Subject
Re: Fw: Skaters, frost and oozy plums
From
Date
Body
John Rea wrote at the end of today's posting: Ki semenat ispinaza, non andet isculzu. Is it Zemblan for the famous saying: "He who plants spinach shall not tread on plums"? Or feast on dead rabbits, as Kinbote noted when he annotated: " I have seen The Red Admirable feasting on oozy plums and, once, on a dead rabbit. It is a most frolicsome fly. An almost tame specimen of it was the last natural object John Shade pointed out to me as he walked to his doom".
.........................................
On July 2003, there was a posting at the List, on Pale Fire, by Glenn Kenny, discussing poem and Frost:
The first thing to remember is that, regardless of the illusion that the poem is a stand-alone work, it most manifestly is not. Kinbote's insistence that the poem has no existence without the commentary is, in the context of the novel, a kind of cruelty he inflicts on Shade's shade; but in the reality outside the novel, it's absolutely true! Add to that the fact that
the poem is a pastiche-"one oozy footprint" behind Frost, but expressing a sensibility very much in tune with V.N.'s own ("I loathe such things as jazz," etc.)-and you have something that some might argue is not quite quantifiable on its own. But let's forget all that for the nonce. I think it is an often very moving work, with an interesting cinematic quality (i.e.,
the "intercutting" between the Shade's not-quite-channel surfing and Hazel's journey to death) that isn't evident in the poets that Shade is based on....
GK discusses the interconnection for poem and commentary, bringing up certain traits shared by Shade and V. Nabokov.
I was re-reading "Strong Opinions" today and noticed that, indeed, VN seems to appreciate Shade: " some of my more responsible characters are given some of my own ideas. There is John Shade in Pale Fire, the poet. He does borrow some of my own opinions...he says someething I think I can endorse...( page 18,Vintage).
In contrast with this, there are several statements in SO in which VN seems to believe in a theory about afterlife and of a shedding the burden of the flesh, which I had, incorrectly now I see, found closer to Kinbote's professed faith. There's no end of oozy plums for Red Admirals to feast on and to surprise the reader. VN was not afraid of over-ripe plums scattered along PF!
..........................................
Andrew Brown recollected a "winter scene" he heard described in childhood, charged with swift deadly currents and daring children society forgot ( a very beautiful text). But when he compared this with "Woolf's surrealistic boating disaster in which a dinghy full of apple sellers and tortoises managed to pull a Titanic in the middle of some Brit puddle." he must have been carried away by different oozy undercurrents of meaning. That's not what I read in "Orlando", nor what I tried to compare with MR's overwritten messages found in the transparency of a watery palimpsest.
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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
.........................................
On July 2003, there was a posting at the List, on Pale Fire, by Glenn Kenny, discussing poem and Frost:
The first thing to remember is that, regardless of the illusion that the poem is a stand-alone work, it most manifestly is not. Kinbote's insistence that the poem has no existence without the commentary is, in the context of the novel, a kind of cruelty he inflicts on Shade's shade; but in the reality outside the novel, it's absolutely true! Add to that the fact that
the poem is a pastiche-"one oozy footprint" behind Frost, but expressing a sensibility very much in tune with V.N.'s own ("I loathe such things as jazz," etc.)-and you have something that some might argue is not quite quantifiable on its own. But let's forget all that for the nonce. I think it is an often very moving work, with an interesting cinematic quality (i.e.,
the "intercutting" between the Shade's not-quite-channel surfing and Hazel's journey to death) that isn't evident in the poets that Shade is based on....
GK discusses the interconnection for poem and commentary, bringing up certain traits shared by Shade and V. Nabokov.
I was re-reading "Strong Opinions" today and noticed that, indeed, VN seems to appreciate Shade: " some of my more responsible characters are given some of my own ideas. There is John Shade in Pale Fire, the poet. He does borrow some of my own opinions...he says someething I think I can endorse...( page 18,Vintage).
In contrast with this, there are several statements in SO in which VN seems to believe in a theory about afterlife and of a shedding the burden of the flesh, which I had, incorrectly now I see, found closer to Kinbote's professed faith. There's no end of oozy plums for Red Admirals to feast on and to surprise the reader. VN was not afraid of over-ripe plums scattered along PF!
..........................................
Andrew Brown recollected a "winter scene" he heard described in childhood, charged with swift deadly currents and daring children society forgot ( a very beautiful text). But when he compared this with "Woolf's surrealistic boating disaster in which a dinghy full of apple sellers and tortoises managed to pull a Titanic in the middle of some Brit puddle." he must have been carried away by different oozy undercurrents of meaning. That's not what I read in "Orlando", nor what I tried to compare with MR's overwritten messages found in the transparency of a watery palimpsest.
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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