Subject
[Tomasz] ping-pong theme in "Pale fire"
From
Date
Body
Tomasz,
Your technique of marking the exchanges in conversational dialogue is very
interesting. I am involved now in the problems of creating dialogue between
more than two participants, and I think I see ways of using your technique
as a guide. Many thanks for this.
It may interest you to know that in my town, a conversation between only two
people, when three people are present, is known as a ping-pong conversation.
For example, if someone finds himself seated with two people who are dating,
or are otherwise interested only in talking with each other, the third
person may say, "Well, I see this is a ping pong conversation, so I guess
I'll be going. Give me a call next week -- if you happen to have any free
time."
AB
----- Original Message -----
From: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2005 12:15 PM
Subject: Fwd: [Tomasz] ping-pong theme in "Pale fire"
> ping-pong theme in "Pale fire"
>
> "A few days later, however, namely on Monday, February 16, I was
> introduced to the old poet at lunch time in the faculty club. "At
> last presented credentials," as noted, a little ironically, in my
> agenda. I was invited to join him and four or five other eminent
> professors at his usual table, under an enlarged photograph of
> Wordsmith College as it was, stunned and shabby, on a remarkably
> gloomy summer day in 1903. His laconic suggestion that I "try the
> pork" amused me. I am a strict vegetarian, and I like to cook my
> own meals. Consuming something that had been handled by a fellow
> creature was, I explained to the rubicund convives, as repulsive
> to me as eating any creature, and that would include - lowering
> my voice - the pulpous pony-tailed girl student who served us and
> licked her pencil. Moreover, I had already finished the fruit brought
> with me in my briefcase, so I would content myself, I said, with
> a bottle of good college ale. My free and simple demeanor set
> everybody at ease. The usual questionsmere fired at me about eggnogs
> and milkshakes being or not being acceptable to one of my persuasion.
> Shade said that with him it was the other way around: he must make a
> definite effort to partake of a vegetable. Beginning a salad, was to
> him like stepping into sea water on a chilly day, and he had always
> to brace himself in order to attack the fortress of an apple. I was
> not yet used to the rather fatiguing jesting and teasing that goes on
> among American intellectuals of the inbreeding academic type and so
> abstained from telling John Shade in front of all those grinning old
> males how much I admired his work lest a serious discussion of literature
> degenerate into mere facetiation. Instead I asked him about one of my
> newly acquired students who also attended his course, a moody, delicate,
> rather wonderful boy; but with a resolute shake of his hoary forelock
> the old poet answered that he had ceased long ago to memorize faces
> and names of students and that the only person in his poetry class whom
> he could visualize was an extramural lady on crutches. "Come, come,"
> said Professor Hufey, "do you mean, John, you really don't have a mental
> or visceral picture of that stunning blonde in the black leotard who
> haunts Lit. 202?" Shade, all his wrinkles beaming, benignly tapped
> Hurley on the wrist to make him stop. Another tormentor inquired if it
> was true that I had installed two ping-pong tables in my basement.
> I asked, was it a crime? No, he said, but why two? "Is that a crime?"
> I countered, and they all laughed. "
>
>
>
> <sory for my bad english>
>
> Some people call a some form of a tiresome and stupid talk
> (used sometimes by in my opinion-cretins) "ping-pong". I found
> in this quote above six examples - "parts" ("hits and re-hits") of
> this. [So I found it as a little tractat from Nabokov to Me
> ("be aware of this ping-pong") - but a reason of putting this
> tractat here is obscure to me]
>
>
> 1. Shade -> Kinbote (proposal of pork), Kinbote -> Other
> 2. Other -> Kinbote, (eggnogs and milkshakes), Shade -> All or Kinbote
> 3. this not came into being practically:
> Kinbote -> Shade, (admiration)
> :)
> 4. Kinbote -> Shade, (moody boy) Shade -> Kinbote (All)
> 5. Hurley -> Shade, (blonde) Shade -> Hurley
> 6. Tormentor -> Kinbote, (ping-pong table) Kinbote -> Tormentor (All)
>
>
> Tomasz Kaminski
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
----- End forwarded message -----
Your technique of marking the exchanges in conversational dialogue is very
interesting. I am involved now in the problems of creating dialogue between
more than two participants, and I think I see ways of using your technique
as a guide. Many thanks for this.
It may interest you to know that in my town, a conversation between only two
people, when three people are present, is known as a ping-pong conversation.
For example, if someone finds himself seated with two people who are dating,
or are otherwise interested only in talking with each other, the third
person may say, "Well, I see this is a ping pong conversation, so I guess
I'll be going. Give me a call next week -- if you happen to have any free
time."
AB
----- Original Message -----
From: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2005 12:15 PM
Subject: Fwd: [Tomasz] ping-pong theme in "Pale fire"
> ping-pong theme in "Pale fire"
>
> "A few days later, however, namely on Monday, February 16, I was
> introduced to the old poet at lunch time in the faculty club. "At
> last presented credentials," as noted, a little ironically, in my
> agenda. I was invited to join him and four or five other eminent
> professors at his usual table, under an enlarged photograph of
> Wordsmith College as it was, stunned and shabby, on a remarkably
> gloomy summer day in 1903. His laconic suggestion that I "try the
> pork" amused me. I am a strict vegetarian, and I like to cook my
> own meals. Consuming something that had been handled by a fellow
> creature was, I explained to the rubicund convives, as repulsive
> to me as eating any creature, and that would include - lowering
> my voice - the pulpous pony-tailed girl student who served us and
> licked her pencil. Moreover, I had already finished the fruit brought
> with me in my briefcase, so I would content myself, I said, with
> a bottle of good college ale. My free and simple demeanor set
> everybody at ease. The usual questionsmere fired at me about eggnogs
> and milkshakes being or not being acceptable to one of my persuasion.
> Shade said that with him it was the other way around: he must make a
> definite effort to partake of a vegetable. Beginning a salad, was to
> him like stepping into sea water on a chilly day, and he had always
> to brace himself in order to attack the fortress of an apple. I was
> not yet used to the rather fatiguing jesting and teasing that goes on
> among American intellectuals of the inbreeding academic type and so
> abstained from telling John Shade in front of all those grinning old
> males how much I admired his work lest a serious discussion of literature
> degenerate into mere facetiation. Instead I asked him about one of my
> newly acquired students who also attended his course, a moody, delicate,
> rather wonderful boy; but with a resolute shake of his hoary forelock
> the old poet answered that he had ceased long ago to memorize faces
> and names of students and that the only person in his poetry class whom
> he could visualize was an extramural lady on crutches. "Come, come,"
> said Professor Hufey, "do you mean, John, you really don't have a mental
> or visceral picture of that stunning blonde in the black leotard who
> haunts Lit. 202?" Shade, all his wrinkles beaming, benignly tapped
> Hurley on the wrist to make him stop. Another tormentor inquired if it
> was true that I had installed two ping-pong tables in my basement.
> I asked, was it a crime? No, he said, but why two? "Is that a crime?"
> I countered, and they all laughed. "
>
>
>
> <sory for my bad english>
>
> Some people call a some form of a tiresome and stupid talk
> (used sometimes by in my opinion-cretins) "ping-pong". I found
> in this quote above six examples - "parts" ("hits and re-hits") of
> this. [So I found it as a little tractat from Nabokov to Me
> ("be aware of this ping-pong") - but a reason of putting this
> tractat here is obscure to me]
>
>
> 1. Shade -> Kinbote (proposal of pork), Kinbote -> Other
> 2. Other -> Kinbote, (eggnogs and milkshakes), Shade -> All or Kinbote
> 3. this not came into being practically:
> Kinbote -> Shade, (admiration)
> :)
> 4. Kinbote -> Shade, (moody boy) Shade -> Kinbote (All)
> 5. Hurley -> Shade, (blonde) Shade -> Hurley
> 6. Tormentor -> Kinbote, (ping-pong table) Kinbote -> Tormentor (All)
>
>
> Tomasz Kaminski
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
----- End forwarded message -----