Sorry, Don. TT 15 notes I sent
lacks most page/line numbers (sorry again!) and includes a couple of
typos.
Best, Akiko
------------------------------------------------------
52.08: as if by a Flemish master's
hand: Cf. "To leap, or try to lower oneself on knotted ledgelinen (the
knotting was being demonstrated by a medievalish, sort of Flemish, long-necked
shopgirl in a speculum at the back of his dream), seemed to him madness,
. . ." (Ch. 20).
52.14: "*godilles*" and "*wedeln*" (rom?):
An ascillating movement of the body in skiing that involves short quick turns
straight down the fall line. The technique, developed in Austria in the 1950s,
was just filtering into English dictionaries in the 1960s, hence the "rom?" (a
proofreader's query: roman, or italics?) (Brian Boyd's note to the
LoA TT).
52.15-17: the painted little people skimming
along, losing a ski here, a pole there, or victoriously veering in a
spray of silver powder: We were advised to learn to "skim" in the
beginning of the novel: "Novices must learn to skim over matter if they
want to stay all the exact level of the moment" (Ch. 1). HP does not
follow Armande's advice to learn to ski, i.e., to skim. Cf. Don
Barton Johnson, "Transparent Things" in *The Garland Companion,* pp.
729-730.
53.03-09:He never could pinpoint, with his
dazzled and watery eyes, Armande's silhouette among the skiers. Once, however,
he was sure he had caught her, floating and flashing, red-anoraked, . . . and
abruptly changing into a goggled stranger: The theme of the elusive in
spacetime. Hugh also takes Mr. R's secretary for
Julia: "when she put back the receiver and turned out to be a totally
different girl" (Ch. 18).
53.10-12: Presently she appeared from
another side of the terrace, in glossy green nylon, carrying her skis, but
with her formidable boots still on: Hugh was following a skier in a red anorak
believing she was Armande, but actually she was skiing in green. He
is again deceived by the red-green "mnemoptical" trick. This
time he remembers green as red. But is there anything that could make him
remember the color as red instead of green?
53.11: in glossy green nylon: Armande
of the scene was previewed in Ch. 5 and will be appearing in Ch. 26
as a green figurine of a female skier.
53.14-15: "You look like the first girl on
the moon": Apollo 11 landed on the moon on July 20, 1969, three months
before VN set about TT. Neil A. Armstrong and Michael Collins on the
moon were repeatedly reported and broadcasted over the world. I have no
idea whether or not VN had a special interest in the project, but he must have
seen the news.
"The moon" also connects
with the tradename of her boots.
53.20: Mondstein Sexy: As Brian Boyd
notes, Mondstein is Moonstone.
The tradename alludes to the moon,
stones, Wittgenstein, and the gay sexual party because of which
Armande has left Jacques.
53.31-33: Jacques had demanded her presence
at the onanistic sessions . . . Jacques had now presented her with an
ultimatum--either she join them in their nasty games or he would cease being
her lover: reminds us of the promiscuity which Quilty demanded
Lolita to take part in.
53.25: the heavenly cable car; 54.01-02: The
gondola would have gone on gliding forever in a blue haze sufficient for
paradise: VN also liked the cableway: "My favorite method
of locomotion, though, is the cable way, and especially the chairlift. I
find enchanting and dreamy in the best sense of the word to glide in the
morning sun from valley to timberline in that magic seat, and watch from above
my own shadow--with the ghost of a butterfly net in the ghost of a fist--as it
keeps gently ascending in sitting profile along the flowery slope below, among
dancing Ringlets and skimming Fritillaries (Interviewed by Simona Morini in
1972, *SO* 200). Cf. "Or else, at a
ski lodge, I would see her floating away from me, celestial and solitary in an
ethereal chairlift, up and up, to a glittering summit where laughing athletes
stripped to the waist were waiting for her, for her" (*Lolita*
II.2).
54.08: buvette: Refreshment room (Brain
Boyd's note to the LoA TT).
54.29-30: She consented to pull them down
only just as far as necessary. Nor did she let him kiss her, or caress her
thighs: preludes her unnatural sexual demands in their married life.
55.19-20: with its sense of "all-is-well"
despite her worst moods, her silliest caprices, her harshest demands: Cf.
"Despite our tiffs, despite her nastiness, despite all the fuss and faces she
made, and the vulgarity, and the danger, and the horrible hopelessness of it
all, I still dwelled deep in my elected paradise . . ." (*Lolita* II.3). I
feel *Lolita* lingering around this chapter.
54.23-24: A long file of little boys
followed by a scout master climbed toward them: HP cannot find
the unforgettable place in his pilgrim: "He had not even found the
spot in the woods where gay band of little hikers had interrupted an
unforgettable kiss" (Ch. 25).
54.27: "Gruss Gott,": Greetings (Brain
Boyd's note to the LoA TT).
Akiko
Nakata