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Re: FWD: TT-10 Introductory Notes (fwd)
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------------------ A few thoughts on chapter 10.
1. The character's meeting with the author (or his pseudo-author or author
agent) is always a portentious moment in VN"s work. Elsewhere it is just
narrowly avoided (Pnin, The Defense). I don't remember if Tammi talks
about this chapter, but he deals extensively with this theme.
It is worth noting that the publisher's name -- Phil -- fits in with the
love theme that often surrounds these authors/agents. Valentinov, the
narrator in Pnin who arrives on Valentine's day. Phil seems more
benevolent than his predecessors.
2. John Rea's remarks about Christian Pines find further support in his
being a frog-faced playboy (frog -- think French).
3. The Slender Slut -- a book Phil would like -- recalls the final words of
the previous chapter. Perhaps Armande's presence represents a kind of
interference of that title with Tralatitions. Note the way she remains on
the marge of his field of vision: "It was indeed all SHAM and waxworks as
compared to the reality of Armande, whose image was stamped ont he eye of
his mind and shone through the show at various levels, sometimes upside
down, sometimes ont he teasing MARge of his vision, but always there,
always true and thrilling.
4. The chasseurs -- perhaps a recollection of the author's most famous
hotel, the enchanted hunters? The act of translation or substitution of
another language -- even when motivated, as here, by the location -- often
serves an additional purpose.
5. Versex. In Pnin, "ver/vair/vers/verre" is pointedly singled out as a
marker of both poetic essence and of the constant possibility of
perversion, distortion. (I tried to demonstrate this in an article in
Nabokov Studies 7) The word versex seems a particularly apt fusion of the
poetic and the sexual in Nabokov's work. And it is apt that it is the
location of the meeting with the authorial figure
Eric
---------- End Forwarded Message ----------
D. Barton Johnson
NABOKV-L
1. The character's meeting with the author (or his pseudo-author or author
agent) is always a portentious moment in VN"s work. Elsewhere it is just
narrowly avoided (Pnin, The Defense). I don't remember if Tammi talks
about this chapter, but he deals extensively with this theme.
It is worth noting that the publisher's name -- Phil -- fits in with the
love theme that often surrounds these authors/agents. Valentinov, the
narrator in Pnin who arrives on Valentine's day. Phil seems more
benevolent than his predecessors.
2. John Rea's remarks about Christian Pines find further support in his
being a frog-faced playboy (frog -- think French).
3. The Slender Slut -- a book Phil would like -- recalls the final words of
the previous chapter. Perhaps Armande's presence represents a kind of
interference of that title with Tralatitions. Note the way she remains on
the marge of his field of vision: "It was indeed all SHAM and waxworks as
compared to the reality of Armande, whose image was stamped ont he eye of
his mind and shone through the show at various levels, sometimes upside
down, sometimes ont he teasing MARge of his vision, but always there,
always true and thrilling.
4. The chasseurs -- perhaps a recollection of the author's most famous
hotel, the enchanted hunters? The act of translation or substitution of
another language -- even when motivated, as here, by the location -- often
serves an additional purpose.
5. Versex. In Pnin, "ver/vair/vers/verre" is pointedly singled out as a
marker of both poetic essence and of the constant possibility of
perversion, distortion. (I tried to demonstrate this in an article in
Nabokov Studies 7) The word versex seems a particularly apt fusion of the
poetic and the sexual in Nabokov's work. And it is apt that it is the
location of the meeting with the authorial figure
Eric
---------- End Forwarded Message ----------
D. Barton Johnson
NABOKV-L