.psu.edu/boundaries/basics/cc_nabokov.html>>
>
> ------
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2003 07:34:13 -0700 (PDT)
> From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: CANTO ONE: "slain/By"
>
> - --- James Kyllo <jkyllo@clara.net> wrote:
> > 1881 = Iris Acht looking into a mirror
>
> eye-eight-eight-eye
>
>> ------------------------------
>
>> From: Terrance <lycidas2@earthlink.net>
> Subject: re: "You're a local businessman"
>
> "The Rise of East Asia and the Withering Away of the Interstate System"
>
> by Giovanni Arrighi
>
>
> http://fbc.binghamton.edu/gaasa95.htm
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2003 11:04:54 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Michael Joseph <mjoseph@rci.rutgers.edu>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Canto 1: 1-4 some random notes
>
> Tim, Yes, indeed, Satan manipulates our sympathies. I noticed a comparable
> ploy in 18th (post Great Awakening) and early 19th century execution
> sermons, where readers were first reviled by the lurid acts perpetrated by
> the malefactor and then seduced into sympathy for him through his abject
> confession and plaintive anecdotes. The reader would realize his own
> initial disgust and perforce harsh judgment had likewise been rash and
> all-too-human, while the ember of sympathy he came to feel for the poor
> condemned wretch glowed with a "glint-hint" of divine love. He understood
> that his own repugnant sins (however uninteresting they might have seemed
> before) placed him in the same precarious position as the poor wretch
> about to be "launched into Eternity." The Biblical quotation from the
> parable of the two thieves demonstrated the value of humility, so that his
> initial proud condemnation served finally as a painful reminder of his own
> gross imperfections - though it also demonstrated that as long as life
> remained there was hope.
>
> But, given the purpose Fish articulates, doesn't Milton go too far in
> making Satan so psychologically compelling, and his fall tragic? Fish's
> argument strikes me as a justification of entrapment - just as comparable
> arguments that explain away the beauty of Francesca's cantos on the
> grounds that the poet wanted his readers to feel a nearly overpowering
> sympathy for her in order that they might experience the full-bore pull of
> temptation. And I think it a form of poetic vulgarity, and a kind of
> spiritual defeat that would be unforgivable for a poet. It seems more
> consonant with a sense of a commitment to poetry to imagine that Venus
> always trumps Hephaesteus, beauty wins the battle with rhetoric, even at
> the expense of the poem's greatness. I mean, otherwise the poem might be
> great - but it won't be very good.
>
>
>
> Michael
>
>
>
>
> > Of course, it is essential that Milton "made Satan so attractive to
readers"
> > because, from the beginning of the epic, the reader must be find
something
> > sympathetic in his characterization. The reader must be duped into
> > believing what he says, so that the reader can experience a "Fall"
similar
> > to that of prelapsarian Mankind. And Stanley Fish goes to great lengths
to
> > explain precisely how this occurs over the course of the epic poem.
Part of
> > the irony in all this, as can be imagined, is the fact that the average
> > reader *knows* the story and how the characters function within the
biblical
> > narrative, yet the Miltonic bard sets the reader up perfectly for having
> > such a lapse in Reason.
> >
> > I question whether the Shade poem -- without the Foreward and
> > commentary --establishes a dynamic between poem and reader to a similar
> > degree. As readers, we can read the poem "Pale Fire" separately, or in
> > conjunction with the Kinbote contributions, but imo I don't see the
Shade
> > poem having much of an impact on the reader in and of itself; the poem
> > achieves its greatness from the ways it is misinterpreted and mishandled
by
> > the commentator. Likewise, there is more of a reader dynamic by way of
the
> > Kinbote sections, which invite the reader to assess and judge poetic
intent
> > (among other things).
> >
> > Shade's poem is good. Ironically, it's Kinbote's mishandling of the
poem
> > that makes it great.
> >
> > Respectfully,
> >
> > Tim
> >
> >
> >
>
> ------------------------------
>
> End of pynchon-l-digest V2 #3442
> ********************************
>
> Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2003 12:08:39 +0100
> From: "James Kyllo" <jkyllo@clara.net>
> Subject: Re: CANTO ONE: "slain/By"
>
> 1881 = Iris Acht looking into a mirror
>
> best
>
> James
>
>
> > > I, for one, have a problem with 1881 suggesting "life"
>
> ------------------------------
> From: "Otto" <ottosell@yahoo.de>
> Subject: NPPF short bio
>
> I think Pynchon would like this biography:
>
> "Vladimir Nabokov was born. This much, at least, I can deduce from the
fact
> of his having lived. To say more so soon would be unnecessarily audacious,
> and to say less would be to say, almost, nothing. Unless, perhaps, I might
> emend my first choice thus: Vladimir Nabokov was. VoilЮ. I think it would
be
> impossible to improve upon that."
> http://www.libraries.psu.edu/iasweb/nabokov/silver2.htm
>
> Silvery Light, by Charles Kinbote
> http://www.libraries.psu.edu/iasweb/nabokov/silver1.htm
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2003 05:31:29 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Malignd <malignd@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Canto 1: "smudge of ashen fluff"
>
> <<No, this is pretty much the opposite of what I've
> been saying. Nabokov's poem is an entertaining and
> well-written parody and, as such, of "good quality";
> Shade's poem, however, is bombastic and
> self-indulgent.>>
>
> I haven't lost sight, although I don't always note it,
> of the difference between the poem as Nabokov's and
> the poem as Shade's. But I think in drawing such a
> hard line between VN's excellent parody and Shade's
> less-than-excellent poem (a difference one shouldn▓t
> lose track of), one may gain a useful critical
> foothold, but at the expense of much of VN's subtlety.
>
>
> The poem, with (I think intended (by VN)) lapses, is
> still far better (as Shade's) than you're giving it
> credit for being. And my best guess would be that
> that's intended; i.e., Nabokov might be winking, but
> not quite so obviously or consistently that a reader
> can be certain of it.
>
> <<http://art3idea.ce.psu.edu/boundaries/basics/cc_nabokov.html>>
>
> ------
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2003 07:34:13 -0700 (PDT)
> From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: CANTO ONE: "slain/By"
>
> - --- James Kyllo <jkyllo@clara.net> wrote:
> > 1881 = Iris Acht looking into a mirror
>
> eye-eight-eight-eye
>
>> ------------------------------
>
>> From: Terrance <lycidas2@earthlink.net>
> Subject: re: "You're a local businessman"
>
> "The Rise of East Asia and the Withering Away of the Interstate System"
>
> by Giovanni Arrighi
>
>
> http://fbc.binghamton.edu/gaasa95.htm
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2003 11:04:54 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Michael Joseph <mjoseph@rci.rutgers.edu>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Canto 1: 1-4 some random notes
>
> Tim, Yes, indeed, Satan manipulates our sympathies. I noticed a comparable
> ploy in 18th (post Great Awakening) and early 19th century execution
> sermons, where readers were first reviled by the lurid acts perpetrated by
> the malefactor and then seduced into sympathy for him through his abject
> confession and plaintive anecdotes. The reader would realize his own
> initial disgust and perforce harsh judgment had likewise been rash and
> all-too-human, while the ember of sympathy he came to feel for the poor
> condemned wretch glowed with a "glint-hint" of divine love. He understood
> that his own repugnant sins (however uninteresting they might have seemed
> before) placed him in the same precarious position as the poor wretch
> about to be "launched into Eternity." The Biblical quotation from the
> parable of the two thieves demonstrated the value of humility, so that his
> initial proud condemnation served finally as a painful reminder of his own
> gross imperfections - though it also demonstrated that as long as life
> remained there was hope.
>
> But, given the purpose Fish articulates, doesn't Milton go too far in
> making Satan so psychologically compelling, and his fall tragic? Fish's
> argument strikes me as a justification of entrapment - just as comparable
> arguments that explain away the beauty of Francesca's cantos on the
> grounds that the poet wanted his readers to feel a nearly overpowering
> sympathy for her in order that they might experience the full-bore pull of
> temptation. And I think it a form of poetic vulgarity, and a kind of
> spiritual defeat that would be unforgivable for a poet. It seems more
> consonant with a sense of a commitment to poetry to imagine that Venus
> always trumps Hephaesteus, beauty wins the battle with rhetoric, even at
> the expense of the poem's greatness. I mean, otherwise the poem might be
> great - but it won't be very good.
>
>
>
> Michael
>
>
>
>
> > Of course, it is essential that Milton "made Satan so attractive to
readers"
> > because, from the beginning of the epic, the reader must be find
something
> > sympathetic in his characterization. The reader must be duped into
> > believing what he says, so that the reader can experience a "Fall"
similar
> > to that of prelapsarian Mankind. And Stanley Fish goes to great lengths
to
> > explain precisely how this occurs over the course of the epic poem.
Part of
> > the irony in all this, as can be imagined, is the fact that the average
> > reader *knows* the story and how the characters function within the
biblical
> > narrative, yet the Miltonic bard sets the reader up perfectly for having
> > such a lapse in Reason.
> >
> > I question whether the Shade poem -- without the Foreward and
> > commentary --establishes a dynamic between poem and reader to a similar
> > degree. As readers, we can read the poem "Pale Fire" separately, or in
> > conjunction with the Kinbote contributions, but imo I don't see the
Shade
> > poem having much of an impact on the reader in and of itself; the poem
> > achieves its greatness from the ways it is misinterpreted and mishandled
by
> > the commentator. Likewise, there is more of a reader dynamic by way of
the
> > Kinbote sections, which invite the reader to assess and judge poetic
intent
> > (among other things).
> >
> > Shade's poem is good. Ironically, it's Kinbote's mishandling of the
poem
> > that makes it great.
> >
> > Respectfully,
> >
> > Tim
> >
> >
> >
>
> ------------------------------
>
> End of pynchon-l-digest V2 #3442
> ********************************