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Fw: Fw: Wingstroke and TT
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Date
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian Howell" <pakmshlter@yahoo.com>
.
>
> ---------------- Message requiring your approval (120
lines) ------------------
> This is not to invalidate Bruce's stimulating points
> about the dream and the angel in Wingstroke, but, as I
> read it, at the time Kern is drunk from his bender
> with Monfiori, so the angel could be the result of
> his intoxication. I may have missed the dream
> reference, but it is much earlier when he is trying to
> fall asleep that he has fleeting visions.
>
> However, this in turn reminds me of a dream sequence
> at the end of The Gift that completely fooled me. It
> is where Fyodor is falling asleep and he hears Zina
> get up and answer the phone and tell him he has to go
> and see his old landlady. He then goes on an (in
> retrospect) very dreamy walk through (nighttime?)
> Berlin and has a meeting with his father. Then we find
> out it's all a dream. It's all brilliantly done, of
> course.
>
> But in Wingstroke I never actually had the feeling
> that the angel was the product of his mind.
>
> Brian
>
>
> --- "D. Barton Johnson" <chtodel@cox.net> wrote:
> > ednote. sOME ASTUTE COMMENTS ON WINGSTROKE & TT
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Bruce Stone" <bstone41@hotmail.com>
> > >
> > > ----------------- Message requiring your approval
> > (38
> > lines) ------------------
> > >
> > > If this has already been covered in the volley of
> > postings pertaining to
> > > Wingstroke and Transparent Things, please
> > euthanize it accordingly.
> > >
> > > Isn't there an additional link between the two
> > texts in their rendering of
> > > dreams? It's been some time since I've read TT,
> > but if memory serves,
> > Person
> > > strangles his wife inadvertently while he's
> > dreaming. In Wingstroke, the
> > > middle section, if I'm not mistaken, veers into
> > dream too for the
> > encounter
> > > with the angel. Granted, it's a dream puzzling in
> > its realism (if one can
> > > call it that), but it's the dream's implications
> > that make the ending more
> > > complex, and satisfying, I think. That is, it
> > opens up a level of irony
> > > between Kern's experience of the events and the
> > reader's experience of the
> > > text.
> > > Kern never seems to doubt the validity of his
> > encounter with the angel,
> > but
> > > the reader is, I think, invited to doubt exactly
> > this in certain
> > particulars
> > > that crop up (the yellow pajamas which later seem
> > to get confused with
> > black
> > > silk, the white face and the broken plate, then
> > later the absence of any
> > > letters and Isabel's surprising presence for the
> > jumping--if this is
> > > obvious, my apologies). So when Kern heads off to
> > make good, as it were,
> > on
> > > the suicide--because "something had happened after
> > which a man cannot and
> > > must not continue living"--he might be thinking
> > equally of his sad history
> > > as well as his world-shaking encounter with the
> > angel. Isabel's mysterious
> > > death does apparently corroborate Kern's point of
> > view in this; however,
> > the
> > > reader who has taken the bait and doubted the
> > authenticity of Kern's
> > > encounter does not have to be contented with this
> > literal understanding of
> > > the conclusion. Instead, Kern's suicide might be
> > motivated by the
> > discovery
> > > (the reader's discovery) that his "real" existence
> > is indistinguishable
> > from
> > > his dream existence, that there is a continuum
> > rather than a disconnect
> > > between the two existential "realities." In this
> > Kern's case seems to
> > > prefigure in some ways the dilemma of later
> > Nabokovian characters.
> > >
> > >
> > > Bruce Stone
> > >
> > >
> >
> _________________________________________________________________
> > > Get a FREE online virus check for your PC here,
> > from McAfee.
> > >
> >
> http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963
> > >
>
> =====
> http://www.elasticpress.com/sound_of_white_ants.htm
> http://www.tobypress.com/books/dance_geometry.htm
>
> __________________________________
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From: "Brian Howell" <pakmshlter@yahoo.com>
.
>
> ---------------- Message requiring your approval (120
lines) ------------------
> This is not to invalidate Bruce's stimulating points
> about the dream and the angel in Wingstroke, but, as I
> read it, at the time Kern is drunk from his bender
> with Monfiori, so the angel could be the result of
> his intoxication. I may have missed the dream
> reference, but it is much earlier when he is trying to
> fall asleep that he has fleeting visions.
>
> However, this in turn reminds me of a dream sequence
> at the end of The Gift that completely fooled me. It
> is where Fyodor is falling asleep and he hears Zina
> get up and answer the phone and tell him he has to go
> and see his old landlady. He then goes on an (in
> retrospect) very dreamy walk through (nighttime?)
> Berlin and has a meeting with his father. Then we find
> out it's all a dream. It's all brilliantly done, of
> course.
>
> But in Wingstroke I never actually had the feeling
> that the angel was the product of his mind.
>
> Brian
>
>
> --- "D. Barton Johnson" <chtodel@cox.net> wrote:
> > ednote. sOME ASTUTE COMMENTS ON WINGSTROKE & TT
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Bruce Stone" <bstone41@hotmail.com>
> > >
> > > ----------------- Message requiring your approval
> > (38
> > lines) ------------------
> > >
> > > If this has already been covered in the volley of
> > postings pertaining to
> > > Wingstroke and Transparent Things, please
> > euthanize it accordingly.
> > >
> > > Isn't there an additional link between the two
> > texts in their rendering of
> > > dreams? It's been some time since I've read TT,
> > but if memory serves,
> > Person
> > > strangles his wife inadvertently while he's
> > dreaming. In Wingstroke, the
> > > middle section, if I'm not mistaken, veers into
> > dream too for the
> > encounter
> > > with the angel. Granted, it's a dream puzzling in
> > its realism (if one can
> > > call it that), but it's the dream's implications
> > that make the ending more
> > > complex, and satisfying, I think. That is, it
> > opens up a level of irony
> > > between Kern's experience of the events and the
> > reader's experience of the
> > > text.
> > > Kern never seems to doubt the validity of his
> > encounter with the angel,
> > but
> > > the reader is, I think, invited to doubt exactly
> > this in certain
> > particulars
> > > that crop up (the yellow pajamas which later seem
> > to get confused with
> > black
> > > silk, the white face and the broken plate, then
> > later the absence of any
> > > letters and Isabel's surprising presence for the
> > jumping--if this is
> > > obvious, my apologies). So when Kern heads off to
> > make good, as it were,
> > on
> > > the suicide--because "something had happened after
> > which a man cannot and
> > > must not continue living"--he might be thinking
> > equally of his sad history
> > > as well as his world-shaking encounter with the
> > angel. Isabel's mysterious
> > > death does apparently corroborate Kern's point of
> > view in this; however,
> > the
> > > reader who has taken the bait and doubted the
> > authenticity of Kern's
> > > encounter does not have to be contented with this
> > literal understanding of
> > > the conclusion. Instead, Kern's suicide might be
> > motivated by the
> > discovery
> > > (the reader's discovery) that his "real" existence
> > is indistinguishable
> > from
> > > his dream existence, that there is a continuum
> > rather than a disconnect
> > > between the two existential "realities." In this
> > Kern's case seems to
> > > prefigure in some ways the dilemma of later
> > Nabokovian characters.
> > >
> > >
> > > Bruce Stone
> > >
> > >
> >
> _________________________________________________________________
> > > Get a FREE online virus check for your PC here,
> > from McAfee.
> > >
> >
> http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963
> > >
>
> =====
> http://www.elasticpress.com/sound_of_white_ants.htm
> http://www.tobypress.com/books/dance_geometry.htm
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> New Yahoo! Photos - easier uploading and sharing.
> http://photos.yahoo.com/