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pynchon-l-digest V2 #3622 (fwd) Pale Firfe
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---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Date: Sunday, October 26, 2003 2:00 AM -0600
From: pynchon-l-digest <owner-pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
To: pynchon-l-digest@waste.org
Subject: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3622
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 20:12:17 +1000
From: jbor <jbor@bigpond.com>
Subject: Re: NPPF: Commentary 5 (notes) Lines 433-434
on 25/10/03 8:20 AM, Jasper Fidget wrote:
> Phrynia and Timandra, Mistresses to Alcibiades. Timon calls them harlots,
> whores, and sluts, and they agree that they'll "do anything for gold"
> (IV:iii). I think the reference is both sexual and scholarly for Kinbote,
> as he's mixed (or confused) the two elsewhere. I doubt they stand in for
> two real women in Charles' life though.
I agree. In the dream Phrynia is "prickly-chinned" and Timandra has a "boom
under her apron", somewhat pointedly (sorry) confirming their transvestism.
It's as though they're male actors playing female roles, as per the
conventions of Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre.
But there's something quite exaggerated in Kinbote's elaborate protestations
of his "dream-love" for Disa. It's almost as if he's trying to compete with
Shade's mawkish tribute to Sybil (lines 247-292). It reminds me a little of
that battle of hyperboles enacted between Hamlet and Laertes beside and in
Ophelia's grave.
best
ps. Apologies to Jasper for requoting the Housman poem. I hadn't yet looked
at his supplementary notes to bekah's excellent summaries and comments.
------------------------------
)
From: pynchonoid <pynchonoid@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: NPPF "You are telling me!"
Considering that the entire Pale Fire discussion is
off-topic on Pynchon-L, jbor's seems a strange "ad
hominem" (using that term as loosely re jbor as he
uses it with others) attack on an important
participant in same (the off-topic discussion in which
jbor also participates).
At any rate, Glenn's posts are way more fun and
interesting than jbor's tired retreads of the
Left-bashing hatchet-job on Vineland that he has
offered again and again in this forum over the past
few years. I suspect jbor's just jealous of the scope
of reading that Glenn manages to incorporate and of
the attention that Glenn's posts receive, and I
wouldn't be the first to note jbor's need to control
the discussion here. Also in the context of the
Vineland discussion, it's pretty humorous to hear jbor
complaining that somebody else is twisting an author's
words in a way that does a disservice to the author's
intent, given the way jbor continues an absurd effort
to make Pynchon a neocon critic of the 60's, by taking
out of context and revising what P has written in this
novel.
Please keep up the good work, Glenn; your AF posts
seem, at minimum, an entertaining object lesson in a
kind of "magnificent obsession" that seems to motivate
some of Pynchon's characters, as you pull together
disparate literary threads in an thought-provoking
way. My only request would be that you write about
Pynchon in Pynchon-L, but that's a purely personal
opinion, expressed in an unmoderated forum,
understanding that none of us has been elected
moderator here.
___________
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 09:03:10 -0400
From: "Scott Badger" <lupine@ncia.net>
Subject: RE: NPPF: Commentary 2(summary and notes) Lines 403-404
Jasper:
> Red Admirable makes a cameo as it gradually catches up to the final
> crescendo; the phrase "volant en arrière" means flying behind, but it will
> eventually find Shade: the unusual word "gule" is found in _Timon
> of Athens_
> IV:3: "With man's blood paint the ground, gules, gules."
>
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 12:51:34 -0400
From: "Jasper Fidget" <fakename@verizon.net>
Subject: RE: NPPF: Commentary 5 (notes) Lines 433-434
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-pynchon-l@waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l@waste.org] On
> Behalf Of jbor
>
>
> I agree. In the dream Phrynia is "prickly-chinned" and Timandra has a
> "boom
> under her apron", somewhat pointedly (sorry) confirming their
> transvestism.
> It's as though they're male actors playing female roles, as per the
> conventions of Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre.
D'oh! I actually didn't even realize it, but you're right. Of course in
Zembla Charles' mistresses would be men pretending to be women.
> ps. Apologies to Jasper for requoting the Housman poem. I hadn't yet
> looked
> at his supplementary notes to bekah's excellent summaries and comments.
I don't mind.
Jasper
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 13:11:49 -0400
From: "Jasper Fidget" <fakename@verizon.net>
Subject: RE: NPPF: Commentary 5 (notes) Lines 433-434
> From: owner-pynchon-l@waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l@waste.org] On
> Behalf Of bekah
>
> Commentary notes to Lines 433-434
> "To the...sea Which we had visited in thirty-three"
>
Just some more stuff in this Commentary:
p. 205
"the Zemblan Revolution broke out (May 1, 1958)"
May Day.
p. 205
"ineffectual attempt to return to Zembla"
The way *back* to Zembla proves impossible.
p. 208
"Harfar Baron of Shalksbore"
King Harald Harfager of Norway, called Fairhair, from Snorri's Heimskringla.
He fought with Hake, son of Gandalf (!), who was one of the kings after the
death of Halfdan the Black. Other kings included Hogne and Frode (heh),
sons of Eystein (yup), king of Hedemark. The settlement of Iceland was a
result of Harald's wars, so another reference to the expansion of
civilization westward ho.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/heim/index.htm
p. 213
"the /narstran/, a hellish hall where the souls of murderers were tortured
under a constant drizzle of drake venom coming down from the foggy vault"
The word narstran comes from Old Norse "nar" for corpse (as in narwhal) and
the Slavic "stran" for land, so Land of the Dead, probably a variation of
"Nastrond" for "Corpse-Strand" (also Land of the Dead) as found in the
Poetic Edda (Vol. 1, Voluspo):
38. A hall I saw, | far from the sun,
On Nastrond it stands, | and the doors face north,
Venom drops | through the smoke-vent down,
For around the walls | do serpents wind.
39. I saw there wading | through rivers wild
Treacherous men | and murderers too,
And workers of ill | with the wives of men;
There Nithhogg sucked | the blood of the slain,
And the wolf tore men; | would you know yet more?
http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/poe/poe03.htm
The reference is also found in the Lokasenna section of the Poetic Edda:
"And after that Loki hid himself in Franang's waterfall in the guise of a
salmon, and there the gods took him. He was bound with the bowels of his son
Vali, but his son Narfi was changed to a wolf. Skathi took a poison-snake
and fastened it up over Loki's face, and the poison dropped thereon. Sigyn,
Loki's wife, sat there and held a shell under the poison, but when the shell
was full she bore away the poison, and meanwhile the poison dropped on Loki.
Then he struggled so hard that the whole earth shook therewith; and now that
is called an earthquake."
http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/poe/poe10.htm
Jasper Fidget
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 14:31:54 -0500
From: "Tim Strzechowski" <dedalus204@comcast.net>
Subject: Re: NPPF "You are telling me!"
I don't consider myself a member of any "fan clubs" (although, in my younger
and more vulnerable years I sent away for Freakies cereal figurines).
http://www.freakies.com/
Glenn offers a "reading" of the text, much as anyone else in this forum
does. Glenn supports this reading with textual evidence, much as many
others (including you and I) do in this forum. That you aren't *convinced*
of his "reading" is rather arrogant and presumptuous, no? Geez, man, I'm
not entirely convinced that VL is "about" WORK, but that doesn't negate the
efforts of Terrance to explore that theme as one of many possible themes.
Your efforts to backpedal and claim "no offense or ill will toward Glenn"
are nice, but considering that your original comment stated:
[...] "I think this constant barrage of AF propaganda does an enormous
disservice to the life and work of these authors and poets."
http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0310&msg=86763&sort=date
there's enough loaded language in that single statement, obvious to anyone
here, to demonstate otherwise.
While you may not necessarily owe Glenn an apology, at *least* be a man and
admit the connotations of your statement for what they are.
best
> Just to clarify this. I don't agree that any of the poets or writers
> mentioned practised auto-eroticism, or wrote about auto-eroticism, or
> thought about it when they wrote, or perceived it as a component of their
> aesthetic. And I don't agree that it's present as a reference in any of
> their works.
>
> I meant no offence or ill will towards Glenn, and I'm happy to see that he
> has four new recruits to his AF fan club.
>
> best
>
>
------------------------------
NABOKV-L
Date: Sunday, October 26, 2003 2:00 AM -0600
From: pynchon-l-digest <owner-pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
To: pynchon-l-digest@waste.org
Subject: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3622
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 20:12:17 +1000
From: jbor <jbor@bigpond.com>
Subject: Re: NPPF: Commentary 5 (notes) Lines 433-434
on 25/10/03 8:20 AM, Jasper Fidget wrote:
> Phrynia and Timandra, Mistresses to Alcibiades. Timon calls them harlots,
> whores, and sluts, and they agree that they'll "do anything for gold"
> (IV:iii). I think the reference is both sexual and scholarly for Kinbote,
> as he's mixed (or confused) the two elsewhere. I doubt they stand in for
> two real women in Charles' life though.
I agree. In the dream Phrynia is "prickly-chinned" and Timandra has a "boom
under her apron", somewhat pointedly (sorry) confirming their transvestism.
It's as though they're male actors playing female roles, as per the
conventions of Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre.
But there's something quite exaggerated in Kinbote's elaborate protestations
of his "dream-love" for Disa. It's almost as if he's trying to compete with
Shade's mawkish tribute to Sybil (lines 247-292). It reminds me a little of
that battle of hyperboles enacted between Hamlet and Laertes beside and in
Ophelia's grave.
best
ps. Apologies to Jasper for requoting the Housman poem. I hadn't yet looked
at his supplementary notes to bekah's excellent summaries and comments.
------------------------------
)
From: pynchonoid <pynchonoid@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: NPPF "You are telling me!"
Considering that the entire Pale Fire discussion is
off-topic on Pynchon-L, jbor's seems a strange "ad
hominem" (using that term as loosely re jbor as he
uses it with others) attack on an important
participant in same (the off-topic discussion in which
jbor also participates).
At any rate, Glenn's posts are way more fun and
interesting than jbor's tired retreads of the
Left-bashing hatchet-job on Vineland that he has
offered again and again in this forum over the past
few years. I suspect jbor's just jealous of the scope
of reading that Glenn manages to incorporate and of
the attention that Glenn's posts receive, and I
wouldn't be the first to note jbor's need to control
the discussion here. Also in the context of the
Vineland discussion, it's pretty humorous to hear jbor
complaining that somebody else is twisting an author's
words in a way that does a disservice to the author's
intent, given the way jbor continues an absurd effort
to make Pynchon a neocon critic of the 60's, by taking
out of context and revising what P has written in this
novel.
Please keep up the good work, Glenn; your AF posts
seem, at minimum, an entertaining object lesson in a
kind of "magnificent obsession" that seems to motivate
some of Pynchon's characters, as you pull together
disparate literary threads in an thought-provoking
way. My only request would be that you write about
Pynchon in Pynchon-L, but that's a purely personal
opinion, expressed in an unmoderated forum,
understanding that none of us has been elected
moderator here.
___________
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 09:03:10 -0400
From: "Scott Badger" <lupine@ncia.net>
Subject: RE: NPPF: Commentary 2(summary and notes) Lines 403-404
Jasper:
> Red Admirable makes a cameo as it gradually catches up to the final
> crescendo; the phrase "volant en arrière" means flying behind, but it will
> eventually find Shade: the unusual word "gule" is found in _Timon
> of Athens_
> IV:3: "With man's blood paint the ground, gules, gules."
>
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 12:51:34 -0400
From: "Jasper Fidget" <fakename@verizon.net>
Subject: RE: NPPF: Commentary 5 (notes) Lines 433-434
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-pynchon-l@waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l@waste.org] On
> Behalf Of jbor
>
>
> I agree. In the dream Phrynia is "prickly-chinned" and Timandra has a
> "boom
> under her apron", somewhat pointedly (sorry) confirming their
> transvestism.
> It's as though they're male actors playing female roles, as per the
> conventions of Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre.
D'oh! I actually didn't even realize it, but you're right. Of course in
Zembla Charles' mistresses would be men pretending to be women.
> ps. Apologies to Jasper for requoting the Housman poem. I hadn't yet
> looked
> at his supplementary notes to bekah's excellent summaries and comments.
I don't mind.
Jasper
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 13:11:49 -0400
From: "Jasper Fidget" <fakename@verizon.net>
Subject: RE: NPPF: Commentary 5 (notes) Lines 433-434
> From: owner-pynchon-l@waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l@waste.org] On
> Behalf Of bekah
>
> Commentary notes to Lines 433-434
> "To the...sea Which we had visited in thirty-three"
>
Just some more stuff in this Commentary:
p. 205
"the Zemblan Revolution broke out (May 1, 1958)"
May Day.
p. 205
"ineffectual attempt to return to Zembla"
The way *back* to Zembla proves impossible.
p. 208
"Harfar Baron of Shalksbore"
King Harald Harfager of Norway, called Fairhair, from Snorri's Heimskringla.
He fought with Hake, son of Gandalf (!), who was one of the kings after the
death of Halfdan the Black. Other kings included Hogne and Frode (heh),
sons of Eystein (yup), king of Hedemark. The settlement of Iceland was a
result of Harald's wars, so another reference to the expansion of
civilization westward ho.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/heim/index.htm
p. 213
"the /narstran/, a hellish hall where the souls of murderers were tortured
under a constant drizzle of drake venom coming down from the foggy vault"
The word narstran comes from Old Norse "nar" for corpse (as in narwhal) and
the Slavic "stran" for land, so Land of the Dead, probably a variation of
"Nastrond" for "Corpse-Strand" (also Land of the Dead) as found in the
Poetic Edda (Vol. 1, Voluspo):
38. A hall I saw, | far from the sun,
On Nastrond it stands, | and the doors face north,
Venom drops | through the smoke-vent down,
For around the walls | do serpents wind.
39. I saw there wading | through rivers wild
Treacherous men | and murderers too,
And workers of ill | with the wives of men;
There Nithhogg sucked | the blood of the slain,
And the wolf tore men; | would you know yet more?
http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/poe/poe03.htm
The reference is also found in the Lokasenna section of the Poetic Edda:
"And after that Loki hid himself in Franang's waterfall in the guise of a
salmon, and there the gods took him. He was bound with the bowels of his son
Vali, but his son Narfi was changed to a wolf. Skathi took a poison-snake
and fastened it up over Loki's face, and the poison dropped thereon. Sigyn,
Loki's wife, sat there and held a shell under the poison, but when the shell
was full she bore away the poison, and meanwhile the poison dropped on Loki.
Then he struggled so hard that the whole earth shook therewith; and now that
is called an earthquake."
http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/poe/poe10.htm
Jasper Fidget
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 14:31:54 -0500
From: "Tim Strzechowski" <dedalus204@comcast.net>
Subject: Re: NPPF "You are telling me!"
I don't consider myself a member of any "fan clubs" (although, in my younger
and more vulnerable years I sent away for Freakies cereal figurines).
http://www.freakies.com/
Glenn offers a "reading" of the text, much as anyone else in this forum
does. Glenn supports this reading with textual evidence, much as many
others (including you and I) do in this forum. That you aren't *convinced*
of his "reading" is rather arrogant and presumptuous, no? Geez, man, I'm
not entirely convinced that VL is "about" WORK, but that doesn't negate the
efforts of Terrance to explore that theme as one of many possible themes.
Your efforts to backpedal and claim "no offense or ill will toward Glenn"
are nice, but considering that your original comment stated:
[...] "I think this constant barrage of AF propaganda does an enormous
disservice to the life and work of these authors and poets."
http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0310&msg=86763&sort=date
there's enough loaded language in that single statement, obvious to anyone
here, to demonstate otherwise.
While you may not necessarily owe Glenn an apology, at *least* be a man and
admit the connotations of your statement for what they are.
best
> Just to clarify this. I don't agree that any of the poets or writers
> mentioned practised auto-eroticism, or wrote about auto-eroticism, or
> thought about it when they wrote, or perceived it as a component of their
> aesthetic. And I don't agree that it's present as a reference in any of
> their works.
>
> I meant no offence or ill will towards Glenn, and I'm happy to see that he
> has four new recruits to his AF fan club.
>
> best
>
>
------------------------------
NABOKV-L