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Re: ARTISTIC CONSISTENCY?
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ARTISTIC CONSISTENCY?Stan K-B (interrogating Artistic Consistency) : Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.- - Flaubert //// Sorry if this quote (by one of VN's favourites) has been posted previously.
JM: A curious reply. Oscar Wilde ( I posted this quote previously) wrote that he put all his genius in life and his talent in his writing. Wilde saw himself as endowed with both (talent and genius), but most geniuses cannot choose like him: their neurotic afflictions hinder their pursuit to lead a free aimless and adventurous life. I'm not contradicting Stan's implied indication, here, that VN's choice favored another pairing so as to keep consistent, both as a citizen and as an author (adventures were inflicted on him, anyway). My intention is to bring up these items (consistency and freedom) in the light of the determinism of the "unconscious". It speaks through every author, crows and flaps its wings. Only "enchantment" provides the escape.
Jerry Friedman: I'm very interested in Laurence Hochard's pointing out the "doubling" of Kinbote's growing a beard and Shade's persistently shaving his. This seems to be related to the werewolf theme that Matt has seen in that passage...
JM: Must we choose one among multiple possible interpretations as representing a single authorial intention?
The werewolf/versipel theme, as Matt consistently demonstrates, has come to stay, but LH's vision of a "doubling" is styllistically more sophisticated.
It finds echoes in Marat's psoriatic baths ( mentioned in ADA thru Cora Day and in various psoriatic characters, for example, a librarian...) and in Shade's emphasis on "paring nails" (hair and nails are belong to transient "phanero", dead "scarf-tissues" in medical terminology or "manifestations"). The "doubling" arises also in Shade's opening lines with the three "I" (waxwing slain, ashen fluff, live bird).
A.Bouazza: As Brian Boyd (yes, him!) showed in his book on ADA, VN did not mock Einstein as a few early critics of ADA thought, but Langevin (=Engelwein), who was the first to come up with the twin paradox.
JM: Wikipedia was not informative about a "twin paradox" by Langevin. Could you explain what it means?A wonderful connection, though (Engelwein and Langevin).
I'll check Boyd's comments for, inspite of the lines chosen from ADA ["One especially grotesque inference, drawn (I think by Engelwein) from Relativity Theory-and destroying it, if drawn correctly-is that the galactonaut and his domestic animals, after touring the speed spas of Space, would return younger than if they had stayed at home all the time."]I remember Van ( not VN, though) complaining about spacetime or... was it only space? I may have surmised, incorrectly, that Van derided Einstein.
Btw, I'm aware that there might be no real connection bt. "the milky way" and "galaxies", but I thought VN's choice of "galactonaut" very amusing if it was intended to introduce "milk" ( galact) and us, lapping "mammals".
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JM: A curious reply. Oscar Wilde ( I posted this quote previously) wrote that he put all his genius in life and his talent in his writing. Wilde saw himself as endowed with both (talent and genius), but most geniuses cannot choose like him: their neurotic afflictions hinder their pursuit to lead a free aimless and adventurous life. I'm not contradicting Stan's implied indication, here, that VN's choice favored another pairing so as to keep consistent, both as a citizen and as an author (adventures were inflicted on him, anyway). My intention is to bring up these items (consistency and freedom) in the light of the determinism of the "unconscious". It speaks through every author, crows and flaps its wings. Only "enchantment" provides the escape.
Jerry Friedman: I'm very interested in Laurence Hochard's pointing out the "doubling" of Kinbote's growing a beard and Shade's persistently shaving his. This seems to be related to the werewolf theme that Matt has seen in that passage...
JM: Must we choose one among multiple possible interpretations as representing a single authorial intention?
The werewolf/versipel theme, as Matt consistently demonstrates, has come to stay, but LH's vision of a "doubling" is styllistically more sophisticated.
It finds echoes in Marat's psoriatic baths ( mentioned in ADA thru Cora Day and in various psoriatic characters, for example, a librarian...) and in Shade's emphasis on "paring nails" (hair and nails are belong to transient "phanero", dead "scarf-tissues" in medical terminology or "manifestations"). The "doubling" arises also in Shade's opening lines with the three "I" (waxwing slain, ashen fluff, live bird).
A.Bouazza: As Brian Boyd (yes, him!) showed in his book on ADA, VN did not mock Einstein as a few early critics of ADA thought, but Langevin (=Engelwein), who was the first to come up with the twin paradox.
JM: Wikipedia was not informative about a "twin paradox" by Langevin. Could you explain what it means?A wonderful connection, though (Engelwein and Langevin).
I'll check Boyd's comments for, inspite of the lines chosen from ADA ["One especially grotesque inference, drawn (I think by Engelwein) from Relativity Theory-and destroying it, if drawn correctly-is that the galactonaut and his domestic animals, after touring the speed spas of Space, would return younger than if they had stayed at home all the time."]I remember Van ( not VN, though) complaining about spacetime or... was it only space? I may have surmised, incorrectly, that Van derided Einstein.
Btw, I'm aware that there might be no real connection bt. "the milky way" and "galaxies", but I thought VN's choice of "galactonaut" very amusing if it was intended to introduce "milk" ( galact) and us, lapping "mammals".
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/