I don't know if this has already been mentioned or not, but
the word "stang" was, I believe used in The Gift as well. I think it was
in the second chapter, whichever one it was in which Alexander
Chernyshevski's (homosexual?) son's suicide was constructed Fyodor. On the
day of the suicide, Alexander, and his two friends, a young German man and
a morose Russian woman, take a tram to the Grunewald forest. I'm fairly
certain I remember that one of the group was holding onto a "stang", which
I had to look up on my first reading of the book. Unfortunately I can't
recall pages. Perhaps Yuri Leving, creator of the wonderful The Gift
Project can either confirm or deny my memory here. If I'm right it seems
very interesting that N should have used the same word in two novels about
in almost exactly the same dramatic contexts: characters on grim journeys
to commit suicide!
--- On Mon, 1/18/10, James Twiggs
<jtwigzz@YAHOO.COM> wrote:
From:
James Twiggs <jtwigzz@YAHOO.COM>
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L]
STANG--response to Lipon et al.
To:
NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Date: Monday, January 18, 2010, 12:33
PM
Gary Lipon
wrote:
> ...how did VN come to find
stang...
>
> >From his goalkeeping youth.
I think
this pretty much puts the issue to rest.
======
For Gary, perhaps, but
certainly not for me. I would not take up more space over what may seem
a trivial matter if I didn't think it involves a larger principle. Here
are the lines in question:
"I think," she said,
"I'll get off
here." "It's only Lochanhead."
"Yes, that's
okay." Gripping the stang, she peered
At ghostly
trees. Bus stopped. Bus disappeared.460
Shade is here putting
himself in the place of Hazel, imagining her last moments alive. The
word needed where “stang” appears is one that would come naturally to
Shade and, for fullest effect, to Hazel as well. “Stang” itself, I hope
we’re all agreed, is not such a word. Seldom if ever in this country,
I’d wager, has a natural-born, apple-pie American, in the course of
his/her ordinary conversation, referred to a pole in a bus as a stang.
It is therefore out of character for Shade to use the word in this way.
I would expect VN to be as careful about this--about being true to his
characters--as he was in writing dialogue for Lolita. For this reason
I’m not convinced by A. Bouzza’s argument or by the argument about the
goal post. A goal post is not a pole (or a handrail) in an American bus,
period. As for defamiliarization, even that all-too-handy concept
requires, if it’s to be effective, some staging, something in the way of
a suitable context.
SKB’s view is more
interesting. According to him, VN uses the word as part of showing what
a lousy poet Shade is. Although I’m sympathetic to that view, I consider
“stang” to be so outrageously inappropriate as to be unconvincing even
as an example of Shade’s frequent mediocrity. It’s a clunker of a
word, all right, but a clunker that VN, not Shade, must claim the credit
for.
Incidentally, Stan, it's
good to have you back after such a long absence.
Jim Twiggs
All private editorial
communications, without exception, are read by both co-editors.
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