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From: "pynchon-l-digest" <owner-pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
To: <pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
Sent: Monday, August 04, 2003 11:35 AM
Subject: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3464
>
> pynchon-l-digest Monday, August 4 2003 Volume 02 : Number
3464
>
>
>
> NPPF Canto One - scarfskin
> NPPF - From the N-list
> NPPF: Canto Three: Chron & Analysis Pt 2 of 2
> NPPF: Canto Three: Chron & Analysis Pt 1 of 2
> NPPF: Canto Three: The Web of Sense
> NPPF: Canto Three: The Worm and Entropy
> Re: NPPF - From the N-list
> NPPF re: Canto Three: Chron & Analysis Pt 2 of 2 - Crashaw
> Re: NPPF: Canto Three: The Web of Sense
> NPPF Bodkin at M&D
> Re: NPPF re: Canto Three: Chron & Analysis Pt 2 of 2 - Crashaw
> Re: The Introduction - pulpous, nattochdag
> Re: NPPF: Canto Three: Chron & Analysis Pt 1 of 2
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2003 00:33:11 -0700
> From: "Glenn Scheper" <glenn_scheper@earthlink.net>
> Subject: NPPF Canto One - scarfskin
>
> From an article posted to the NABOKV-L list on 8/3/2003:
> "VN Bibliography: PellИrdi MАrta: Nabokov▓s The Real Life of Sebastian
> Knight or, What You Will"
>
> > The Clown in Act IV Scene II of Twelfth Night takes leave of Malvolio
> with the following song
> > "...Like a mad lad,
> > Pare thy nails, dad;
> > Adieu, goodman drivel".
>
> These few words suggest to me dad de-clawed. Similarly,
> Shade trimming a form of nimbi (sharf sinn == acuity)
> suggests Shade reached an outside viewpoint subsuming
> all other perspectives as aspects of minor importance.
>
> Yours truly,
> Glenn Scheper
> http://home.earthlink.net/~glenn_scheper/
> glenn_scheper + at + earthlink.net
> Copyleft(!) Forward freely.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2003 06:50:37 -0700 (PDT)
> From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> Subject: NPPF - From the N-list
>
> Dear Nabokovians,
>
> Vladimir Nabokov suffered from the skin disease psoriasis. I really do not
know
> how severe his complaints were. In February 1937 Nabokov suffered a bad
attack
> (Boyd, The Russian Years). On May 15 of that year, he wrote to VИra: `I
> continue with the radiation treatments every day and am pretty much cured.
You
> know - now I can tell you frankly - the indescribable torments I endured
in
> February, before these treatments, drove me to the border of suicide - a
border
> I was not authorized to cross because I had you in my luggage.' He went
> sunbathing a lot as did `radiation therapies' (Selected Letters). Boyd
> mentions one more exacerbation of psoriasis, which occurred in the late
sixties
> when the strain of writing ▒Ada▓ fell from Nabokov's shoulders. (Boyd, The
> American Years).
>
> How about his fiction? Nabokov devotes one page, all‑in‑all,
to the
> disease, in ▒Ada▓. He mentions `a spectacular skin disease that had been
> portrayed recently by a famous American novelist in his Chiron and
described in
> side-splitting style by a co-sufferer who wrote essays for a London
weekly'.
> With this famous writer Nabokov refers to Updike and his novel The
centaur; the
> essayist of the a London weekly is hitherto unknown (as far as I know).
The two
> psoriasis patients in Ada exchange notes with tips: `Mercury!' or
`HЖhensonne
> works wonders'. Other pieces of advice are found in a one‑volume
> encyclopedia, and involve taking hot baths at least twice a month and
avoiding
> spices. A doctor describes these patients as `Crimson-blotched,
silver-scaled,
> yellow-crusted wretches, harmless psoriatics'. The narrator is less
pathetic
> and speaks of `meek martyrs'.
>
> And in ▒Pale Fire▓ psoriasis is attributed to Shade▓s daughter who has
> ▒psoriatic fingernails▓ (Pale Fire, 355).
>
> My question is: are there other references to psoriasis in Nabokov▓s
fiction or
> non-fiction? The reason why I ask this is a keen interest in the disease.
Some
> years ago I published an article on ▒Literature and psoriasis▓ (British
Medical
> Journal 1997:1709-1711), including the above Nabokov references. Now I am
> reworking this material for a booklet on the same theme. Therefore I am
very
> eager to know whether I missed certain phrases on the disease by Nabokov.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
>
> Frans Meulenberg
> Erasmus University / Medical Center
> Department of Philosophy, medical ethics and history
> frans.meulenberg@woordenwinkel.nl
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
> http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2003 07:11:42 -0700
> From: "Vincent A. Maeder" <vmaeder@cyhc-law.com>
> Subject: NPPF: Canto Three: Chron & Analysis Pt 2 of 2
>
> Pale Fire: Canto Three: Chronology and Analysis: Part 2 of 2
>
> The balance of Canto Three from stanza twenty through thirty-four
> recounts Mr. Shade's brush with death while lecturing to the Crashaw
> Club, a probable reference to the poet Richard Crashaw (1613-49), about
> Why Poetry Is Meaningful to Us. During the question period, Mr. Shade
> has a heart attack and, as he concludes, a near-death or death
> experience. The fortunate doctor/Crashaw devotee sitting in the front
> row revives the poet and informs him that he was not dead, though "half
> a shade" referring probably to the heart attack from which he was
> brought back. V58.19-60.8/lines 683-728.
>
> In his near-death experience, Mr. Shade recounts seeing a strange, "tall
> white fountain" which was made "not of atoms" and that the fountain was
> not a fountain but rather some other thing that only residents of the
> afterlife could say. V59.14-27/lines 706-719. He recounts the
> experience to the trusty doctor who derides him and reports that a heart
> attack can result in hallucination (because of a hypoxic event).
> V60.1-6/lines 622-27.
>
> Mr. Shade comes across the story of a similar account in a magazine of a
> Mrs. Z. who recounted seeing a fountain in a near-death experience. Mr.
> Shade tracks down Mrs. Z., drives to meet her to discuss her experience,
> but finds a lover of his poetry and his is unable to discuss the
> fountain of her vision. Later he finds the author of the story, Mr.
> Coates, has the original article which recounts not a fountain, but a
> mountain. The result is that our poet relents in his obsession with the
> "abyss" and finds hope through the discovery of the "correlated pattern
> in the game". V60.27-63.27/lines 747-834.
>
> An interesting series of images surfaces in stanzas thirty-two through
> thirty-four. It is here that Mr. Shade discovers the conspiracy of the
> Them that Mr. Pynchon uses as his theme. However, where Mr. Pynchon's
> conclusion is that the conspiracy of the Them grinds the self down, Mr.
> Nabokov's theme takes a decidedly different tack; the discovery that the
> preterite can sense Their greater plan gives his characters hope rather
> than despair.
>
> It is Nabokov's "web of sense" which illuminates his characterization of
> Mr. Shade at this point. A conspiracy of them, "aloof and mute/Playing
> a game of worlds, promoting pawns" and "kindling a long life here,
> extinguishing/A short one there" and still stepping into history not
> with some menacing military-industrial complex often associated with Mr.
> Pynchon, but rather a chorus of sprites, elves and gods who would step
> in to kill a Balkan king turning history over and yet hide Mr. Shade's
> keys.
>
> V.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2003 07:11:40 -0700
> From: "Vincent A. Maeder" <vmaeder@cyhc-law.com>
> Subject: NPPF: Canto Three: Chron & Analysis Pt 1 of 2
>
> Pale Fire: Canto Three: Chronology and Analysis: Part 1 of 2
>
> Canto Three runs 333 lines arranged in 34 irregularly divided stanzas
> running from line 501 to line 834. The Canto engages in a series of
> flashbacks in which the poet, Mr. Shade, reprises his encounters with
> the subject of life after death. The Canto begins with Mr. Shade's
> "lecture on the worm" for the Institute of Preparation for the Hereafter
> (hereafter "IPH") while living in Yewshade. V52.1-16/lines 501-514.
>
> His first engagement is with IPH at the behest of President McAber. IPH
> itself is described by Mr. Shade as a "larvorium", a portmanteau word
> meaning a place of larva which is a symbol of entropy, death and rebirth
> (see Pale Fire: Canto Three: The Worm and Entropy). Mr. Shade engages
> in a hypothetical and entertains the idea of the transmigration of souls
> stating that he is "ready to become a floweret/Or a fat fly" rather than
> face eternity without the loves of his life there to greet him.
> V52.17-53.13/lines 515-536.
>
> Mr. Shade recounts that IPH did not give a traditional vision of life
> after death, but existed to deliver a death-for-dummies instruction to
> the afterlife as set forth in detail in the second through fifth
> stanzas. V53.14-55.13/lines 537-596.
>
> An interesting image is recounted in the sixth stanza. V55.14-25/lines
> 597-608. In an almost pentimento moment, Mr. Shade recounts a political
> execution, not of dictator or other despot, but of some manner of
> royalty. At line 605, Mr. Shade recounts "royal hands" being tied. In
> the context of Mr. Nabokov's Russian heritage, the image is appropriate.
> However, the image is also suitable in the context of either Mr.
> Kinbote's influences upon Mr. Shade during the drafting of the poem, or
> of the possibility that the poem was actually written by Mr. Kinbote.
> In any event, the use of "royal hands" is striking.
>
> The seventh stanza also sets up another striking image in the context of
> Mr. Kinbote as poet. V55.26-56.5/lines 609-616. Here, the poet
> describes an "exile" dying in a motel on the plains in the heat of some
> forgotten summer. This image is either prescience of Mr. Kinbote, exile
> from Zembla concluding his commentaries in Cedarn, Utana, (V29) or a
> slip of Mr. Kinbote in drafting the poem. Note that Mr. Kinbote
> describes earlier in the text that he takes time to visit the plains
> states to finish his commentary during the summer (probably relying on
> those old reservations he had to shadow the Shade's while they were on
> vacation). The seventh stanza also brings in additional details only
> Mr. Kinbote could know of his final days; the image of "bits of colored
> light" from the outside--the amusement park referred to in the Foreword?
> V13.27-28
>
> In combination, the sixth and seventh stanzas belie a different author
> than that of Mr. Shade. Perhaps Mr. Kinbote is the poet recounting an
> imaginary Mr. Shade as a device to get his royal story told. In any
> event, the seventh stanza smacks of that Theodore Kaczynski holed up in
> some small room in the torrid heat of a northern Midwestern summer, with
> the resident suffocating himself to death--note Mr. Kinbote's discussion
> of suicide, including "sundry forms of suffocation" (V220.19) and Mr.
> Kinbote's "discussion of Suicide with himself". (V309.8-9)
>
> The poet continues his encounter with IPH and details his own lecture,
> "I tore apart the fantasies of Poe,/And dealt with childhood memories of
> strange/Nacreous gleams beyond the adult's range." V56.21-23/lines
> 632-33. The decline of IPH is recounted while the poet notes how his
> relationship with IPH helped him deal with his daughter, Hazel's, death
> in the eleventh and twelfth stanzas. V56.27-57.13/lines 638-652.
>
> Stanzas thirteen through nineteen recount Mr. Shade's mourning beginning
> with the ghostly images of tapping and rapping, a vacation to Italy,
> thoughts of Hazel slowly losing their hold, her absence from his
> thoughts noted, the time drawing out between spells of remorse, until
> the return to his professorship at the college. V57.14-58.18/lines
> 653-682.
>
> V.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2003 07:12:47 -0700
> From: "Vincent A. Maeder" <vmaeder@cyhc-law.com>
> Subject: NPPF: Canto Three: The Web of Sense
>
> This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
>
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>
> Pale Fire: Canto Three: The Web of Sense
>
> After Mr. Shade's investigation into a near-death experience that
> appeared to be similar to his own, only to find out his hope and faith
> were dependent upon a misprinted word--mountain versus fountain--the
> jolt is enough to an epiphany of hope upon a "web of sense". It is in
> stanzas thirty-two through thirty-four that Mr. Shade discovers the
> conspiracy of the Them that Mr. Pynchon uses as his theme. However,
> where Mr. Pynchon's conclusions tend to be that the conspiracy of the
> Them grinds the self down, Mr. Nabokov's theme takes a decidedly
> different tack; the discovery that the preterite can sense Their greater
> plan gives his characters hope rather than despair.
>
> It is Nabokov's "web of sense" which illuminates his characterization of
> Mr. Shade at this point. A conspiracy of them, "aloof and mute/Playing
> a game of worlds, promoting pawns" and "kindling a long life here,
> extinguishing/A short one there" and still stepping into history not
> with some menacing military-industrial complex often associated with Mr.
> Pynchon, but rather a chorus of sprites, elves and gods who would step
> in to kill a Balkan king turning history over and yet hide Mr. Shade's
> keys.
>
> One commentator has pointed out that Mr. Nabokov's and Mr. Pynchon's
> fictions are similar in exploiting the "compulsive tendency we have as
> human beings and especially as readers to look at phenomena and see
> meaningful patterns that perhaps do not objectively exist. Both build
> narratives upon a web of echoes, reflections, and repeated details that
> see to be interlocking clues. . . ." Cooper, Signs and Symptoms, Thomas
> Pynchon and the Contemporary World, University of California Press,
> 1983, p. 40. As a consequence, "both writers evince some ambivalence
> about fabricated designs and envisioned meanings, such as fictional
> plots and so both employ parody and self-parody to keep themselves
> uncommitted." Cooper, p. 41.
>
> Yet this is where the two authors diverge. While Nabokov "tends to
> dismiss the epistemological problem of whether the phenomenal world is
> perceived or projected; his main concern is whether the projection is
> controlled and artistically sound. Pynchon's characters, who worry
> about what is 'really' going on, tend to be detectives--Nabokov's are
> often artists or artists manque's, deliberate, manipulative, and self
> directing rather than subject to large, mysterious, and impersonal
> forces. Hence they typically experience more 'combinational delight'
> than paranoia when they encounter the 'web of sense.' Humbert recalls
> 'those dazzling coincidences that logicians loathe and poets love' (L,
> p.31). He cherishes and employs that which obsesses Stencil, goads
> Oedipa and frightens Slothrop." Cooper, p. 41.
>
> V.
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2003 07:21:08 -0700
> From: "Vincent A. Maeder" <vmaeder@cyhc-law.com>
> Subject: NPPF: Canto Three: The Worm and Entropy
>
> This was originally sent rich text but the Pynch Liserv seems to have
> eaten it, so I will send it again via plain text. V.
>
> _Pale Fire: Canto Three: The Worm and Entropy_
>
> _Table of Contents_
>
> _The Worm as Metaphor of Life and Death_
> _Comparison to Mr. Pynchon_
> _The Worm as Larva_
> _The Worm as Entropy_
> _Resources of Mr. Pynchon's Use of Entropy_
> _Comparing Mssr. Nabokov and Pynchon's Treatment_
> _Entropy in Vineland_
>
> Both Mssr. Nabokov and Pynchon utilize the themes of death and entropy
> in their work. While Mr. Pynchon seems more obsessed and capable in
> handling the subject, Mr. Nabokov uses these themes throughout Pale Fire
> as woven through the Mr. Shade's struggle with the death of his
> daughter, Mr. Shade's obsession with life after death, taking up Canto
> Three in it's entirety with his "investigation", and even Kinbote's slow
> slide into a psychotic state.
>
> Canto Three is particularly focused on life after death and entropy.
> The following discusses the use of the worm metaphor and the opening
> stanza of Canto Three's images of death, destruction and disintegration,
> as well as comparisons with Mr. Pynchon ending with a brief discussion
> of Vineland's use of entropy.
>
> _The Worm as Metaphor of Life and Death_
>
> V52.7 "to lecture on the worm" Canto Three is obsessed about life after
> death and sets up a contrast between religious faith and scientific
> inquiry. In this context, President McAber may have used the "worm" as
> a metaphor of the life and death process; the larva developing into the
> butterfly or the moth wherein the larva spins its cocoon of life and, in
> the end, metamorphoses into a spiritual being leaving behind the husk of
> its former self. This is echoed in Shade's use of the term "larvorium",
> a portmanteau word similar to "larviform" (structure of larva) and
> perhaps meaning something like a place associated with larva.
>
> Smith's Bible Dictionary: Worm, [N] [E] the representative in the
> Authorized Version of several Hebrew words. Sas , which occurs in
> (Isaiah 51:18) probably denotes some particular species of moth, whose
> larva is injurious to wool. Rimmah , (Exodus 16:20) points evidently to
> various kinds of maggots and the larvae of insects which feed on
> putrefying animal matter, rather than to earthworms. Toleah is applied
> in ( 28:39) to some kinds of larvae destructive to the vines. In (Job
> 19:26; 21:26; 24:20) there is an allusion to worms (insect larvae)
> feeding on the dead bodies of the buried. There is the same allusion in
> (Isaiah 66:24) which words are applied by our Lord, (Mark 9:44,46,48)
> metaphorically to the torments of the guilty in the world of departed
> spirits. The valley of Hinnom near Jerusalem, where the filth of the
> city was cast, was alive with worms. The death of Herod Agrippa I, was
> caused by worms. (Acts 12:23).
> (http://www.biblestudytools.net/Dictionaries/SmithsBibleDictionary/smt.c
> gi?number=T4481)
>
> _Comparison to Mr. Pynchon_
>
> Cf. GR V.29, Episode 5 and the sИance as well as the obsession
> throughout the book between the corporeal versus spiritual and the
> approaches of Pavlovian instinct, Roger Mexico's statistical analysis,
> Slothrop's eventual transformation, etc.
>
> _The Worm as Larva_
>
> The worm also sets up a neat resonance with the overall text: Kinbote
> feeding off Shade like a larva feeding on corrupting matter as Gradus
> feeds off the intended death of Kinbote and Kinbote's "Commentary" feeds
> off Pale Fire (indeed, as all modern commentary and scholarly work feeds
> off the creative work of others).
>
> Worm - (1.) Heb. sas (Isa. 51:8), denotes the caterpillar of the
> clothes-moth. (2.) The manna bred worms (tola'im), but on the Sabbath
> there was not any worm (rimmah) therein (Ex. 16:20, 24). Here these
> words refer to caterpillars or larvae, which feed on corrupting matter.
> These two Hebrew words appear to be interchangeable (Job 25:6; Isa.
> 14:11). Tola'im in some places denotes the caterpillar (Deut. 28:39;
> Jonah 4:7), and rimmah, the larvae, as bred from putridity (Job 17:14;
> 21:26; 24:20). In Micah 7:17, where it is said, "They shall move out of
> their holes like worms," perhaps serpents or "creeping things," or as in
> the Revised Version, "crawling things," are meant. The word is used
> figuratively in Job 25:6; Ps. 22:6; Isa. 41:14; Mark 9:44, 46, 48; Isa.
> 66:24.
> (http://www.ccel.org/e/easton/ebd/ebd/T0003800.html#T0003836)
>
> _The Worm as Entropy_
>
> The text resonates with this image at V52.20-26 where Mr. Shade lays out
> a metaphor of death and entropy (disintegration): "For we die every day;
> oblivion thrives/Not on dry thighbones but on blood-ripe lives,/And our
> best yesterdays are now foul piles/of crumpled names, phone numbers and
> foxed files."
>
> _Resources of Mr. Pynchon's Use of Entropy_
>
> Cf. Mr. Pynchon's treatment of this same law in his short stories, V,
> COL49, GR, VL and MD which engage his "entropic vision". Cooper, Signs
> and Symptoms, Thomas Pynchon and the Contemporary World, University of
> California Press, 1983, pp. 45-48, et seq.; Harris, Contemporary
> American Novelists of the Absurd, College and University Press, 1971, p.
> 78; Clerc, Mason & Dixon & Pynchon, University Press of America, 2000,
> p. 100; Safer, The Contemporary American Comic Epic, Wayne State
> University press, 1989, pp. 48, 86, 90-94, 99, 108-09; Chambers, Thomas
> Pynchon, Twayne Publishers, 1992, pp. 23-31, 184-185.
>
> _Comparing Mssr. Nabokov and Pynchon's Treatment_
>
> In comparison of Mssr. Nabokov and Pynchon's treatment of entropy, Mr.
> Cooper wrote, "The spectre of universal decline haunts even the private
> aesthetic patternings of Nabokov. 'Time's arrow' in Lolita points
> mockingly toward degradation, but not so much in the external worlds of
> social organization and cosmic heat death as in the world of one's own
> conceptions. Humbert recalls a misplaced photograph of Annabel Leigh
> 'amid the sunny blur into which her loveliness graded.' Just before
> losing Lolita, he finds himself overtaken by a 'slow awfulness,' a
> purely personal analogue for the 'slow apocalypse' of Fausto Maijistral
> in V. In Pale Fire, the character Gradus embodies this process of
> 'graded' loss. As an agent of the 'communal eye,' Gradus is the enemy
> of any 'special reality' or unique structuring. As his name suggests,
> he signifies the gradual degeneration of order to chaos, concentration
> to diffusion, surprise to probability, singularity and distinction to
> repetition and sameness. He is portayed as a foolish bungler, but he
> arrives nonetheless. The force he represents is everywhere and closely
> parallels entropy as presented by Pynchon." Cooper, pp. 6-7.
>
> Cooper also compares the use of the image of cages and towers in
> discussing the value of entropy as a theme in the works of both Mssr.
> Pynchon and Nabokov. Both authors create such images ("Herbert Stencil
> (V.), agent in his hothouse, or Oedipa Mass (49), the maiden held
> captive in the tower" versus Kinbote's imprisonment in his castle.
> Cooper, pp. 46-47), but while Nabokov makes their cages "artistic,"
> building "novels around the sport and value of such activity," Mr.
> Pynchon's characters desire to break out of the self-imposed structure
> of a solipsistic character.
>
> _Entropy in Vineland_
>
> Chambers discusses Mr. Pynchon's use of entropy in relation to Vineland
> as an extension of the theme of disintegration set forth in Gravity's
> Rainbow. Vineland is, Ms. Chamber's reports, "America 1984, where
> nearly everything seems irrefragably reduced to commodity and surface,
> where warmth has been sacrificed to coldness and light has faded to
> twilight, and where lovely Frenesi Gates's once innocent eyes have grown
> cold and 'unbearable' (VL, 247). Pynchon is still using the theme of
> decline, but if he uses entropy in Vineland, it is not so much as his
> early mentor, Norbert Weiner, had seen it, as an 'organic incompleteness
> .. . . an Augustinian devil', but rather as a 'done deal,' a situation of
> reversal now so complete that the organic has been reconfigured into the
> inorganic. As the next step in the devolution begun in Gravity's
> Rainbow, Vineland, 'another story of twilight reconfiguration" (VL, 44),
> is a story of depletion, diminishment, and depredation. By 1984 the
> primal interplay of light and dark, which had given way to the rocket's
> ultrawhite terror, has dimmed to the dull, cold twilight of 'quotidian
> California' (VL, 94)." Chambers, pp. 184-85.
>
> Chambers elaborates, and states that Mr. Pynchon, "[r]ather than share
> Weiner's vision of a negative entropy that neutralizes this decline with
> 'local enclaves of order,' he imagines the opposite: establishing local
> enclaves of mystery that disperse the hardened systems of order and that
> reassert the animate as a viable force in a world of twilight sameness."
> Chambers, p. 185.
>
> Which leads to the state of Mr. Pynchon's work in Vineland as a
> description of the current state of cultural entropy as a
> Californication of the U.S.; the Starbuckization of the world where all
> coffee tastes the same from Yavapai, Arizona to Beijing, China -- the
> slow, cold death of humanity's cultures and heritage.
>
> V.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: 04 Aug 2003 10:21:34 -0400
> From: Paul Mackin <paul.mackin@verizon.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF - From the N-list
>
> The disease holds a special niche in American culture--as a universally
> recognized metonymy for unhappiness.
>
> As at least some of us will remember, for many years the same ad ran in
> virtually all popular magazines urging victims of the malady to use a
> certain patent medicine whose name I've now forgotten. The ad showed a
> body (probably female) covered with ugly blotches, with the caption: Why
> suffer the heartbreak of psoriasis? (or maybe it said: don't suffer the
> heartbreak of psoriasis)
>
> Anyway, I guess it's not joke.
>
> p.
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, 2003-08-04 at 09:50, David Morris wrote:
> > Dear Nabokovians,
> >
> > Vladimir Nabokov suffered from the skin disease psoriasis. I really do
not know
> > how severe his complaints were. In February 1937 Nabokov suffered a bad
attack
> > (Boyd, The Russian Years). On May 15 of that year, he wrote to VИra: `I
> > continue with the radiation treatments every day and am pretty much
cured. You
> > know - now I can tell you frankly - the indescribable torments I endured
in
> > February, before these treatments, drove me to the border of suicide - a
border
> > I was not authorized to cross because I had you in my luggage.' He went
> > sunbathing a lot as did `radiation therapies' (Selected Letters). Boyd
> > mentions one more exacerbation of psoriasis, which occurred in the late
sixties
> > when the strain of writing ▒Ada▓ fell from Nabokov's shoulders. (Boyd,
The
> > American Years).
> >
> > How about his fiction? Nabokov devotes one page, all‑in‑all,
to the
> > disease, in ▒Ada▓. He mentions `a spectacular skin disease that had been
> > portrayed recently by a famous American novelist in his Chiron and
described in
> > side-splitting style by a co-sufferer who wrote essays for a London
weekly'.
> > With this famous writer Nabokov refers to Updike and his novel The
centaur; the
> > essayist of the a London weekly is hitherto unknown (as far as I know).
The two
> > psoriasis patients in Ada exchange notes with tips: `Mercury!' or
`HЖhensonne
> > works wonders'. Other pieces of advice are found in a one‑volume
> > encyclopedia, and involve taking hot baths at least twice a month and
avoiding
> > spices. A doctor describes these patients as `Crimson-blotched,
silver-scaled,
> > yellow-crusted wretches, harmless psoriatics'. The narrator is less
pathetic
> > and speaks of `meek martyrs'.
> >
> > And in ▒Pale Fire▓ psoriasis is attributed to Shade▓s daughter who has
> > ▒psoriatic fingernails▓ (Pale Fire, 355).
> >
> > My question is: are there other references to psoriasis in Nabokov▓s
fiction or
> > non-fiction? The reason why I ask this is a keen interest in the
disease. Some
> > years ago I published an article on ▒Literature and psoriasis▓ (British
Medical
> > Journal 1997:1709-1711), including the above Nabokov references. Now I
am
> > reworking this material for a booklet on the same theme. Therefore I am
very
> > eager to know whether I missed certain phrases on the disease by
Nabokov.
> >
> > Thanks in advance.
> >
> >
> > Frans Meulenberg
> > Erasmus University / Medical Center
> > Department of Philosophy, medical ethics and history
> > frans.meulenberg@woordenwinkel.nl
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > __________________________________
> > Do you Yahoo!?
> > Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
> > http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2003 16:22:16 +0100
> From: "James Kyllo" <jkyllo@clara.net>
> Subject: NPPF re: Canto Three: Chron & Analysis Pt 2 of 2 - Crashaw
>
> > The balance of Canto Three from stanza twenty through thirty-four
> > recounts Mr. Shade's brush with death while lecturing to the Crashaw
> > Club, a probable reference to the poet Richard Crashaw (1613-49), about
> > Why Poetry Is Meaningful to Us.
>
> Richard Crashaw
>
> Metaphysical Poet
>
> There are connections here with both exiled royalty and TS Eliot.
>
> Crashaw removed himself from England to Paris during the interregnum, and
> there met Henrietta Maria, queen of King Charles I. (Charles lost his
> throne and escaped abroad - to Scotland. )
>
> There is a Richard Crashaw Club in Anderson, Indiana.
>
>
> As for Eliot
>
> Richard Crashaw visited and corresponded with members of the Little
Gidding
> community and wrote an approving poem about his encounter, "Description of
a
> Religious House and Condition of Life,"
>
> No roofes of gold o're riotous tables shining
> Whole dayes & suns devour'd with endlesse dining;
> No sailes of tyrian sylk proud pavements sweeping;
> Nor ivory couches costlyer slumbers keeping;
> False lights of flairing gemmes; tumultuous joyes;
> Halls full of flattering men & frisking boyes;
> Whate're false showes of short & slippery good
> Mix the mad sons of men in mutuall blood.
> But Walkes & unshorn woods; and soules, just so
> Unforc't & genuine; but not shady tho.
> Our lodgings hard & homely as our fare.
> That chast & cheap, as the few clothes we weare.
> Those, course & negligent, As the naturall lockes
> Of these loose groves, rough as th'unpolish't rockes.
> A hasty Portion of prФscribed sleep;
> Obedient slumbers; that can wake & weep,
> And sing, & sigh, & work, and sleep again;
> Still rowling Ю round spear of still--returning pain.
> Hands full of harty labours; doe much, that more they may,
> And work for work, not wages; let to morrow's
> New drops, wash off the sweat of this daye's sorrows.
> A long & dayly--dying life, which breaths
> A respiration of reviving deaths.
> But neither are there those ignoble stings
> That nip the bosome of the world's best things,
> And lash Earth--laboring souls.
> No cruell guard of diligent cares, that keep
> Crown'd woes awake; as things too wise for sleep.
> But reverent discipline, & religious fear,
> And soft obedience, find sweet biding here;
> Silence, & sacred rest; peace, & pure joyes;
> Kind loves keep house, ly close, make no noise,
> And room enough for Monarchs, while none swells
> Beyond the kingdomes of contentfull Cells.
> The self--remembring Soul sweetly recovers
> Her kindred with the starrs; not basely hovers
> Below; But meditates her immortall way
> Home to the originall sourse of Light & intellectual Day.
>
>
> Eliot reviewed (in: The Dial, vol LXXXIV, no 3, March 1928) "The poems
> English Latin and Greek of Richard Crashaw; edited by L.C.Martin"
>
> I can't find the text of that review, these quotes conflict as to what he
> might have said:
>
> "Richard Crashaw ... regarded as (a) 'minor poet' owing to the baleful
> influence of such Anglican critics as T.S. Eliot"
>
> "(Eliot) wanted to revive the appreciation of the 17th-century
"Metaphysical
> poets," referring to such writers as Donne, Crashaw, Vaughan, Lord
Herbert,
> and Cowley"
>
>
> Crashaw biography:
>
> http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04467a.htm
>
>
> James
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2003 09:12:42 -0700 (PDT)
> From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Canto Three: The Web of Sense
>
> - --- "Vincent A. Maeder" <vmaeder@cyhc-law.com> wrote:
> >
> > Yet this is where the two authors diverge. While Nabokov "tends to
dismiss
> the epistemological problem of whether the phenomenal world is perceived
or
> projected; his main concern is whether the projection is controlled and
> artistically sound. Pynchon's characters, who worry about what is
'really'
> going on, tend to be detectives
>
> One of these authors was familiar with LSD. The other was probably not...
>
> DM
>
>
> Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2003 18:10:38 +0200
> From: "Otto" <ottosell@yahoo.de>
> Subject: NPPF Bodkin at M&D
>
> Mason & Dixon Chap. 7:
>
> "And they're all Dead," says Ethelmer, "So what's it matter?"
> "Cousin." Tenebrae holding a Bodkin in at least an advisory way.
> (75.29)
>
> "What happen'd? He liked it so much being dead that He couldn't wait to
come
> and share it with ev'rybody else?"
> (76.4-6)
>
> Bodkin
> 75; the stilletto pin worn by ladies in their hair
> http://www.hyperarts.com/pynchon/mason-dixon/alpha/b.html
> German: SchnЭrnadel
>
> http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0110&msg=60928
> http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0110&msg=60990
>
> Otto
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2003 17:46:16 +0100
> From: "James Kyllo" <jkyllo@clara.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF re: Canto Three: Chron & Analysis Pt 2 of 2 - Crashaw
>
> >Richard Crashaw
> >Metaphysical Poet
>
> and fountains:
>
> ....
>
> And now where'er he strays
> Among the Galilean mountains,
> Or more unwelcome ways,
> He's follow'd by two faithful fountains ;
> Two walking baths, two weeping motions,
> Portable and compendious oceans.
>
> ....
>
> Does the day-star rise ?
> Still thy stars do fall, and fall ;
> Does day close his eyes ?
> Still the fountain weeps for all.
> Let night or day do what they will,
> Thou hast thy task, thou weepest still
>
> http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/crashaw/weeper.htm
>
>
> James
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2003 13:22:07 -0400
> From: "cfalbert" <calbert@hslboxmaster.com>
> Subject: Re: The Introduction - pulpous, nattochdag
>
> Pulpo - Spanish for octopus.......
>
> also
>
> Nattochdag - swedish for Night and day
>
> love,
> cfa
>
>
>
>
> - ----- Original Message -----
> From: "James Kyllo" <jkyllo@clara.net>
> To: "p-list" <pynchon-l@waste.org>
> Sent: Monday, July 14, 2003 10:20 AM
> 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: Mon, 4 Aug 2003 11:34:39 -0700 (PDT)
> From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Canto Three: Chron & Analysis Pt 1 of 2
>
> - --- "Vincent A. Maeder" <vmaeder@cyhc-law.com> wrote:
> >
> > His first engagement is with IPH at the behest of President McAber.
>
> Although I've used the term a number of times already describing the poem,
I
> hadn't noticed IPH's president's name until now.
>
> macabre.
>
> Main Entry: ma╥ca╥bre
> Pronunciation: m&-'kДb; -'kД-br&, -b&r; -'kДbr&
> Function: adjective
> Etymology: French, from (danse) macabre dance of death, from Middle French
> (danse de) MacabrИ
> Date: 1889
> 1 : having death as a subject : comprising or including a personalized
> representation of death
> 2 : dwelling on the gruesome
> 3 : tending to produce horror in a beholder
> synonym see GHASTLY
>
> > IPH itself is described by Mr. Shade as a "larvorium", a portmanteau
word
> meaning a place of larva which is a symbol of entropy, death and rebirth
>
> "Larva" and "-orium"
>
> Larva
> /"l :v / noun (plural -vae /-vi:/) insect in stage between egg and pupa.
>
> Insect Larvae:
> "In some animals, especially insects, larvae represent a special feeding
stage
> in the life cycle. Some insects pass through more or less wormlike larval
> stages, enter the outwardly inactive, or pupal, form, and emerge from the
pupal
> case as adults (see pupa). The importance of larvae in the life cycle of
> insects varies greatly, as does the proportion of the life span spent in
> larval, pupal, and adult stages. In many insects, the adult life is
relatively
> short, consisting mostly of mating and egg laying, while the larvae live
for
> many months or, in some species, for several years. Insect larvae feed
> voraciously, necessarily becoming larger than the adult, as considerable
energy
> and material are needed for the profound changes made during pupation. For
this
> reason, insect larvae often cause far more damage to stored crops and
textiles
> than adult insects.
> Insect larvae generally have a thinner exoskeleton than the adult; many
are
> white and soft. The characteristic fly larvae are maggots, often
developing in
> decaying plant or animal material. Mosquito larvae are the familiar
aquatic
> wrigglers; they breathe air and are killed by a thin film of oil on the
water
> that prevents contact with air. Maggots and wrigglers are legless, as are
all
> larvae of the insect order Diptera. Beetle larvae, including the whitish
forms
> called grubs and the long brownish wireworms, are quite diverse, but all
are
> equipped with the six legs characteristic of adults. Moths and butterflies
have
> wormlike caterpillars as larvae, each equipped with the six legs
characteristic
> of adults and false legs known as prolegs to support the long abdominal
> section. Some, like the milkweed worm (the larva of the monarch
butterfly), are
> relatively naked, while other caterpillars are covered by hairy bristles,
> sometimes equipped with irritating chemicals that can cause intense
itching.
> The young of the social insects (bees, ants, wasps, and termites) are
legless
> but otherwise grublike. Although all social-insect larvae are ultimately
> dependent on the parent colony for food, they are considered true larvae
> because they pass through a pupal stage."
>
> lemures
>
> (l m╢ r s╢╢, √y r z╢╢) (KEY) , in Roman religion, vampirelike ghosts of
the
> dead; also called larvae. To exorcise these malevolent spirits from the
home,
> the Romans held rites, the Lemuria (May 9, 11, 13).
>
>
> > stating that he is "ready to become a floweret/Or a fat fly" rather than
face
> eternity without the loves of his life there to greet him.
V52.17-53.13/lines
> 515-536.
>
> More precisely, he wants to *remember* the loves of his life, the people,
> images, etc.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> End of pynchon-l-digest V2 #3464
> ********************************
>
> 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, August 04, 2003 11:35 AM
Subject: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3464
>
> pynchon-l-digest Monday, August 4 2003 Volume 02 : Number
3464
>
>
>
> NPPF Canto One - scarfskin
> NPPF - From the N-list
> NPPF: Canto Three: Chron & Analysis Pt 2 of 2
> NPPF: Canto Three: Chron & Analysis Pt 1 of 2
> NPPF: Canto Three: The Web of Sense
> NPPF: Canto Three: The Worm and Entropy
> Re: NPPF - From the N-list
> NPPF re: Canto Three: Chron & Analysis Pt 2 of 2 - Crashaw
> Re: NPPF: Canto Three: The Web of Sense
> NPPF Bodkin at M&D
> Re: NPPF re: Canto Three: Chron & Analysis Pt 2 of 2 - Crashaw
> Re: The Introduction - pulpous, nattochdag
> Re: NPPF: Canto Three: Chron & Analysis Pt 1 of 2
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2003 00:33:11 -0700
> From: "Glenn Scheper" <glenn_scheper@earthlink.net>
> Subject: NPPF Canto One - scarfskin
>
> From an article posted to the NABOKV-L list on 8/3/2003:
> "VN Bibliography: PellИrdi MАrta: Nabokov▓s The Real Life of Sebastian
> Knight or, What You Will"
>
> > The Clown in Act IV Scene II of Twelfth Night takes leave of Malvolio
> with the following song
> > "...Like a mad lad,
> > Pare thy nails, dad;
> > Adieu, goodman drivel".
>
> These few words suggest to me dad de-clawed. Similarly,
> Shade trimming a form of nimbi (sharf sinn == acuity)
> suggests Shade reached an outside viewpoint subsuming
> all other perspectives as aspects of minor importance.
>
> Yours truly,
> Glenn Scheper
> http://home.earthlink.net/~glenn_scheper/
> glenn_scheper + at + earthlink.net
> Copyleft(!) Forward freely.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2003 06:50:37 -0700 (PDT)
> From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> Subject: NPPF - From the N-list
>
> Dear Nabokovians,
>
> Vladimir Nabokov suffered from the skin disease psoriasis. I really do not
know
> how severe his complaints were. In February 1937 Nabokov suffered a bad
attack
> (Boyd, The Russian Years). On May 15 of that year, he wrote to VИra: `I
> continue with the radiation treatments every day and am pretty much cured.
You
> know - now I can tell you frankly - the indescribable torments I endured
in
> February, before these treatments, drove me to the border of suicide - a
border
> I was not authorized to cross because I had you in my luggage.' He went
> sunbathing a lot as did `radiation therapies' (Selected Letters). Boyd
> mentions one more exacerbation of psoriasis, which occurred in the late
sixties
> when the strain of writing ▒Ada▓ fell from Nabokov's shoulders. (Boyd, The
> American Years).
>
> How about his fiction? Nabokov devotes one page, all‑in‑all,
to the
> disease, in ▒Ada▓. He mentions `a spectacular skin disease that had been
> portrayed recently by a famous American novelist in his Chiron and
described in
> side-splitting style by a co-sufferer who wrote essays for a London
weekly'.
> With this famous writer Nabokov refers to Updike and his novel The
centaur; the
> essayist of the a London weekly is hitherto unknown (as far as I know).
The two
> psoriasis patients in Ada exchange notes with tips: `Mercury!' or
`HЖhensonne
> works wonders'. Other pieces of advice are found in a one‑volume
> encyclopedia, and involve taking hot baths at least twice a month and
avoiding
> spices. A doctor describes these patients as `Crimson-blotched,
silver-scaled,
> yellow-crusted wretches, harmless psoriatics'. The narrator is less
pathetic
> and speaks of `meek martyrs'.
>
> And in ▒Pale Fire▓ psoriasis is attributed to Shade▓s daughter who has
> ▒psoriatic fingernails▓ (Pale Fire, 355).
>
> My question is: are there other references to psoriasis in Nabokov▓s
fiction or
> non-fiction? The reason why I ask this is a keen interest in the disease.
Some
> years ago I published an article on ▒Literature and psoriasis▓ (British
Medical
> Journal 1997:1709-1711), including the above Nabokov references. Now I am
> reworking this material for a booklet on the same theme. Therefore I am
very
> eager to know whether I missed certain phrases on the disease by Nabokov.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
>
> Frans Meulenberg
> Erasmus University / Medical Center
> Department of Philosophy, medical ethics and history
> frans.meulenberg@woordenwinkel.nl
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
> http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2003 07:11:42 -0700
> From: "Vincent A. Maeder" <vmaeder@cyhc-law.com>
> Subject: NPPF: Canto Three: Chron & Analysis Pt 2 of 2
>
> Pale Fire: Canto Three: Chronology and Analysis: Part 2 of 2
>
> The balance of Canto Three from stanza twenty through thirty-four
> recounts Mr. Shade's brush with death while lecturing to the Crashaw
> Club, a probable reference to the poet Richard Crashaw (1613-49), about
> Why Poetry Is Meaningful to Us. During the question period, Mr. Shade
> has a heart attack and, as he concludes, a near-death or death
> experience. The fortunate doctor/Crashaw devotee sitting in the front
> row revives the poet and informs him that he was not dead, though "half
> a shade" referring probably to the heart attack from which he was
> brought back. V58.19-60.8/lines 683-728.
>
> In his near-death experience, Mr. Shade recounts seeing a strange, "tall
> white fountain" which was made "not of atoms" and that the fountain was
> not a fountain but rather some other thing that only residents of the
> afterlife could say. V59.14-27/lines 706-719. He recounts the
> experience to the trusty doctor who derides him and reports that a heart
> attack can result in hallucination (because of a hypoxic event).
> V60.1-6/lines 622-27.
>
> Mr. Shade comes across the story of a similar account in a magazine of a
> Mrs. Z. who recounted seeing a fountain in a near-death experience. Mr.
> Shade tracks down Mrs. Z., drives to meet her to discuss her experience,
> but finds a lover of his poetry and his is unable to discuss the
> fountain of her vision. Later he finds the author of the story, Mr.
> Coates, has the original article which recounts not a fountain, but a
> mountain. The result is that our poet relents in his obsession with the
> "abyss" and finds hope through the discovery of the "correlated pattern
> in the game". V60.27-63.27/lines 747-834.
>
> An interesting series of images surfaces in stanzas thirty-two through
> thirty-four. It is here that Mr. Shade discovers the conspiracy of the
> Them that Mr. Pynchon uses as his theme. However, where Mr. Pynchon's
> conclusion is that the conspiracy of the Them grinds the self down, Mr.
> Nabokov's theme takes a decidedly different tack; the discovery that the
> preterite can sense Their greater plan gives his characters hope rather
> than despair.
>
> It is Nabokov's "web of sense" which illuminates his characterization of
> Mr. Shade at this point. A conspiracy of them, "aloof and mute/Playing
> a game of worlds, promoting pawns" and "kindling a long life here,
> extinguishing/A short one there" and still stepping into history not
> with some menacing military-industrial complex often associated with Mr.
> Pynchon, but rather a chorus of sprites, elves and gods who would step
> in to kill a Balkan king turning history over and yet hide Mr. Shade's
> keys.
>
> V.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2003 07:11:40 -0700
> From: "Vincent A. Maeder" <vmaeder@cyhc-law.com>
> Subject: NPPF: Canto Three: Chron & Analysis Pt 1 of 2
>
> Pale Fire: Canto Three: Chronology and Analysis: Part 1 of 2
>
> Canto Three runs 333 lines arranged in 34 irregularly divided stanzas
> running from line 501 to line 834. The Canto engages in a series of
> flashbacks in which the poet, Mr. Shade, reprises his encounters with
> the subject of life after death. The Canto begins with Mr. Shade's
> "lecture on the worm" for the Institute of Preparation for the Hereafter
> (hereafter "IPH") while living in Yewshade. V52.1-16/lines 501-514.
>
> His first engagement is with IPH at the behest of President McAber. IPH
> itself is described by Mr. Shade as a "larvorium", a portmanteau word
> meaning a place of larva which is a symbol of entropy, death and rebirth
> (see Pale Fire: Canto Three: The Worm and Entropy). Mr. Shade engages
> in a hypothetical and entertains the idea of the transmigration of souls
> stating that he is "ready to become a floweret/Or a fat fly" rather than
> face eternity without the loves of his life there to greet him.
> V52.17-53.13/lines 515-536.
>
> Mr. Shade recounts that IPH did not give a traditional vision of life
> after death, but existed to deliver a death-for-dummies instruction to
> the afterlife as set forth in detail in the second through fifth
> stanzas. V53.14-55.13/lines 537-596.
>
> An interesting image is recounted in the sixth stanza. V55.14-25/lines
> 597-608. In an almost pentimento moment, Mr. Shade recounts a political
> execution, not of dictator or other despot, but of some manner of
> royalty. At line 605, Mr. Shade recounts "royal hands" being tied. In
> the context of Mr. Nabokov's Russian heritage, the image is appropriate.
> However, the image is also suitable in the context of either Mr.
> Kinbote's influences upon Mr. Shade during the drafting of the poem, or
> of the possibility that the poem was actually written by Mr. Kinbote.
> In any event, the use of "royal hands" is striking.
>
> The seventh stanza also sets up another striking image in the context of
> Mr. Kinbote as poet. V55.26-56.5/lines 609-616. Here, the poet
> describes an "exile" dying in a motel on the plains in the heat of some
> forgotten summer. This image is either prescience of Mr. Kinbote, exile
> from Zembla concluding his commentaries in Cedarn, Utana, (V29) or a
> slip of Mr. Kinbote in drafting the poem. Note that Mr. Kinbote
> describes earlier in the text that he takes time to visit the plains
> states to finish his commentary during the summer (probably relying on
> those old reservations he had to shadow the Shade's while they were on
> vacation). The seventh stanza also brings in additional details only
> Mr. Kinbote could know of his final days; the image of "bits of colored
> light" from the outside--the amusement park referred to in the Foreword?
> V13.27-28
>
> In combination, the sixth and seventh stanzas belie a different author
> than that of Mr. Shade. Perhaps Mr. Kinbote is the poet recounting an
> imaginary Mr. Shade as a device to get his royal story told. In any
> event, the seventh stanza smacks of that Theodore Kaczynski holed up in
> some small room in the torrid heat of a northern Midwestern summer, with
> the resident suffocating himself to death--note Mr. Kinbote's discussion
> of suicide, including "sundry forms of suffocation" (V220.19) and Mr.
> Kinbote's "discussion of Suicide with himself". (V309.8-9)
>
> The poet continues his encounter with IPH and details his own lecture,
> "I tore apart the fantasies of Poe,/And dealt with childhood memories of
> strange/Nacreous gleams beyond the adult's range." V56.21-23/lines
> 632-33. The decline of IPH is recounted while the poet notes how his
> relationship with IPH helped him deal with his daughter, Hazel's, death
> in the eleventh and twelfth stanzas. V56.27-57.13/lines 638-652.
>
> Stanzas thirteen through nineteen recount Mr. Shade's mourning beginning
> with the ghostly images of tapping and rapping, a vacation to Italy,
> thoughts of Hazel slowly losing their hold, her absence from his
> thoughts noted, the time drawing out between spells of remorse, until
> the return to his professorship at the college. V57.14-58.18/lines
> 653-682.
>
> V.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2003 07:12:47 -0700
> From: "Vincent A. Maeder" <vmaeder@cyhc-law.com>
> Subject: NPPF: Canto Three: The Web of Sense
>
> This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
>
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> Pale Fire: Canto Three: The Web of Sense
>
> After Mr. Shade's investigation into a near-death experience that
> appeared to be similar to his own, only to find out his hope and faith
> were dependent upon a misprinted word--mountain versus fountain--the
> jolt is enough to an epiphany of hope upon a "web of sense". It is in
> stanzas thirty-two through thirty-four that Mr. Shade discovers the
> conspiracy of the Them that Mr. Pynchon uses as his theme. However,
> where Mr. Pynchon's conclusions tend to be that the conspiracy of the
> Them grinds the self down, Mr. Nabokov's theme takes a decidedly
> different tack; the discovery that the preterite can sense Their greater
> plan gives his characters hope rather than despair.
>
> It is Nabokov's "web of sense" which illuminates his characterization of
> Mr. Shade at this point. A conspiracy of them, "aloof and mute/Playing
> a game of worlds, promoting pawns" and "kindling a long life here,
> extinguishing/A short one there" and still stepping into history not
> with some menacing military-industrial complex often associated with Mr.
> Pynchon, but rather a chorus of sprites, elves and gods who would step
> in to kill a Balkan king turning history over and yet hide Mr. Shade's
> keys.
>
> One commentator has pointed out that Mr. Nabokov's and Mr. Pynchon's
> fictions are similar in exploiting the "compulsive tendency we have as
> human beings and especially as readers to look at phenomena and see
> meaningful patterns that perhaps do not objectively exist. Both build
> narratives upon a web of echoes, reflections, and repeated details that
> see to be interlocking clues. . . ." Cooper, Signs and Symptoms, Thomas
> Pynchon and the Contemporary World, University of California Press,
> 1983, p. 40. As a consequence, "both writers evince some ambivalence
> about fabricated designs and envisioned meanings, such as fictional
> plots and so both employ parody and self-parody to keep themselves
> uncommitted." Cooper, p. 41.
>
> Yet this is where the two authors diverge. While Nabokov "tends to
> dismiss the epistemological problem of whether the phenomenal world is
> perceived or projected; his main concern is whether the projection is
> controlled and artistically sound. Pynchon's characters, who worry
> about what is 'really' going on, tend to be detectives--Nabokov's are
> often artists or artists manque's, deliberate, manipulative, and self
> directing rather than subject to large, mysterious, and impersonal
> forces. Hence they typically experience more 'combinational delight'
> than paranoia when they encounter the 'web of sense.' Humbert recalls
> 'those dazzling coincidences that logicians loathe and poets love' (L,
> p.31). He cherishes and employs that which obsesses Stencil, goads
> Oedipa and frightens Slothrop." Cooper, p. 41.
>
> V.
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2003 07:21:08 -0700
> From: "Vincent A. Maeder" <vmaeder@cyhc-law.com>
> Subject: NPPF: Canto Three: The Worm and Entropy
>
> This was originally sent rich text but the Pynch Liserv seems to have
> eaten it, so I will send it again via plain text. V.
>
> _Pale Fire: Canto Three: The Worm and Entropy_
>
> _Table of Contents_
>
> _The Worm as Metaphor of Life and Death_
> _Comparison to Mr. Pynchon_
> _The Worm as Larva_
> _The Worm as Entropy_
> _Resources of Mr. Pynchon's Use of Entropy_
> _Comparing Mssr. Nabokov and Pynchon's Treatment_
> _Entropy in Vineland_
>
> Both Mssr. Nabokov and Pynchon utilize the themes of death and entropy
> in their work. While Mr. Pynchon seems more obsessed and capable in
> handling the subject, Mr. Nabokov uses these themes throughout Pale Fire
> as woven through the Mr. Shade's struggle with the death of his
> daughter, Mr. Shade's obsession with life after death, taking up Canto
> Three in it's entirety with his "investigation", and even Kinbote's slow
> slide into a psychotic state.
>
> Canto Three is particularly focused on life after death and entropy.
> The following discusses the use of the worm metaphor and the opening
> stanza of Canto Three's images of death, destruction and disintegration,
> as well as comparisons with Mr. Pynchon ending with a brief discussion
> of Vineland's use of entropy.
>
> _The Worm as Metaphor of Life and Death_
>
> V52.7 "to lecture on the worm" Canto Three is obsessed about life after
> death and sets up a contrast between religious faith and scientific
> inquiry. In this context, President McAber may have used the "worm" as
> a metaphor of the life and death process; the larva developing into the
> butterfly or the moth wherein the larva spins its cocoon of life and, in
> the end, metamorphoses into a spiritual being leaving behind the husk of
> its former self. This is echoed in Shade's use of the term "larvorium",
> a portmanteau word similar to "larviform" (structure of larva) and
> perhaps meaning something like a place associated with larva.
>
> Smith's Bible Dictionary: Worm, [N] [E] the representative in the
> Authorized Version of several Hebrew words. Sas , which occurs in
> (Isaiah 51:18) probably denotes some particular species of moth, whose
> larva is injurious to wool. Rimmah , (Exodus 16:20) points evidently to
> various kinds of maggots and the larvae of insects which feed on
> putrefying animal matter, rather than to earthworms. Toleah is applied
> in ( 28:39) to some kinds of larvae destructive to the vines. In (Job
> 19:26; 21:26; 24:20) there is an allusion to worms (insect larvae)
> feeding on the dead bodies of the buried. There is the same allusion in
> (Isaiah 66:24) which words are applied by our Lord, (Mark 9:44,46,48)
> metaphorically to the torments of the guilty in the world of departed
> spirits. The valley of Hinnom near Jerusalem, where the filth of the
> city was cast, was alive with worms. The death of Herod Agrippa I, was
> caused by worms. (Acts 12:23).
> (http://www.biblestudytools.net/Dictionaries/SmithsBibleDictionary/smt.c
> gi?number=T4481)
>
> _Comparison to Mr. Pynchon_
>
> Cf. GR V.29, Episode 5 and the sИance as well as the obsession
> throughout the book between the corporeal versus spiritual and the
> approaches of Pavlovian instinct, Roger Mexico's statistical analysis,
> Slothrop's eventual transformation, etc.
>
> _The Worm as Larva_
>
> The worm also sets up a neat resonance with the overall text: Kinbote
> feeding off Shade like a larva feeding on corrupting matter as Gradus
> feeds off the intended death of Kinbote and Kinbote's "Commentary" feeds
> off Pale Fire (indeed, as all modern commentary and scholarly work feeds
> off the creative work of others).
>
> Worm - (1.) Heb. sas (Isa. 51:8), denotes the caterpillar of the
> clothes-moth. (2.) The manna bred worms (tola'im), but on the Sabbath
> there was not any worm (rimmah) therein (Ex. 16:20, 24). Here these
> words refer to caterpillars or larvae, which feed on corrupting matter.
> These two Hebrew words appear to be interchangeable (Job 25:6; Isa.
> 14:11). Tola'im in some places denotes the caterpillar (Deut. 28:39;
> Jonah 4:7), and rimmah, the larvae, as bred from putridity (Job 17:14;
> 21:26; 24:20). In Micah 7:17, where it is said, "They shall move out of
> their holes like worms," perhaps serpents or "creeping things," or as in
> the Revised Version, "crawling things," are meant. The word is used
> figuratively in Job 25:6; Ps. 22:6; Isa. 41:14; Mark 9:44, 46, 48; Isa.
> 66:24.
> (http://www.ccel.org/e/easton/ebd/ebd/T0003800.html#T0003836)
>
> _The Worm as Entropy_
>
> The text resonates with this image at V52.20-26 where Mr. Shade lays out
> a metaphor of death and entropy (disintegration): "For we die every day;
> oblivion thrives/Not on dry thighbones but on blood-ripe lives,/And our
> best yesterdays are now foul piles/of crumpled names, phone numbers and
> foxed files."
>
> _Resources of Mr. Pynchon's Use of Entropy_
>
> Cf. Mr. Pynchon's treatment of this same law in his short stories, V,
> COL49, GR, VL and MD which engage his "entropic vision". Cooper, Signs
> and Symptoms, Thomas Pynchon and the Contemporary World, University of
> California Press, 1983, pp. 45-48, et seq.; Harris, Contemporary
> American Novelists of the Absurd, College and University Press, 1971, p.
> 78; Clerc, Mason & Dixon & Pynchon, University Press of America, 2000,
> p. 100; Safer, The Contemporary American Comic Epic, Wayne State
> University press, 1989, pp. 48, 86, 90-94, 99, 108-09; Chambers, Thomas
> Pynchon, Twayne Publishers, 1992, pp. 23-31, 184-185.
>
> _Comparing Mssr. Nabokov and Pynchon's Treatment_
>
> In comparison of Mssr. Nabokov and Pynchon's treatment of entropy, Mr.
> Cooper wrote, "The spectre of universal decline haunts even the private
> aesthetic patternings of Nabokov. 'Time's arrow' in Lolita points
> mockingly toward degradation, but not so much in the external worlds of
> social organization and cosmic heat death as in the world of one's own
> conceptions. Humbert recalls a misplaced photograph of Annabel Leigh
> 'amid the sunny blur into which her loveliness graded.' Just before
> losing Lolita, he finds himself overtaken by a 'slow awfulness,' a
> purely personal analogue for the 'slow apocalypse' of Fausto Maijistral
> in V. In Pale Fire, the character Gradus embodies this process of
> 'graded' loss. As an agent of the 'communal eye,' Gradus is the enemy
> of any 'special reality' or unique structuring. As his name suggests,
> he signifies the gradual degeneration of order to chaos, concentration
> to diffusion, surprise to probability, singularity and distinction to
> repetition and sameness. He is portayed as a foolish bungler, but he
> arrives nonetheless. The force he represents is everywhere and closely
> parallels entropy as presented by Pynchon." Cooper, pp. 6-7.
>
> Cooper also compares the use of the image of cages and towers in
> discussing the value of entropy as a theme in the works of both Mssr.
> Pynchon and Nabokov. Both authors create such images ("Herbert Stencil
> (V.), agent in his hothouse, or Oedipa Mass (49), the maiden held
> captive in the tower" versus Kinbote's imprisonment in his castle.
> Cooper, pp. 46-47), but while Nabokov makes their cages "artistic,"
> building "novels around the sport and value of such activity," Mr.
> Pynchon's characters desire to break out of the self-imposed structure
> of a solipsistic character.
>
> _Entropy in Vineland_
>
> Chambers discusses Mr. Pynchon's use of entropy in relation to Vineland
> as an extension of the theme of disintegration set forth in Gravity's
> Rainbow. Vineland is, Ms. Chamber's reports, "America 1984, where
> nearly everything seems irrefragably reduced to commodity and surface,
> where warmth has been sacrificed to coldness and light has faded to
> twilight, and where lovely Frenesi Gates's once innocent eyes have grown
> cold and 'unbearable' (VL, 247). Pynchon is still using the theme of
> decline, but if he uses entropy in Vineland, it is not so much as his
> early mentor, Norbert Weiner, had seen it, as an 'organic incompleteness
> .. . . an Augustinian devil', but rather as a 'done deal,' a situation of
> reversal now so complete that the organic has been reconfigured into the
> inorganic. As the next step in the devolution begun in Gravity's
> Rainbow, Vineland, 'another story of twilight reconfiguration" (VL, 44),
> is a story of depletion, diminishment, and depredation. By 1984 the
> primal interplay of light and dark, which had given way to the rocket's
> ultrawhite terror, has dimmed to the dull, cold twilight of 'quotidian
> California' (VL, 94)." Chambers, pp. 184-85.
>
> Chambers elaborates, and states that Mr. Pynchon, "[r]ather than share
> Weiner's vision of a negative entropy that neutralizes this decline with
> 'local enclaves of order,' he imagines the opposite: establishing local
> enclaves of mystery that disperse the hardened systems of order and that
> reassert the animate as a viable force in a world of twilight sameness."
> Chambers, p. 185.
>
> Which leads to the state of Mr. Pynchon's work in Vineland as a
> description of the current state of cultural entropy as a
> Californication of the U.S.; the Starbuckization of the world where all
> coffee tastes the same from Yavapai, Arizona to Beijing, China -- the
> slow, cold death of humanity's cultures and heritage.
>
> V.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: 04 Aug 2003 10:21:34 -0400
> From: Paul Mackin <paul.mackin@verizon.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF - From the N-list
>
> The disease holds a special niche in American culture--as a universally
> recognized metonymy for unhappiness.
>
> As at least some of us will remember, for many years the same ad ran in
> virtually all popular magazines urging victims of the malady to use a
> certain patent medicine whose name I've now forgotten. The ad showed a
> body (probably female) covered with ugly blotches, with the caption: Why
> suffer the heartbreak of psoriasis? (or maybe it said: don't suffer the
> heartbreak of psoriasis)
>
> Anyway, I guess it's not joke.
>
> p.
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, 2003-08-04 at 09:50, David Morris wrote:
> > Dear Nabokovians,
> >
> > Vladimir Nabokov suffered from the skin disease psoriasis. I really do
not know
> > how severe his complaints were. In February 1937 Nabokov suffered a bad
attack
> > (Boyd, The Russian Years). On May 15 of that year, he wrote to VИra: `I
> > continue with the radiation treatments every day and am pretty much
cured. You
> > know - now I can tell you frankly - the indescribable torments I endured
in
> > February, before these treatments, drove me to the border of suicide - a
border
> > I was not authorized to cross because I had you in my luggage.' He went
> > sunbathing a lot as did `radiation therapies' (Selected Letters). Boyd
> > mentions one more exacerbation of psoriasis, which occurred in the late
sixties
> > when the strain of writing ▒Ada▓ fell from Nabokov's shoulders. (Boyd,
The
> > American Years).
> >
> > How about his fiction? Nabokov devotes one page, all‑in‑all,
to the
> > disease, in ▒Ada▓. He mentions `a spectacular skin disease that had been
> > portrayed recently by a famous American novelist in his Chiron and
described in
> > side-splitting style by a co-sufferer who wrote essays for a London
weekly'.
> > With this famous writer Nabokov refers to Updike and his novel The
centaur; the
> > essayist of the a London weekly is hitherto unknown (as far as I know).
The two
> > psoriasis patients in Ada exchange notes with tips: `Mercury!' or
`HЖhensonne
> > works wonders'. Other pieces of advice are found in a one‑volume
> > encyclopedia, and involve taking hot baths at least twice a month and
avoiding
> > spices. A doctor describes these patients as `Crimson-blotched,
silver-scaled,
> > yellow-crusted wretches, harmless psoriatics'. The narrator is less
pathetic
> > and speaks of `meek martyrs'.
> >
> > And in ▒Pale Fire▓ psoriasis is attributed to Shade▓s daughter who has
> > ▒psoriatic fingernails▓ (Pale Fire, 355).
> >
> > My question is: are there other references to psoriasis in Nabokov▓s
fiction or
> > non-fiction? The reason why I ask this is a keen interest in the
disease. Some
> > years ago I published an article on ▒Literature and psoriasis▓ (British
Medical
> > Journal 1997:1709-1711), including the above Nabokov references. Now I
am
> > reworking this material for a booklet on the same theme. Therefore I am
very
> > eager to know whether I missed certain phrases on the disease by
Nabokov.
> >
> > Thanks in advance.
> >
> >
> > Frans Meulenberg
> > Erasmus University / Medical Center
> > Department of Philosophy, medical ethics and history
> > frans.meulenberg@woordenwinkel.nl
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > __________________________________
> > Do you Yahoo!?
> > Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
> > http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2003 16:22:16 +0100
> From: "James Kyllo" <jkyllo@clara.net>
> Subject: NPPF re: Canto Three: Chron & Analysis Pt 2 of 2 - Crashaw
>
> > The balance of Canto Three from stanza twenty through thirty-four
> > recounts Mr. Shade's brush with death while lecturing to the Crashaw
> > Club, a probable reference to the poet Richard Crashaw (1613-49), about
> > Why Poetry Is Meaningful to Us.
>
> Richard Crashaw
>
> Metaphysical Poet
>
> There are connections here with both exiled royalty and TS Eliot.
>
> Crashaw removed himself from England to Paris during the interregnum, and
> there met Henrietta Maria, queen of King Charles I. (Charles lost his
> throne and escaped abroad - to Scotland. )
>
> There is a Richard Crashaw Club in Anderson, Indiana.
>
>
> As for Eliot
>
> Richard Crashaw visited and corresponded with members of the Little
Gidding
> community and wrote an approving poem about his encounter, "Description of
a
> Religious House and Condition of Life,"
>
> No roofes of gold o're riotous tables shining
> Whole dayes & suns devour'd with endlesse dining;
> No sailes of tyrian sylk proud pavements sweeping;
> Nor ivory couches costlyer slumbers keeping;
> False lights of flairing gemmes; tumultuous joyes;
> Halls full of flattering men & frisking boyes;
> Whate're false showes of short & slippery good
> Mix the mad sons of men in mutuall blood.
> But Walkes & unshorn woods; and soules, just so
> Unforc't & genuine; but not shady tho.
> Our lodgings hard & homely as our fare.
> That chast & cheap, as the few clothes we weare.
> Those, course & negligent, As the naturall lockes
> Of these loose groves, rough as th'unpolish't rockes.
> A hasty Portion of prФscribed sleep;
> Obedient slumbers; that can wake & weep,
> And sing, & sigh, & work, and sleep again;
> Still rowling Ю round spear of still--returning pain.
> Hands full of harty labours; doe much, that more they may,
> And work for work, not wages; let to morrow's
> New drops, wash off the sweat of this daye's sorrows.
> A long & dayly--dying life, which breaths
> A respiration of reviving deaths.
> But neither are there those ignoble stings
> That nip the bosome of the world's best things,
> And lash Earth--laboring souls.
> No cruell guard of diligent cares, that keep
> Crown'd woes awake; as things too wise for sleep.
> But reverent discipline, & religious fear,
> And soft obedience, find sweet biding here;
> Silence, & sacred rest; peace, & pure joyes;
> Kind loves keep house, ly close, make no noise,
> And room enough for Monarchs, while none swells
> Beyond the kingdomes of contentfull Cells.
> The self--remembring Soul sweetly recovers
> Her kindred with the starrs; not basely hovers
> Below; But meditates her immortall way
> Home to the originall sourse of Light & intellectual Day.
>
>
> Eliot reviewed (in: The Dial, vol LXXXIV, no 3, March 1928) "The poems
> English Latin and Greek of Richard Crashaw; edited by L.C.Martin"
>
> I can't find the text of that review, these quotes conflict as to what he
> might have said:
>
> "Richard Crashaw ... regarded as (a) 'minor poet' owing to the baleful
> influence of such Anglican critics as T.S. Eliot"
>
> "(Eliot) wanted to revive the appreciation of the 17th-century
"Metaphysical
> poets," referring to such writers as Donne, Crashaw, Vaughan, Lord
Herbert,
> and Cowley"
>
>
> Crashaw biography:
>
> http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04467a.htm
>
>
> James
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2003 09:12:42 -0700 (PDT)
> From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Canto Three: The Web of Sense
>
> - --- "Vincent A. Maeder" <vmaeder@cyhc-law.com> wrote:
> >
> > Yet this is where the two authors diverge. While Nabokov "tends to
dismiss
> the epistemological problem of whether the phenomenal world is perceived
or
> projected; his main concern is whether the projection is controlled and
> artistically sound. Pynchon's characters, who worry about what is
'really'
> going on, tend to be detectives
>
> One of these authors was familiar with LSD. The other was probably not...
>
> DM
>
>
> Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2003 18:10:38 +0200
> From: "Otto" <ottosell@yahoo.de>
> Subject: NPPF Bodkin at M&D
>
> Mason & Dixon Chap. 7:
>
> "And they're all Dead," says Ethelmer, "So what's it matter?"
> "Cousin." Tenebrae holding a Bodkin in at least an advisory way.
> (75.29)
>
> "What happen'd? He liked it so much being dead that He couldn't wait to
come
> and share it with ev'rybody else?"
> (76.4-6)
>
> Bodkin
> 75; the stilletto pin worn by ladies in their hair
> http://www.hyperarts.com/pynchon/mason-dixon/alpha/b.html
> German: SchnЭrnadel
>
> http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0110&msg=60928
> http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0110&msg=60990
>
> Otto
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2003 17:46:16 +0100
> From: "James Kyllo" <jkyllo@clara.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF re: Canto Three: Chron & Analysis Pt 2 of 2 - Crashaw
>
> >Richard Crashaw
> >Metaphysical Poet
>
> and fountains:
>
> ....
>
> And now where'er he strays
> Among the Galilean mountains,
> Or more unwelcome ways,
> He's follow'd by two faithful fountains ;
> Two walking baths, two weeping motions,
> Portable and compendious oceans.
>
> ....
>
> Does the day-star rise ?
> Still thy stars do fall, and fall ;
> Does day close his eyes ?
> Still the fountain weeps for all.
> Let night or day do what they will,
> Thou hast thy task, thou weepest still
>
> http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/crashaw/weeper.htm
>
>
> James
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2003 13:22:07 -0400
> From: "cfalbert" <calbert@hslboxmaster.com>
> Subject: Re: The Introduction - pulpous, nattochdag
>
> Pulpo - Spanish for octopus.......
>
> also
>
> Nattochdag - swedish for Night and day
>
> love,
> cfa
>
>
>
>
> - ----- Original Message -----
> From: "James Kyllo" <jkyllo@clara.net>
> To: "p-list" <pynchon-l@waste.org>
> Sent: Monday, July 14, 2003 10:20 AM
> 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: Mon, 4 Aug 2003 11:34:39 -0700 (PDT)
> From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Canto Three: Chron & Analysis Pt 1 of 2
>
> - --- "Vincent A. Maeder" <vmaeder@cyhc-law.com> wrote:
> >
> > His first engagement is with IPH at the behest of President McAber.
>
> Although I've used the term a number of times already describing the poem,
I
> hadn't noticed IPH's president's name until now.
>
> macabre.
>
> Main Entry: ma╥ca╥bre
> Pronunciation: m&-'kДb; -'kД-br&, -b&r; -'kДbr&
> Function: adjective
> Etymology: French, from (danse) macabre dance of death, from Middle French
> (danse de) MacabrИ
> Date: 1889
> 1 : having death as a subject : comprising or including a personalized
> representation of death
> 2 : dwelling on the gruesome
> 3 : tending to produce horror in a beholder
> synonym see GHASTLY
>
> > IPH itself is described by Mr. Shade as a "larvorium", a portmanteau
word
> meaning a place of larva which is a symbol of entropy, death and rebirth
>
> "Larva" and "-orium"
>
> Larva
> /"l :v / noun (plural -vae /-vi:/) insect in stage between egg and pupa.
>
> Insect Larvae:
> "In some animals, especially insects, larvae represent a special feeding
stage
> in the life cycle. Some insects pass through more or less wormlike larval
> stages, enter the outwardly inactive, or pupal, form, and emerge from the
pupal
> case as adults (see pupa). The importance of larvae in the life cycle of
> insects varies greatly, as does the proportion of the life span spent in
> larval, pupal, and adult stages. In many insects, the adult life is
relatively
> short, consisting mostly of mating and egg laying, while the larvae live
for
> many months or, in some species, for several years. Insect larvae feed
> voraciously, necessarily becoming larger than the adult, as considerable
energy
> and material are needed for the profound changes made during pupation. For
this
> reason, insect larvae often cause far more damage to stored crops and
textiles
> than adult insects.
> Insect larvae generally have a thinner exoskeleton than the adult; many
are
> white and soft. The characteristic fly larvae are maggots, often
developing in
> decaying plant or animal material. Mosquito larvae are the familiar
aquatic
> wrigglers; they breathe air and are killed by a thin film of oil on the
water
> that prevents contact with air. Maggots and wrigglers are legless, as are
all
> larvae of the insect order Diptera. Beetle larvae, including the whitish
forms
> called grubs and the long brownish wireworms, are quite diverse, but all
are
> equipped with the six legs characteristic of adults. Moths and butterflies
have
> wormlike caterpillars as larvae, each equipped with the six legs
characteristic
> of adults and false legs known as prolegs to support the long abdominal
> section. Some, like the milkweed worm (the larva of the monarch
butterfly), are
> relatively naked, while other caterpillars are covered by hairy bristles,
> sometimes equipped with irritating chemicals that can cause intense
itching.
> The young of the social insects (bees, ants, wasps, and termites) are
legless
> but otherwise grublike. Although all social-insect larvae are ultimately
> dependent on the parent colony for food, they are considered true larvae
> because they pass through a pupal stage."
>
> lemures
>
> (l m╢ r s╢╢, √y r z╢╢) (KEY) , in Roman religion, vampirelike ghosts of
the
> dead; also called larvae. To exorcise these malevolent spirits from the
home,
> the Romans held rites, the Lemuria (May 9, 11, 13).
>
>
> > stating that he is "ready to become a floweret/Or a fat fly" rather than
face
> eternity without the loves of his life there to greet him.
V52.17-53.13/lines
> 515-536.
>
> More precisely, he wants to *remember* the loves of his life, the people,
> images, etc.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> End of pynchon-l-digest V2 #3464
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