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Dedalus Veen , Stephen Dedalus, daedalian parodies...
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We find, in LL ( on James Joyce): "Stephen Dedalus, whose surname is that of
the mythical maker of the labyrinth at Knossos, the royal city of ancient
Crete; other fabulous gadgets; wings for himself and Icarus, his son -
Stephen Dedalus, aged twenty-two." (p.286) " I must especially warn against
seeing in Leopold Bloom's humdrum wanderings and minor adventures on a
summer day in Dublin a close parody of the Odyssey, with the adman Bloom
acting the part of Odysseus, otherwise Ulysses, man of many devices and.
There's nothing more tedious than a protracted and sustained allegory based
on a well-worn myth."(288)
And then, in ADA, I, ch 13: "The pleasure of suddenly discovering the right
knack of topsy turvy locomotion was rather like learning to man, after many
a painful and ignominious fall, those delightful gliders called Magicarpets
(or 'jikkers') that were given a boy on his twelfth birthday in the
adventurous days before the Great Reaction - and then what a breathtaking
long neural caress when one became airborne for the first time and managed
to skim over a haystack, a tree, a burn, a barn, while Grandfather Dedalus
Veen, running with upturned face, flourished a flag and fell into the
horsepond."
Now I wonder if V. Nabokov chose to reference Dedalus in ADA (we mustn't
forget his appearance in Pale Fire, too), as a parody of authors who favor
allegories based on mythological creations, as a reference to those who see
in Joyce's Ulysses a parody of the Odyssey, as simply indicating James Joyce
once again in Ada, or as referring to himself, in P.F ,with a parody inside
another parody! *
...................................
*- C.K on J.Shade's line 810: a web of sense: "Here is a passage that
curiously echoes Shade's tone at the end of Canto Three. It comes from a
manuscript fragment written by Lane on May 17, 1921, on the eve of his
death, after a major operation: "And if I had passed into that other land,
whom would I have sought? ...Aristotle! - Ah, there would be a man to talk
with! What satisfaction to see him take, like reins from between his
fingers, the long ribbon of man's life and trace it through the mystifying
maze of all the wonderful adventure.... The crooked made straight. The
Daedalian plan simplified by a look from above - smeared out as it were by
the splotch of some master thumb that made the whole involuted, boggling
thing one beautiful straight line."
NB: The Daedalian labyrinth in the convolutions of the thumbprints is
implicit in here.
VN apparently accepted PF's translator's choice for the French, from "link
and bobolink" to a "lien daedalien" (here quoting from memory, no checking
into the French). However, the project of undoing the meanders of a
labyrinth to obtain clarity was not John Shade's, of course!, but Lane's.
The author, here, is mocking C.Kinbote.
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The Nabokov Society of Japan's Annotations to Ada: http://vnjapan.org/main/ada/index.html
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the mythical maker of the labyrinth at Knossos, the royal city of ancient
Crete; other fabulous gadgets; wings for himself and Icarus, his son -
Stephen Dedalus, aged twenty-two." (p.286) " I must especially warn against
seeing in Leopold Bloom's humdrum wanderings and minor adventures on a
summer day in Dublin a close parody of the Odyssey, with the adman Bloom
acting the part of Odysseus, otherwise Ulysses, man of many devices and.
There's nothing more tedious than a protracted and sustained allegory based
on a well-worn myth."(288)
And then, in ADA, I, ch 13: "The pleasure of suddenly discovering the right
knack of topsy turvy locomotion was rather like learning to man, after many
a painful and ignominious fall, those delightful gliders called Magicarpets
(or 'jikkers') that were given a boy on his twelfth birthday in the
adventurous days before the Great Reaction - and then what a breathtaking
long neural caress when one became airborne for the first time and managed
to skim over a haystack, a tree, a burn, a barn, while Grandfather Dedalus
Veen, running with upturned face, flourished a flag and fell into the
horsepond."
Now I wonder if V. Nabokov chose to reference Dedalus in ADA (we mustn't
forget his appearance in Pale Fire, too), as a parody of authors who favor
allegories based on mythological creations, as a reference to those who see
in Joyce's Ulysses a parody of the Odyssey, as simply indicating James Joyce
once again in Ada, or as referring to himself, in P.F ,with a parody inside
another parody! *
...................................
*- C.K on J.Shade's line 810: a web of sense: "Here is a passage that
curiously echoes Shade's tone at the end of Canto Three. It comes from a
manuscript fragment written by Lane on May 17, 1921, on the eve of his
death, after a major operation: "And if I had passed into that other land,
whom would I have sought? ...Aristotle! - Ah, there would be a man to talk
with! What satisfaction to see him take, like reins from between his
fingers, the long ribbon of man's life and trace it through the mystifying
maze of all the wonderful adventure.... The crooked made straight. The
Daedalian plan simplified by a look from above - smeared out as it were by
the splotch of some master thumb that made the whole involuted, boggling
thing one beautiful straight line."
NB: The Daedalian labyrinth in the convolutions of the thumbprints is
implicit in here.
VN apparently accepted PF's translator's choice for the French, from "link
and bobolink" to a "lien daedalien" (here quoting from memory, no checking
into the French). However, the project of undoing the meanders of a
labyrinth to obtain clarity was not John Shade's, of course!, but Lane's.
The author, here, is mocking C.Kinbote.
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
Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
AdaOnline: "http://www.ada.auckland.ac.nz/
The Nabokov Society of Japan's Annotations to Ada: http://vnjapan.org/main/ada/index.html
The VN Bibliography Blog: http://vnbiblio.com/
Search the archive with L-Soft: https://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A0=NABOKV-L
Manage subscription options :http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=NABOKV-L