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Fw: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3524 PALE FIRE
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From: "pynchon-l-digest" <owner-pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
To: <pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
Sent: Monday, September 01, 2003 12:00 AM
Subject: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3524
>
> pynchon-l-digest Monday, September 1 2003 Volume 02 : Number
3524
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Sun, 31 Aug 2003 20:27:31 -0400
> From: "Don Corathers" <gumbo@fuse.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Comm2: Often -- some notes
>
> > pg 97
> > "At times I thought that only by self-destruction could I hope to cheat
> the
> > relentlessly advancing assassins who were in me, in my eardrums, in my
> > pulse, in my skull, rather than on that constant highway looping up over
> me
> > and around my heart"
> >
> > I could be wrong but I think this is K's first allusion to suicide.
>
> I believe you are correct. Very clumsy of me not to have taken note of it.
>
> Don
>
> ------------------------------
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 1 Sep 2003 00:45:36 -0400
> From: "Don Corathers" <gumbo@fuse.net>
> Subject: NPPF Comm 2: My bedroom, part 1
>
> Line 80: my bedroom (p 108)
>
> Abandoning all pretense of relating his notes to Shade's poem, Kinbote
> spends five pages describing Prince Charles's domestic tribulations during
> the forty days between the death of Queen Blenda and his coronation, as
> Countess de Fyler contrived to make her daughter Fleur his queen.
>
> Fleur is young, beautiful and sexy. Since Kinbote/Charles is "certainly no
> expert in these tender matters," he enlists the testimony of his
> heterosexual friend Otar to describe her charms, to which the prince is
> profoundly indifferent. He occasionally enjoys Fleur's company as a kind
of
> platonic respite from his normal routine of "manlier pleasures."
>
> As part of her campaign to employ her daughter to assure her a continued
> position in the court, the countess hires a medium to contact Blenda's
> spirit, who urges Charles through a seance to "take take cherish love
flower
> flower flower.' And a psychiatrist who applies a Freudian analysis to
> Charles's affection for sodomy.
>
> None of it--even Fleur moving into his bedroom in a Frederick's of Onhava
> wardrobe--has any effect on Charles except to induce insomnia. Finally the
> Prime Councilor and three Representatives of the People call a halt to the
> enterprise, apparently on the basis of Fleur's insufficiently noble family
> heritage. Exit Fleur and her mom. Enter the flock of coronation gift-boys.
>
> "porcelain cup and Cinderella's slipper..." It does not seem to me that
> Arnor's motives were purely artistic. The porcelain cup, incidentally, is
> reminiscent of the story that the classic Champagne glass was cast from a
> mold of one of Marie Antionette's breasts.
>
> *Lilith Calling Back Adam* Another invocation--as in "Lord Ronald's
> Coronach" a few pages ago--of a Dangerous Woman, a minor theme for
Kinbote.
> From the Wikipedia:
>
> In some kabbalistic texts Lilith is a female demon, a succubus, who was
> Adam's first wife, before Eve. The original name in Sumerian was "Lilitu",
> and the transliteration from the Hebrew may be as "Lilith," "Lillith," or
> "Lilit". Various versions of the Lilith myth exist; the original Lilith
was
> a Mesopotamian night demon with a penchant for destroying children.
> Hieronymus associated Lilith with the mythical Greek Lamia, a Libyan queen
> who mated with Zeus. After Zeus abandoned Lamia, Hear stole Lamia's
> children, and Lamia took revenge by stealing other women's children.
>
> According to Jewish folklore, Lilith refused to assume a subservient role
to
> Adam during sexual intercourse and eventually deserted Adam. Lilith then
> went on to mate with Asmodai and various other demons she found beside the
> Red Sea, creating countless lilin. Another version of the Lilith myth has
> Lilith seducing Adam after the fall of man and giving birth to various
> immortal demons. In both of these versions, Lilith is reputed to be
immortal
> because she did not eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil as
Adam
> and Eve had done.
>
> More at http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilith
>
> The subject matter of Arnor's sculpture nicely echoes the failed
> Fleur-Charles seduction that unfolds on the next few pages.
>
> "On sagaren..." This seems to be the Zemblan version of the lines quoted
in
> English immediately before it. At least "tri phantana" is recognizable as
> "three fountains." Perhaps it's not coincidental that we're shown some
> fountains right before we encounter the afterlife again on the next page.
>
> p 109
>
> "He had had no love for his mother, and the hopeless and helpless remorse
he
> now felt degenerated into a sickly physical fear of her phantom."
> Kinbote/Charles believes in ghosts. Cf. Hazel in the haunted barn, pp
> 185-193.
>
> planchette. a small triangular or heart-shaped board supported on casters
at
> two points and a vertical pencil at a third and believed to produce
> automatic writing when lightly touched by the fingers. (MW10)
>
> "Charles take take cherish..." The rhythm and repetition of this
> otherworldly communication might offer some guidance to deciphering the
> message Hazel received in the barn (p 188).
>
> Thermodus Torfaeus. Icelandic writer, 1636-1719, commissioned by Christian
V
> of Denmark as a historiographer. Wrote a history of the Orkney Islands
> titled "Orcades, seu rerum Orcadiensium Historiae." Of perhaps greater
> interest to those of us participating in both sides of the current
> discussion is his work "Historia Vinlandiae Antiquae," an account of the
> maritime adventures of the Norwegians and their discovery of America five
> hundred years before Columbus.
>
> A. R. (Alfred Rusell) Wallace, English naturalist and geographer,
1823-1913,
> pursued a theory of natural selection at about the same time Darwin was
> working on *On the Origin of Species,* later dabbled in spiritualism.
>
> Right now, *my* bedroom is calling my name. I'll wrap this up tomorrow.
>
> Don
>
> ------------------------------
>
> End of pynchon-l-digest V2 #3524
> ********************************
>
> To unsubscribe, send a message to waste@waste.org
> with "unsubscribe pynchon-l-digest" in the message body.
From: "pynchon-l-digest" <owner-pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
To: <pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
Sent: Monday, September 01, 2003 12:00 AM
Subject: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3524
>
> pynchon-l-digest Monday, September 1 2003 Volume 02 : Number
3524
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Sun, 31 Aug 2003 20:27:31 -0400
> From: "Don Corathers" <gumbo@fuse.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Comm2: Often -- some notes
>
> > pg 97
> > "At times I thought that only by self-destruction could I hope to cheat
> the
> > relentlessly advancing assassins who were in me, in my eardrums, in my
> > pulse, in my skull, rather than on that constant highway looping up over
> me
> > and around my heart"
> >
> > I could be wrong but I think this is K's first allusion to suicide.
>
> I believe you are correct. Very clumsy of me not to have taken note of it.
>
> Don
>
> ------------------------------
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 1 Sep 2003 00:45:36 -0400
> From: "Don Corathers" <gumbo@fuse.net>
> Subject: NPPF Comm 2: My bedroom, part 1
>
> Line 80: my bedroom (p 108)
>
> Abandoning all pretense of relating his notes to Shade's poem, Kinbote
> spends five pages describing Prince Charles's domestic tribulations during
> the forty days between the death of Queen Blenda and his coronation, as
> Countess de Fyler contrived to make her daughter Fleur his queen.
>
> Fleur is young, beautiful and sexy. Since Kinbote/Charles is "certainly no
> expert in these tender matters," he enlists the testimony of his
> heterosexual friend Otar to describe her charms, to which the prince is
> profoundly indifferent. He occasionally enjoys Fleur's company as a kind
of
> platonic respite from his normal routine of "manlier pleasures."
>
> As part of her campaign to employ her daughter to assure her a continued
> position in the court, the countess hires a medium to contact Blenda's
> spirit, who urges Charles through a seance to "take take cherish love
flower
> flower flower.' And a psychiatrist who applies a Freudian analysis to
> Charles's affection for sodomy.
>
> None of it--even Fleur moving into his bedroom in a Frederick's of Onhava
> wardrobe--has any effect on Charles except to induce insomnia. Finally the
> Prime Councilor and three Representatives of the People call a halt to the
> enterprise, apparently on the basis of Fleur's insufficiently noble family
> heritage. Exit Fleur and her mom. Enter the flock of coronation gift-boys.
>
> "porcelain cup and Cinderella's slipper..." It does not seem to me that
> Arnor's motives were purely artistic. The porcelain cup, incidentally, is
> reminiscent of the story that the classic Champagne glass was cast from a
> mold of one of Marie Antionette's breasts.
>
> *Lilith Calling Back Adam* Another invocation--as in "Lord Ronald's
> Coronach" a few pages ago--of a Dangerous Woman, a minor theme for
Kinbote.
> From the Wikipedia:
>
> In some kabbalistic texts Lilith is a female demon, a succubus, who was
> Adam's first wife, before Eve. The original name in Sumerian was "Lilitu",
> and the transliteration from the Hebrew may be as "Lilith," "Lillith," or
> "Lilit". Various versions of the Lilith myth exist; the original Lilith
was
> a Mesopotamian night demon with a penchant for destroying children.
> Hieronymus associated Lilith with the mythical Greek Lamia, a Libyan queen
> who mated with Zeus. After Zeus abandoned Lamia, Hear stole Lamia's
> children, and Lamia took revenge by stealing other women's children.
>
> According to Jewish folklore, Lilith refused to assume a subservient role
to
> Adam during sexual intercourse and eventually deserted Adam. Lilith then
> went on to mate with Asmodai and various other demons she found beside the
> Red Sea, creating countless lilin. Another version of the Lilith myth has
> Lilith seducing Adam after the fall of man and giving birth to various
> immortal demons. In both of these versions, Lilith is reputed to be
immortal
> because she did not eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil as
Adam
> and Eve had done.
>
> More at http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilith
>
> The subject matter of Arnor's sculpture nicely echoes the failed
> Fleur-Charles seduction that unfolds on the next few pages.
>
> "On sagaren..." This seems to be the Zemblan version of the lines quoted
in
> English immediately before it. At least "tri phantana" is recognizable as
> "three fountains." Perhaps it's not coincidental that we're shown some
> fountains right before we encounter the afterlife again on the next page.
>
> p 109
>
> "He had had no love for his mother, and the hopeless and helpless remorse
he
> now felt degenerated into a sickly physical fear of her phantom."
> Kinbote/Charles believes in ghosts. Cf. Hazel in the haunted barn, pp
> 185-193.
>
> planchette. a small triangular or heart-shaped board supported on casters
at
> two points and a vertical pencil at a third and believed to produce
> automatic writing when lightly touched by the fingers. (MW10)
>
> "Charles take take cherish..." The rhythm and repetition of this
> otherworldly communication might offer some guidance to deciphering the
> message Hazel received in the barn (p 188).
>
> Thermodus Torfaeus. Icelandic writer, 1636-1719, commissioned by Christian
V
> of Denmark as a historiographer. Wrote a history of the Orkney Islands
> titled "Orcades, seu rerum Orcadiensium Historiae." Of perhaps greater
> interest to those of us participating in both sides of the current
> discussion is his work "Historia Vinlandiae Antiquae," an account of the
> maritime adventures of the Norwegians and their discovery of America five
> hundred years before Columbus.
>
> A. R. (Alfred Rusell) Wallace, English naturalist and geographer,
1823-1913,
> pursued a theory of natural selection at about the same time Darwin was
> working on *On the Origin of Species,* later dabbled in spiritualism.
>
> Right now, *my* bedroom is calling my name. I'll wrap this up tomorrow.
>
> Don
>
> ------------------------------
>
> End of pynchon-l-digest V2 #3524
> ********************************
>
> To unsubscribe, send a message to waste@waste.org
> with "unsubscribe pynchon-l-digest" in the message body.