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Re: Fwd: [Tomasz] hypothesis about pale fire
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I want to extract observations sent to us by Sandy Klein from a text by
Charles Mudede on " The Valley of Death" and try to connect it with the
observations sent by Tomasz, George and Carolyn:
1. " In the movies, when a man is shot "dead between the eyes," he
falls,eyes wide open, stiffly backward, like a logged tree. The victim goes
from life to death so suddenly that we imagine he has no idea that he is
dead. He continues doing in the negative world (walking down the street,
tying a shoelace, eating a spaghetti supper) exactly what he was doing in
the positive world at the very instant the bullet tore through his brain.
Indeed, the victim of a head shot is much like Vladimir Nabokov's bird in
_Pale Fire_, which is "slain/by the false azure in the windowpane" but
continues to "[live] on, [fly] on, in
the reflected sky." A person who is shot in the chest knows he is dying, he
can see the bloody hole from which life is escaping like air from a balloon.
A victim with a chest wound eventually expires."
Here, curiously, the author draws a parallel between a murdered man who is
shot in the head and Nabokov´s BIRD in Pale Fire, and not with John Shade,
who was shot in through the heart.
2. Carolyn wrote: "I checked the Boyd biography for "J W Dunne" and there
it was - - the experiment Don referred to. But it had nothing to do with the
dead communicating with the living as I expected. VN wanted to test Dunne's
theory that time moves backwards and forwards & in dreams we sometimes see
the future.What has this to do with my query regarding the dead "sending
dreams" to the living?
3. Tomasz inquired: "For example and first: "Pale fire" is about life after
death, about world beyond and some things
like that (...) Zembla is this afterworld and Kinbote is a God.
(...) You know maybe are more afterworlds ... (places where consciousnes
go after death) some Shade-like afterworlds ("no free man needs a god") some
like Kinbote-like afterworld (with God)... You know what consciousnes is?
Consciousness is all what you see, this transparent ball you were in (...)
Your consciousness can go also (...) You can Wake Up still to some
higher amount of consciousnes (maybe even more glorious than our glorious
one).
In the first reference we understand that Shade has expired ( no roaming
after-effects of living for him, no phantom existence ). Aunt Maud or Hazel
might have become phantoms, who knows? In that case they would be candidates
for the role of "sending dreams to the living". In the second reference,
Carolyn questions J.W. Dunne´s theories of premonitory dreams and about
human time as moving backwards and forwards ( such as in remembering or
dreaming, I suppose ). Tomasz advances towards the theories about various
stages of consciousness.
Might not VN have been playing tricks when he openly suggested a belief in
"after-life" when dealing with his characters and making the dead send
dreams to the living, while still implying another kind of eternity?
Human existence is brief when compared to humanity´s historical past and,
hopefully, with its future. The concept of "eternity" brings its very
transient glimmer even closer to what VN expressed with the "sliver of
light" image in his opening sentence in "Speak Memory".
Why then press the point of humanity´s corporeality so much by imagining
that VN was speaking of his particular belief concerning messages from the
dead to the living? When Tomasz entered into his complicated mathematical
"gradations" to illustrate different degrees of awareness, why then link
"awareness" to human time, human physicality? If awareness does not need to
be "embodied", why does a person have to die ( shot through the heart or
between the eyes, or from old age or in a terrorist attack ) to be able to
attain Tomasz´s "higher awareness"? What is the purpose of a physical clumsy
Hazel in sending dreams to her puzzled, sad almost rejecting physical
father?
Could not VN be a prankster - like the Joker Kinbote that he also was - and
mislead certain readers into believing that he was admitting, outside the
realm of his fiction, that the dead can send dreams to the living ( that
would be the point of reasearching into spiritualistic or Dunne´s theories
to find some kind of historical fact or backing for what was presented as
fiction)? Might he not have believed in something quite different, and even
sent hints about his personal faith or hopes of an "eternal level of
awareness" that could be attainable at various points in his life? There is
a particular truth in fiction that has nothing to do with biological time...
Jansy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Sent: Friday, July 08, 2005 12:08 PM
Subject: Fwd: [Tomasz] hypothesis about pale fire
>
>
> ----- Forwarded message from profesor_kinbote@poczta.onet.pl -----
> Date: Fri, 08 Jul 2005 14:25:25 +0200
> From: profesor_kinbote@poczta.onet.pl
> Reply-To: profesor_kinbote@poczta.onet.pl
> Subject: [Tomasz] hipotesis about pale fire
> To:
>
> Very sorry for my very weak English.
>
> (I had put my name in title of post because I think it is
> convenient)
>
> I had some hipotesis about "Pale Fire" which were, as I know, not
>
> mentioned (but maybe does, it does not matter). For example and
> first: "Pale fire" is about life after death, about world beyond and some
things
> like that. (See for example this tunnel like in "near death experiences"
or
> poltergeist or Sherlock Holmes - all this you find probably in any popular
book
> about spiritualism). So - Zembla is this afterworld and Kinbote is
a God.
>
> (God-Kinbote is also a Nabokov OLD SCUFFER). Saying more about it,
> Kinbote is a God-Joker (but I can't explain why I think so)
>
> Kinbote - God Joker
>
> Shade - God Creator
>
> Gradus - Destructor (blockhead)
>
> Goldsworth - God as a Judge conception
>
> Balthazar - God Nature
>
> Shade can be treated also as a God creator, God Poet - I find this
> word "shade" "nuance" nice, like a rainbow, like a deepness
> where "gray" is bad and gray. But I think Kinbote is supreme
> and I think God-Joker beats even a God-Creator and Poet
> (he is more cleaver). You know maybe are more afterworlds:
>
> A B C ... Z
>
> (places where consciousnes go after death)some Shade-like
afterworlds ("no free
> man needs a god") some like Kinbote-like afterworld (with God). Maybe I
say yet
> a little about Gradus, Gradation.
>
> And things I was thinking about where I read "Pale Fire" You know
what
> consciousnes is? Consciousness is all what you see, this
transparent ball you
> were in. So for example human has a more consciousness than a mouse - so
you
> can see some gradation in this things. In some Eastern religion thay say
that
> Your consciousness can Jump to frog, for example consciousness (1)->
(1/2) it
> is strange a little. But your consciousness can go also to some
higher state
> (1) -> (2) So I think this case about Gradus
> (possibly Nabokov thinking about this things, and for sure my own
thinking
> about this today) is this that this Gradation never reach a Zero 1/2 ->
1/3 ->
> 1/10 ... but never zero. And if even Zero, You can Wake Up still to
some
> higher amount of consciousnes (maybe even more glorious than our
glorious one)
> Zero is only one number but there ale also other 1/2, 7 etc. . And
possibly
> gradation is gradation to Higher 1->2->3 etc.
>
> Tomasz
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Very sorry for my very weak english.
(I had put my name in title of post because I think it is convenient)
I had some hipotesis about "Pale Fire" which were, as I know, not
mentioned (but maybe does, it does not matter). For example and first: "Pale
fire" is
about life after death, about world beyond and some things like that. (See
for
example this tunel like in "near death experiences" or poltergeist
or Sherlock Holmes - all this you find probably in any popular book
about spiritualism). So - Zembla is this afterworld and Kinbote is a God.
(God-Kinbote is also a Nabokov OLD SCUFFER). Sayin more about it, Kinbote is
a God-Joker (but I cant explain why I think so)
Kinbote - God Joker
Shade - God Creator
Gradus - Destructor (blockhead)
Goldsworth - God as a Judge conception
Balthazar - God Nature
Shade can be treated also as a God creator, God Poet - I find this
word "shade" "nuance" nice, like a rainbow, like a deepnes
where "gray" is bad and gray. But I think Kinbote is supreme
and I think God-Joker beats even a God-Creator and Poet
(he is more cleaver). You know maybe are more afrerworlds:
A B C ... Z
(places where consciousnes go after death)
some Shade-like afterworlds ("no free man needs a god") some
like Kinbote-like afterworld (with God)
Maybe I say yet a little about Gradus, Gradation.
And things I was thinking about where I read "Pale Fire"
You know what consciousnes is? Consciousness is all what you see, this
transparent ball you were in. So for example human has a more consciousness
than a mouse - so you can see some gradation in this things. In some East
religion thay say that Your conscousness can Jump to for example frog
consciousness (1)-> (1/2) it is strange a little. But your consciousness
can go also
to some higher state (1) -> (2) So I think this case about Gradus (possibly
Nabokov
thinking about this things, and for sure my own thinking about this today)
is this that
this Gradation never reach a Zero 1/2 -> 1/3 -> 1/10 ... but never zero
And if even Zero, You can Wake Up still to some higher amount of
consciousnes
(maybe even more glorious than our glorious one) Zero is only one number
but there ale also other 1/2, 7 etc. . And possibly gradation is gradation
to Higher 1->2->3 etc.
Tomasz
----- End forwarded message -----
Charles Mudede on " The Valley of Death" and try to connect it with the
observations sent by Tomasz, George and Carolyn:
1. " In the movies, when a man is shot "dead between the eyes," he
falls,eyes wide open, stiffly backward, like a logged tree. The victim goes
from life to death so suddenly that we imagine he has no idea that he is
dead. He continues doing in the negative world (walking down the street,
tying a shoelace, eating a spaghetti supper) exactly what he was doing in
the positive world at the very instant the bullet tore through his brain.
Indeed, the victim of a head shot is much like Vladimir Nabokov's bird in
_Pale Fire_, which is "slain/by the false azure in the windowpane" but
continues to "[live] on, [fly] on, in
the reflected sky." A person who is shot in the chest knows he is dying, he
can see the bloody hole from which life is escaping like air from a balloon.
A victim with a chest wound eventually expires."
Here, curiously, the author draws a parallel between a murdered man who is
shot in the head and Nabokov´s BIRD in Pale Fire, and not with John Shade,
who was shot in through the heart.
2. Carolyn wrote: "I checked the Boyd biography for "J W Dunne" and there
it was - - the experiment Don referred to. But it had nothing to do with the
dead communicating with the living as I expected. VN wanted to test Dunne's
theory that time moves backwards and forwards & in dreams we sometimes see
the future.What has this to do with my query regarding the dead "sending
dreams" to the living?
3. Tomasz inquired: "For example and first: "Pale fire" is about life after
death, about world beyond and some things
like that (...) Zembla is this afterworld and Kinbote is a God.
(...) You know maybe are more afterworlds ... (places where consciousnes
go after death) some Shade-like afterworlds ("no free man needs a god") some
like Kinbote-like afterworld (with God)... You know what consciousnes is?
Consciousness is all what you see, this transparent ball you were in (...)
Your consciousness can go also (...) You can Wake Up still to some
higher amount of consciousnes (maybe even more glorious than our glorious
one).
In the first reference we understand that Shade has expired ( no roaming
after-effects of living for him, no phantom existence ). Aunt Maud or Hazel
might have become phantoms, who knows? In that case they would be candidates
for the role of "sending dreams to the living". In the second reference,
Carolyn questions J.W. Dunne´s theories of premonitory dreams and about
human time as moving backwards and forwards ( such as in remembering or
dreaming, I suppose ). Tomasz advances towards the theories about various
stages of consciousness.
Might not VN have been playing tricks when he openly suggested a belief in
"after-life" when dealing with his characters and making the dead send
dreams to the living, while still implying another kind of eternity?
Human existence is brief when compared to humanity´s historical past and,
hopefully, with its future. The concept of "eternity" brings its very
transient glimmer even closer to what VN expressed with the "sliver of
light" image in his opening sentence in "Speak Memory".
Why then press the point of humanity´s corporeality so much by imagining
that VN was speaking of his particular belief concerning messages from the
dead to the living? When Tomasz entered into his complicated mathematical
"gradations" to illustrate different degrees of awareness, why then link
"awareness" to human time, human physicality? If awareness does not need to
be "embodied", why does a person have to die ( shot through the heart or
between the eyes, or from old age or in a terrorist attack ) to be able to
attain Tomasz´s "higher awareness"? What is the purpose of a physical clumsy
Hazel in sending dreams to her puzzled, sad almost rejecting physical
father?
Could not VN be a prankster - like the Joker Kinbote that he also was - and
mislead certain readers into believing that he was admitting, outside the
realm of his fiction, that the dead can send dreams to the living ( that
would be the point of reasearching into spiritualistic or Dunne´s theories
to find some kind of historical fact or backing for what was presented as
fiction)? Might he not have believed in something quite different, and even
sent hints about his personal faith or hopes of an "eternal level of
awareness" that could be attainable at various points in his life? There is
a particular truth in fiction that has nothing to do with biological time...
Jansy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Sent: Friday, July 08, 2005 12:08 PM
Subject: Fwd: [Tomasz] hypothesis about pale fire
>
>
> ----- Forwarded message from profesor_kinbote@poczta.onet.pl -----
> Date: Fri, 08 Jul 2005 14:25:25 +0200
> From: profesor_kinbote@poczta.onet.pl
> Reply-To: profesor_kinbote@poczta.onet.pl
> Subject: [Tomasz] hipotesis about pale fire
> To:
>
> Very sorry for my very weak English.
>
> (I had put my name in title of post because I think it is
> convenient)
>
> I had some hipotesis about "Pale Fire" which were, as I know, not
>
> mentioned (but maybe does, it does not matter). For example and
> first: "Pale fire" is about life after death, about world beyond and some
things
> like that. (See for example this tunnel like in "near death experiences"
or
> poltergeist or Sherlock Holmes - all this you find probably in any popular
book
> about spiritualism). So - Zembla is this afterworld and Kinbote is
a God.
>
> (God-Kinbote is also a Nabokov OLD SCUFFER). Saying more about it,
> Kinbote is a God-Joker (but I can't explain why I think so)
>
> Kinbote - God Joker
>
> Shade - God Creator
>
> Gradus - Destructor (blockhead)
>
> Goldsworth - God as a Judge conception
>
> Balthazar - God Nature
>
> Shade can be treated also as a God creator, God Poet - I find this
> word "shade" "nuance" nice, like a rainbow, like a deepness
> where "gray" is bad and gray. But I think Kinbote is supreme
> and I think God-Joker beats even a God-Creator and Poet
> (he is more cleaver). You know maybe are more afterworlds:
>
> A B C ... Z
>
> (places where consciousnes go after death)some Shade-like
afterworlds ("no free
> man needs a god") some like Kinbote-like afterworld (with God). Maybe I
say yet
> a little about Gradus, Gradation.
>
> And things I was thinking about where I read "Pale Fire" You know
what
> consciousnes is? Consciousness is all what you see, this
transparent ball you
> were in. So for example human has a more consciousness than a mouse - so
you
> can see some gradation in this things. In some Eastern religion thay say
that
> Your consciousness can Jump to frog, for example consciousness (1)->
(1/2) it
> is strange a little. But your consciousness can go also to some
higher state
> (1) -> (2) So I think this case about Gradus
> (possibly Nabokov thinking about this things, and for sure my own
thinking
> about this today) is this that this Gradation never reach a Zero 1/2 ->
1/3 ->
> 1/10 ... but never zero. And if even Zero, You can Wake Up still to
some
> higher amount of consciousnes (maybe even more glorious than our
glorious one)
> Zero is only one number but there ale also other 1/2, 7 etc. . And
possibly
> gradation is gradation to Higher 1->2->3 etc.
>
> Tomasz
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Very sorry for my very weak english.
(I had put my name in title of post because I think it is convenient)
I had some hipotesis about "Pale Fire" which were, as I know, not
mentioned (but maybe does, it does not matter). For example and first: "Pale
fire" is
about life after death, about world beyond and some things like that. (See
for
example this tunel like in "near death experiences" or poltergeist
or Sherlock Holmes - all this you find probably in any popular book
about spiritualism). So - Zembla is this afterworld and Kinbote is a God.
(God-Kinbote is also a Nabokov OLD SCUFFER). Sayin more about it, Kinbote is
a God-Joker (but I cant explain why I think so)
Kinbote - God Joker
Shade - God Creator
Gradus - Destructor (blockhead)
Goldsworth - God as a Judge conception
Balthazar - God Nature
Shade can be treated also as a God creator, God Poet - I find this
word "shade" "nuance" nice, like a rainbow, like a deepnes
where "gray" is bad and gray. But I think Kinbote is supreme
and I think God-Joker beats even a God-Creator and Poet
(he is more cleaver). You know maybe are more afrerworlds:
A B C ... Z
(places where consciousnes go after death)
some Shade-like afterworlds ("no free man needs a god") some
like Kinbote-like afterworld (with God)
Maybe I say yet a little about Gradus, Gradation.
And things I was thinking about where I read "Pale Fire"
You know what consciousnes is? Consciousness is all what you see, this
transparent ball you were in. So for example human has a more consciousness
than a mouse - so you can see some gradation in this things. In some East
religion thay say that Your conscousness can Jump to for example frog
consciousness (1)-> (1/2) it is strange a little. But your consciousness
can go also
to some higher state (1) -> (2) So I think this case about Gradus (possibly
Nabokov
thinking about this things, and for sure my own thinking about this today)
is this that
this Gradation never reach a Zero 1/2 -> 1/3 -> 1/10 ... but never zero
And if even Zero, You can Wake Up still to some higher amount of
consciousnes
(maybe even more glorious than our glorious one) Zero is only one number
but there ale also other 1/2, 7 etc. . And possibly gradation is gradation
to Higher 1->2->3 etc.
Tomasz
----- End forwarded message -----