Subject
Re: THOUGHT on Shade as poet
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Date
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In a message dated 1/20/2010 12:27:35 PM Central Standard Time,
franassa@HOTMAIL.COM writes:
>
>
> "... the part where Hazel does herself in loses me. Her reason for doing
> it--having scared off a blind date due to her extreme ugliness--seems more
> pathetic than tragic, teen ballad material..." Joe--Hazel's suicide seems
> more understandable to me than two nations fighting a war for years because
> of one woman, no matter how beautiful. Now that's pathetic. In VN's
> hierarchy of tragedy I think his oevre (how I hate that word, sounds like
> someone being punched in the stomach) demonstrates that the death of a child is
> the #1 tragedy for him. Many unbalanced young people commit suicide over far
> lesser events. (Take the rash of suicides that followed Werther.)
>
There is a factor known as "the straw that breaks the camel's back." This,
if memory serves, was not just a blind date but Hazel's first date, after
many years of being cast as "Mother Time" in school plays, of being the
wallflower in the crannied wall, of looking on at her contemporaries having their
romances, etc. Was her death a suicide or an accident? Shade is at first
equivocal but then says that "he knew." And he's probably right. Well, as
a father, sure he is. His guilt is touching. It was he, after all, that
passed on his looks to HS, not Sybil. (Please, folks, don't "correct" me here
with incest speculations.)
A homely man and a beautiful woman have a daughter. She turns out looking
like the homely man, and this wrecks her life, especially in her childhood
and adolescence when these things matter so much. Now who, as one of two
parents, is going to feel responsible for this? Shade spends a lot of time,
and lines, on his own homeliness, his own contribution to the gene pool,
probably more than he does on Hazel's actual appearance, sad as it may have been.
It's a sorry fate to look like the less attractive parent, especially if
he is the male and you're the female. It happens. No one should really feel
responsible, but someone always does. Who?
Hazel, poor Hazel, had endured a long history of rejections before the
final blow. Really, sometimes I feel that the contributors to this list have
lived charmed lives or have not lived any lives at all or, at least, are not
willing to admit that others have. Well, in keeping with the general method,
please recall that "Humbert" (repeated twice!) has a first syllable in
common with "human." And note, for further notes, that the first syllable of
"Kinbote" implies that he may have something in common with the rest of us
humans, his kin.
RSG
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franassa@HOTMAIL.COM writes:
>
>
> "... the part where Hazel does herself in loses me. Her reason for doing
> it--having scared off a blind date due to her extreme ugliness--seems more
> pathetic than tragic, teen ballad material..." Joe--Hazel's suicide seems
> more understandable to me than two nations fighting a war for years because
> of one woman, no matter how beautiful. Now that's pathetic. In VN's
> hierarchy of tragedy I think his oevre (how I hate that word, sounds like
> someone being punched in the stomach) demonstrates that the death of a child is
> the #1 tragedy for him. Many unbalanced young people commit suicide over far
> lesser events. (Take the rash of suicides that followed Werther.)
>
There is a factor known as "the straw that breaks the camel's back." This,
if memory serves, was not just a blind date but Hazel's first date, after
many years of being cast as "Mother Time" in school plays, of being the
wallflower in the crannied wall, of looking on at her contemporaries having their
romances, etc. Was her death a suicide or an accident? Shade is at first
equivocal but then says that "he knew." And he's probably right. Well, as
a father, sure he is. His guilt is touching. It was he, after all, that
passed on his looks to HS, not Sybil. (Please, folks, don't "correct" me here
with incest speculations.)
A homely man and a beautiful woman have a daughter. She turns out looking
like the homely man, and this wrecks her life, especially in her childhood
and adolescence when these things matter so much. Now who, as one of two
parents, is going to feel responsible for this? Shade spends a lot of time,
and lines, on his own homeliness, his own contribution to the gene pool,
probably more than he does on Hazel's actual appearance, sad as it may have been.
It's a sorry fate to look like the less attractive parent, especially if
he is the male and you're the female. It happens. No one should really feel
responsible, but someone always does. Who?
Hazel, poor Hazel, had endured a long history of rejections before the
final blow. Really, sometimes I feel that the contributors to this list have
lived charmed lives or have not lived any lives at all or, at least, are not
willing to admit that others have. Well, in keeping with the general method,
please recall that "Humbert" (repeated twice!) has a first syllable in
common with "human." And note, for further notes, that the first syllable of
"Kinbote" implies that he may have something in common with the rest of us
humans, his kin.
RSG
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/