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Re: Cruelty
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On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 7:57 PM, Jansy <jansy@aetern.us> wrote:
> *J. Friedman*: *I think the overt meaning of "herl" in PF is "a barb or
> fibre of a feather" (NSOED s.v. "harl")... I won't dispute that there could
> be a secondary reference to "Erlkönig"*.
>
> *JM: *CK's note 109, on the Iridule: "The term "iridule" is, I believe,
> Shade’s own invention. Above it, in the Fair Copy (card 9, July 4) he has
> written in pencil "peacock-herl." The peacock-herl is the body of a certain
> *sort of artificial fly also called 'alder'*..." Will you dispute that
> the reference to the Erlkönig, even if a bit loose, is more than a
> "secondary" one? ( was VN familiar with the "rainbow" symbolism, as it is
> used in our days?)
>
Okay, good point. I'd forgotten that it was an alderfly.
> ...
>
>
> *Jerry Friedman*: ...*of course no one is hurt when a fictional boy is
> turned over to fictional psychopaths*...
> *JM:* ...unless one knows that such psychopaths exist and that mistakes,
> as the one that befell David, can be happen outside the boundaries of
> fiction. Why do you consider that a hurt, related to fictional boys and
> psychopaths, will only affect a reader who is identified with the
> characters?
>
I don't think I said anything like that. I wasn't considering cruelty to *
readers* at all. After all, we're reading it of our own free will. (If *Bend
Sinister* were assigned in schools, some students would complain about being
forced to read those scenes, though.)
It hurts because it indicates something real in the world we live in. In
> books, even after we've been forewarned about the tragic destiny
> of fictional people, we are still held captives by the narration, we're in
> suspense because we hold on to a hope of a redemption we know is unfounded
>
But people can enjoy rereading or rewatching a tragedy, when there's really
no hope.
> (Ruth Rendell returns to her warnings about an impending catastrophe over
> and over in "A Judgement in Stone", but these previews are not "spoilers,"
> as the word is used nowadays; there is Cervantes's Don Quixote and those
> other very sincere arthurian chevaliers whose catastrophic fate is described
> before the story is told). There is something in the telling of a story, and
> in the words themselves, that transforms events into memorable imprints of a
> shared "humanity..." But you know that!
>
It's not just memorability--for some reason, some of us enjoy it. (Others
don't. I know a woman who reads the last page of a book first, to make sure
the ending is happy and nothing too frightening leads up to it, before she
starts at the first page.) Without speculating on the reasons that some
people like tragedy or horror stories or *Bend Sinister*, I don't think we
can call the author cruel for giving people what they like.
And yet you state, simply, that "*I take people who call this "cruel" to be
> saying that it appeals that side of (many of) us that likes to watch real or
> televised fights, or real comedians get pies in the face, or likes to read
> compendia of famous insults..*."
>
I'm not sure about your "and yet". There I'm talking about readers'
cruelty, at least in the opinion of some, not the author's cruelty to the
readers.
Jerry Friedman
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> *J. Friedman*: *I think the overt meaning of "herl" in PF is "a barb or
> fibre of a feather" (NSOED s.v. "harl")... I won't dispute that there could
> be a secondary reference to "Erlkönig"*.
>
> *JM: *CK's note 109, on the Iridule: "The term "iridule" is, I believe,
> Shade’s own invention. Above it, in the Fair Copy (card 9, July 4) he has
> written in pencil "peacock-herl." The peacock-herl is the body of a certain
> *sort of artificial fly also called 'alder'*..." Will you dispute that
> the reference to the Erlkönig, even if a bit loose, is more than a
> "secondary" one? ( was VN familiar with the "rainbow" symbolism, as it is
> used in our days?)
>
Okay, good point. I'd forgotten that it was an alderfly.
> ...
>
>
> *Jerry Friedman*: ...*of course no one is hurt when a fictional boy is
> turned over to fictional psychopaths*...
> *JM:* ...unless one knows that such psychopaths exist and that mistakes,
> as the one that befell David, can be happen outside the boundaries of
> fiction. Why do you consider that a hurt, related to fictional boys and
> psychopaths, will only affect a reader who is identified with the
> characters?
>
I don't think I said anything like that. I wasn't considering cruelty to *
readers* at all. After all, we're reading it of our own free will. (If *Bend
Sinister* were assigned in schools, some students would complain about being
forced to read those scenes, though.)
It hurts because it indicates something real in the world we live in. In
> books, even after we've been forewarned about the tragic destiny
> of fictional people, we are still held captives by the narration, we're in
> suspense because we hold on to a hope of a redemption we know is unfounded
>
But people can enjoy rereading or rewatching a tragedy, when there's really
no hope.
> (Ruth Rendell returns to her warnings about an impending catastrophe over
> and over in "A Judgement in Stone", but these previews are not "spoilers,"
> as the word is used nowadays; there is Cervantes's Don Quixote and those
> other very sincere arthurian chevaliers whose catastrophic fate is described
> before the story is told). There is something in the telling of a story, and
> in the words themselves, that transforms events into memorable imprints of a
> shared "humanity..." But you know that!
>
It's not just memorability--for some reason, some of us enjoy it. (Others
don't. I know a woman who reads the last page of a book first, to make sure
the ending is happy and nothing too frightening leads up to it, before she
starts at the first page.) Without speculating on the reasons that some
people like tragedy or horror stories or *Bend Sinister*, I don't think we
can call the author cruel for giving people what they like.
And yet you state, simply, that "*I take people who call this "cruel" to be
> saying that it appeals that side of (many of) us that likes to watch real or
> televised fights, or real comedians get pies in the face, or likes to read
> compendia of famous insults..*."
>
I'm not sure about your "and yet". There I'm talking about readers'
cruelty, at least in the opinion of some, not the author's cruelty to the
readers.
Jerry Friedman
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/