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Re: STANG--response to Lipon et al.
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Gary Lipon wrote:
> ...how did VN come to find stang...
>
> >From his goalkeeping youth.
I think this pretty much puts the issue to rest.
======
For Gary, perhaps, but certainly not for me. I would not take up more space over what may seem a trivial matter if I didn't think it involves a larger principle. Here are the lines in question:
"I think," she said,
"I'll get off here." "It's only Lochanhead."
"Yes, that's okay." Gripping the stang, she peered
At ghostly trees. Bus stopped. Bus disappeared.460
Shade is here putting himself in the place of Hazel, imagining her last moments alive. The word needed where “stang” appears is one that would come naturally to Shade and, for fullest effect, to Hazel as well. “Stang” itself, I hope we’re all agreed, is not such a word. Seldom if ever in this country, I’d wager, has a natural-born, apple-pie American, in the course of his/her ordinary conversation, referred to a pole in a bus as a stang. It is therefore out of character for Shade to use the word in this way. I would expect VN to be as careful about this--about being true to his characters--as he was in writing dialogue for Lolita. For this reason I’m not convinced by A. Bouzza’s argument or by the argument about the goal post. A goal post is not a pole (or a handrail) in an American bus, period. As for defamiliarization, even that all-too-handy concept requires, if it’s to be effective, some staging, something in the way of a suitable
context.
SKB’s view is more interesting. According to him, VN uses the word as part of showing what a lousy poet Shade is. Although I’m sympathetic to that view, I consider “stang” to be so outrageously inappropriate as to be unconvincing even as an example of Shade’s frequent mediocrity. It’s a clunker of a word, all right, but a clunker that VN, not Shade, must claim the credit for.
Incidentally, Stan, it's good to have you back after such a long absence.
Jim Twiggs
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> ...how did VN come to find stang...
>
> >From his goalkeeping youth.
I think this pretty much puts the issue to rest.
======
For Gary, perhaps, but certainly not for me. I would not take up more space over what may seem a trivial matter if I didn't think it involves a larger principle. Here are the lines in question:
"I think," she said,
"I'll get off here." "It's only Lochanhead."
"Yes, that's okay." Gripping the stang, she peered
At ghostly trees. Bus stopped. Bus disappeared.460
Shade is here putting himself in the place of Hazel, imagining her last moments alive. The word needed where “stang” appears is one that would come naturally to Shade and, for fullest effect, to Hazel as well. “Stang” itself, I hope we’re all agreed, is not such a word. Seldom if ever in this country, I’d wager, has a natural-born, apple-pie American, in the course of his/her ordinary conversation, referred to a pole in a bus as a stang. It is therefore out of character for Shade to use the word in this way. I would expect VN to be as careful about this--about being true to his characters--as he was in writing dialogue for Lolita. For this reason I’m not convinced by A. Bouzza’s argument or by the argument about the goal post. A goal post is not a pole (or a handrail) in an American bus, period. As for defamiliarization, even that all-too-handy concept requires, if it’s to be effective, some staging, something in the way of a suitable
context.
SKB’s view is more interesting. According to him, VN uses the word as part of showing what a lousy poet Shade is. Although I’m sympathetic to that view, I consider “stang” to be so outrageously inappropriate as to be unconvincing even as an example of Shade’s frequent mediocrity. It’s a clunker of a word, all right, but a clunker that VN, not Shade, must claim the credit for.
Incidentally, Stan, it's good to have you back after such a long absence.
Jim Twiggs
________________________________
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
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Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/