Subject
THOUGHTS: prickly pear, Pale Fire Canto 4
From
Date
Body
prickly pear,
from Canto 4:
Or this dewlap: some day I must set free
The Newport Frill inveterate in me.
My Adam’s apple is a prickly pear:
Now I shall speak of evil and despair
As none has spoken.
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Towards the end of Eliot's The Hollow Men, in section V:
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.
There then follows an interleaving of verses similar to this:
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
between lines from the doxology:
For Thine is the Kingdom
etc..
then three repetitions of : This is the way the world ends
and finally: Not with a bang but a whimper.
Actually, if you want to hear
the stuffed mushroom pronounce the famous words,
just go unto the following url:
<http://innerlea.com/aulit/misc/pricklypear/poem.html>
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
What I'm going to suggest is that Shade's bathtub rage scene,
the existence of which I've been trying to convince the list for the
past short while,
is set off by the line:
My Adam’s apple is a prickly pear:
which is a natural sounding joke. As such
it effectively disguises the allusion to Eliot–
which surely it is:
how often does prickly pear occur in modern verse?
Realizing the allusion, Shade erupts-
though this eruption's not wholly unplanned.
The earlier stanza, beginning with:
But method A is agony! The brain
Is soon enclosed in a steel cap of pain...
also can
be read in an exasperated tone.
It though turns comfortably towards
amusement over automatic acts
performed while Shade's composing in his head.
Eliot's poem depicts a kind of paralysis that comes, let's say, from
alienation, a lack of sense of self and place, and of time and
history. This doesn't seem to apply much to Shade. Shade certainly
experiences a lack of self, but this is a result of his absorption in
the act of composition, which might be said to transcend the personal,
and to possess Shade. Shade may also be facing a kind of stroke and
possibility of paralysis. But again, this is the possibility of real
paralysis, not the spiritual kind found in Eliot.
The final,
Not with a bang but a whimper,
though, might be compared with:
Hodge shall not be shot.
And Eliot's repeated line, Falls the Shadow,
amusingly, seems too obvious
to apply to Shade!
There, is a tree swinging, reminds too easily
of Hazel, and of old Shade's shagbark tree.
How much of Eliot's The Hollow Men
ought the little index card contain
that flitters briefly in the reader's brain?
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
In conclusion:
It seems that Shade's clever comparison
of apples and pears, has had the ill effect
of reminding Shade of T. S. Eliot,
together with travails trying to shave,
these two things then send Shade into a rage!
Versefully yours,
–GSL
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from Canto 4:
Or this dewlap: some day I must set free
The Newport Frill inveterate in me.
My Adam’s apple is a prickly pear:
Now I shall speak of evil and despair
As none has spoken.
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Towards the end of Eliot's The Hollow Men, in section V:
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.
There then follows an interleaving of verses similar to this:
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
between lines from the doxology:
For Thine is the Kingdom
etc..
then three repetitions of : This is the way the world ends
and finally: Not with a bang but a whimper.
Actually, if you want to hear
the stuffed mushroom pronounce the famous words,
just go unto the following url:
<http://innerlea.com/aulit/misc/pricklypear/poem.html>
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
What I'm going to suggest is that Shade's bathtub rage scene,
the existence of which I've been trying to convince the list for the
past short while,
is set off by the line:
My Adam’s apple is a prickly pear:
which is a natural sounding joke. As such
it effectively disguises the allusion to Eliot–
which surely it is:
how often does prickly pear occur in modern verse?
Realizing the allusion, Shade erupts-
though this eruption's not wholly unplanned.
The earlier stanza, beginning with:
But method A is agony! The brain
Is soon enclosed in a steel cap of pain...
also can
be read in an exasperated tone.
It though turns comfortably towards
amusement over automatic acts
performed while Shade's composing in his head.
Eliot's poem depicts a kind of paralysis that comes, let's say, from
alienation, a lack of sense of self and place, and of time and
history. This doesn't seem to apply much to Shade. Shade certainly
experiences a lack of self, but this is a result of his absorption in
the act of composition, which might be said to transcend the personal,
and to possess Shade. Shade may also be facing a kind of stroke and
possibility of paralysis. But again, this is the possibility of real
paralysis, not the spiritual kind found in Eliot.
The final,
Not with a bang but a whimper,
though, might be compared with:
Hodge shall not be shot.
And Eliot's repeated line, Falls the Shadow,
amusingly, seems too obvious
to apply to Shade!
There, is a tree swinging, reminds too easily
of Hazel, and of old Shade's shagbark tree.
How much of Eliot's The Hollow Men
ought the little index card contain
that flitters briefly in the reader's brain?
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
In conclusion:
It seems that Shade's clever comparison
of apples and pears, has had the ill effect
of reminding Shade of T. S. Eliot,
together with travails trying to shave,
these two things then send Shade into a rage!
Versefully yours,
–GSL
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/