Subject
[SIGHTINGS] Cats: Johnson's Hodges and Pale Fire:
From
Date
Body
Various CAT entries found in the internet, link Johnson's "Hodge" and Pale Fire.( I'll underline some of the references)
1. The Corner: The one and only.
A Disagreement on Nabokov,by Michael Potemra
July 3, 2012 4:
Yesterday I posted a reflection on some theological issues raised by Boswell's anecdote about Dr. Johnson and his cat. In the comment box, a writer using the handle "Bill Adams" claims that I misunderstood both the anecdote and Nabokov's use of it; he says that Johnson was not actually claiming that someone was going around shooting cats, but indulging in hyperbole, and that by quoting Johnson's "Hodge shall not be shot," Nabokov was therefore making a point about the power of literature to create real sympathy for characters in unreal situations.
In my view, Bill Adams's analysis has two things going for it. First, Boswell refers to Johnson's account as "ludicrous." Second, Pale Fire is indeed a book about how fictions can overtake reality; the title is itself a quote from Shakespeare, in which the moon is described as an "arrant thief" whose "pale fire" is a mere reflection of the light of the sun. It glows with a light that is not its own, but we admire the glow anyway.
Neither of these is dispositive, of course. Referring to an event as "ludicrous" or "absurd" does not mean it didn't really happen. (Proof: The content of the sentence "Chief Justice John Roberts opposed the Court's four conservatives and declared Obamacare constitutional" can reasonably be described as ludicrous or absurd. And yet the sentence is factually accurate.) And the fact that Pale Fire is a novel about novels does not mean that it is not also, and more importantly, a novel about real things.
Mr. Adams concedes much of the latter point, and says he agrees with some of what I wrote even while questioning my premise. Perhaps he is right about Johnson and the cat-shooter? In any case, I thank him for the post, and recommend that anyone interested in these matters read his comment.
A Disagreement on Nabokov | National Review Online
www.nationalreview.com/.../disagreement-nabokov?
2. Maaja A. Stewart "Nabokov's Pale Fire and Boswell's Johnson"
"nabokov has deliberately chosen a prosy anecdote, one that reverberates with no symbolic suggestiveness, to stand uneasily at the beginning of Pale Fire (1962). Its position marks its importance, but its contente, by itself, does not yield the significance we would expect from words in such a position - no title for the novel, no metaphorical condensation of the central situation we shall encounter, no metaphysical evaluation of the world we shall experience...
Maaja A. Stewart Nabokov's Pale Fire and Boswell's Johnson - JStor
www.jstor.org/stable/40754856
3. Boswell records about Hodge the cat:
"I never shall forget the indulgence with which he treated Hodge, his cat: for whom he himself used to go out and buy oysters, lest the servants having that trouble should take a dislike to the poor creature. I am, unluckily, one of those who have an antipathy to a cat, so that I am uneasy when in the room with one; and I own, I frequently suffered a good deal from the presence of this same Hodge. I recollect him one day scrambling up Dr. Johnson's breast, apparently with much satisfaction, while my friend smiling and half-whistling, rubbed down his back, and pulled him by the tail; and when I observed he was a fine cat, saying, 'Why yes, Sir, but I have had cats whom I liked better than this;' and then as if perceiving Hodge to be out of countenance, adding, 'but he is a very fine cat, a very fine cat indeed.' [ ] "This reminds me of the ludicrous account which he gave Mr. Langton, of the despicable state of a young Gentleman of good family. 'Sir, when I heard of him last, he was running about town shooting cats.' And then in a sort of kindly reverie, he bethought himself of his own favourite cat, and said, 'But Hodge shan't be shot; no, no, Hodge shall not be shot.'" (Life of Johnson, Chapter 41)
Indeed, Hodge shall have his oysters and Hodge shall not be shot, because Johnson loves him.
This last paragraph with its snippet of pet talk, "Hodge shall not be shot," is part of the epigraph to Nabokov's weird novel Pale Fire, though it's hard to tell if the quotation was in earnest or a joke, or if a joke, what sort of joke.
[ ]."Boswell himself confessed: "I am, unluckily, one of those who have an antipathy to a cat, so that I am uneasy when in the room with one; and I own, I frequently suffered a good deal from the presence of this same Hodge." If Charles Kinbote, "Pale Fire's" demented commentator, is indeed then some cracked Boswell (there are other hints that Nabokov fully intended the connection), reconsider his remarks about moving into his rental in New Wye, Appalachia, where he was expected to cat-sit:
"Among various detailed notices affixed to a special board in the pantry, such as plumbing instructions, dissertations on electricity, discourses on cactuses and so forth, I found the diet of the black cat that came with the house:
Mon, Wed, Fri: Liver
Tue, Thu, Sat: Fish
Sun: Ground meat
(All it got from me was milk and sardines; it was a likable little creature but after a while its movements began to grate on my nerves and I farmed it out to Mrs. Finley, the cleaning woman.)"
.That other great epigraph is from "The Waste Land." If you can think of any that beat my two, let us know.
Two more Nabokov sightings announced in the same NYT Artsbeat blog:
Related Posts
FROM ARTSBEAT
a.. Not Cool, Britannia: Plans Are Dropped to Honor Homes of Some Great Britons
b.. Critics' Picks Video: 'Lolita'
c.. How to Be a Book Critic
d.. Lolita's Ancestor
e.. Two of Nabokov's Many Cultures
4. In the way that anecdotes become collaborative productions, the trajectory of this anecdote does not end with Boswell's Life. This same anecdote also turns up in the paratextual front matter of Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire (1962), between Nabokov's dedication of the book "To Vera" and the table of contents. Gerard de Vries's note in The Nabokovian, extending the life history of this anecdote yet further, frames the problem it poses in this way: "[W]ith the epigraph to Pale Fire, Nabokov left us with a rather contumacious riddle." It is in the spirit of riddle-solving, then, that de Vries sets about reimagining this anecdote: how this anecdote can be understood to fit into the text it precedes.
From London to New Wye, from Johnson's Literary Club to theNabokovian, what we would call and recognize as the same anecdote turns up serially, stitching together different moments in conversational time. The characteristic thing that governs each of these ritual redeployments...
Pale Fire and Johnson's Cat: The Anecdote in Polite Conversation
Sean R. Silver
From: Criticism
Volume 53, Number 2, Spring 2011
pp. 241-264 | 10.1353/crt.2011.0009
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/
1. The Corner: The one and only.
A Disagreement on Nabokov,by Michael Potemra
July 3, 2012 4:
Yesterday I posted a reflection on some theological issues raised by Boswell's anecdote about Dr. Johnson and his cat. In the comment box, a writer using the handle "Bill Adams" claims that I misunderstood both the anecdote and Nabokov's use of it; he says that Johnson was not actually claiming that someone was going around shooting cats, but indulging in hyperbole, and that by quoting Johnson's "Hodge shall not be shot," Nabokov was therefore making a point about the power of literature to create real sympathy for characters in unreal situations.
In my view, Bill Adams's analysis has two things going for it. First, Boswell refers to Johnson's account as "ludicrous." Second, Pale Fire is indeed a book about how fictions can overtake reality; the title is itself a quote from Shakespeare, in which the moon is described as an "arrant thief" whose "pale fire" is a mere reflection of the light of the sun. It glows with a light that is not its own, but we admire the glow anyway.
Neither of these is dispositive, of course. Referring to an event as "ludicrous" or "absurd" does not mean it didn't really happen. (Proof: The content of the sentence "Chief Justice John Roberts opposed the Court's four conservatives and declared Obamacare constitutional" can reasonably be described as ludicrous or absurd. And yet the sentence is factually accurate.) And the fact that Pale Fire is a novel about novels does not mean that it is not also, and more importantly, a novel about real things.
Mr. Adams concedes much of the latter point, and says he agrees with some of what I wrote even while questioning my premise. Perhaps he is right about Johnson and the cat-shooter? In any case, I thank him for the post, and recommend that anyone interested in these matters read his comment.
A Disagreement on Nabokov | National Review Online
www.nationalreview.com/.../disagreement-nabokov?
2. Maaja A. Stewart "Nabokov's Pale Fire and Boswell's Johnson"
"nabokov has deliberately chosen a prosy anecdote, one that reverberates with no symbolic suggestiveness, to stand uneasily at the beginning of Pale Fire (1962). Its position marks its importance, but its contente, by itself, does not yield the significance we would expect from words in such a position - no title for the novel, no metaphorical condensation of the central situation we shall encounter, no metaphysical evaluation of the world we shall experience...
Maaja A. Stewart Nabokov's Pale Fire and Boswell's Johnson - JStor
www.jstor.org/stable/40754856
3. Boswell records about Hodge the cat:
"I never shall forget the indulgence with which he treated Hodge, his cat: for whom he himself used to go out and buy oysters, lest the servants having that trouble should take a dislike to the poor creature. I am, unluckily, one of those who have an antipathy to a cat, so that I am uneasy when in the room with one; and I own, I frequently suffered a good deal from the presence of this same Hodge. I recollect him one day scrambling up Dr. Johnson's breast, apparently with much satisfaction, while my friend smiling and half-whistling, rubbed down his back, and pulled him by the tail; and when I observed he was a fine cat, saying, 'Why yes, Sir, but I have had cats whom I liked better than this;' and then as if perceiving Hodge to be out of countenance, adding, 'but he is a very fine cat, a very fine cat indeed.' [ ] "This reminds me of the ludicrous account which he gave Mr. Langton, of the despicable state of a young Gentleman of good family. 'Sir, when I heard of him last, he was running about town shooting cats.' And then in a sort of kindly reverie, he bethought himself of his own favourite cat, and said, 'But Hodge shan't be shot; no, no, Hodge shall not be shot.'" (Life of Johnson, Chapter 41)
Indeed, Hodge shall have his oysters and Hodge shall not be shot, because Johnson loves him.
This last paragraph with its snippet of pet talk, "Hodge shall not be shot," is part of the epigraph to Nabokov's weird novel Pale Fire, though it's hard to tell if the quotation was in earnest or a joke, or if a joke, what sort of joke.
[ ]."Boswell himself confessed: "I am, unluckily, one of those who have an antipathy to a cat, so that I am uneasy when in the room with one; and I own, I frequently suffered a good deal from the presence of this same Hodge." If Charles Kinbote, "Pale Fire's" demented commentator, is indeed then some cracked Boswell (there are other hints that Nabokov fully intended the connection), reconsider his remarks about moving into his rental in New Wye, Appalachia, where he was expected to cat-sit:
"Among various detailed notices affixed to a special board in the pantry, such as plumbing instructions, dissertations on electricity, discourses on cactuses and so forth, I found the diet of the black cat that came with the house:
Mon, Wed, Fri: Liver
Tue, Thu, Sat: Fish
Sun: Ground meat
(All it got from me was milk and sardines; it was a likable little creature but after a while its movements began to grate on my nerves and I farmed it out to Mrs. Finley, the cleaning woman.)"
.That other great epigraph is from "The Waste Land." If you can think of any that beat my two, let us know.
Two more Nabokov sightings announced in the same NYT Artsbeat blog:
Related Posts
FROM ARTSBEAT
a.. Not Cool, Britannia: Plans Are Dropped to Honor Homes of Some Great Britons
b.. Critics' Picks Video: 'Lolita'
c.. How to Be a Book Critic
d.. Lolita's Ancestor
e.. Two of Nabokov's Many Cultures
4. In the way that anecdotes become collaborative productions, the trajectory of this anecdote does not end with Boswell's Life. This same anecdote also turns up in the paratextual front matter of Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire (1962), between Nabokov's dedication of the book "To Vera" and the table of contents. Gerard de Vries's note in The Nabokovian, extending the life history of this anecdote yet further, frames the problem it poses in this way: "[W]ith the epigraph to Pale Fire, Nabokov left us with a rather contumacious riddle." It is in the spirit of riddle-solving, then, that de Vries sets about reimagining this anecdote: how this anecdote can be understood to fit into the text it precedes.
From London to New Wye, from Johnson's Literary Club to theNabokovian, what we would call and recognize as the same anecdote turns up serially, stitching together different moments in conversational time. The characteristic thing that governs each of these ritual redeployments...
Pale Fire and Johnson's Cat: The Anecdote in Polite Conversation
Sean R. Silver
From: Criticism
Volume 53, Number 2, Spring 2011
pp. 241-264 | 10.1353/crt.2011.0009
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/