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Fw: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3535 Pale Fire
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----- Original Message -----
From: "pynchon-l-digest" <owner-pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
To: <pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
Sent: Friday, September 05, 2003 9:42 AM
Subject: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3535
>
> pynchon-l-digest Friday, September 5 2003 Volume 02 : Number
3535
> Date: Fri, 05 Sep 2003 17:51:11 +1000
> From: jbor <jbor@bigpond.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Aunt Maud
>
> >> I agree that the evidence is thin, but there is something in the
buildup
> >> of imagery which Keith catalogued.<<<
>
> on 5/9/03 9:29 AM, s~Z at keithsz@concentric.net wrote:
>
> > Now add to the buildup of imagery Nabokov's own words about the poem
sans
> > commentary. He characterizes the poem as "racy and tricky, and
unpleasant,
> > and bizarre."
>
> It's all of these things without necessarily being about Maud abusing
Shade
> *or* Hazel, of course, and there doesn't seem to be anything in Nabokov's
> subsequent comments about the poem or the novel which indicates that he
> intended to intimate an incestuous relationship between Shade and Aunt
Maud.
> Apart from the fact that Maud does seem to have been homosexual, as David
> pointed out, and so maps on to Kinbote (and, possibly, mirrors those
> "secondary homosexual complications" he talks about in relation to Fleur)
> there is the question of *why* Shade would insert all these hints about
his
> incestuous relationship with Maud into the poem, if indeed he had
> experienced them and they were as terrible as you've suggested the poem
> implies. If Maud *had* abused Shade I doubt very much that his
recollection
> of the experience would manifest in the poem in the way you're suggesting,
> and his representation of Maud would be less affectionate, and have more
of
> an edge to it, surely. If anything, the possibility that it was Hazel who
> Maud fondled ("she lived to hear the next babe cry", thus making Hazel the
> "flower" she "defiled"), and that Shade has suppressed his knowledge of
what
> went on, and that the imagery is emerging subsconsciously, deferred with
so
> much else in the poem onto apparent reminiscences from his own childhood
and
> adult years, an attempt to reorientate the poem away from his daughter's
> suicide (which is the primary subject, "your" favourite Canto, the one he
> and Sybil cry over etc), seems the more plausible of those two theories.
>
> I also think that the "solution" that there is no solution is as elegant
as
> any. I can see why Kinbote's self-consciousness about the existence of
> "Botkin" would throw a spanner in the works of a lot of the critics who
> argue for this or that "ultimate" reading of who wrote who, and why they
> would thus try and dismiss these details about Botkin which Kinbote drops
> into his notes as excessive or irrelevant. But I think it might also pay
to
> keep in mind the fact that most chess games end up unresolved, often
> elegantly so.
>
> best
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 09:24:17 -0400
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <jasper@hatguild.org>
> Subject: RE: NPPF Re: Notes C.1-4 - C.42
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-pynchon-l@waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l@waste.org] On
> > Behalf Of s~Z
>
> >>"Southey's Lingo-Grande ('Dear Stumparumper,' etc)"
>
> > While no reference to Southey using Dear Stumparumper could be found
>
> In 1820 Southey wrote "Vision of Judgment," a commemoration of King George
> III, in the preface for which he criticizes Lord Byron and his "Satanic
> School." "Dear Stumparumper" is thus a rather cruel joke aimed at Byron's
> clubfoot.
>
> http://www.englishhistory.net/byron/southey.html (the preface)
> http://website.lineone.net/~ssiggeman/avision.html (the poem)
>
> See Byron's response to Southey, also called "The Vision of Judgment,"
> published as QUEVEDO REDIVIVUS, a poem with its share of shadows and
shades:
>
> http://website.lineone.net/~ssiggeman/thevision.html
>
>
> Jasper Fidget
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 06:28:21 -0700 (PDT)
> From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF That'd be up the butt, Bob [was Comm 2: My bedroom, part
2 (tendril)]
>
> - --- Don Corathers <gumbo@fuse.net> wrote:
> >
> > > --- Don Corathers <gumbo@fuse.net> wrote:
> > > > I think I 've figured this out, at some cost to my moral serenity:
with
> no "secondary homosexual complications" Kinbote is assuring us he's not
Fleur's
> back-door man, either.
> > >
> > > I think you're making this into a "bush vet" thing, but that's OK
'cause
> who really cares?
> >
> >
> > I think such details are worth caring about in Pale Fire [...] Thought
that
> was why we were reading the book.
>
> I'm sorry for being too flip. I just don't see what you see in that line,
but
> I don't think it's that important, not wanting to "bush-vet" the
discussion on
> a small point.
>
> DM
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
> http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 18:07:03 +0300
> From: "Tsianides Costas" <tsianides@cytanet.com.cy>
> Subject: NPPF -Hazel and Lucia
>
> From : Glasheen Adaline " Third Census Of Finnegans Wake"
>
> JOYCE, Lucia Anna . Joyce's daughter who went mad (......)
> Lucia tried to dance greatly, write, make illuminated letters for a
Chaucer
> poem....But it was no good.
> And Lucia was also, .....like the poet's daughter in PALE FIRE rejected of
> males (who can contemplate the rejection of James Joyce's daughter by
Samuel
> Beckett.)
>
>
> costas
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 08:23:42 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Aunt Maud
>
> >>>It's all of these things without necessarily being about Maud abusing
> Shade
> *or* Hazel, of course, and there doesn't seem to be anything in Nabokov's
> subsequent comments about the poem or the novel which indicates that he
> intended to intimate an incestuous relationship between Shade and Aunt
> Maud.<<<
>
> There doesn't seem to be anything in Nabokov's subsequent comments
> which indicate much of anything about his intent, hence the decades
> long debate. It goes without saying that his comment that the poem
> is racy, etc. are not indicative of particulars, but I read very little
> about
> the stand alone poem which fits those descriptors.
>
> I did find Nabokov's comments about Kinbote and Zembla intriguing.
> Again, it goes without saying that his comments don't prove any
> particulars, but the quote gives Zembla a vividness that, for me, points
> away from the popular view that Zembla is a figment of Kinbote's
> deluded imagination. His reign is unaddressed by the quote, but
> Zembla itself appears very real.
>
>
> > From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> > Date: 2003/09/05 Fri AM 09:28:21 EDT
> > To: Don Corathers <gumbo@fuse.net>, pynchon-l@waste.org
> > Subject: Re: NPPF That'd be up the butt, Bob [was Comm 2: My bedroom,
part 2 (tendril)]
> >
> >
> > --- Don Corathers <gumbo@fuse.net> wrote:
> > >
> > > > --- Don Corathers <gumbo@fuse.net> wrote:
> > > > > I think I 've figured this out, at some cost to my moral serenity:
with
> > no "secondary homosexual complications" Kinbote is assuring us he's not
Fleur's
> > back-door man, either.
> > > >
> > > > I think you're making this into a "bush vet" thing, but that's OK
'cause
> > who really cares?
> > >
> > >
> > > I think such details are worth caring about in Pale Fire [...] Thought
that
> > was why we were reading the book.
> >
> > I'm sorry for being too flip. I just don't see what you see in that
line, but
> > I don't think it's that important, not wanting to "bush-vet" the
discussion on
> > a small point.
> >
> > DM
> >
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 09:02:57 -0700 (PDT)
> From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF -Hazel and Lucia
>
> - --- Tsianides Costas <tsianides@cytanet.com.cy> wrote:
> > And Lucia was also, .....like the poet's daughter in PALE FIRE rejected
of
> males (who can contemplate the rejection of James Joyce's daughter by
Samuel
> Beckett.)
>
> But they were engaged first, so there is much more to this story...
>
> DM
>
> __________________________________
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 09:07:22 -0700 (PDT)
> From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Aunt Maud
>
> - --- s~Z <keithsz@concentric.net> wrote:
> > I did find Nabokov's comments about Kinbote and Zembla intriguing.
Again, it
> goes without saying that his comments don't prove any particulars, but the
> quote gives Zembla a vividness that, for me, points away from the popular
view
> that Zembla is a figment of Kinbote's deluded imagination. His reign is
> unaddressed by the quote, but Zembla itself appears very real.
>
> No, it is an imaginary place "biologically" similar to Scandinavia (VN
said).
>
> Nova Zembla is a real place, not Zembla.
>
> DM
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 09:32:55 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Get Real
>
> >>>No, it is an imaginary place "biologically" similar to Scandinavia (VN
> said).<<<
>
> No, it is a fictional country in a work of fiction in the same biological
> zone as another fictional country in another work of fiction.
>
> Scandinavia is a real place, not Ultima Thule.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 05 Sep 2003 12:41:56 -0400
> From: Terrance <lycidas2@earthlink.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Zembla & the Criminal Imagination
>
> > No, [Zembla] is an imaginary place "biologically" similar to Scandinavia
(VN said).
>
>
> In your imagination or his?
> Who imagines such a place?
> Why ...um... a person with an imagination ... of course ... a dreamer
> of elegant jigs and saws puzzling behind the shades and beyond the pale
> of ghostly pedagogical pedarastic passion...ah ...um ... that is ....
>
> And what kind of an imagination ... ?
>
> Not the criminal sort.
>
> In his brief but fascinating essay "The Art of Literature & Common
> Sense" N tlaks about being inspired and then sitting to make a good
> story.
>
>
>
> Canto the first
> Stanza the 4th
>
> I cannot understand why from the lake
> I could make out our front porch when I'd take
> Lake Road to school, whilst now, although no tree
> Has intervened, I look but fail to see
> Even the roof. Maybe some quirk in space
> Has caused a fold or furrow to displace
> The fragile vista, the frame house between
> Goldsworth and Wordsworth on its square of green.
>
> Line 42: I Could make out
> Vintage Pale Fire page 80
>
> Now, Kinbote talks about Shade as if Kinbote were Shade's inspiration. I
> think we discussed the tradition of the muse and so forth, but here,
> it seems to me that Kinbote is talking about Inspiration in the sense
> that N defines that term in his essay.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> End of pynchon-l-digest V2 #3535
> ********************************
>
From: "pynchon-l-digest" <owner-pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
To: <pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
Sent: Friday, September 05, 2003 9:42 AM
Subject: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3535
>
> pynchon-l-digest Friday, September 5 2003 Volume 02 : Number
3535
> Date: Fri, 05 Sep 2003 17:51:11 +1000
> From: jbor <jbor@bigpond.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Aunt Maud
>
> >> I agree that the evidence is thin, but there is something in the
buildup
> >> of imagery which Keith catalogued.<<<
>
> on 5/9/03 9:29 AM, s~Z at keithsz@concentric.net wrote:
>
> > Now add to the buildup of imagery Nabokov's own words about the poem
sans
> > commentary. He characterizes the poem as "racy and tricky, and
unpleasant,
> > and bizarre."
>
> It's all of these things without necessarily being about Maud abusing
Shade
> *or* Hazel, of course, and there doesn't seem to be anything in Nabokov's
> subsequent comments about the poem or the novel which indicates that he
> intended to intimate an incestuous relationship between Shade and Aunt
Maud.
> Apart from the fact that Maud does seem to have been homosexual, as David
> pointed out, and so maps on to Kinbote (and, possibly, mirrors those
> "secondary homosexual complications" he talks about in relation to Fleur)
> there is the question of *why* Shade would insert all these hints about
his
> incestuous relationship with Maud into the poem, if indeed he had
> experienced them and they were as terrible as you've suggested the poem
> implies. If Maud *had* abused Shade I doubt very much that his
recollection
> of the experience would manifest in the poem in the way you're suggesting,
> and his representation of Maud would be less affectionate, and have more
of
> an edge to it, surely. If anything, the possibility that it was Hazel who
> Maud fondled ("she lived to hear the next babe cry", thus making Hazel the
> "flower" she "defiled"), and that Shade has suppressed his knowledge of
what
> went on, and that the imagery is emerging subsconsciously, deferred with
so
> much else in the poem onto apparent reminiscences from his own childhood
and
> adult years, an attempt to reorientate the poem away from his daughter's
> suicide (which is the primary subject, "your" favourite Canto, the one he
> and Sybil cry over etc), seems the more plausible of those two theories.
>
> I also think that the "solution" that there is no solution is as elegant
as
> any. I can see why Kinbote's self-consciousness about the existence of
> "Botkin" would throw a spanner in the works of a lot of the critics who
> argue for this or that "ultimate" reading of who wrote who, and why they
> would thus try and dismiss these details about Botkin which Kinbote drops
> into his notes as excessive or irrelevant. But I think it might also pay
to
> keep in mind the fact that most chess games end up unresolved, often
> elegantly so.
>
> best
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 09:24:17 -0400
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <jasper@hatguild.org>
> Subject: RE: NPPF Re: Notes C.1-4 - C.42
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-pynchon-l@waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l@waste.org] On
> > Behalf Of s~Z
>
> >>"Southey's Lingo-Grande ('Dear Stumparumper,' etc)"
>
> > While no reference to Southey using Dear Stumparumper could be found
>
> In 1820 Southey wrote "Vision of Judgment," a commemoration of King George
> III, in the preface for which he criticizes Lord Byron and his "Satanic
> School." "Dear Stumparumper" is thus a rather cruel joke aimed at Byron's
> clubfoot.
>
> http://www.englishhistory.net/byron/southey.html (the preface)
> http://website.lineone.net/~ssiggeman/avision.html (the poem)
>
> See Byron's response to Southey, also called "The Vision of Judgment,"
> published as QUEVEDO REDIVIVUS, a poem with its share of shadows and
shades:
>
> http://website.lineone.net/~ssiggeman/thevision.html
>
>
> Jasper Fidget
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 06:28:21 -0700 (PDT)
> From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF That'd be up the butt, Bob [was Comm 2: My bedroom, part
2 (tendril)]
>
> - --- Don Corathers <gumbo@fuse.net> wrote:
> >
> > > --- Don Corathers <gumbo@fuse.net> wrote:
> > > > I think I 've figured this out, at some cost to my moral serenity:
with
> no "secondary homosexual complications" Kinbote is assuring us he's not
Fleur's
> back-door man, either.
> > >
> > > I think you're making this into a "bush vet" thing, but that's OK
'cause
> who really cares?
> >
> >
> > I think such details are worth caring about in Pale Fire [...] Thought
that
> was why we were reading the book.
>
> I'm sorry for being too flip. I just don't see what you see in that line,
but
> I don't think it's that important, not wanting to "bush-vet" the
discussion on
> a small point.
>
> DM
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
> http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 18:07:03 +0300
> From: "Tsianides Costas" <tsianides@cytanet.com.cy>
> Subject: NPPF -Hazel and Lucia
>
> From : Glasheen Adaline " Third Census Of Finnegans Wake"
>
> JOYCE, Lucia Anna . Joyce's daughter who went mad (......)
> Lucia tried to dance greatly, write, make illuminated letters for a
Chaucer
> poem....But it was no good.
> And Lucia was also, .....like the poet's daughter in PALE FIRE rejected of
> males (who can contemplate the rejection of James Joyce's daughter by
Samuel
> Beckett.)
>
>
> costas
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 08:23:42 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Aunt Maud
>
> >>>It's all of these things without necessarily being about Maud abusing
> Shade
> *or* Hazel, of course, and there doesn't seem to be anything in Nabokov's
> subsequent comments about the poem or the novel which indicates that he
> intended to intimate an incestuous relationship between Shade and Aunt
> Maud.<<<
>
> There doesn't seem to be anything in Nabokov's subsequent comments
> which indicate much of anything about his intent, hence the decades
> long debate. It goes without saying that his comment that the poem
> is racy, etc. are not indicative of particulars, but I read very little
> about
> the stand alone poem which fits those descriptors.
>
> I did find Nabokov's comments about Kinbote and Zembla intriguing.
> Again, it goes without saying that his comments don't prove any
> particulars, but the quote gives Zembla a vividness that, for me, points
> away from the popular view that Zembla is a figment of Kinbote's
> deluded imagination. His reign is unaddressed by the quote, but
> Zembla itself appears very real.
>
>
> > From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> > Date: 2003/09/05 Fri AM 09:28:21 EDT
> > To: Don Corathers <gumbo@fuse.net>, pynchon-l@waste.org
> > Subject: Re: NPPF That'd be up the butt, Bob [was Comm 2: My bedroom,
part 2 (tendril)]
> >
> >
> > --- Don Corathers <gumbo@fuse.net> wrote:
> > >
> > > > --- Don Corathers <gumbo@fuse.net> wrote:
> > > > > I think I 've figured this out, at some cost to my moral serenity:
with
> > no "secondary homosexual complications" Kinbote is assuring us he's not
Fleur's
> > back-door man, either.
> > > >
> > > > I think you're making this into a "bush vet" thing, but that's OK
'cause
> > who really cares?
> > >
> > >
> > > I think such details are worth caring about in Pale Fire [...] Thought
that
> > was why we were reading the book.
> >
> > I'm sorry for being too flip. I just don't see what you see in that
line, but
> > I don't think it's that important, not wanting to "bush-vet" the
discussion on
> > a small point.
> >
> > DM
> >
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 09:02:57 -0700 (PDT)
> From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF -Hazel and Lucia
>
> - --- Tsianides Costas <tsianides@cytanet.com.cy> wrote:
> > And Lucia was also, .....like the poet's daughter in PALE FIRE rejected
of
> males (who can contemplate the rejection of James Joyce's daughter by
Samuel
> Beckett.)
>
> But they were engaged first, so there is much more to this story...
>
> DM
>
> __________________________________
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 09:07:22 -0700 (PDT)
> From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Aunt Maud
>
> - --- s~Z <keithsz@concentric.net> wrote:
> > I did find Nabokov's comments about Kinbote and Zembla intriguing.
Again, it
> goes without saying that his comments don't prove any particulars, but the
> quote gives Zembla a vividness that, for me, points away from the popular
view
> that Zembla is a figment of Kinbote's deluded imagination. His reign is
> unaddressed by the quote, but Zembla itself appears very real.
>
> No, it is an imaginary place "biologically" similar to Scandinavia (VN
said).
>
> Nova Zembla is a real place, not Zembla.
>
> DM
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 09:32:55 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Get Real
>
> >>>No, it is an imaginary place "biologically" similar to Scandinavia (VN
> said).<<<
>
> No, it is a fictional country in a work of fiction in the same biological
> zone as another fictional country in another work of fiction.
>
> Scandinavia is a real place, not Ultima Thule.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 05 Sep 2003 12:41:56 -0400
> From: Terrance <lycidas2@earthlink.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Zembla & the Criminal Imagination
>
> > No, [Zembla] is an imaginary place "biologically" similar to Scandinavia
(VN said).
>
>
> In your imagination or his?
> Who imagines such a place?
> Why ...um... a person with an imagination ... of course ... a dreamer
> of elegant jigs and saws puzzling behind the shades and beyond the pale
> of ghostly pedagogical pedarastic passion...ah ...um ... that is ....
>
> And what kind of an imagination ... ?
>
> Not the criminal sort.
>
> In his brief but fascinating essay "The Art of Literature & Common
> Sense" N tlaks about being inspired and then sitting to make a good
> story.
>
>
>
> Canto the first
> Stanza the 4th
>
> I cannot understand why from the lake
> I could make out our front porch when I'd take
> Lake Road to school, whilst now, although no tree
> Has intervened, I look but fail to see
> Even the roof. Maybe some quirk in space
> Has caused a fold or furrow to displace
> The fragile vista, the frame house between
> Goldsworth and Wordsworth on its square of green.
>
> Line 42: I Could make out
> Vintage Pale Fire page 80
>
> Now, Kinbote talks about Shade as if Kinbote were Shade's inspiration. I
> think we discussed the tradition of the muse and so forth, but here,
> it seems to me that Kinbote is talking about Inspiration in the sense
> that N defines that term in his essay.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> End of pynchon-l-digest V2 #3535
> ********************************
>