Subject
Transparent Things Group Reading: Chapter I
From
Date
Body
Since no one has taken the initiative in the TT read, I offer an opening
thought and query.
1. What's with that "Hullo"? Who are the characters in Ch. I? Evidence?
2. The second paragraph introduces the TIME theme. Is there, BTW, a person
out there conversant with Henri Bergson's ideas on TIME, who can montior
the theme as we read?
3. My own opening shot:
If the future existed (which it doesn't), "Persons might then straddle
the middle stretch of the seesaw when considering this or that object."
This is a very neat metaphor. The two ends of the "seesaw" depict the
PAST & the FUTURE. The PRESENT is the fulcrum astride which the individual
looks at the PAST and FUTURE from the PRESENT. The word "SEESAW"
encapsulates the present (or future) tense of "to see" while the "saw" is
the past tense.
Very apt, if etymologically inaccurate. The playground object's name
involves a reduplication of "saw" in the sense of "sawing logs" and refers
to the up & down motion of the act.
Out of curiosity, I checked Sergey Ilyin's Russian translation in the
SYMPOSIUM volumes. He translates "seesaw" as "kachayushchaya doska"
(swinging board) thus losing the semantic play which is, I suspect,
untranslatable. It might be entertaining to look at translations into other
languages to see how it is handled.
Note also that VN points out at the start that the imagery is not entirely
successful since in Mr. R's view the future (one end of the board) doesn't
exist.
I suspect what VN means is that while the FUTURE may exist as an abstract
concept, it remains vacant or unpopulated until someone arrives to sit on
the far end of the seesaw.
D. Barton Johnson
NABOKV-L
thought and query.
1. What's with that "Hullo"? Who are the characters in Ch. I? Evidence?
2. The second paragraph introduces the TIME theme. Is there, BTW, a person
out there conversant with Henri Bergson's ideas on TIME, who can montior
the theme as we read?
3. My own opening shot:
If the future existed (which it doesn't), "Persons might then straddle
the middle stretch of the seesaw when considering this or that object."
This is a very neat metaphor. The two ends of the "seesaw" depict the
PAST & the FUTURE. The PRESENT is the fulcrum astride which the individual
looks at the PAST and FUTURE from the PRESENT. The word "SEESAW"
encapsulates the present (or future) tense of "to see" while the "saw" is
the past tense.
Very apt, if etymologically inaccurate. The playground object's name
involves a reduplication of "saw" in the sense of "sawing logs" and refers
to the up & down motion of the act.
Out of curiosity, I checked Sergey Ilyin's Russian translation in the
SYMPOSIUM volumes. He translates "seesaw" as "kachayushchaya doska"
(swinging board) thus losing the semantic play which is, I suspect,
untranslatable. It might be entertaining to look at translations into other
languages to see how it is handled.
Note also that VN points out at the start that the imagery is not entirely
successful since in Mr. R's view the future (one end of the board) doesn't
exist.
I suspect what VN means is that while the FUTURE may exist as an abstract
concept, it remains vacant or unpopulated until someone arrives to sit on
the far end of the seesaw.
D. Barton Johnson
NABOKV-L