Date: Fri, 4 Jul 2008 08:25:30 -0400
From: nabokv-l@UTK.EDU
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] QUERY: Mournful Monsters]
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
-------- Original Message --------
VN: "Some of my characters are, no doubt, pretty beastly, but I really don't care, they are outside my inner self like the mournful monsters of a cathedral façade - demons placed there merely to show that they have been booted out."
LH: If they have been booted out, then it means that they used to be inside: VN admits that there is some relation between his inner self and his monstrous characters.
M Roth: "...eliminated from his intrinsic self by the same forces of perfection which purified and chiseled his verse. He was his own cancellation." So was VN, artistically at least, his own cancellation?
LH: The bringing together of the two metaphors indicates that it is the practice of his art which enabled VN to perfect and keep his inner self pure.
Laurence Hochard
VN: "they are outside my inner self like the mournful monsters of a
cathedral façade - demons placed there merely to show that they have been
booted out."
MR: This has always seemed to me a version of the thought expressed by
Kinbote regarding John Shade's appearance: "His misshapen body, that gray
mop of abundant hair, the yellow nails of his pudgy fingers, the bags
under his lustreless eyes, were only intelligible if regarded as the waste
products eliminated from his intrinsic self by the same forces of
perfection which purified and chiseled his verse. He was his own
cancellation." So was VN, artistically at least, his own cancellation?
Matt Roth
All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both co-editors.
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