James Twiggs: Before I respond to Jansy, I wish to
recommend her essay “Time Before and Time After in Nabokov’s Novels,” which,
when I sent my message, I had not yet read:
http://www.aetern.us/article122.html.
Although I disagree with some of her key assertions, it is still a fine essay...
I assume that JM is here talking about the effect on the reader, not on Shade or
VN.
JM: I'm delighted that Jim Twiggs braves my
difficulties with the English language and even encourages others to read one or
two articles I wrote in the past. The one he's just indicated was
published in The Nabokovian, n55 ( Fall
2005). However, when he assumes that I was talking about
an increase in self-awareness as what must be happening with the reader, not
with Shade, I realize that, once again, I expressed myself badly. I had in
mind the adventures of Perceval, his failure to ask the right questions, his
need to repeat his trajectory to be able to perceive people around him, grieve
for his mother and learn to be curious about the world ( as in Le
Morte d'Arthur). I imagined Shade in a similar cross-country quest to
elaborate his various mournings and fear of dying.
J.T quotes: "JM: . . . to get to its
"contexture" one needs to establish what it is that Shade
means. However, it's exactly "meaning" that which, for him, will have to be
abandoned to reach "texture," thereby moving beyond
a textual meaning" and his answer: " I take it that dropping
either “that” or “which” in the second sentence yields Jansy’s intended meaning.
If so, she has touched on one of the most vexing problems in understanding VN
(and, in this case, Shade). This is the question of how to speak about something
that by definition lies outside language..." Thanks again for your correction (
I should use either 'that" or "which" to make myself clear). Just a quick
comment now: I don't doubt that Nabokov tries to "escape" into a godlike
perspective for his "metafiction," but "metalanguage" is another
question I had in mind Lacan's redefinition of the word "signifier"
as that which (oops!) lies beyond meaning, i.e., "texture" as
"significance.".