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A return to the VN-L Archives: Anamorphism
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VN-L Archives about Anamorphism (I selected only a few for these excerpts), just as a reminder to present List members:
J.Coates ".Coates examined how Nabokov incorporated the artistic concept of visual perspective into his narration.We take the size of things to be a code for distance, Coates said. Nabokov, however, reversed this principle in his writing, especially through the use of anamorphosis, she said. An anamorphic image is distorted in such a way that a viewer can make sense of it only from a certain angle or position. In the same way that in anamorphic artwork a figure's eyes are positioned at the edge of the image rather than being in the center, in Nabokov's writing, Coates explained, large points are not important, but small details are significant. Key pieces of the story are detached form the main framework. Decoding is possible only by someone who knows the secret..."
https://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv.../wa?...?
Mary Bellino: "I've missed most of the discussion of anamorphosis and anamorphic images, so I apologize if this has already been mentioned: The topic is pretty thoroughly covered in Ralph Ciancio, "Nabokov's Painted Parchments," in _Nabokov at the Limits_ (ed. Lisa Zunshine; Garland 1999), 235-69, esp. 252-64. The article is well illustrated and includes a photograph of a real-life nonnonic pair (curvilinear anamorphic butterfly picture and accompanying cylindrical mirror), an example of a type of optical toy that "circulated in shops during Nabokov's childhood" (259).
https://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi.../wa?A3...?
JM: "...I found Cincinnatus's mother, Cecilia C. and her story about the "nonnon" on chapter 12,page 115. (What a strange lady, one who is reminded of the maternity ward after entering her condemned son's cell in the "cradle/tomb" tradition!) ...I came to the description of several optical devices: snapshots, a pre-computer-age "photohoroscope" and the "Quercus", alongside the anamorphic "nonnon"...anamorphic objects are not always the result of crooked (convex or concave) mirrors and distorted figures. Unfortunately I left my weighty volume on Anamorphism, written by Baltruysatis, at my office By the way, Anamorphosis ( VN's nonnon ) should not be confused with Anamorphism ( the process of "evolution of one type of organism from another by a long series of gradual changes")"
JM: The article by Mikhail Epstein "Good-bye to Objects, or, the Nabokovian in Nabokov", which I recently quoted in the N-L, doesn't mention an anamorphic construction explicitly, but it's point of departure indicates an awareness of its operation in VN's writings because he links the slanting, oblique way to look at the world to Nabokov's own name.[ ] Of course, it's easier to identify some of the instances in which Nabokov describes this mechanism, as in a painting, than how he works it into the structure of a pargraph or an entire chapter ...I'm afraid I haven't yet managed to find the main ugly and mangled verbal blurbs which a convex surface, or a particular perspective, would organize and reveal as a beautiful image, as suggested by VN (in SO) happens in Lolita ( "a beautiful puzzle"). Unless the corrective surface brings forth not an image, but a spinal thrill that overturns all the rest?
https://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv.../wa?...?The
Arnie Perlstein "Just to be clear, when I am speaking about JA's or Shakespeare's shadow stories, I am talking about their stories being completely anamorphic, i.e., two parallel fictional universes, with all the same characters, but where, in the shadow story, there is all sorts of "offstage" action involving important characters of which the reader/audience is never explicitly made aware...My guess is that at least some of Nabokov's fiction has this sort of separate parallel fictional universe...that ...fits my above definition of a shadow story.Wilson was, in my view, a kind of literary critical Forrest Gump... unable to make the leap to
there being shadow stories."
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J.Coates ".Coates examined how Nabokov incorporated the artistic concept of visual perspective into his narration.We take the size of things to be a code for distance, Coates said. Nabokov, however, reversed this principle in his writing, especially through the use of anamorphosis, she said. An anamorphic image is distorted in such a way that a viewer can make sense of it only from a certain angle or position. In the same way that in anamorphic artwork a figure's eyes are positioned at the edge of the image rather than being in the center, in Nabokov's writing, Coates explained, large points are not important, but small details are significant. Key pieces of the story are detached form the main framework. Decoding is possible only by someone who knows the secret..."
https://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv.../wa?...?
Mary Bellino: "I've missed most of the discussion of anamorphosis and anamorphic images, so I apologize if this has already been mentioned: The topic is pretty thoroughly covered in Ralph Ciancio, "Nabokov's Painted Parchments," in _Nabokov at the Limits_ (ed. Lisa Zunshine; Garland 1999), 235-69, esp. 252-64. The article is well illustrated and includes a photograph of a real-life nonnonic pair (curvilinear anamorphic butterfly picture and accompanying cylindrical mirror), an example of a type of optical toy that "circulated in shops during Nabokov's childhood" (259).
https://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi.../wa?A3...?
JM: "...I found Cincinnatus's mother, Cecilia C. and her story about the "nonnon" on chapter 12,page 115. (What a strange lady, one who is reminded of the maternity ward after entering her condemned son's cell in the "cradle/tomb" tradition!) ...I came to the description of several optical devices: snapshots, a pre-computer-age "photohoroscope" and the "Quercus", alongside the anamorphic "nonnon"...anamorphic objects are not always the result of crooked (convex or concave) mirrors and distorted figures. Unfortunately I left my weighty volume on Anamorphism, written by Baltruysatis, at my office By the way, Anamorphosis ( VN's nonnon ) should not be confused with Anamorphism ( the process of "evolution of one type of organism from another by a long series of gradual changes")"
JM: The article by Mikhail Epstein "Good-bye to Objects, or, the Nabokovian in Nabokov", which I recently quoted in the N-L, doesn't mention an anamorphic construction explicitly, but it's point of departure indicates an awareness of its operation in VN's writings because he links the slanting, oblique way to look at the world to Nabokov's own name.[ ] Of course, it's easier to identify some of the instances in which Nabokov describes this mechanism, as in a painting, than how he works it into the structure of a pargraph or an entire chapter ...I'm afraid I haven't yet managed to find the main ugly and mangled verbal blurbs which a convex surface, or a particular perspective, would organize and reveal as a beautiful image, as suggested by VN (in SO) happens in Lolita ( "a beautiful puzzle"). Unless the corrective surface brings forth not an image, but a spinal thrill that overturns all the rest?
https://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv.../wa?...?The
Arnie Perlstein "Just to be clear, when I am speaking about JA's or Shakespeare's shadow stories, I am talking about their stories being completely anamorphic, i.e., two parallel fictional universes, with all the same characters, but where, in the shadow story, there is all sorts of "offstage" action involving important characters of which the reader/audience is never explicitly made aware...My guess is that at least some of Nabokov's fiction has this sort of separate parallel fictional universe...that ...fits my above definition of a shadow story.Wilson was, in my view, a kind of literary critical Forrest Gump... unable to make the leap to
there being shadow stories."
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/