JM: Jerry refers to the “long” Hungarian umlaut because that is one of its correct technical, typographical names* You were seeking some metaphorical significance to JF’s use of “long” that was entirely literal on this particular occasion! This is no criticism but a reminder that the “perfect” Nabokovian reader would need to be “omniscient” to avoid the following extremes: (i) overlooking real, intended fruitful allusions (ii) inventing far-fetched, daft unintended allusions (often disdainfully disowned by VN Himself). There’s ample space in between to keep both scholars and amateurs happily hunting and sniping away.
* Not every browser/text-editor can reproduce this particular diacritic (two sloping acute accents [ő] rather than the two German dots) although it does have special codes allocated in the Unicode and HTML tables. When I look at JF’s recent email on my screen, I see the correct umlaut in Erdős (Bravo, JF!) but other screens may not be so fortunate. Between the sending and receiving of characters lies a complex jungle of bit-transformations. Some of these can be controlled by the user (e.g., enabling HTML etc), others are at the mercy of the diverse conventions adopted by competing suppliers.
See http://hissa.nist.gov/~black/erdos.html which also explains the coveted Erdős number. I’m agonizingly close to an Erdős number 2 (I’ve had an MAA article edited by Underwood Dudley who has an Erdős number 1. To qualify, I would need to write a joint paper with Dudley. In a recent scandal, an Erdős number 2 offered to collaborate with anyone willing to pay $10,000 to achieve a number 3). JF makes the interesting analogy between Erdős and the “gypsy-scholars” Pnin and Kinbote. All three were indeed itinerant exiles from the “Eastern Bloc,” but let’s not forget the HUGE differences: Erdős remains the most prolific mathematician in the history of mathematics! He seldom stayed longer than a few weeks at any of the Universities which vied with each other for his flying visitations.
skb
On 14/10/2008 18:24, "jansymello" <jansy@AETERN.US> wrote:
Jerry Friedman: "Forward" for "foreword" is a common spelling error[...] I doubt that anything about Kinbote's Foreword particularly
impels this error.
JM: I was suggesting a connection bt. Kinbote and his invention, Gradus. A written text may have a "suggestive" effect that strikes readers in a particular manner. Like Jensen's "Gradiva", Gradus is stealthily moving forward with an "aggr-essive" intent. Kinbote wants Gradus to coincide with Shade's penning of his poem. Such a "foreword thrust" is a dominant feature in Pale Fire. Gradus' ghostly reality is manifest in CK's last lines (before the Index - and when was it inserted?): "But whatever happens, wherever the scene is laid, somebody, somewhere, will quietly set out — somebody has already set out, somebody still rather far away is buying a ticket, is boarding a bus, a ship, a plane, has landed, is walking toward a million photographers, and presently he will ring at my door — a bigger, more respectable, more competent Gradus."
You are earnestly hoping that "some people got the o with the Hungarian 'long umlaut'[ Cf. SKB: note that o: stands here for ‘o’ with the Hungarian umlaut] but I don't get your "long" point. I hope I understood your former reference to a "symbolic reading", though, brought up right after you spoke of "overlapping" images/sentences! I greatly enjoyed your observations.
Do you think that Nabokov, instead of always making them explicit, favored "impending metaphors"? Like a kind of :
"when I confront you with overlapping visions, it is your task to find your own metaphors to render them in words"?
SK-Bootle: I always took ‘The Big Maybe’ to refer to ‘Life after Death’ rather than Death itself [...] ... there’s no IF in Death. But the great ‘Hereinafter’ mystery surely persists as the dominant theme in human ruminations [...] Even for devout Zemblan Catholics like Kinbote, or Danish/Elizabethan Christians like Hamlet [ Peut-être ou ne pas peut-être, c’est pas la question,SK-B], the Afterlife can be truly terrifying. I also love Fitzgerald’s version of Omar Khayyam’s [...] Thou wilt not with Predestination round/ Enmesh me, and impute my Fall to Sin?
JM: Kinbote ( in Humbert's case this is clearly stated by him) expressed their hellish fears directly and could not believe in a "felix culpa" nor hope for "salvation", although they kept their faith in an extraneous "punishment". They seem predestined to live in the worst of the impossible worlds.