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Fw: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3407 PALE FIRE
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----- Original Message -----
From: "pynchon-l-digest" <owner-pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
To: <pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
Sent: Monday, July 14, 2003 7:50 AM
Subject: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3407
>
> pynchon-l-digest Monday, July 14 2003 Volume 02 : Number
3407
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 11:29:13 +0200
> From: "Otto" <ottosell@yahoo.de>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> - ----- Original Message -----
> From: "jbor" <jbor@bigpond.com>
> To: <pynchon-l@waste.org>
> Sent: Sunday, July 13, 2003 6:57 AM
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
>
> > on 13/7/03 1:35 PM, Jasper Fidget wrote:
> >
> > > Another way to phrase this concern is by asking whether the poem "Pale
> > > Fire"
> > > compares well to the novel _Pale Fire_. If removed from the
surrounding
> > > commentary, would "Pale Fire" by John Shade be worth reading? If so,
> > > would
> > > it be a *great* work? Kinbote's contribution to the poem almost
> > > certainly
> > > gives it greater value than it would have had on its own, which
> > >strangely
> > > fulfills Kinbote's desperate desire to have assisted Shade with it.
> > [...]
> > > Ultimately Morris decides the Shadean interpretation is the most
> > > plausible;
> > > see the article for his insightful evaluation in full, findable here:
> > >
> > > http://www.libraries.psu.edu/iasweb/nabokov/morris1.htm
> > >
>
> Is his book then Boyd III?
>
> >
> > From that essay:
> >
> > But one will search in vain for any direct statement from VN
> > as to the ultimate literary value of "Pale Fire." His reading
> > of part of Canto Two at Harvard thus must serve as an indirect
> > statement: It was a poem he was proud of, and was willing to
> > record for the ages.
> >
> > I don't know that this is a particularly convincing argument. I'm sure
> > that
> > Alexander Pope was proud of his 'The Rape of the Lock' as well, and that
> > he
> > read it aloud on occasion; and it's worth recalling the prominence of
Pope
> > throughout all facets of the text of _Pale Fire_. A satiric poem such as
> > Pope's can be, and certainly is regarded as, a "great" one, and it's not
> > at
> > all inconsistent or implausible to imagine that Nabokov put much
creative
> > effort into the composition of the poem by his "invented" poet, and that
> > he
> > was pleased with the results, but that he still intended it to be a
> satire.
> >
>
> Given the "content" of the poem (Hazel's death and Shades's lifelong quest
> to understand the "beyond zero") I'm not so sure about the satirical
quality
> of the poem. I'm not in a position to judge its poetic qualities but the
way
> Boyd III explains it as the poetic pole it has a major function in the
> contrapuntal structure of the novel, but not necessarily as major poetry.
>
> > The other thing which doesn't quite gel for me is the assumption that
> > Nabokov was trying to conceal the fact of his own overall authorship of
> > the novel, his ultimate "control" over the fiction. Plainly, he wasn't.
>
> I absolutely agree. The Epigraph thus for me is from Nabokov, preceding
all
> parts of the novel.
>
> > The
> > puzzles of the text, and their ultimate answerability, answerabilities
or
> > unanswerability, are intentional ones. I think that in this respect
> > Nabokov
> > himself, and _Pale Fire in particular, probably stand at one of those
cusp
> > points between Modernism and postmodernism (see eg. McHale 1987, 1992),
> > and
> > that Nabokov still perceived the author's position -- his own
position --
> > in
> > respect to the text as one of preeminence, even though, admittedly, the
> > themes and structural complexities within the text do challenge and
> > problematise that whole relationship between "authorship" and
"authority".
> >I don't think Nabokov sees this paradox as an issue.
>
> Again I agree, but when I follow Boyd III it is an issue (the question of
> influence, inspiration, the muse) of the novel.
>
> > Thus, the question of
> > whether Shade or Kinbote or any other character could write "as well as"
> > Nabokov seems to me to be irrelevant. It is Nabokov who can write as
well
> > as Nabokov: his characters are the *products* of his writing, not the
> > producers.
>
> I too don't buy either the shadean nor the kinbotian solution. Or, it is
> rather a very special double-shadean point later in his book, in Boyd's
> "rereaders"-chapters, so I'm reluctant to say more at this point. The way
he
> gets to this point following Nabokov's signifiers through the parts of the
> novel is quite convincing.
>
> Otto
>
>
> I love you when you call me to admire
> A jet's pink trail above the sunset fire.
> (285-86) [Boyd p. 228]
>
> But the rocket will be here before Pirate sees the sun rise.
> The trail, smudged, slightly torn in two or three directions,
> hangs in the sky.
> (GR 6-7)
>
>> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 05:36:10 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Malignd <malignd@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> Rob Jackson (I think):
>
> No, that's not what I've said at all. I don't
> understand why the obvious possibility, that Nabokov
> created both Shade and Kinbote as separate and
> independent characters, and consciously endowed them
> with the particular artistic, critical, intellectual,
> emotional etc talents and foibles they present with,
> and that (Nabokov's) Shade wrote the poem and
> (Nabokov's) Kinbote the Foreword and Commentary, has
> been discarded.
>
> I'm not certain it's been discarded or need be. But
> as one reads further into the poem and the glimmers of
> Kinbote's madness begin to appear, a reader has no
> choice but to consider what's going on.
>
> <<To take any one of the four propositions offered in
> the essay Jasper linked just one short (logical) step
> further -- How could Shade, or Kinbote, or Kinbote
> channeling Shade's ghost, or Botkin, manage to get the
> text, as it stands, past the publisher? They couldn't.
> Only Nabokov could.>>
>
> The point here is that the publication of the book
> would be legally impossible? Are we so certain of
> that? (Is there a lawyer out there?) Kinbote writes
> in the Foreword:
>
> "Immediately after my dear friend's death I prevailed
> on his distraught widow to forelay and defeat the
> commercial passions and academic intrigues that were
> bound to come swirling around her hujsband's
> manuscript ... by signing an agreement to the effect
> that he had turned over the manuscript to me; that I
> would have it published without delay, with my
> commentary, by a firm of my choice; that all profits,
> except the publisher's percentage, wouldaccrue to her;
> and that on publication day the manuscript would be
> handed over to the Library of Congress for permanent
> preservation."
>
> Am I wrong in believing that, if there is nothing
> illegal contained within, a contract is binding; is,
> in a real sense, the law governing what it contains
> and entails? I'm not certain this is as strong a
> disqualifier as seems to be believed.
>
> <<I think, from what little supplementary stuff I've
> read, that Nabokov would have been enormously amused
> by the way some critics approached his text as though
> Shade and/or Kinbote were as "real" as the author
> himself, in respect of its composition.>>
>
> Nabokov was reported (I think by Dimitri Nabokov) to
> have said that the idea that Kinbote created Shade or
> that Shade created Kinbote was just slightly less
> preposterous than the idea that each had created the
> other. (I would not necessarily put faith in this
> comment.)
>
> Rob's making a good point in noting the membrane
> between Nabokov's novel and the artififact that it
> contains (and that happens, the artifact, to coincide
> word for word with the entirety of Nabokov's novel).
> I'm not sure, however, I agree precisely upon which
> side of that membrane the various arguments are
> properly heard.
>
> Questions about the quality of the writing are the
> most tricky. Rob's argument (comparing the internal
> writers to VN) is strong if one accepts his judgement
> on the quality of the poem, less so if one doesn't.
>
> Also, separately, Rob's points about Carroway in
> Gatsby are fair, but it is specifically the quality of
> prose that Rorty's point addresses, Nick's prose
> style, not the colorations and characterizations that
> accrue to his point of view.
>
>
>
>> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 09:31:02 -0400
> From: Toby G Levy <tobylevy@juno.com>
> Subject: NPPF: The Introduction
>
> Vocabulary Quiz
>
> Define these words as used in the introduction to Pale Fire:
>
> 1. parhelia (page 13)
>
> 2. farrago (16)
>
> 3. Golconda (17)
>
> 4. reticulation (19)
>
> 5. berimed (20)
>
> 6. rubicund (21)
>
> 7. convives (21)
>
> 8. pulpous (21)
>
> 9. facetation (21)
>
> 10. hoary forelock (21)
>
> 11. extramural (21)
>
> 12. Parthenocissus (22)
>
> 13. Hogarthian (26)
>
> ________________________________________________________________
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 06:46:04 -0700 (PDT)
> From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> Subject: RE: NPPF Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> - --- Jasper Fidget <jasper@hatguild.org> wrote:
> > I also think there's evidence that Botkin writes this from an asylum
(where
> perhaps his interview with Jack Grey took place, one loony to another),
but
> I'll wait for the reading to point it out. (Implying I suppose yet
*another*
> author, more of a compiler as seen in _Lolita_, and maybe it was *he* who
> supplied the epigraph!)
>
> I'm seeing evidence that the "book" or "writing" doesn't exist at all.
There
> are a few places where the "writer" drops his cover and blurts out an
> exclamation that doesn't fit as writing but more as a mental outburst.
> Implying a very strange form of stream of consciousness.
>
> David Morris
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 09:54:39 -0400
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <jasper@hatguild.org>
> Subject: RE: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> On
> > Behalf Of Malignd
> >
> > Nabokov was reported (I think by Dimitri Nabokov) to
> > have said that the idea that Kinbote created Shade or
> > that Shade created Kinbote was just slightly less
> > preposterous than the idea that each had created the
> > other. (I would not necessarily put faith in this
> > comment.)
> >
>
> I'm not sure this idea of each creating the other is so preposterous that
it
> should be dismissed out of hand, given all the reciprocal mirrors and
> parallels in PF, with all its delight in pure art -- and paradoxes are not
> unknown in VN's fiction....
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 09:58:13 -0400
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <jasper@hatguild.org>
> Subject: RE: NPPF: The Introduction
>
>>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 15:08:06 +0100
> From: "James Kyllo" <jkyllo@clara.net>
> Subject: Re: The Introduction
>
> > 12. Parthenocissus (22)
>
> A genus of deciduous tendril climbers
>
> (How's that for a Pynchon connection .. & there's another tendril at line
> 658 of the poem) including the Virginia Creeper and the Boston Ivy
>
> best
>
> James
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 15:12:33 +0100
> From: "James Kyllo" <jkyllo@clara.net>
> Subject: Re: The Introduction - Golconda
>
> > 3. Golconda (17)
> >
>
> The capital of a 16th Century Muslim sultanate. The name has come to be
> associated with great wealth. (so my dictionary claims)
>
> James
>
> http://www.golconda.net/
>
> http://www.meadev.nic.in/tourism/forts/golconda.htm
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 07:09:14 -0700 (PDT)
> From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> - --- Don Corathers <gumbo@fuse.net> wrote:
> >
> > But I think the threshhold proposition is that one of the characters in
this
> novel is responsible for its contents, and got it published.
>
> I agree that at LEAST one of the characters is responsible for its
contents, bu
> NOT that he got it published. I don't think it got published at all.
>
> David Morris
>
>> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 10:17:17 -0400
> From: <gumbo@fuse.net>
> Subject: Re: Re: The Introduction - Golconda
>
> Site of a fabulously rich diamond mine near Hyderabad.
>
> >
> > From: "James Kyllo" <jkyllo@clara.net>
> > Date: 2003/07/14 Mon AM 10:12:33 EDT
> > To: <pynchon-l@waste.org>, "Toby G Levy" <tobylevy@juno.com>
> > Subject: Re: The Introduction - Golconda
> >
> > > 3. Golconda (17)
> > >
> >
> > The capital of a 16th Century Muslim sultanate. The name has come to be
> > associated with great wealth. (so my dictionary claims)
> >
> > James
> >
> > http://www.golconda.net/
> >
> > http://www.meadev.nic.in/tourism/forts/golconda.htm
> >
> >
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 15:20:41 +0100
> From: "James Kyllo" <jkyllo@clara.net>
> Subject: The Introduction - parhelia
>
> > Define these words as used in the introduction to Pale Fire:
> >
> > 1. parhelia (page 13)
> >
>
> Plural of parhelion - a bright spot on a solar rainbow, and figuratively,
> an
> image or reflection.
>
>
> and those are they I had to look up..
>
> James
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 00:26:15 +1000
> From: jbor <jbor@bigpond.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> >> To take any one of the four propositions offered in
> >> the essay Jasper linked just one short (logical) step
> >> further -- How could Shade, or Kinbote, or Kinbote
> >> channeling Shade's ghost, or Botkin, manage to get the
> >> text, as it stands, past the publisher? They couldn't.
> >> Only Nabokov could.
>
> on 14/7/03 10:36 PM, Malignd wrote:
>
> > The point here is that the publication of the book
> > would be legally impossible? Are we so certain of
> > that? (Is there a lawyer out there?) Kinbote writes
> > in the Foreword:
> >
> > "Immediately after my dear friend's death I prevailed
> > on his distraught widow to forelay and defeat the
> > commercial passions and academic intrigues that were
> > bound to come swirling around her hujsband's
> > manuscript ... by signing an agreement to the effect
> > that he had turned over the manuscript to me; that I
> > would have it published without delay, with my
> > commentary, by a firm of my choice; that all profits,
> > except the publisher's percentage, wouldaccrue to her;
> > and that on publication day the manuscript would be
> > handed over to the Library of Congress for permanent
> > preservation."
> >
> > Am I wrong in believing that, if there is nothing
> > illegal contained within, a contract is binding; is,
> > in a real sense, the law governing what it contains
> > and entails? I'm not certain this is as strong a
> > disqualifier as seems to be believed.
>
> It's not just the legal aspect, though that is certainly one. I also think
> that *any* publisher, once having read it, would baulk at the prospect of
> publishing Kinbote's manuscript, regardless of him possessing the signed
> release from Sybil. There's obviously something amiss with it; it's not
what
> it purports to be at all. Kinbote's delusion is palpably evident.
>
> And even in the passage you cite from the Foreword there's a fairly strong
> intimation that the widow Shade signed the poem over whilst in a state of
> some duress ("I prevailed on his distraught widow ... ") and an admission
by
> Kinbote that he had already taken premature possession of it ("transferred
> by me to a safe spot even before his body had reached the grave"). As
well,
> he notes the academic controversy surrounding the poem's status and his
> possession of it. Is it really credible that a publisher would take on
this
> manuscript from Kinbote and publish it without any reservation?
>
> I'm quite happy to accept that it has happened this way in the fictional
> world Nabokov has created. But, likewise, I'm happy to accept that Shade
is
> the poet he is and Kinbote the writer he is, within the fiction. I don't
> think it's valid to drag either the one or the other out of the fiction
and
> set him beside Nabokov in order to argue the point about who created whom
> within that fiction. To me, that's the same as saying that it would have
> been impossible for any of the characters, in whichever context of
putative
> authorship you'd like to suggest, to get the manuscript published in the
> "real" world, and thereby "proving" that the text doesn't exist! The issue
> of publication is raised within the text just as prominently as the issue
of
> authorship, so I don't think it's illogical or unreasonable to posit the
> analogy.
>
> I'm not sure I fully understand the point about Nick Carraway's "prose
> style" in _The Great Gatsby_. It has always struck me as being in keeping
> with his character that he narrates in the way he does -- up-front, to the
> point, with simplicity, clarity and sincerity. It is around the perimeters
> of Nick's narration in the novel that we begin to perceive that there
might
> be different perspectives and other dimensions to the events and
characters,
> and this is achieved via Fitzgerald's skill as a writer rather than
Nick's.
>
> But, as far as _Pale Fire_ goes, you've identified two key issues which
seem
> to be up for debate. One is the "quality", or relative merit, of Shade's
> poem (and my stance on this is that it is Nabokov's poem, as parody and
> satire, which is a far greater achievement than Shade's, *even though it's
> exactly the same poem*, but I acknowledge that Otto, yourself and others
> dispute this interpretation). The other is the question of who might have
> written what (or whom), within the text. It will be interesting to see how
> these play out.
>
> best
>
> >
> > Nabokov was reported (I think by Dimitri Nabokov) to
> > have said that the idea that Kinbote created Shade or
> > that Shade created Kinbote was just slightly less
> > preposterous than the idea that each had created the
> > other. (I would not necessarily put faith in this
> > comment.)
> >
> > Rob's making a good point in noting the membrane
> > between Nabokov's novel and the artififact that it
> > contains (and that happens, the artifact, to coincide
> > word for word with the entirety of Nabokov's novel).
> > I'm not sure, however, I agree precisely upon which
> > side of that membrane the various arguments are
> > properly heard.
> >
> > Questions about the quality of the writing are the
> > most tricky. Rob's argument (comparing the internal
> > writers to VN) is strong if one accepts his judgement
> > on the quality of the poem, less so if one doesn't.
> >
> > Also, separately, Rob's points about Carroway in
> > Gatsby are fair, but it is specifically the quality of
> > prose that Rorty's point addresses, Nick's prose
> > style, not the colorations and characterizations that
> > accrue to his point of view.
> >
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 10:26:15 -0400
> From: <gumbo@fuse.net>
> Subject: Re: Re: The Introduction
>
> And literally "virgin ivy," which at first I took to be a ref to some of
the young people who spend time there.
>
> Don Corathers
>
> >
> > From: "James Kyllo" <jkyllo@clara.net>
> > Date: 2003/07/14 Mon AM 10:08:06 EDT
> > To: <pynchon-l@waste.org>
> > Subject: Re: The Introduction
> >
> >
> >
> > > 12. Parthenocissus (22)
> >
> > A genus of deciduous tendril climbers
> >
> > (How's that for a Pynchon connection .. & there's another tendril at
line
> > 658 of the poem)
> >
> > including the Virginia Creeper and the Boston Ivy
> >
> > best
> >
> > James
> >
> >
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 07:40:14 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Malignd <malignd@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> Rob Jackson:
>
> <<I'm inclined to reject this idea. I don't think the
> poem is "first-rate" in itself. I do think it's a
> first-rate parody of a type of pseudo-Eliotesque
> bombast, however. In that sense, it's Nabokov's poem,
> rather than Shade's, which might be called
> "first-rate".>>
>
> and
>
> <<... and my stance on this is that it is Nabokov's
> poem, as parody and satire, which is a far greater
> achievement than Shade's, *even though it's exactly
> the same poem ...>>
>
> It's interesting to consider the idea that VN in
> service of the novel Pale Fire, made the poem Pale
> Fire second rate, if only in specific ways; i.e., ways
> that invest Shade's character and frame him in a
> particular way. One might say (although, it states
> the case too crudely; nevertheless--) that the quality
> of the poem as VN's is inversely proportional to the
> quality of the poem as Shade's.
>
> But a question, then: if VN can, because of the
> context, be applauded for intentional weaknesses
> within the poem, can one not say the same about Shade?
> Could Shade deliberately muck about in his own poem
> in response to his own aesthetic demands, e.g., a
> rigorously honest self-revelation, say, to
> intentionally assume a more ordinary voice, a less
> refined talent than he's capable of, much as a
> novelist might, writing in the first person?
>
> More broadly, can any poet elevate, by his own
> insisted-upon context and point of view, something
> that would otherwise be deemed second-rate? Could
> Shade himself not create the context that turns his
> Brillo box of a poem into art? I think the answer
> must be yes, if we're going to allow that that's true
> for VN's poem within the novel Pale Fire.
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 10:44:33 -0400
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <jasper@hatguild.org>
> Subject: NPPF - Foreword - Notes (1)
>
> I've added some terms from Toby G. Levy's post. All the definitions are
> taken from the most recent edition of the OED unless otherwise noted.
>
> Page 13:
> "John Francis Shade" has the sound of Francis Scott Key in it. Key was an
> American lawyer who in 1814 wrote the words to the United States of
> America's national anthem after a night of British naval bombardment on
Fort
> McHenry at the Battle of Baltimore, War of 1812.
>
> John Shade was born on July 5, 1898. Charles Kinbote and Jacob Gradus
were
> also both born on July 5 (see 161, 275 respectively). They all die in
1959
> (or at least evidence suggests that K has committed suicide). John Shade
> died July 21, 1959. VN's father died on July 21, 1922 (he was shot while
> attempting to prevent the assassination of a politician named Pavel
Miliukov
> - -- see p 298 and others). Queen Blenda dies on July 21 in the Zembla
mirror
> world (where women are men? Then K's father dies on that day).
>
> New Wye -> knew why: who "knew why"? The town? John Shade? Charles
> Kinbote?
>
> "wye: 1. The letter Y. 2. Something shaped like a Y." (Webster's New
> Universal)
>
> "wye: 1. The letter Y. 2. A kind of crotch." (Webster's Revised
> Unabridged)
>
> "wye (OED): A support or other structure in a form resembling a Y; spec.
(a)
> Plumbing a short pipe with a branch joining it at an acute angle; (b)
> Electrical Engineering = STAR; (c) an arrangement of three sections of
> railway track, used for turning locomotives."
>
> New Wye: New Y: New York.
>
> The Wye, a river in England, noted by Wordsworth in his poem "Lines:
> Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the
Wye
> During a Tour, July 13, 1798" (a.k.a. "Tintern Abbey"). The poem is
largely
> concerned with memory and the imaginative capacity of the mind to help
> create what it perceives. Note that July 13 is the middle of the date
range
> of July 5 to July 21, and that John Shade was born 100 years after its
> composition. The text of Tintern Abbey:
> http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww138.html
>
> Perhaps it's worth contrasting Wordsworth's moving summer river of memory
> and growth with Shade's frozen winter lake of memory and death.
>
> The ghost of Tintern Abbey: http://www.castlewales.com/tintern1.html
>
> Page 13:
> Appalachia, USA. Appalachia is a region formed by the Appalachian
> Mountains, which run from Quebec to Georgia, and are composed of several
> individual ranges (the main one in New York being the Adirondacks). The
> Appalachians on the eastern side of North America are -- in a sense --
> *mirrored* by the Rocky Mountains in the west (though much smaller than
the
> Rockies). It seems a general consensus that the town depicted in Pale
Fire
> is actually Ithaca, New York, home to Cornell University where VN taught
> (and Pynchon attended).
>
> Page 13:
> The manuscript: "consists of eighty medium-sized index cards". VN himself
> preferred this method of composition. Pale Fire (poem, commentary, etc)
was
> literally written on index cards.
>
> Page 13:
> A poem in four cantos, a parody of Eliot's Four Quartets. But Shade is a
> Pope scholar, so Pope's Dunciad, a poem in four books with a preface, the
> poem, a commentary and notes.
>
> Page 13:
> Birds: Shade's parents were ornithologists (ln 72)
> waxwing(1), pheasant(24), grouse(25), mockingbird(63), etc
>
> Page 13:
> A parhelion is a bright spot on a solar halo (parhelic circle) caused by
ice
> crystals in the atmosphere. Parhelia can be colorful (resembling a
rainbow,
> for which there are other references in PF) and symmetrically spaced.
>
> For a full explanation: http://www.sundog.clara.co.uk/halo/pcpaths.htm
> For photos: http://www.meteoros.de/ee13ee18/ee13_b.htm
> Maybe just because I'm a technology geek, this reminds me of "lens
flares":
> http://jonathanclark.com/diary/flare/ ("My eyes were such that literally
> they / took photographs" (ln 30-31)).
>
> Page 15:
> "I recall seeing him from my porch, on a brilliant morning, burning a
whole
> stack of [index cards] in the pale fire of the incinerator before which he
> stood with bent head like an official mourner among the wind-borne black
> butterflies of that backyard auto-da-fe." (pg 15).
>
> The words "pale fire" obviously stand out, black butterflies are
associated
> with death and fire, and finally there is an allusion to Flaubert, the
first
> many (many) literary plants in PF. From _Madam Bovary_:
>
> "One day when, in view of her departure, she was tidying a drawer,
something
> pricked her finger. It was a wire of her wedding-bouquet. The orange
> blossoms were yellow with dust and the silver-bordered satin ribbons
frayed
> at the edges. She threw it into the fire. It flared up more quickly than
dry
> straw. Then it was like a red bush in the cinders, slowly devoured. She
> watched it burn. The little pasteboard berries burst, the wire twisted,
the
> gold lace melted; and the shriveled paper corollas, fluttering like black
> butterflies at the back of the stove, at last flew up the chimney." (Madam
> Bovary, Pt. 1, Ch. 9).
>
> Page 16:
> "a fantastic farrago of evil"
> "farrago: A confused group; a medley, a mixture, a hotchpotch.
>
> A. Burgess Such a repetitive farrago of platitudes. M. Gee A farrago of
> madness and morals and murder of the language."
>
> Page 16-17:
> "Golconda": "a mine, a rich source"
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 10:46:43 -0400
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <jasper@hatguild.org>
> Subject: NPPF - Foreword - Notes (2)
>
> Page 18:
> "[Sybil] and her changeful moods". The name Sybil can be found in Virgil;
> she tells Aeneus how to get to Hades, gives him a leaf from a tree.
Apollo
> made her immortal but she ran from him; he was angered, so he allowed her
to
> age forever -- she got older and older, smaller and smaller, until some
boys
> put her into a bottle.
>
> Sybil also shows up in Norse myth in the _Elder Edda_: she tells Odin
about
> the creation of the gods and the world's end -- RagnarЖk,
GЖtterdДmmerung --
> when the witch of the Iron Wood breeds the wolf that eats the sun. (Sybil
> Shade's unmarried name is Irondell.) (See C.247, p. 171.)
>
> Page 19:
> "not a reticulation of deadly drafts"
> "reticulation: 1. A network; an arrangement of interlacing lines etc.
> resembling a net; reticulated structure or appearance; Photography (the
> formation of) a network of wrinkles or cracks in a photographic emulsion.
> 2. A network of pipes used in irrigation and water supply. Chiefly
Austral.
> & NZ."
>
> Page 19-20:
> Goldsworth, Wordsmith (see C.47-48, p. 82): twist these into Goldsmith and
> Wordsworth -- VN taught literature in Goldwin Smith Hall at Cornell; 18th
> century goldsmith: Shade is an expert on 18th century poets (see also
Judge
> Goldsworth page 19 & page 267; Wordsmith College page 20); William
> Wordsworth: an important poet in this book; Cornell has a large Wordsmith
> collection.
>
> Page 20:
> "his abundant gray hair looked berimed in the sun"
> "berime, berhyme: Compose rhymes about; lampoon in rhyme."
>
> Page 20:
> "A lane curving around the slight eminence on which my rented castle
stood"
> puts Kinbote slightly above Shade (fitting for a King).
>
> Page 21:
> "the rubicund convives"
> "rubicund: 1. Inclined to redness; red.
>
> M. Amis From the country, where everything was good: the sack of wheat,
the
> rubicund apple-rack.
>
> 2. Of the face, complexion, etc.: reddish, flushed, highly coloured, esp.
> as the result of good living. Of a person: having such a complexion.
>
> I. Rankin A rubicund man, hot and jacketless.., was dispensing the
drinks."
>
> "convive: A member of a company who eat together, a fellow feaster."
>
> Page 21:
> "lest a serious discussion of literature degenerate into mere
facetiation."
> presumably from "facetious"? The OED lists the correct noun form as
> "facetiousness":
> "1. Of manners etc.: polished, urbane.
>
> 2. Given to or characterized by pleasantry or joking, now esp. where
> inappropriate or trivializing; witty, humorous, amusing.
>
> J. Cheever The first was a facetious essay, attacking the modern toilet
> seat. "
>
> Page 21:
> "hoary forelock"
> "hoary: 1. (Of hair) grey or white with age; grey-haired; ancient,
> venerable. Also, old and trite."
>
> "forelock: 1. A lock of hair growing just above the forehead."
>
> Page 21:
> "was an extramural lady on crutches"
> "extramural: 1. Situated or occurring outside the walls or boundaries of a
> town or city.
>
> 2. Pertaining to or designating instruction given under the auspices of a
> university or college but intended for people other than its students."
>
> Page 22:
> "Parthenocissus Hall": Parthenon, the main temple of Athena build around
400
> BCE; and Narcissus, a Greek myth about a beautiful dude who fell in love
> with his own reflection and couldn't stop looking at it in a pool.
>
> I also hear the word parthenogenesis here: "Biology. Reproduction from a
> gamete without fertilization, esp. as a normal process in invertebrates
and
> lower plants. Formerly also, asexual reproduction, as by fission or
budding"
>
> Page 22:
> "powerful Kramler": presumably referring to Daimler: a German engineer --
> Gottlieb Daimler (1834-1900) -- who together with Karl Benz (1844-1929)
and
> others created the first lightweight, high-speed internal combustion
engine
> for a land vehicle; and an automobile manufacturer: Daimler-Benz (now
> Daimler-Chrysler).
>
> Page 25:
> "The Hally Vally" and "confusing Odin's Hall with the title of a Finnish
> epic": The Norse Valhalla, home of the gods where those they favor may go
> when they die, linked with the Finnish Kalevala epic about the folk hero
> Kaleva.
>
> Page 26:
> "Hogarthian tippler":
> "hogarthian: Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of the English satirical
> painter and caricaturist William Hogarth (1697√1764) or his style of
> painting."
>
> William Hogarth (1697-1764), an English artist whose engravings satirized
> the affectations of time.
> http://www.library.northwestern.edu/spec/hogarth/main.html
>
> "tippler: A person who tipples; a habitual drinker of alcohol, esp. in
small
> quantities."
>
> Page 29:
> "Oct. 19, 1959, Cedarn, Utana" Utana is a synthesis of Utah and Montana
(on
> the border with Idoming -- see 182) and also rings with Ultima (as in
Ultima
> Thule). Kinbote is informed by the Shade's (p. 182) that they intend to
> vacation here after the completion of John's poem.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 07:48:59 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Malignd <malignd@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> <<I'm not sure I fully understand the point about Nick
> Carraway's "prose style" in _The Great Gatsby_. It has
> always struck me as being in keeping with his
> character that he narrates in the way he does --
> front, to the point, with simplicity, clarity and
> sincerity.>>
>
> Nick is a bond trader, a bond trader who writes like
> this:
>
> "We walked through a high hallway into a bright
> rosy-colored space, fragilely bound into the house by
> French windows at either end. The windows were ajar
> and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside
> that seemed to grow a little way into the house. A
> breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one
> end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them
> up toward the frosted wedding cake of the ceiling --
> and then rippled over the wine-colored rug, making a
> shadow on it as wind does on the sea."
>
> The point is that a reader isn't intended to mull or
> worry this, to bring it into the novel. Rather, he
> suspends disbelief and reads on.
>
> But Pale Fire is a book in part about writers and the
> quality of their writing, and so a good reader doesn't
> so readily suspend disbelief when he notices that the
> mad Kinbote writes like Nabokov.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 07:49:34 -0700
> From: "Vincent A. Maeder" <vmaeder@cyhc-law.com>
> Subject: RE: Like Bush And His Cronies
>
> From: The Great Quail
> >>David writes, AND (not hosting but participating nicely): Rob Jackson,
> The Great Quail,<<
>
> >Wait -- I thought I was assigned Canto IV? --Quail<<
>
> Yes, you are. V. --see below--
>
> Using the Vintage International Paperback:
>
> July 14: Foreword - Jasper Fidget
>
> July 21: Canto One -- cfa
>
> July 28: Canto Two - David Morris
>
> Aug. 4: Canto Three -- Tim Strzechowski
>
> Aug. 11: Canto Four - The Great Quail
>
> Aug. 18: pp. 71-93 through lines 47-48 commentary-- Keith McMullen
> (s~Z/slothenvypride)
>
> Aug. 25: pp. 93-113 through lines 86-90 commentary - Don Corathers
>
> Sept. 1: pp. 114-135 through line 130 commentary - Jasper Fidget
>
> Sept. 8: pp. 135-154 through line 171 commentary - M. Joseph
>
> Sept. 15: pp. 154-174 through line 275 commentary - Vincent A. Maeder
> and Perry Sams
>
> Sept. 22: pp. 174-194 through line 376 commentary - Scott Badger
>
> Sept. 29: pp. 194-215 through lines 433-434 commentary -- Bekah
>
> Oct. 6: pp. 215-235 through lines 609-614 commentary - David Morris
>
> Oct. 13: pp. 235-254 through lines 734-735 commentary -- Paul Mackin
>
> Oct. 20: pp. 254-273 through line 949 commentary - Elaine M.M. Bell and
> Terrance
>
> Oct. 27: pp. 273-301 - Heikki and Otto
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 10:48:47 -0400
> From: The Great Quail <quail@libyrinth.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF -- Published or not published?
>
> Just for some background...my own interpretation is the relatively
> straight-forward one, that Kinbote and Shade are both "real," and that the
> novel may be taken essentially as presented -- a "real" poem in the hands
of
> a "real" madman.
>
> Though Keith's suggestions about Shade/Maud incest are pretty
intriguing --
> I think a lot of us will be keeping that in mind as we re-read the poem
> itself.
>
> David Morris writes,
>
> > I'm seeing evidence that the "book" or "writing" doesn't exist at all.
There
> > are a few places where the "writer" drops his cover and blurts out an
> > exclamation that doesn't fit as writing but more as a mental outburst.
> > Implying a very strange form of stream of consciousness.
>
> Certainly plausible -- though, part of Kinbote's agreement is that the
final
> text not be edited by anyone but himself. If we read PF as being under
> Kinbote's control, including his "editing" of Shade's poem, it is spiked
> with bizarre elements that would clearly be edited out of any real
> manuscript. (Kinbote's irritated outbursts, his uncertainty of facts, that
> strange "Insert" line in the foreword....)
>
> Kinbote himself claims on several occasions to be rushed, and it certainly
> seems that what we are reading is a first draft....
>
> > I agree that at LEAST one of the characters is responsible for its
contents,
> > but NOT that he got it published. I don't think it got published at
all.
>
> I have my suspicions there, too. I don't think we are reading a
"published"
> manuscript, but the hurried and misguided ravings of a parasitical madman.
>
> I wonder, actually...if Kinbote is making up Zembla, what else is he
making
> up? Recall, other "characters" mention Zembla and even Charles; such as
the
> academics at Wordsmith. If he can place those words in their mouths, why
> can't he also imagine their criticisms of his "contract" as well? What if
> the whole "farrago" is delusional, and he merely *stole* the manuscript
> outright? Perhaps he is hiding away, writing up a delusional framework
that
> rationalizes his theft, therefore *also* imagining the so-called critical
> response and unreturned phone calls?
>
> Though I confess, this is just "what-if" speculation. There's something
> about the passages referring to the academic community at large and
Sybil's
> responses to him that ring true, given Kinbote's general personality....
>
> Wheels within wheels....
>
> - --Quail
>
> ------------------------------
>
> End of pynchon-l-digest V2 #3407
> ********************************
>
> To unsubscribe, send a message to waste@waste.org
> with "unsubscribe pynchon-l-digest" in the message body.
From: "pynchon-l-digest" <owner-pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
To: <pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
Sent: Monday, July 14, 2003 7:50 AM
Subject: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3407
>
> pynchon-l-digest Monday, July 14 2003 Volume 02 : Number
3407
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 11:29:13 +0200
> From: "Otto" <ottosell@yahoo.de>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> - ----- Original Message -----
> From: "jbor" <jbor@bigpond.com>
> To: <pynchon-l@waste.org>
> Sent: Sunday, July 13, 2003 6:57 AM
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
>
> > on 13/7/03 1:35 PM, Jasper Fidget wrote:
> >
> > > Another way to phrase this concern is by asking whether the poem "Pale
> > > Fire"
> > > compares well to the novel _Pale Fire_. If removed from the
surrounding
> > > commentary, would "Pale Fire" by John Shade be worth reading? If so,
> > > would
> > > it be a *great* work? Kinbote's contribution to the poem almost
> > > certainly
> > > gives it greater value than it would have had on its own, which
> > >strangely
> > > fulfills Kinbote's desperate desire to have assisted Shade with it.
> > [...]
> > > Ultimately Morris decides the Shadean interpretation is the most
> > > plausible;
> > > see the article for his insightful evaluation in full, findable here:
> > >
> > > http://www.libraries.psu.edu/iasweb/nabokov/morris1.htm
> > >
>
> Is his book then Boyd III?
>
> >
> > From that essay:
> >
> > But one will search in vain for any direct statement from VN
> > as to the ultimate literary value of "Pale Fire." His reading
> > of part of Canto Two at Harvard thus must serve as an indirect
> > statement: It was a poem he was proud of, and was willing to
> > record for the ages.
> >
> > I don't know that this is a particularly convincing argument. I'm sure
> > that
> > Alexander Pope was proud of his 'The Rape of the Lock' as well, and that
> > he
> > read it aloud on occasion; and it's worth recalling the prominence of
Pope
> > throughout all facets of the text of _Pale Fire_. A satiric poem such as
> > Pope's can be, and certainly is regarded as, a "great" one, and it's not
> > at
> > all inconsistent or implausible to imagine that Nabokov put much
creative
> > effort into the composition of the poem by his "invented" poet, and that
> > he
> > was pleased with the results, but that he still intended it to be a
> satire.
> >
>
> Given the "content" of the poem (Hazel's death and Shades's lifelong quest
> to understand the "beyond zero") I'm not so sure about the satirical
quality
> of the poem. I'm not in a position to judge its poetic qualities but the
way
> Boyd III explains it as the poetic pole it has a major function in the
> contrapuntal structure of the novel, but not necessarily as major poetry.
>
> > The other thing which doesn't quite gel for me is the assumption that
> > Nabokov was trying to conceal the fact of his own overall authorship of
> > the novel, his ultimate "control" over the fiction. Plainly, he wasn't.
>
> I absolutely agree. The Epigraph thus for me is from Nabokov, preceding
all
> parts of the novel.
>
> > The
> > puzzles of the text, and their ultimate answerability, answerabilities
or
> > unanswerability, are intentional ones. I think that in this respect
> > Nabokov
> > himself, and _Pale Fire in particular, probably stand at one of those
cusp
> > points between Modernism and postmodernism (see eg. McHale 1987, 1992),
> > and
> > that Nabokov still perceived the author's position -- his own
position --
> > in
> > respect to the text as one of preeminence, even though, admittedly, the
> > themes and structural complexities within the text do challenge and
> > problematise that whole relationship between "authorship" and
"authority".
> >I don't think Nabokov sees this paradox as an issue.
>
> Again I agree, but when I follow Boyd III it is an issue (the question of
> influence, inspiration, the muse) of the novel.
>
> > Thus, the question of
> > whether Shade or Kinbote or any other character could write "as well as"
> > Nabokov seems to me to be irrelevant. It is Nabokov who can write as
well
> > as Nabokov: his characters are the *products* of his writing, not the
> > producers.
>
> I too don't buy either the shadean nor the kinbotian solution. Or, it is
> rather a very special double-shadean point later in his book, in Boyd's
> "rereaders"-chapters, so I'm reluctant to say more at this point. The way
he
> gets to this point following Nabokov's signifiers through the parts of the
> novel is quite convincing.
>
> Otto
>
>
> I love you when you call me to admire
> A jet's pink trail above the sunset fire.
> (285-86) [Boyd p. 228]
>
> But the rocket will be here before Pirate sees the sun rise.
> The trail, smudged, slightly torn in two or three directions,
> hangs in the sky.
> (GR 6-7)
>
>> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 05:36:10 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Malignd <malignd@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> Rob Jackson (I think):
>
> No, that's not what I've said at all. I don't
> understand why the obvious possibility, that Nabokov
> created both Shade and Kinbote as separate and
> independent characters, and consciously endowed them
> with the particular artistic, critical, intellectual,
> emotional etc talents and foibles they present with,
> and that (Nabokov's) Shade wrote the poem and
> (Nabokov's) Kinbote the Foreword and Commentary, has
> been discarded.
>
> I'm not certain it's been discarded or need be. But
> as one reads further into the poem and the glimmers of
> Kinbote's madness begin to appear, a reader has no
> choice but to consider what's going on.
>
> <<To take any one of the four propositions offered in
> the essay Jasper linked just one short (logical) step
> further -- How could Shade, or Kinbote, or Kinbote
> channeling Shade's ghost, or Botkin, manage to get the
> text, as it stands, past the publisher? They couldn't.
> Only Nabokov could.>>
>
> The point here is that the publication of the book
> would be legally impossible? Are we so certain of
> that? (Is there a lawyer out there?) Kinbote writes
> in the Foreword:
>
> "Immediately after my dear friend's death I prevailed
> on his distraught widow to forelay and defeat the
> commercial passions and academic intrigues that were
> bound to come swirling around her hujsband's
> manuscript ... by signing an agreement to the effect
> that he had turned over the manuscript to me; that I
> would have it published without delay, with my
> commentary, by a firm of my choice; that all profits,
> except the publisher's percentage, wouldaccrue to her;
> and that on publication day the manuscript would be
> handed over to the Library of Congress for permanent
> preservation."
>
> Am I wrong in believing that, if there is nothing
> illegal contained within, a contract is binding; is,
> in a real sense, the law governing what it contains
> and entails? I'm not certain this is as strong a
> disqualifier as seems to be believed.
>
> <<I think, from what little supplementary stuff I've
> read, that Nabokov would have been enormously amused
> by the way some critics approached his text as though
> Shade and/or Kinbote were as "real" as the author
> himself, in respect of its composition.>>
>
> Nabokov was reported (I think by Dimitri Nabokov) to
> have said that the idea that Kinbote created Shade or
> that Shade created Kinbote was just slightly less
> preposterous than the idea that each had created the
> other. (I would not necessarily put faith in this
> comment.)
>
> Rob's making a good point in noting the membrane
> between Nabokov's novel and the artififact that it
> contains (and that happens, the artifact, to coincide
> word for word with the entirety of Nabokov's novel).
> I'm not sure, however, I agree precisely upon which
> side of that membrane the various arguments are
> properly heard.
>
> Questions about the quality of the writing are the
> most tricky. Rob's argument (comparing the internal
> writers to VN) is strong if one accepts his judgement
> on the quality of the poem, less so if one doesn't.
>
> Also, separately, Rob's points about Carroway in
> Gatsby are fair, but it is specifically the quality of
> prose that Rorty's point addresses, Nick's prose
> style, not the colorations and characterizations that
> accrue to his point of view.
>
>
>
>> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 09:31:02 -0400
> From: Toby G Levy <tobylevy@juno.com>
> Subject: NPPF: The Introduction
>
> Vocabulary Quiz
>
> Define these words as used in the introduction to Pale Fire:
>
> 1. parhelia (page 13)
>
> 2. farrago (16)
>
> 3. Golconda (17)
>
> 4. reticulation (19)
>
> 5. berimed (20)
>
> 6. rubicund (21)
>
> 7. convives (21)
>
> 8. pulpous (21)
>
> 9. facetation (21)
>
> 10. hoary forelock (21)
>
> 11. extramural (21)
>
> 12. Parthenocissus (22)
>
> 13. Hogarthian (26)
>
> ________________________________________________________________
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 06:46:04 -0700 (PDT)
> From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> Subject: RE: NPPF Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> - --- Jasper Fidget <jasper@hatguild.org> wrote:
> > I also think there's evidence that Botkin writes this from an asylum
(where
> perhaps his interview with Jack Grey took place, one loony to another),
but
> I'll wait for the reading to point it out. (Implying I suppose yet
*another*
> author, more of a compiler as seen in _Lolita_, and maybe it was *he* who
> supplied the epigraph!)
>
> I'm seeing evidence that the "book" or "writing" doesn't exist at all.
There
> are a few places where the "writer" drops his cover and blurts out an
> exclamation that doesn't fit as writing but more as a mental outburst.
> Implying a very strange form of stream of consciousness.
>
> David Morris
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 09:54:39 -0400
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <jasper@hatguild.org>
> Subject: RE: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> On
> > Behalf Of Malignd
> >
> > Nabokov was reported (I think by Dimitri Nabokov) to
> > have said that the idea that Kinbote created Shade or
> > that Shade created Kinbote was just slightly less
> > preposterous than the idea that each had created the
> > other. (I would not necessarily put faith in this
> > comment.)
> >
>
> I'm not sure this idea of each creating the other is so preposterous that
it
> should be dismissed out of hand, given all the reciprocal mirrors and
> parallels in PF, with all its delight in pure art -- and paradoxes are not
> unknown in VN's fiction....
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 09:58:13 -0400
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <jasper@hatguild.org>
> Subject: RE: NPPF: The Introduction
>
>>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 15:08:06 +0100
> From: "James Kyllo" <jkyllo@clara.net>
> Subject: Re: The Introduction
>
> > 12. Parthenocissus (22)
>
> A genus of deciduous tendril climbers
>
> (How's that for a Pynchon connection .. & there's another tendril at line
> 658 of the poem) including the Virginia Creeper and the Boston Ivy
>
> best
>
> James
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 15:12:33 +0100
> From: "James Kyllo" <jkyllo@clara.net>
> Subject: Re: The Introduction - Golconda
>
> > 3. Golconda (17)
> >
>
> The capital of a 16th Century Muslim sultanate. The name has come to be
> associated with great wealth. (so my dictionary claims)
>
> James
>
> http://www.golconda.net/
>
> http://www.meadev.nic.in/tourism/forts/golconda.htm
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 07:09:14 -0700 (PDT)
> From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> - --- Don Corathers <gumbo@fuse.net> wrote:
> >
> > But I think the threshhold proposition is that one of the characters in
this
> novel is responsible for its contents, and got it published.
>
> I agree that at LEAST one of the characters is responsible for its
contents, bu
> NOT that he got it published. I don't think it got published at all.
>
> David Morris
>
>> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 10:17:17 -0400
> From: <gumbo@fuse.net>
> Subject: Re: Re: The Introduction - Golconda
>
> Site of a fabulously rich diamond mine near Hyderabad.
>
> >
> > From: "James Kyllo" <jkyllo@clara.net>
> > Date: 2003/07/14 Mon AM 10:12:33 EDT
> > To: <pynchon-l@waste.org>, "Toby G Levy" <tobylevy@juno.com>
> > Subject: Re: The Introduction - Golconda
> >
> > > 3. Golconda (17)
> > >
> >
> > The capital of a 16th Century Muslim sultanate. The name has come to be
> > associated with great wealth. (so my dictionary claims)
> >
> > James
> >
> > http://www.golconda.net/
> >
> > http://www.meadev.nic.in/tourism/forts/golconda.htm
> >
> >
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 15:20:41 +0100
> From: "James Kyllo" <jkyllo@clara.net>
> Subject: The Introduction - parhelia
>
> > Define these words as used in the introduction to Pale Fire:
> >
> > 1. parhelia (page 13)
> >
>
> Plural of parhelion - a bright spot on a solar rainbow, and figuratively,
> an
> image or reflection.
>
>
> and those are they I had to look up..
>
> James
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 00:26:15 +1000
> From: jbor <jbor@bigpond.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> >> To take any one of the four propositions offered in
> >> the essay Jasper linked just one short (logical) step
> >> further -- How could Shade, or Kinbote, or Kinbote
> >> channeling Shade's ghost, or Botkin, manage to get the
> >> text, as it stands, past the publisher? They couldn't.
> >> Only Nabokov could.
>
> on 14/7/03 10:36 PM, Malignd wrote:
>
> > The point here is that the publication of the book
> > would be legally impossible? Are we so certain of
> > that? (Is there a lawyer out there?) Kinbote writes
> > in the Foreword:
> >
> > "Immediately after my dear friend's death I prevailed
> > on his distraught widow to forelay and defeat the
> > commercial passions and academic intrigues that were
> > bound to come swirling around her hujsband's
> > manuscript ... by signing an agreement to the effect
> > that he had turned over the manuscript to me; that I
> > would have it published without delay, with my
> > commentary, by a firm of my choice; that all profits,
> > except the publisher's percentage, wouldaccrue to her;
> > and that on publication day the manuscript would be
> > handed over to the Library of Congress for permanent
> > preservation."
> >
> > Am I wrong in believing that, if there is nothing
> > illegal contained within, a contract is binding; is,
> > in a real sense, the law governing what it contains
> > and entails? I'm not certain this is as strong a
> > disqualifier as seems to be believed.
>
> It's not just the legal aspect, though that is certainly one. I also think
> that *any* publisher, once having read it, would baulk at the prospect of
> publishing Kinbote's manuscript, regardless of him possessing the signed
> release from Sybil. There's obviously something amiss with it; it's not
what
> it purports to be at all. Kinbote's delusion is palpably evident.
>
> And even in the passage you cite from the Foreword there's a fairly strong
> intimation that the widow Shade signed the poem over whilst in a state of
> some duress ("I prevailed on his distraught widow ... ") and an admission
by
> Kinbote that he had already taken premature possession of it ("transferred
> by me to a safe spot even before his body had reached the grave"). As
well,
> he notes the academic controversy surrounding the poem's status and his
> possession of it. Is it really credible that a publisher would take on
this
> manuscript from Kinbote and publish it without any reservation?
>
> I'm quite happy to accept that it has happened this way in the fictional
> world Nabokov has created. But, likewise, I'm happy to accept that Shade
is
> the poet he is and Kinbote the writer he is, within the fiction. I don't
> think it's valid to drag either the one or the other out of the fiction
and
> set him beside Nabokov in order to argue the point about who created whom
> within that fiction. To me, that's the same as saying that it would have
> been impossible for any of the characters, in whichever context of
putative
> authorship you'd like to suggest, to get the manuscript published in the
> "real" world, and thereby "proving" that the text doesn't exist! The issue
> of publication is raised within the text just as prominently as the issue
of
> authorship, so I don't think it's illogical or unreasonable to posit the
> analogy.
>
> I'm not sure I fully understand the point about Nick Carraway's "prose
> style" in _The Great Gatsby_. It has always struck me as being in keeping
> with his character that he narrates in the way he does -- up-front, to the
> point, with simplicity, clarity and sincerity. It is around the perimeters
> of Nick's narration in the novel that we begin to perceive that there
might
> be different perspectives and other dimensions to the events and
characters,
> and this is achieved via Fitzgerald's skill as a writer rather than
Nick's.
>
> But, as far as _Pale Fire_ goes, you've identified two key issues which
seem
> to be up for debate. One is the "quality", or relative merit, of Shade's
> poem (and my stance on this is that it is Nabokov's poem, as parody and
> satire, which is a far greater achievement than Shade's, *even though it's
> exactly the same poem*, but I acknowledge that Otto, yourself and others
> dispute this interpretation). The other is the question of who might have
> written what (or whom), within the text. It will be interesting to see how
> these play out.
>
> best
>
> >
> > Nabokov was reported (I think by Dimitri Nabokov) to
> > have said that the idea that Kinbote created Shade or
> > that Shade created Kinbote was just slightly less
> > preposterous than the idea that each had created the
> > other. (I would not necessarily put faith in this
> > comment.)
> >
> > Rob's making a good point in noting the membrane
> > between Nabokov's novel and the artififact that it
> > contains (and that happens, the artifact, to coincide
> > word for word with the entirety of Nabokov's novel).
> > I'm not sure, however, I agree precisely upon which
> > side of that membrane the various arguments are
> > properly heard.
> >
> > Questions about the quality of the writing are the
> > most tricky. Rob's argument (comparing the internal
> > writers to VN) is strong if one accepts his judgement
> > on the quality of the poem, less so if one doesn't.
> >
> > Also, separately, Rob's points about Carroway in
> > Gatsby are fair, but it is specifically the quality of
> > prose that Rorty's point addresses, Nick's prose
> > style, not the colorations and characterizations that
> > accrue to his point of view.
> >
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 10:26:15 -0400
> From: <gumbo@fuse.net>
> Subject: Re: Re: The Introduction
>
> And literally "virgin ivy," which at first I took to be a ref to some of
the young people who spend time there.
>
> Don Corathers
>
> >
> > From: "James Kyllo" <jkyllo@clara.net>
> > Date: 2003/07/14 Mon AM 10:08:06 EDT
> > To: <pynchon-l@waste.org>
> > Subject: Re: The Introduction
> >
> >
> >
> > > 12. Parthenocissus (22)
> >
> > A genus of deciduous tendril climbers
> >
> > (How's that for a Pynchon connection .. & there's another tendril at
line
> > 658 of the poem)
> >
> > including the Virginia Creeper and the Boston Ivy
> >
> > best
> >
> > James
> >
> >
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 07:40:14 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Malignd <malignd@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> Rob Jackson:
>
> <<I'm inclined to reject this idea. I don't think the
> poem is "first-rate" in itself. I do think it's a
> first-rate parody of a type of pseudo-Eliotesque
> bombast, however. In that sense, it's Nabokov's poem,
> rather than Shade's, which might be called
> "first-rate".>>
>
> and
>
> <<... and my stance on this is that it is Nabokov's
> poem, as parody and satire, which is a far greater
> achievement than Shade's, *even though it's exactly
> the same poem ...>>
>
> It's interesting to consider the idea that VN in
> service of the novel Pale Fire, made the poem Pale
> Fire second rate, if only in specific ways; i.e., ways
> that invest Shade's character and frame him in a
> particular way. One might say (although, it states
> the case too crudely; nevertheless--) that the quality
> of the poem as VN's is inversely proportional to the
> quality of the poem as Shade's.
>
> But a question, then: if VN can, because of the
> context, be applauded for intentional weaknesses
> within the poem, can one not say the same about Shade?
> Could Shade deliberately muck about in his own poem
> in response to his own aesthetic demands, e.g., a
> rigorously honest self-revelation, say, to
> intentionally assume a more ordinary voice, a less
> refined talent than he's capable of, much as a
> novelist might, writing in the first person?
>
> More broadly, can any poet elevate, by his own
> insisted-upon context and point of view, something
> that would otherwise be deemed second-rate? Could
> Shade himself not create the context that turns his
> Brillo box of a poem into art? I think the answer
> must be yes, if we're going to allow that that's true
> for VN's poem within the novel Pale Fire.
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 10:44:33 -0400
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <jasper@hatguild.org>
> Subject: NPPF - Foreword - Notes (1)
>
> I've added some terms from Toby G. Levy's post. All the definitions are
> taken from the most recent edition of the OED unless otherwise noted.
>
> Page 13:
> "John Francis Shade" has the sound of Francis Scott Key in it. Key was an
> American lawyer who in 1814 wrote the words to the United States of
> America's national anthem after a night of British naval bombardment on
Fort
> McHenry at the Battle of Baltimore, War of 1812.
>
> John Shade was born on July 5, 1898. Charles Kinbote and Jacob Gradus
were
> also both born on July 5 (see 161, 275 respectively). They all die in
1959
> (or at least evidence suggests that K has committed suicide). John Shade
> died July 21, 1959. VN's father died on July 21, 1922 (he was shot while
> attempting to prevent the assassination of a politician named Pavel
Miliukov
> - -- see p 298 and others). Queen Blenda dies on July 21 in the Zembla
mirror
> world (where women are men? Then K's father dies on that day).
>
> New Wye -> knew why: who "knew why"? The town? John Shade? Charles
> Kinbote?
>
> "wye: 1. The letter Y. 2. Something shaped like a Y." (Webster's New
> Universal)
>
> "wye: 1. The letter Y. 2. A kind of crotch." (Webster's Revised
> Unabridged)
>
> "wye (OED): A support or other structure in a form resembling a Y; spec.
(a)
> Plumbing a short pipe with a branch joining it at an acute angle; (b)
> Electrical Engineering = STAR; (c) an arrangement of three sections of
> railway track, used for turning locomotives."
>
> New Wye: New Y: New York.
>
> The Wye, a river in England, noted by Wordsworth in his poem "Lines:
> Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the
Wye
> During a Tour, July 13, 1798" (a.k.a. "Tintern Abbey"). The poem is
largely
> concerned with memory and the imaginative capacity of the mind to help
> create what it perceives. Note that July 13 is the middle of the date
range
> of July 5 to July 21, and that John Shade was born 100 years after its
> composition. The text of Tintern Abbey:
> http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww138.html
>
> Perhaps it's worth contrasting Wordsworth's moving summer river of memory
> and growth with Shade's frozen winter lake of memory and death.
>
> The ghost of Tintern Abbey: http://www.castlewales.com/tintern1.html
>
> Page 13:
> Appalachia, USA. Appalachia is a region formed by the Appalachian
> Mountains, which run from Quebec to Georgia, and are composed of several
> individual ranges (the main one in New York being the Adirondacks). The
> Appalachians on the eastern side of North America are -- in a sense --
> *mirrored* by the Rocky Mountains in the west (though much smaller than
the
> Rockies). It seems a general consensus that the town depicted in Pale
Fire
> is actually Ithaca, New York, home to Cornell University where VN taught
> (and Pynchon attended).
>
> Page 13:
> The manuscript: "consists of eighty medium-sized index cards". VN himself
> preferred this method of composition. Pale Fire (poem, commentary, etc)
was
> literally written on index cards.
>
> Page 13:
> A poem in four cantos, a parody of Eliot's Four Quartets. But Shade is a
> Pope scholar, so Pope's Dunciad, a poem in four books with a preface, the
> poem, a commentary and notes.
>
> Page 13:
> Birds: Shade's parents were ornithologists (ln 72)
> waxwing(1), pheasant(24), grouse(25), mockingbird(63), etc
>
> Page 13:
> A parhelion is a bright spot on a solar halo (parhelic circle) caused by
ice
> crystals in the atmosphere. Parhelia can be colorful (resembling a
rainbow,
> for which there are other references in PF) and symmetrically spaced.
>
> For a full explanation: http://www.sundog.clara.co.uk/halo/pcpaths.htm
> For photos: http://www.meteoros.de/ee13ee18/ee13_b.htm
> Maybe just because I'm a technology geek, this reminds me of "lens
flares":
> http://jonathanclark.com/diary/flare/ ("My eyes were such that literally
> they / took photographs" (ln 30-31)).
>
> Page 15:
> "I recall seeing him from my porch, on a brilliant morning, burning a
whole
> stack of [index cards] in the pale fire of the incinerator before which he
> stood with bent head like an official mourner among the wind-borne black
> butterflies of that backyard auto-da-fe." (pg 15).
>
> The words "pale fire" obviously stand out, black butterflies are
associated
> with death and fire, and finally there is an allusion to Flaubert, the
first
> many (many) literary plants in PF. From _Madam Bovary_:
>
> "One day when, in view of her departure, she was tidying a drawer,
something
> pricked her finger. It was a wire of her wedding-bouquet. The orange
> blossoms were yellow with dust and the silver-bordered satin ribbons
frayed
> at the edges. She threw it into the fire. It flared up more quickly than
dry
> straw. Then it was like a red bush in the cinders, slowly devoured. She
> watched it burn. The little pasteboard berries burst, the wire twisted,
the
> gold lace melted; and the shriveled paper corollas, fluttering like black
> butterflies at the back of the stove, at last flew up the chimney." (Madam
> Bovary, Pt. 1, Ch. 9).
>
> Page 16:
> "a fantastic farrago of evil"
> "farrago: A confused group; a medley, a mixture, a hotchpotch.
>
> A. Burgess Such a repetitive farrago of platitudes. M. Gee A farrago of
> madness and morals and murder of the language."
>
> Page 16-17:
> "Golconda": "a mine, a rich source"
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 10:46:43 -0400
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <jasper@hatguild.org>
> Subject: NPPF - Foreword - Notes (2)
>
> Page 18:
> "[Sybil] and her changeful moods". The name Sybil can be found in Virgil;
> she tells Aeneus how to get to Hades, gives him a leaf from a tree.
Apollo
> made her immortal but she ran from him; he was angered, so he allowed her
to
> age forever -- she got older and older, smaller and smaller, until some
boys
> put her into a bottle.
>
> Sybil also shows up in Norse myth in the _Elder Edda_: she tells Odin
about
> the creation of the gods and the world's end -- RagnarЖk,
GЖtterdДmmerung --
> when the witch of the Iron Wood breeds the wolf that eats the sun. (Sybil
> Shade's unmarried name is Irondell.) (See C.247, p. 171.)
>
> Page 19:
> "not a reticulation of deadly drafts"
> "reticulation: 1. A network; an arrangement of interlacing lines etc.
> resembling a net; reticulated structure or appearance; Photography (the
> formation of) a network of wrinkles or cracks in a photographic emulsion.
> 2. A network of pipes used in irrigation and water supply. Chiefly
Austral.
> & NZ."
>
> Page 19-20:
> Goldsworth, Wordsmith (see C.47-48, p. 82): twist these into Goldsmith and
> Wordsworth -- VN taught literature in Goldwin Smith Hall at Cornell; 18th
> century goldsmith: Shade is an expert on 18th century poets (see also
Judge
> Goldsworth page 19 & page 267; Wordsmith College page 20); William
> Wordsworth: an important poet in this book; Cornell has a large Wordsmith
> collection.
>
> Page 20:
> "his abundant gray hair looked berimed in the sun"
> "berime, berhyme: Compose rhymes about; lampoon in rhyme."
>
> Page 20:
> "A lane curving around the slight eminence on which my rented castle
stood"
> puts Kinbote slightly above Shade (fitting for a King).
>
> Page 21:
> "the rubicund convives"
> "rubicund: 1. Inclined to redness; red.
>
> M. Amis From the country, where everything was good: the sack of wheat,
the
> rubicund apple-rack.
>
> 2. Of the face, complexion, etc.: reddish, flushed, highly coloured, esp.
> as the result of good living. Of a person: having such a complexion.
>
> I. Rankin A rubicund man, hot and jacketless.., was dispensing the
drinks."
>
> "convive: A member of a company who eat together, a fellow feaster."
>
> Page 21:
> "lest a serious discussion of literature degenerate into mere
facetiation."
> presumably from "facetious"? The OED lists the correct noun form as
> "facetiousness":
> "1. Of manners etc.: polished, urbane.
>
> 2. Given to or characterized by pleasantry or joking, now esp. where
> inappropriate or trivializing; witty, humorous, amusing.
>
> J. Cheever The first was a facetious essay, attacking the modern toilet
> seat. "
>
> Page 21:
> "hoary forelock"
> "hoary: 1. (Of hair) grey or white with age; grey-haired; ancient,
> venerable. Also, old and trite."
>
> "forelock: 1. A lock of hair growing just above the forehead."
>
> Page 21:
> "was an extramural lady on crutches"
> "extramural: 1. Situated or occurring outside the walls or boundaries of a
> town or city.
>
> 2. Pertaining to or designating instruction given under the auspices of a
> university or college but intended for people other than its students."
>
> Page 22:
> "Parthenocissus Hall": Parthenon, the main temple of Athena build around
400
> BCE; and Narcissus, a Greek myth about a beautiful dude who fell in love
> with his own reflection and couldn't stop looking at it in a pool.
>
> I also hear the word parthenogenesis here: "Biology. Reproduction from a
> gamete without fertilization, esp. as a normal process in invertebrates
and
> lower plants. Formerly also, asexual reproduction, as by fission or
budding"
>
> Page 22:
> "powerful Kramler": presumably referring to Daimler: a German engineer --
> Gottlieb Daimler (1834-1900) -- who together with Karl Benz (1844-1929)
and
> others created the first lightweight, high-speed internal combustion
engine
> for a land vehicle; and an automobile manufacturer: Daimler-Benz (now
> Daimler-Chrysler).
>
> Page 25:
> "The Hally Vally" and "confusing Odin's Hall with the title of a Finnish
> epic": The Norse Valhalla, home of the gods where those they favor may go
> when they die, linked with the Finnish Kalevala epic about the folk hero
> Kaleva.
>
> Page 26:
> "Hogarthian tippler":
> "hogarthian: Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of the English satirical
> painter and caricaturist William Hogarth (1697√1764) or his style of
> painting."
>
> William Hogarth (1697-1764), an English artist whose engravings satirized
> the affectations of time.
> http://www.library.northwestern.edu/spec/hogarth/main.html
>
> "tippler: A person who tipples; a habitual drinker of alcohol, esp. in
small
> quantities."
>
> Page 29:
> "Oct. 19, 1959, Cedarn, Utana" Utana is a synthesis of Utah and Montana
(on
> the border with Idoming -- see 182) and also rings with Ultima (as in
Ultima
> Thule). Kinbote is informed by the Shade's (p. 182) that they intend to
> vacation here after the completion of John's poem.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 07:48:59 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Malignd <malignd@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> <<I'm not sure I fully understand the point about Nick
> Carraway's "prose style" in _The Great Gatsby_. It has
> always struck me as being in keeping with his
> character that he narrates in the way he does --
> front, to the point, with simplicity, clarity and
> sincerity.>>
>
> Nick is a bond trader, a bond trader who writes like
> this:
>
> "We walked through a high hallway into a bright
> rosy-colored space, fragilely bound into the house by
> French windows at either end. The windows were ajar
> and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside
> that seemed to grow a little way into the house. A
> breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one
> end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them
> up toward the frosted wedding cake of the ceiling --
> and then rippled over the wine-colored rug, making a
> shadow on it as wind does on the sea."
>
> The point is that a reader isn't intended to mull or
> worry this, to bring it into the novel. Rather, he
> suspends disbelief and reads on.
>
> But Pale Fire is a book in part about writers and the
> quality of their writing, and so a good reader doesn't
> so readily suspend disbelief when he notices that the
> mad Kinbote writes like Nabokov.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 07:49:34 -0700
> From: "Vincent A. Maeder" <vmaeder@cyhc-law.com>
> Subject: RE: Like Bush And His Cronies
>
> From: The Great Quail
> >>David writes, AND (not hosting but participating nicely): Rob Jackson,
> The Great Quail,<<
>
> >Wait -- I thought I was assigned Canto IV? --Quail<<
>
> Yes, you are. V. --see below--
>
> Using the Vintage International Paperback:
>
> July 14: Foreword - Jasper Fidget
>
> July 21: Canto One -- cfa
>
> July 28: Canto Two - David Morris
>
> Aug. 4: Canto Three -- Tim Strzechowski
>
> Aug. 11: Canto Four - The Great Quail
>
> Aug. 18: pp. 71-93 through lines 47-48 commentary-- Keith McMullen
> (s~Z/slothenvypride)
>
> Aug. 25: pp. 93-113 through lines 86-90 commentary - Don Corathers
>
> Sept. 1: pp. 114-135 through line 130 commentary - Jasper Fidget
>
> Sept. 8: pp. 135-154 through line 171 commentary - M. Joseph
>
> Sept. 15: pp. 154-174 through line 275 commentary - Vincent A. Maeder
> and Perry Sams
>
> Sept. 22: pp. 174-194 through line 376 commentary - Scott Badger
>
> Sept. 29: pp. 194-215 through lines 433-434 commentary -- Bekah
>
> Oct. 6: pp. 215-235 through lines 609-614 commentary - David Morris
>
> Oct. 13: pp. 235-254 through lines 734-735 commentary -- Paul Mackin
>
> Oct. 20: pp. 254-273 through line 949 commentary - Elaine M.M. Bell and
> Terrance
>
> Oct. 27: pp. 273-301 - Heikki and Otto
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 10:48:47 -0400
> From: The Great Quail <quail@libyrinth.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF -- Published or not published?
>
> Just for some background...my own interpretation is the relatively
> straight-forward one, that Kinbote and Shade are both "real," and that the
> novel may be taken essentially as presented -- a "real" poem in the hands
of
> a "real" madman.
>
> Though Keith's suggestions about Shade/Maud incest are pretty
intriguing --
> I think a lot of us will be keeping that in mind as we re-read the poem
> itself.
>
> David Morris writes,
>
> > I'm seeing evidence that the "book" or "writing" doesn't exist at all.
There
> > are a few places where the "writer" drops his cover and blurts out an
> > exclamation that doesn't fit as writing but more as a mental outburst.
> > Implying a very strange form of stream of consciousness.
>
> Certainly plausible -- though, part of Kinbote's agreement is that the
final
> text not be edited by anyone but himself. If we read PF as being under
> Kinbote's control, including his "editing" of Shade's poem, it is spiked
> with bizarre elements that would clearly be edited out of any real
> manuscript. (Kinbote's irritated outbursts, his uncertainty of facts, that
> strange "Insert" line in the foreword....)
>
> Kinbote himself claims on several occasions to be rushed, and it certainly
> seems that what we are reading is a first draft....
>
> > I agree that at LEAST one of the characters is responsible for its
contents,
> > but NOT that he got it published. I don't think it got published at
all.
>
> I have my suspicions there, too. I don't think we are reading a
"published"
> manuscript, but the hurried and misguided ravings of a parasitical madman.
>
> I wonder, actually...if Kinbote is making up Zembla, what else is he
making
> up? Recall, other "characters" mention Zembla and even Charles; such as
the
> academics at Wordsmith. If he can place those words in their mouths, why
> can't he also imagine their criticisms of his "contract" as well? What if
> the whole "farrago" is delusional, and he merely *stole* the manuscript
> outright? Perhaps he is hiding away, writing up a delusional framework
that
> rationalizes his theft, therefore *also* imagining the so-called critical
> response and unreturned phone calls?
>
> Though I confess, this is just "what-if" speculation. There's something
> about the passages referring to the academic community at large and
Sybil's
> responses to him that ring true, given Kinbote's general personality....
>
> Wheels within wheels....
>
> - --Quail
>
> ------------------------------
>
> End of pynchon-l-digest V2 #3407
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