Subject
Introductory notes to TT-6 (fwd)
From
Date
Body
---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Date: Tuesday, July 27, 2004 7:35 AM +0900
From: Akiko Nakata <a-nakata@courante.plala.or.jp>
To: chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu
Subject: Introductory notes to TT-6
Don, have the notes below reached you? I resend it just in case.
Best, Akiko
----- Original Message -----
From: "Akiko Nakata" <a-nakata@courante.plala.or.jp>
To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Sent: Sunday, July 25, 2004 10:20 PM
Subject: Introductory notes to TT-6
16.05: the dungeon of the irreparable: alludes to the Dungeon scene from
*Faust* ? Something irreparable happens there too.
16.06-07: --show your hands, Hugh: In Ch. 20, a psychologist and/or
thanatologist attached to a prison takes HP's hands as the flesh tools of
murder: (taking Hugh's hands, patting each in turn, placing them on his
palms for display or as if to begin some children's game). (p.79)
BTW, where is HP now?
16.12-14: but by a curious twist of conscience the awareness of his own
horror comforted him as proving he was not altogether a monster: Reading
that, I feel VN is describing HP as human and alive enough to be the
protagonist with whom we could sympathize. At least, VN intends HP to look
sensitive in a rather complex way of his own.
16.19: an uncle in Scranton: Does the place name has any meaning?
16.20: to have the body cremated abroad: Actually his body was shipped back
to the US. VN's body was cremated in Vevey on July 7,
1977 (Boyd, VNAY p. 661). For your reference: Historically, cremation was
more acceptable in Switzerland than in the US, where only 4-5% of all deaths
were cremated
in early 70s (http://www.cremationassociation.org/docs/WebHistData.pdf). Now
the percentage of cremations in the US is rapidly rising. In 1999, there
were 1,468 crematories and 595,617 cremations, 25.39% of all deaths in the
US
(http://www.cremationassociation.org/html/history.html) .
Cf. An unforgettable scene of cremation from *The Gift*:
In the window of the mortician's on the corner of Kaiserallee there was
exhibited as an enticement (just as Cook's exhibits a Pullman model) a
miniature crematorium interior: rows of little chairs before a little
pulpit, little dolls sitting on them the size of a bent auricular finger,
and in front, and somewhat apart, one could recognize the little widow by
the square inch of handkerchief she had raised to her face. The German
seductivity of this model had always amused Fyodor, so that now it was
somewhat disgusting to enter a real crematorium, where from beneath laurels
in tubs a real coffin with a real body was lowered to the sounds of
heavy-weight organ music into exemplary nether regions, right into the
incinerator (p. 312).
17.03-04: One would like in particular to express one's gratitude to Harold
Hall . . . to our poor friend: the narrator's pronoun. "One" and "our" are
mingled here. The other "one": One knows, however, that in his hometown . .
. (17: 23); "we": We have here a banal case of protracted erotic itch . . .
(17:26-27); "our": . . . our Person's whore . . . (18.23-24), . . . and our
acrophobic Person . . . (19.14).
17.04: Harold Hall: Another HH (Humbert Humbert) name. HH is also a
variation of the title TT and the other alliterations we find dispersing in
the
novel .
17.11-12: three thousand dollars in his father's battered, but plump,
wallet: the 3 theme.
17.12-14: Like many a young man of dark genius who feels in a wad of bills
all the tangible thickness of immediate delights: alludes to Genet
again?
17.30: with Italian eyes: As the narrator says, "they parted for many years"
(18.35-19.01), she will be appearing in HP's nightmare as Giulia Romeo (Ch.
20). Othello also echoes here.
17.32-33: ninety-one, ninety-two, nearly ninety-three years ago: The
narrator shows that he is carefully going back to the exact year. From now
on , the narrator's clairvoyance bordering time and space develops one of
the most fabulous scenes.
18.02-04: the frock coat was thrown over the shoulders of the night-shirted,
bare-necked, dark-tousled traveler: like a portrait of some Romantic poet.
Cf. "one of those lighthearted hikes that romantics would undertake even
during a drizzly spell in August" (18.11).
18.28-30: the chaos on the page is to him order, the blots are pictures, the
marginal jottings are wings: as if taking a Rorschach test. That could
foretell
the interviews with HP by a psychologist.
19.08-09: It was not a ghost, however, that prevented him from falling
asleep, but the stuffiness; 19.14-15: and our acrophobic Person felt the
pull of gravity inviting him to join the night and his father: the falling
theme. HP for the first time fears falling (into the world of death or
sleep).
Why does HP's father wish his son's death? Just to invite him to join his
parents??
---------- End Forwarded Message ----------
D. Barton Johnson
NABOKV-L
Date: Tuesday, July 27, 2004 7:35 AM +0900
From: Akiko Nakata <a-nakata@courante.plala.or.jp>
To: chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu
Subject: Introductory notes to TT-6
Don, have the notes below reached you? I resend it just in case.
Best, Akiko
----- Original Message -----
From: "Akiko Nakata" <a-nakata@courante.plala.or.jp>
To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Sent: Sunday, July 25, 2004 10:20 PM
Subject: Introductory notes to TT-6
16.05: the dungeon of the irreparable: alludes to the Dungeon scene from
*Faust* ? Something irreparable happens there too.
16.06-07: --show your hands, Hugh: In Ch. 20, a psychologist and/or
thanatologist attached to a prison takes HP's hands as the flesh tools of
murder: (taking Hugh's hands, patting each in turn, placing them on his
palms for display or as if to begin some children's game). (p.79)
BTW, where is HP now?
16.12-14: but by a curious twist of conscience the awareness of his own
horror comforted him as proving he was not altogether a monster: Reading
that, I feel VN is describing HP as human and alive enough to be the
protagonist with whom we could sympathize. At least, VN intends HP to look
sensitive in a rather complex way of his own.
16.19: an uncle in Scranton: Does the place name has any meaning?
16.20: to have the body cremated abroad: Actually his body was shipped back
to the US. VN's body was cremated in Vevey on July 7,
1977 (Boyd, VNAY p. 661). For your reference: Historically, cremation was
more acceptable in Switzerland than in the US, where only 4-5% of all deaths
were cremated
in early 70s (http://www.cremationassociation.org/docs/WebHistData.pdf). Now
the percentage of cremations in the US is rapidly rising. In 1999, there
were 1,468 crematories and 595,617 cremations, 25.39% of all deaths in the
US
(http://www.cremationassociation.org/html/history.html) .
Cf. An unforgettable scene of cremation from *The Gift*:
In the window of the mortician's on the corner of Kaiserallee there was
exhibited as an enticement (just as Cook's exhibits a Pullman model) a
miniature crematorium interior: rows of little chairs before a little
pulpit, little dolls sitting on them the size of a bent auricular finger,
and in front, and somewhat apart, one could recognize the little widow by
the square inch of handkerchief she had raised to her face. The German
seductivity of this model had always amused Fyodor, so that now it was
somewhat disgusting to enter a real crematorium, where from beneath laurels
in tubs a real coffin with a real body was lowered to the sounds of
heavy-weight organ music into exemplary nether regions, right into the
incinerator (p. 312).
17.03-04: One would like in particular to express one's gratitude to Harold
Hall . . . to our poor friend: the narrator's pronoun. "One" and "our" are
mingled here. The other "one": One knows, however, that in his hometown . .
. (17: 23); "we": We have here a banal case of protracted erotic itch . . .
(17:26-27); "our": . . . our Person's whore . . . (18.23-24), . . . and our
acrophobic Person . . . (19.14).
17.04: Harold Hall: Another HH (Humbert Humbert) name. HH is also a
variation of the title TT and the other alliterations we find dispersing in
the
novel .
17.11-12: three thousand dollars in his father's battered, but plump,
wallet: the 3 theme.
17.12-14: Like many a young man of dark genius who feels in a wad of bills
all the tangible thickness of immediate delights: alludes to Genet
again?
17.30: with Italian eyes: As the narrator says, "they parted for many years"
(18.35-19.01), she will be appearing in HP's nightmare as Giulia Romeo (Ch.
20). Othello also echoes here.
17.32-33: ninety-one, ninety-two, nearly ninety-three years ago: The
narrator shows that he is carefully going back to the exact year. From now
on , the narrator's clairvoyance bordering time and space develops one of
the most fabulous scenes.
18.02-04: the frock coat was thrown over the shoulders of the night-shirted,
bare-necked, dark-tousled traveler: like a portrait of some Romantic poet.
Cf. "one of those lighthearted hikes that romantics would undertake even
during a drizzly spell in August" (18.11).
18.28-30: the chaos on the page is to him order, the blots are pictures, the
marginal jottings are wings: as if taking a Rorschach test. That could
foretell
the interviews with HP by a psychologist.
19.08-09: It was not a ghost, however, that prevented him from falling
asleep, but the stuffiness; 19.14-15: and our acrophobic Person felt the
pull of gravity inviting him to join the night and his father: the falling
theme. HP for the first time fears falling (into the world of death or
sleep).
Why does HP's father wish his son's death? Just to invite him to join his
parents??
---------- End Forwarded Message ----------
D. Barton Johnson
NABOKV-L