Subject
Help with otherworldly logic
From
Date
Body
Aha! The keyword here is surely 'not', which is
obviously a play on 'knot', which itself is an English
approximation of the Greek 'aporia', which as we all
know by now signifies a moment of irresolvable textual
ambiguity. It is right to invoke Freud, but only the
Freud who shadows Lacan's 'The agency of the letter in
the unconscious since Freud'. Indeed, could one not
postulate a hidden, pulsatingly hidden, letter C
behind Anthony Stadlen's elegant formulation?
Evidently, what Nabokov's text expresses is in excess
of what it professes (or suppresses).
Best wishes,
Piers Smith
--- Anthony Stadlen <STADLEN@AOL.COM> wrote:
> In a message dated 07/11/2006 03:00:38 GMT Standard
> Time,
> NABOKV-L@HOLYCROSS.EDU writes:
>
> "I know more than I can express in words, and the
> little I can express would
> not have been expressed, had I not known more."
> I think I can understand just why Carolyn finds this
> an awkward sentence,
> and at first I thought that she must be right, and
> that this was a Freudian slip
> of VN's expressing some kind of unresolved
> ambivalence.
>
> But actually it's perfectly simple.
>
> He knows A.
> Of this he can express only B in words.
> B is less than A.
> But he could or would not even have expressed B had
> he not known A, or at
> any rate something between B and A.
> That is, he would not have expressed even B had he
> known only B.
>
> He is saying that it is not only sufficient, but
> also necessary, for his
> expressing what he does express that he knows more
> than he does express.
>
> Anthony Stadlen
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
obviously a play on 'knot', which itself is an English
approximation of the Greek 'aporia', which as we all
know by now signifies a moment of irresolvable textual
ambiguity. It is right to invoke Freud, but only the
Freud who shadows Lacan's 'The agency of the letter in
the unconscious since Freud'. Indeed, could one not
postulate a hidden, pulsatingly hidden, letter C
behind Anthony Stadlen's elegant formulation?
Evidently, what Nabokov's text expresses is in excess
of what it professes (or suppresses).
Best wishes,
Piers Smith
--- Anthony Stadlen <STADLEN@AOL.COM> wrote:
> In a message dated 07/11/2006 03:00:38 GMT Standard
> Time,
> NABOKV-L@HOLYCROSS.EDU writes:
>
> "I know more than I can express in words, and the
> little I can express would
> not have been expressed, had I not known more."
> I think I can understand just why Carolyn finds this
> an awkward sentence,
> and at first I thought that she must be right, and
> that this was a Freudian slip
> of VN's expressing some kind of unresolved
> ambivalence.
>
> But actually it's perfectly simple.
>
> He knows A.
> Of this he can express only B in words.
> B is less than A.
> But he could or would not even have expressed B had
> he not known A, or at
> any rate something between B and A.
> That is, he would not have expressed even B had he
> known only B.
>
> He is saying that it is not only sufficient, but
> also necessary, for his
> expressing what he does express that he knows more
> than he does express.
>
> Anthony Stadlen
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