Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0008933, Tue, 18 Nov 2003 10:19:06 -0800

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>
> pynchon-l-digest Tuesday, November 18 2003 Volume 02 : Number
3657
>
>
> NPPF: Summary Line 949-I
> NPPF Commentary Line 949 - Notes: Carl Sandburg
> NPPF Commentary Line 949 - Notes: A pro-Red Revolt
> NPPF Summary Line 949-II
> NPPF Commentary Line 949 - Notes: A great conspiracy
> NPPF Line 949-I- US time zones
> NPPF Commentary Line 949 - Notes
>

>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2003 07:22:28 +0100
> From: "Otto" <ottosell@yahoo.de>
> Subject: NPPF: Summary Line 949-I
>
> Summary Line 949-I
>
> "And all the time"
>
> In this first, short entry to line 949 Kinbote tells that Shade began his
> work on the last cards (77-80) on the last day of his life (Tuesday, July
> 21, 1959).
>
> He speaks about two "silent time zones" which now have merged to the
> "standard time" of one man's fate (Shade), and speculates that both the
> killer and the victim could have been woken up at the same moment, one in
> New York and the other one in New Wye.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2003 07:22:39 +0100
> From: "Otto" <ottosell@yahoo.de>
> Subject: NPPF Commentary Line 949 - Notes: Carl Sandburg
>
> Carl Sandburg
>
> CHICAGO
> HOG Butcher for the World,
> Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
> Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
> Stormy, husky, brawling,
> City of the Big Shoulders:
> (...)
>
> continues at:
> http://carl-sandburg.com/chicago.htm
> http://carl-sandburg.com/POEMS.htm
>
> http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?45442B7C000C040C
>
> Carl Sandburg Biography
> January 6, 1878 - July 22, 1967
> http://carl-sandburg.com/biography.htm
>
> Carl Sandburg's Life
> by Penelope Niven
> http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/s_z/sandburg/sandburg_life.htm
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2003 07:22:34 +0100
> From: "Otto" <ottosell@yahoo.de>
> Subject: NPPF Commentary Line 949 - Notes: A pro-Red Revolt
>
> "A pro-Red Revolt"
>
> Obviously this is referring to the Qassem-revolt in 1958 which had ended
the
> Iraqi monarchy, in Kinbote's (Nabokov's?) eyes another failed
regime-change
> from feudalism to totalitarianism, like the Russian Revolution not
bringing
> the freedom that it had promised:
>
> "The monarchy's major foreign policy mistake occurred in 1955, when Nuri
> as-Said announced that Iraq was joining a British supported mutual defense
> pact with Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey. The Baghdad Pact constituted a
direct
> challenge to Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser. In response, Nasser
> launched a vituperative media campaign that challenged the legitimacy of
the
> Iraqi monarchy and called on the officer corps to overthrow it. The 1956
> British-French-Israeli attack on Sinai further alienated Nuri as-Said's
> regime from the growing ranks of the opposition. In February 1958 King
> Hussein of Jordan and Abd al Ilah proposed a union of Hashimite monarchies
> to counter the recently formed Egyptian-Syrian union. Opening its doors
for
> any Arab state to join if they wish ... Nuri as-Said concentrated on the
> participation of Kuwait as a third country in the proposed Arab-Hashimite
> Union, Shaikh Abdullah Al-Salim, ruler of Kuwait, was invited to Baghdad
to
> discuss Kuwait liberation from the British protection, and on the subject
of
> tri-unity. Britain opposed declaring Kuwait independent at that time. At
> this point, the monarchy found itself completely isolated. Nuri as-Said
was
> able to contain the rising discontent only by resorting to even greater
> oppression and to tighter control over the political process.
> Inspired by the example of Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt, the Hashimite
> monarchy was overthrown on July 14, 1958, in a swift, predawn coup
executed
> by officers of the Nineteenth Brigade known as "Free Officers", under the
> leadership of Brigadier Abdul-Karim Qassem (known as "il-Za`im") and
Colonel
> Abdul Salam Arif. King Faisal II and Abd al Ilah were executed in al-Rihab
> Palace, and displaying the bodies in public, hanging them by their feet
> outside the palace; as were many others in the royal family. Nuri as-Said
> escaped capture for one day after attempting to escape disguised as a
veiled
> woman, but was then caught and put to death, his body tied to the back of
a
> car and dragged through the streets until there was nothing left but half
a
> leg. Iraq was proclaimed a republic, and the Arab Union was dissolved.
> Iraq's activity in the Baghdad Pact ceased.
> Later the same year, on two occasions, Aref attempted to assassinate the
new
> Prime Minister, Qassem, but failed.
> In 1959, the Mosul garrison, disillusioned with the new government,
> organized a revolt against Qassem. The revolt was ruthlessly suppressed,
> with the massacre of many hundreds of disaffected Arab nationalists and
> Ba'athists.
> Later in 1959, another assassination attempt against Qassem, this time
> organized by the Ba'ath Party, failed. Amongst the unsuccessful
> assassination squad was the young Saddam Hussein.
> Qassem ended Iraq's membership in the Baghdad Pact (later reconstituted as
> the Central Treaty Organization- CENTO) in 1959. Qassem remained in power
> for more than four years. The Nasserites and the Baathists both wished to
> join the UAR (United Arab Republic - Egypt), a means to control the
> communists, but Qassem, not wishing to be overshadowed by Nasser, allied
> himself with the left and refused their demands. This served to alienate
> himself from his strongest supporters."
> http://home.achilles.net/~sal/iraq_history.html
>
> http://www.angelfire.com/nt/Gilgamesh/58.html
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2003 07:22:48 +0100
> From: "Otto" <ottosell@yahoo.de>
> Subject: NPPF Summary Line 949-II
>
> Summary Line 949-II
>
> "And all the time"
>
> Contrary to the first, short entry on line 949 this second entry is much
> longer. It follows Gradus' way from waking up at New York, moving
> to New Wye on this Tuesday, July 21, 1959, after putting some concern
> to the time of his arrival at New York the previous night when there had
> been a big thunderstorm that had flooded the basements and subway tracks
> of the city.
>
> Kinbote goes through three of the different names he has applied to the
> killer: Vinogradus, Jacques d'Argus and Jack Grey, repeating the latter
> when reflecting on the rainbow-coloured reflections of the gasoline-water
> mix on the streets of New York.
>
> We're told about Gradus' strange sleeping-habits: he slept well at a
> "third-class Broadway hotel" in "striped pajamas," lying on the
bedclothes,
> leaving his socks on.
>
> We get something on Gradus' daily waking-up, washing & shaving routine and
> his simple breakfast on what Kinbote calls "the most important day in his
> life". Again Kinbote has nothing but contempt for the character he
describes
> so detailed, calls him a near-cretin who is even unable to be impressed by
> the city of New York, relating the poor quality of the breakfast to
Gradus'
> "frugal youth" -- frugal, the term is used for describing a simple meal
too.
>
> After having a cup of coffee in a crowded diner he takes a walk through
the
> "westside alleys" of Central Park, reading the newspapers that have been
> left over by their owners on the park benches. He reads about Khrushchev
who
> had called off a visit to Scandinavia and had visited Zembla instead. The
> United States "was about to launch its first atom-driven merchant ship,"
in
> Kinbote's opinion laid upon Gradus ("J.G.") only to annoy the Russians.
>
> Gradus reads further something about a Newark appartment house that had
been
> struck by lightning and left two people injured who were watching "an
> actress lost in a violent studio storm" on TV. Kinbote comments on this by
> expressing his belief in ghosts that must be responsible for this
incident.
>
> An job offer from the "Rachel Jewelry Company" reminds Kinbote of DegrИ's
> original profession as a glass-worker -- here he's using the fourth name
> (French spelling) he has given to the killer. Another piece of business
news
> about another glass factory reminds Gradus of his own age. Then he reads
in
> yesterday's New York Times from another bench a message about Queen
> Elisabeth of England visiting a museum in Whitehorse, where she had taken
> off one of her gloves and "rubbed her forehead and one of her eyes" at the
> "White Animals Room," followed by something about a "pro-Red revolt" in
Iraq
> and Carl Sandburg about the "Soviet exhibition at the New York Coliseum.
> Further news about a book reviewer who hasn't got much to say about his
own
> work and a Zemblan child at a "picnic for international children."
>
> Then Kinbote "confesses" (in my opinion) that he has looked up these
> incidents at the WUL (Wordsmith University Library).
>
> Gradus gets his shoes shined by a "dirty but pretty boy" and enjoys
> "coarsely (...) a coarse meal" of "pork with sauerkraut," and Kinbote
> reflects upon this meal with surprise, assuming that Gradus' lack of
fantasy
> about all the possible consequences the "monstrous act" he's about to
commit
> might have would keep his imagination at the "margin" of all thinkable
> consequences, being unable to think of consequences that could be compared
> to the phantom pain of an amputee or to imaginable moves outside the chess
> board of a chess knight who is standing at the "border" of the board.
>
> Gradus pays for his stay at the hotel and leaves his raincoat in a
suitcase
> at a station locker. He has to wait for his flight to New Wye until 2 p.m.
> Going by train would take too long, going by bus would make him seasick.
> Kinbote ends this paragraph with a remarkable sentence about the present
> state of mind of the killer:
> "Come to think of it, he was not feeling too steady anyway."
>
> Kinbote then describes Gradus more detailed, but very unfavorable and
> critical, calling his gestures chimpanzee-like, calling him a "primate," a
> "half-man" and asserts that "spititually he did not exist," that he was
> "half-mad."
>
> On the flight he shares with delegates of the New Wye Linguistic
Conference
> Gradus gets a stomach ache which Kinbote explains with the meal Gradus had
> eaten, so that after his arrival at the Campus Hotel he gets diarrhoea.
>
> He looks for Charles Xavier aka Kinbote at the library but misses him and
> meets Gerald Emerald instead who offers to take him to Dulwich Road in his
> car.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2003 07:22:53 +0100
> From: "Otto" <ottosell@yahoo.de>
> Subject: NPPF Commentary Line 949 - Notes: A great conspiracy
>
> "I have considered in my earlier note (I see now it is the note to line
171)
> the particular dislikes, and hence the motives, of our 'automatic man'
> (...)."
>
> Line 171: A great conspiracy
>
> Here Shade is speaking of a great conspiracy that seemed to have kept him
as
> a young man from knowing the secrets of the "survival after death" (169),
> but Kinbote takes these words simply as an opportunity to spin his yarn
> about the post-revolutionary Zemblan conspiracy to kill the king,
"wherever
> he might be."
>
> This reference reveals Kinbote's technique of his abuse of Shade's poem to
> tell his own imaginary story quite well.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2003 07:21:49 +0100
> From: "Otto" <ottosell@yahoo.de>
> Subject: NPPF Line 949-I- US time zones
>
> Not sure about the time zones. Must be EDT (Eastern Daylight Saving) and
CDT
> (Central Daylight Saving).
> http://www.worldtimezone.com/time-us24.html
>
> Archives of Appalachia
> http://cass.etsu.edu/archives/
> (the main page has an image of a beautiful mountain rainbow)
> http://cass.etsu.edu/archives/aapprac.htm
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2003 07:22:43 +0100
> From: "Otto" <ottosell@yahoo.de>
> Subject: NPPF Commentary Line 949 - Notes
>
> Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev (April 17, 1894 - September 11, 1971)
> http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/kbank/profiles/khrushchev/
> http://wald.heim.at/sherwood/530363/personen.htm#Chruschtschow
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikita_Khrushchev
>
> Thaw in the Cold War:
> Eisenhower and Khrushchev
> at Gettysburg
> http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/29ike/29ike.htm
>
>
> "The United States was about to launch its first atom-driven merchant
ship"
>
> Savannah
> National Maritime Day Proclamation 1959 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower
of
> the United States of America
> A Proclamation
> WHEREAS this is the year in which the N. S. Savannah, the world's first
> nuclear-powered merchant ship, will be launched upon the high seas;
>
> National Maritime Day Proclamation 1962 by President John F. Kennedy of
the
> United States of America
> A Proclamation
> WHEREAS 1962 is the year in which the world's first nuclear-powered
merchant
> ship, the N.S. Savannah, first went to sea;
> http://www.usmm.org/md/maritdayjfk.html
> http://www.triangminicships.com/merchants/savannah.htm
>
>
> "Those tormented spirits are terrible. C.X.K. *teste* J.S."
> C.X.K. -- Charles Xavier Kinbote
> J.S. -- John Shade
>
> Rachel Jewelry Company?
> Helman brothers?
> Decker Glass Manufacturing Company?
>
>
> New York Coliseum
> Columbus Avenue to Broadway, West 58th to West 60th Streets (10 Columbus
> Circle)
> http://www.skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=3115
>
> The New York Coliseum (1954, arch. Leon and Lionel Levy with John B.
> Peterkin, Aymar Embury II and Eggers & Higgins) in the process of being
torn
> down, with the expected completion five months after the picture was
taken.
> http://www.greatgridlock.net/NYC_Images/coliseum.html
>
> WUL -- Wordsmith Universitary Library
>
> ------------------------------
>
> End of pynchon-l-digest V2 #3657
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