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Re: It Happens (Red Admiral outbreak in NYC)
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C. Kunin [to Tori Alexander] Are you referring to the butterfly "outbreak" or the historical occurrence? If the latter, I have supposed it was the assassination of Alexander II on March 13, 1881 and the outbreaks of violence, especially pogroms against the Jews that make 1881 a fateful year. The vicious attacks that followed the assassination certainly can be seen as a bellwether of the later Russian revolutions
Jansy Mello: In his book, "Pale Fire, The Magic of Artistic Discovery," Brian Boyd (p.110) relates the atalanta butterfly to "images of doom". For example, when he writes: "But as we reread we can now see instead a message to Hazel to tell her father...he is not to go across the lane to old Goldsworth's, as an atalanta butterfly dances by, after he finished 'Pale Fire' ... We can decode the message warning of Shade's death, of course, only after his death. Kinbote observes that...he does not realize that it is the spirit of Shade's Aunt Maud ... always so fond of "images of doom"(P.89,36)..."
What I hadn't realized until now is that the butterfly's 1881 'signal of doom' designed on the underside of its admirable wings, has already appeared in Kinbote's foreword - or, at least, we may allow some space for an interpretation of this kind (I mean, his subtle indication about the "underside of the weave" lying close to Shade's assassination and the employ of "red ink"), while still on the alert for his ambiguous assertion when he names himself as its "only begetter".
Kinbote writes: "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 husband's manuscript ...I defy any serious critic to find this contract unfair. Nevertheless, it has been called (by Shade's former lawyer) "a fantastic farrago of evil," while another person (his former literary agent) has wondered with a sneer if Mrs. Shade's tremulous signature might not have been penned "in some peculiar kind of red ink." Such hearts, such brains, would be unable to comprehend that one's attachment to a masterpiece may be utterly overwhelming, especially when it is the underside of the weave that entrances the beholder and only begetter, whose own past intercoils there with the fate of the innocent author."
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Jansy Mello: In his book, "Pale Fire, The Magic of Artistic Discovery," Brian Boyd (p.110) relates the atalanta butterfly to "images of doom". For example, when he writes: "But as we reread we can now see instead a message to Hazel to tell her father...he is not to go across the lane to old Goldsworth's, as an atalanta butterfly dances by, after he finished 'Pale Fire' ... We can decode the message warning of Shade's death, of course, only after his death. Kinbote observes that...he does not realize that it is the spirit of Shade's Aunt Maud ... always so fond of "images of doom"(P.89,36)..."
What I hadn't realized until now is that the butterfly's 1881 'signal of doom' designed on the underside of its admirable wings, has already appeared in Kinbote's foreword - or, at least, we may allow some space for an interpretation of this kind (I mean, his subtle indication about the "underside of the weave" lying close to Shade's assassination and the employ of "red ink"), while still on the alert for his ambiguous assertion when he names himself as its "only begetter".
Kinbote writes: "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 husband's manuscript ...I defy any serious critic to find this contract unfair. Nevertheless, it has been called (by Shade's former lawyer) "a fantastic farrago of evil," while another person (his former literary agent) has wondered with a sneer if Mrs. Shade's tremulous signature might not have been penned "in some peculiar kind of red ink." Such hearts, such brains, would be unable to comprehend that one's attachment to a masterpiece may be utterly overwhelming, especially when it is the underside of the weave that entrances the beholder and only begetter, whose own past intercoils there with the fate of the innocent author."
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/