Subject
Fwd: TT-20 Ajar doors, beams of light, and misprints
From
Date
Body
from E. Naiman
Going over a few of the chapters I had not spent much time on last
fall.
It is worth noting that in Armande's last words to Hugh "she murmured
something about the light." Hugh has come into the room: Did that wake
her? Yes, it did, hazily, or at least teased a hole in the hay, and she
murmured something about the light."
Immediately afterwards we read: "Actually
all that impinged on the darkness was an angled beam from the living room,
the door of which he had left ajar. He now closed it gently as he groped
his way to the bed."
If in many ways TT is a parodic reversal of VN's greatest hits, (recall
Hugh and Armande on the couch, a scene where Lolita knows exactly what she
is doing, indeed it is the way SHE can best experience sexual pleasure),
here is another one -- the end of Bend Sinister, where Krug is wakened in
his cell:
It was at that moment, just after Krug had fallen through the bottom of
a confused dream and sat up on the straw with a gasp --and just before his
reality, his remembered hideous misfortune could pounce upon him -- it was
then that I felt a pang of pity for Adam and slid towards him along an
inclined beam of pale light -- causing instantaneous madness, but at least
saving him from the senseless agony of his logical fate."
Note how the scene in TT is similar -- but completely ineffective in
"saving" either Hugh or Armande. Hugh goes mad and in madness kills
Armande rather than escaping from a nightmare. The inclined beam of light
isn't an escape hatch -- rather the light from the room of the living is
closed off -- here the door of doom does not stay ajar (cf. Pnin).
Finally, look at the misprint later corrected by Hugh:
"that he would have to consult an ophthalmologist sometime next
mouth. He substituted an 'n' for the wrong letter and continued to scan
the motlep proof into which the blackness of closed vision was not
turning."
Bend Sinister, of course, ends with the classic, uncorrected "misprint", a
misprint that, uncorrected, with N NOT substituted for the wrong letter,
is part of the affirmation of the "IMPRINT we leave in the intimate
texture of space." In TT the misprint is corrected as if it were
meaningless -- and Hugh and Armande plunge into tragedy.
----- End forwarded message -----
Going over a few of the chapters I had not spent much time on last
fall.
It is worth noting that in Armande's last words to Hugh "she murmured
something about the light." Hugh has come into the room: Did that wake
her? Yes, it did, hazily, or at least teased a hole in the hay, and she
murmured something about the light."
Immediately afterwards we read: "Actually
all that impinged on the darkness was an angled beam from the living room,
the door of which he had left ajar. He now closed it gently as he groped
his way to the bed."
If in many ways TT is a parodic reversal of VN's greatest hits, (recall
Hugh and Armande on the couch, a scene where Lolita knows exactly what she
is doing, indeed it is the way SHE can best experience sexual pleasure),
here is another one -- the end of Bend Sinister, where Krug is wakened in
his cell:
It was at that moment, just after Krug had fallen through the bottom of
a confused dream and sat up on the straw with a gasp --and just before his
reality, his remembered hideous misfortune could pounce upon him -- it was
then that I felt a pang of pity for Adam and slid towards him along an
inclined beam of pale light -- causing instantaneous madness, but at least
saving him from the senseless agony of his logical fate."
Note how the scene in TT is similar -- but completely ineffective in
"saving" either Hugh or Armande. Hugh goes mad and in madness kills
Armande rather than escaping from a nightmare. The inclined beam of light
isn't an escape hatch -- rather the light from the room of the living is
closed off -- here the door of doom does not stay ajar (cf. Pnin).
Finally, look at the misprint later corrected by Hugh:
"that he would have to consult an ophthalmologist sometime next
mouth. He substituted an 'n' for the wrong letter and continued to scan
the motlep proof into which the blackness of closed vision was not
turning."
Bend Sinister, of course, ends with the classic, uncorrected "misprint", a
misprint that, uncorrected, with N NOT substituted for the wrong letter,
is part of the affirmation of the "IMPRINT we leave in the intimate
texture of space." In TT the misprint is corrected as if it were
meaningless -- and Hugh and Armande plunge into tragedy.
----- End forwarded message -----