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Re: Fwd: TT-22 Introductory Notes
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----- Forwarded message from jansy@aetern.us -----
Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 16:46:08 -0300
From: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello <jansy@aetern.us>
1. young girls in a Swiss school ( Armande and Julia were teachers there)
probably a first connection to the "shuttlecock" ( shuttle also means a fast
way of traveling by plane, does it not?)
Ch 9:
- After a Burning Doll house scene and the confusion of a novel´s title:
"Figures in a Golden Window" ( probably a reference to Ada and Van watching the
Burning Barn?) soon becomes " The Burning Window" - we reach Armande speaking
( while making acquaintance with HP):
Julia and she had both taught in the winter at a school for foreign young ladies
in the Tessin ...
Ch11: HP affair with Julia in NY with a reference to an Italian newspaper (" a
lot of construction was going on", informs the readers about some spacetime
traveling here, and this closing sentence about construction also opens the
next chapter Ch12: where we hear about Hugh´s visit to Armande´s home in Witt
"such as a workman´s empty bottle and an Italian newspaper" (...) ..a woman
selling apples from a neighboring stall set him straight again. An over
affectionate large white dog started to frisk..." (...) A grilled door in it
led to some camp or school. The cries of shildren at play came from behind the
wall and a shuttle-cock sailed over it to land at his feet. He ignored it, not
being the sort of man who picks up things for strangers - a glove, a rolling
coin"...
.........................................................................................
An interpolation here: the theme of the shuttle-cock comes close to the "rolling
coin" which has been widely explored by Nabokov himself on his lecture on James
Joyce where he traces references to a coin during Stephen´s wanderings. Worth
checking, perhaps?
Also a reference for the Chivalry theme, now in TT: Ch 23 we find at the second
paragraph: In his day Hugh had carefully studied the public map, a great Carte
du Tendre or Chart of Torture. (La Carte du Tendre refers to courly love).
............................................................................................
Ch.22 Eight years later ( to the events on Ch 11) we get a "re/tour",
describing now Hugh´s burning feet and the "diabolical neatness as a shoebox"
( "cardboard box with 'Fit' of ch.2...)
We see( as on Ch.12) a woman selling vegetables from a stall, a large shivering
white dog..."A blond little girl with a badminton racket crouched and picked up
her shuttlecock from the sidewalk".
Also, a little onwards we find: " resulting in a red eye BURNING there through
every threadbare thought. He finally shook the forest off and reached a
ROCK-strewn field and a BARN he thought he recalled, but the stream (...)
spanned the gap of time in his mind... takes us to ADA´s "Burning Barn and a
Golden Window as photographed by Kim, plus burning doll-house and Mme.Ségur"
...................................................................................
The rock-strewn field also takes us back to ch.1 ( " you are thinking, and quite
rightly so, of a hillside stone over which a multitude of small animals have
scurried in the course of incalculable seasons") ..."the story of this stone,
of that heath. I shall explain. A thin veneer of immediate reality is
spread..."
Jansy
----- Original Message -----
From: Donald B. Johnson
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Friday, November 12, 2004 2:11 PM
Subject: Fwd: TT-22 Introductory Notes
----- Forwarded message from a-nakata@courante.plala.or.jp -----
Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 21:08:49 +0900
From: Akiko Nakata <a-nakata@courante.plala.or.jp>
85.11: Brig: exists in Switzerland though Witt is not a real place. Brig is
"located at an ancient European crossroads where the Simplon Pass crosses
the high Alps into Italy, the small and picturesque town of Brig boasts many
architectural treasures, . . . . As well as excellent skiing from Rosswald
immediately aove the town . . . reached by gondola, . . . ." From
"SkiEurope Report" by Louis Bignami:
http://www.finetravel.com/skiing/ski_switzerland/brig.htm .
85.12-13: Nothing is ever wrapped up with such diabolical neatness as a
shoebox: Why the adjective "diabolical" is used but suggesting the Eden
theme? Just warning HP about the torturing sentimental journey?
85.20-21: The climb he contemplated could not be accomplished in town shoes:
The first day of Ch. 14. HP ignored Jacques's advice that he should change
into sturdier brogues.
86.29-30: a French ancestor of his, a Catholic poet and well-nigh a saint:
Brian Boyd notes, "French poet and diplomat St. John Perse (1877-1975)."
"Perse" is also related with the Eden theme.
87.03-04: without stopping to listen to the vulgar noise of the stream which
could tell him nothing: HP usually fails to hear the messages from water in
various shapes.
87.11: Villa Nastia, which still retained a dead old woman's absurd Russian
diminutive: I wonder why "absurd"?
87.16-17: a woman was selling vegetables: She is the same woman selling
apples in Ch. 12, who also helped HP who was lost on the way to Villa
Nastia. The apples lead to the Eden theme as well as "yabloni" and
"Diablonnet" in Ch. 12 while we only see vegetables here. That might show HP
vainly looking for the lost Eden. On the other hand, we might glimpse the
vegetables appearing in Chs. 24 and 26.
87.19-24: a large, white, shivering dog crawled from behind a crate and with
a shock of futile recognition Hugh remembered that eight years ago he had
stopped right here and had noticed that dog, which was pretty old even then
and had now braved fabulous age only to serve his blind memory: A piece of
the Mcfate puzzle put in a proper place. Though, as I wrote before, the dog
did not look pretty old when HP first saw him eight years ago.
87.27-28: A blond little girl with a badminton racket crouched and picked up
her shuttlecock from the sidewalk: As if the same shuttlecock as HP saw and
ignored eight years ago had been left there for these years was being picked
up by a girl who had been playing badminton since then. The girl also looks
like Armande in her childhood.
87.29: now painted a celestial blue: Cf. A blue haze sufficient for paradise
(Ch. 15). A heaven motif.
87.29-30: All its windows are shuttered: As if announcing HP that he would
not be able to find anything there. Cf. Not all of them [the red shutters of
the Ascot Hotel] shut (Ch. 2).
Akiko Nakata
----- End forwarded message -----
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
85.11: Brig: exists in Switzerland though Witt is not a real place. Brig is
"located at an ancient European crossroads where the Simplon Pass crosses the
high Alps into Italy, the small and picturesque town of Brig boasts many
architectural treasures, . . . . As well as excellent skiing from Rosswald
immediately aove the town . . . reached by gondola, . . . ." From "SkiEurope
Report" by Louis Bignami:
http://www.finetravel.com/skiing/ski_switzerland/brig.htm .
85.12-13: Nothing is ever wrapped up with such diabolical neatness as a
shoebox: Why the adjective "diabolical" is used but suggesting the Eden theme?
Just warning HP about the torturing sentimental journey?
85.20-21: The climb he contemplated could not be accomplished in town shoes:
The first day of Ch. 14. HP ignored Jacques's advice that he should change into
sturdier brogues.
86.29-30: a French ancestor of his, a Catholic poet and well-nigh a saint:
Brian Boyd notes, "French poet and diplomat St. John Perse (1877-1975)."
"Perse" is also related with the Eden theme.
87.03-04: without stopping to listen to the vulgar noise of the stream which
could tell him nothing: HP usually fails to hear the messages from water in
various shapes.
87.11: Villa Nastia, which still retained a dead old woman's absurd Russian
diminutive: I wonder why "absurd"?
87.16-17: a woman was selling vegetables: She is the same woman selling apples
in Ch. 12, who also helped HP who was lost on the way to Villa Nastia. The
apples lead to the Eden theme as well as "yabloni" and "Diablonnet" in Ch. 12
while we only see vegetables here. That might show HP vainly looking for the
lost Eden. On the other hand, we might glimpse the vegetables appearing in Chs.
24 and 26.
87.19-24: a large, white, shivering dog crawled from behind a crate and with a
shock of futile recognition Hugh remembered that eight years ago he had stopped
right here and had noticed that dog, which was pretty old even then and had now
braved fabulous age only to serve his blind memory: A piece of the Mcfate puzzle
put in a proper place. Though, as I wrote before, the dog did not look pretty
old when HP first saw him eight years ago.
87.27-28: A blond little girl with a badminton racket crouched and picked up
her shuttlecock from the sidewalk: As if the same shuttlecock as HP saw and
ignored eight years ago had been left there for these years was being picked up
by a girl who had been playing badminton since then. The girl also looks like
Armande in her childhood.
87.29: now painted a celestial blue: Cf. A blue haze sufficient for paradise
(Ch. 15). A heaven motif.
87.29-30: All its windows are shuttered: As if announcing HP that he would not
be able to find anything there. Cf. Not all of them [the red shutters of the
Ascot Hotel] shut (Ch. 2).
Akiko Nakata
----- End forwarded message -----