Subject
"Lance": the story behind the story
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Date
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Andrey Vakhrulin writes:
In addition to the year puzzle, I'd like to share a couple of further observations relating to Lance, which perhaps are not new, but I haven't found any mention of them:
1. Average age of the reader.
"years between last Friday and the rise of the Himalayas - a million times the reader's average age"
The rise of the Himalayas was taking place about 50 mln years ago. Divided by a million it gives 50, which seems a bit too much for an average reader of a science fiction story. On the other hand, in 1951 Nabokov and Wilson were in their 50s, Katharine White was 59. Intriguing, isn't it?
2. The quilled remains of a dead porcupine in a corner of the old barn.
As a matter of fact, the porcupine is also a hystricomorphic rodent, like the two cinder-gray chinchillas which have a role further in the story. This can be interpreted as the narrator drawing inspiration for the fable he's telling in the trivia around him, and lo and behold! the dead porcupine of the past arises from cinders (!!) to become a character in a story; and also, as a palpable example of the idea that the future is the obsolete in reverse.
3. when somebody goes out for a smoke, he hears the crickets, and a distant farm dog (who waits, between barks, to listen to what we cannot hear).
This is also a very intriguing place, because it's later echoed by the narrator's dream: "And every time I had that dream, suddenly somebody would start screaming behind me, and I awoke screaming too, thus prolonging the initial anonymous shriek, with its initial note of rising exultation, but with no meaning attached to it any more - if there had been a meaning."
That 'somebody' in the dream is in fact a parallel to the distant someting 'lurking in the mist' which the farm dog does hear or smell, but we alas no. Like the dog, the narrator awoke with a scream (barking) which has no meaning for him (us) in the reality.
4. Who is crying in the narrator's dream? He doesn't know. But in his story, this apparently becomes Denny, the other young biologist, who is being killed by something behind Lance's back.
5. In both scenes with Lance, there are four characters in the room, with Lance sitting. First, a silent bore in a quaint top hat, and secondly Mr. Coover (coo? cover?), who has no chin (no Chin - a pun?). In both scenes they speak about the chinchillas (Chin and Chilla).
6. Faltering voice of the narrator in:
"When I was a boy. . .
When I was a boy of seven or eight, I used to dream a vaguely recurrent dream set in a certain environment"
This is the only place where a very confident narrator falters. Why? Probably because this is the most intimate, the most important place in his whole story. Maybe even the reason why he's telling all this, couched in a fairy-tale manner. This is the place where I believe the reader is supposed to feel especially sharply that the narrator is also a character.
7. And the last question. What are the narrator and his friends (not quite young people, with an average age of 50) doing in a barn at night somewhere off a lone farm? What kind of an amateur performance they are staging, long enough to allow going for a smoke?
During this gathering, it's only the narrator who is speaking and obviously drawing upon his childhood memories and the little things he sees around him. Do the other guys only listen or take part as the players?
In my mind, it sums up into a second story which is woven into the first, hidden behind it, but I haven't yet been able to formulate it.
Andrey
P.S. Just occured to me that "last Friday" is not accidental. The performance is happening during the week-end, probably Saturday!
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In addition to the year puzzle, I'd like to share a couple of further observations relating to Lance, which perhaps are not new, but I haven't found any mention of them:
1. Average age of the reader.
"years between last Friday and the rise of the Himalayas - a million times the reader's average age"
The rise of the Himalayas was taking place about 50 mln years ago. Divided by a million it gives 50, which seems a bit too much for an average reader of a science fiction story. On the other hand, in 1951 Nabokov and Wilson were in their 50s, Katharine White was 59. Intriguing, isn't it?
2. The quilled remains of a dead porcupine in a corner of the old barn.
As a matter of fact, the porcupine is also a hystricomorphic rodent, like the two cinder-gray chinchillas which have a role further in the story. This can be interpreted as the narrator drawing inspiration for the fable he's telling in the trivia around him, and lo and behold! the dead porcupine of the past arises from cinders (!!) to become a character in a story; and also, as a palpable example of the idea that the future is the obsolete in reverse.
3. when somebody goes out for a smoke, he hears the crickets, and a distant farm dog (who waits, between barks, to listen to what we cannot hear).
This is also a very intriguing place, because it's later echoed by the narrator's dream: "And every time I had that dream, suddenly somebody would start screaming behind me, and I awoke screaming too, thus prolonging the initial anonymous shriek, with its initial note of rising exultation, but with no meaning attached to it any more - if there had been a meaning."
That 'somebody' in the dream is in fact a parallel to the distant someting 'lurking in the mist' which the farm dog does hear or smell, but we alas no. Like the dog, the narrator awoke with a scream (barking) which has no meaning for him (us) in the reality.
4. Who is crying in the narrator's dream? He doesn't know. But in his story, this apparently becomes Denny, the other young biologist, who is being killed by something behind Lance's back.
5. In both scenes with Lance, there are four characters in the room, with Lance sitting. First, a silent bore in a quaint top hat, and secondly Mr. Coover (coo? cover?), who has no chin (no Chin - a pun?). In both scenes they speak about the chinchillas (Chin and Chilla).
6. Faltering voice of the narrator in:
"When I was a boy. . .
When I was a boy of seven or eight, I used to dream a vaguely recurrent dream set in a certain environment"
This is the only place where a very confident narrator falters. Why? Probably because this is the most intimate, the most important place in his whole story. Maybe even the reason why he's telling all this, couched in a fairy-tale manner. This is the place where I believe the reader is supposed to feel especially sharply that the narrator is also a character.
7. And the last question. What are the narrator and his friends (not quite young people, with an average age of 50) doing in a barn at night somewhere off a lone farm? What kind of an amateur performance they are staging, long enough to allow going for a smoke?
During this gathering, it's only the narrator who is speaking and obviously drawing upon his childhood memories and the little things he sees around him. Do the other guys only listen or take part as the players?
In my mind, it sums up into a second story which is woven into the first, hidden behind it, but I haven't yet been able to formulate it.
Andrey
P.S. Just occured to me that "last Friday" is not accidental. The performance is happening during the week-end, probably Saturday!
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/