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Fw: Boyd's Nabokov's Pale Fire: kibitzes and queries
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-----Original Message-----
From: David Haan <drjhaan@hotmail.com>
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Date: Monday, March 20, 2000 5:55 AM
Subject: Boyd's Nabokov's Pale Fire: kibitzes and queries
>
>----------------- Message requiring your approval (74
lines) ------------------
>From: David Haan <drjhaan@hotmail.com>
>
>First, a word of thanks. Boyd masterfully annotates the problematics
>of Shade/Kinbote's narration for the lay reader in much the same way
>as the best analysis of top-level chess matches (or perhaps endgame
>studies) does for mere woodpushers: the exploration of the byways of
>the tryplay and byplay entertain and inform. But ... as with chessic
>analysis, no judgment is final or definitive (as Boyd's own reading
>has changed over time), as new variations come to light. Kibitzes,
>in ascending order:
>
>1) Kinboot definition (chap 14 note 3) omits OED "{not the same as
>the OE cynebot or royal compensation]"; surely VN was aware of this
>dual.
>2) Iris Acht -> iris 8 -> irisate backformation of irisated, or
>iridescent, as in carnival glass (photo patinated L130 varicolored
>semitransparent film L149 etc ... cf carnival as theatrical hi/lo
>reversal a la Bakhtin).
>3) Having played "Find What the Sailor Has Hidden" with PF, I can't
>unsee the placement of the Shade/Kinbote narrator as the reversal of
>Conrad's relation to Almayer as described in Chapter 4 of "A Personal
>Record" (ie with Almayer in control of the text). In particular,
>consider Conrad's apologia, which begins:
> "It is true, Almayer, that in the world below I have converted
> your name to my own uses. But that is a very small larceny. What's
> in a name, oh, Shade? If so much of your own mortal weakness clings
> to you yet as to make you feel aggrieved (it was the note of your
> earthly voice, Almayer), then, I entreat you, seek speech without
> delay with our sublime fellow-shade -- with him who, in his
> transient existence as a poet, commented upon the smell of the
> rose."
>In this short passage, we have Shade named, theft (of name), and
>allusion to the bard. Further on, "I wrapped [your name's] unhonoured
>form the royal mantle of the tropics ... In your earthly life you
>haunted me, Almayer." And "You affirm that ... I might have perceived
>better the inward marvellousness which, you insist, attended your
>career ...". There's even an appearance of an "admirable" near the
>end.
>Other supporting (if not conclusive) evidence, beyond the fantastic
>egotism of Almayer and Kinbote:
>- Conmal: amalgam of the initial 3 letters of Conrad and Almayer
> (as Utana merges 2 western states)
>- Mont Blanc: Conrad's apprentice ship
>- 1888: year between Conrad's encounter with Almayer and his
> beginning to write "almayer's Folly"
>- Kinbote:Kinboot::Almayer:Alms-ayre? benefactor and beneficiary of
> post-mortem
>All topsy-turvical coincidence? If VN included Eliot (held in such
>mild esteem for style over substance), why not Conrad?
>
>Queries:
>1) The theivery in Timon is cyclic triadic (sun/moon/sea) plus one
>(earth, which "feeds and breeds by a composture stol'n/from gen'ral
>excrement", addressed to three thieves by a Timon gone to ground.
>Did VN exploit the cyclic structure (other than trivially korona/
>vorona/korova) or imply a missing fourth in the triads of PF?
>2) Has any study investigated PF structurally from the standpoint of
>transferring methods of chess problem composition (themes such as
>flight gifts, interference, dual avoidance, etc) as opposed to
>solution?
>3) Was VN up on double attribution of Timon to Shakespeare and
>Middleton?
>4) Did VN tackle Melville's "The Confidence Man" in class?
>
>;D
>
>Van hid Ada
>
>"My wife says it's not the sound I make blowing my nose she minds so
>much; it's the thud of the geese hitting the picture window."
>
>______________________________________________________
>Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
>
From: David Haan <drjhaan@hotmail.com>
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Date: Monday, March 20, 2000 5:55 AM
Subject: Boyd's Nabokov's Pale Fire: kibitzes and queries
>
>----------------- Message requiring your approval (74
lines) ------------------
>From: David Haan <drjhaan@hotmail.com>
>
>First, a word of thanks. Boyd masterfully annotates the problematics
>of Shade/Kinbote's narration for the lay reader in much the same way
>as the best analysis of top-level chess matches (or perhaps endgame
>studies) does for mere woodpushers: the exploration of the byways of
>the tryplay and byplay entertain and inform. But ... as with chessic
>analysis, no judgment is final or definitive (as Boyd's own reading
>has changed over time), as new variations come to light. Kibitzes,
>in ascending order:
>
>1) Kinboot definition (chap 14 note 3) omits OED "{not the same as
>the OE cynebot or royal compensation]"; surely VN was aware of this
>dual.
>2) Iris Acht -> iris 8 -> irisate backformation of irisated, or
>iridescent, as in carnival glass (photo patinated L130 varicolored
>semitransparent film L149 etc ... cf carnival as theatrical hi/lo
>reversal a la Bakhtin).
>3) Having played "Find What the Sailor Has Hidden" with PF, I can't
>unsee the placement of the Shade/Kinbote narrator as the reversal of
>Conrad's relation to Almayer as described in Chapter 4 of "A Personal
>Record" (ie with Almayer in control of the text). In particular,
>consider Conrad's apologia, which begins:
> "It is true, Almayer, that in the world below I have converted
> your name to my own uses. But that is a very small larceny. What's
> in a name, oh, Shade? If so much of your own mortal weakness clings
> to you yet as to make you feel aggrieved (it was the note of your
> earthly voice, Almayer), then, I entreat you, seek speech without
> delay with our sublime fellow-shade -- with him who, in his
> transient existence as a poet, commented upon the smell of the
> rose."
>In this short passage, we have Shade named, theft (of name), and
>allusion to the bard. Further on, "I wrapped [your name's] unhonoured
>form the royal mantle of the tropics ... In your earthly life you
>haunted me, Almayer." And "You affirm that ... I might have perceived
>better the inward marvellousness which, you insist, attended your
>career ...". There's even an appearance of an "admirable" near the
>end.
>Other supporting (if not conclusive) evidence, beyond the fantastic
>egotism of Almayer and Kinbote:
>- Conmal: amalgam of the initial 3 letters of Conrad and Almayer
> (as Utana merges 2 western states)
>- Mont Blanc: Conrad's apprentice ship
>- 1888: year between Conrad's encounter with Almayer and his
> beginning to write "almayer's Folly"
>- Kinbote:Kinboot::Almayer:Alms-ayre? benefactor and beneficiary of
> post-mortem
>All topsy-turvical coincidence? If VN included Eliot (held in such
>mild esteem for style over substance), why not Conrad?
>
>Queries:
>1) The theivery in Timon is cyclic triadic (sun/moon/sea) plus one
>(earth, which "feeds and breeds by a composture stol'n/from gen'ral
>excrement", addressed to three thieves by a Timon gone to ground.
>Did VN exploit the cyclic structure (other than trivially korona/
>vorona/korova) or imply a missing fourth in the triads of PF?
>2) Has any study investigated PF structurally from the standpoint of
>transferring methods of chess problem composition (themes such as
>flight gifts, interference, dual avoidance, etc) as opposed to
>solution?
>3) Was VN up on double attribution of Timon to Shakespeare and
>Middleton?
>4) Did VN tackle Melville's "The Confidence Man" in class?
>
>;D
>
>Van hid Ada
>
>"My wife says it's not the sound I make blowing my nose she minds so
>much; it's the thud of the geese hitting the picture window."
>
>______________________________________________________
>Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
>