Subject
Re: Transparent Things Group Reading: Chapter I
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Date
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Greetings
I'm very glad you started this....nobody ever wants to go first.
1. The hullo I've always thought of as not only a greating to Person
('doesn't hear me') but also kind of a exclamation of discovery (a la
Sherlock Holmes...he says it in almost every story after The Sign of Four).
It comes from one of a group of angels/observers/narrators (I think Boyd
has written something about that.) Why it is spelt the way it is, I don't
know (phonetically?).
2. No Idea but isn't he mention in Ada as well.
Dane
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ED. The "HULLO" marks the narrator as a non-native speaker of English
----------------------------------
> From: "D. Barton Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
> Reply-To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
> To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
> Subject: Transparent Things Group Reading: Chapter I
> Date: Tue, 6 Jul 2004 11:06:17 -0700
>
> 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
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Greetings
I'm very glad you started this....nobody ever wants to go first.
1. The hullo I've always thought of as not only a greating to Person
('doesn't hear me') but also kind of a exclamation of discovery (a la
Sherlock Holmes...he says it in almost every story after The Sign of Four).
It comes from one of a group of angels/observers/narrators (I think Boyd
has written something about that.) Why it is spelt the way it is, I don't
know (phonetically?).
2. No Idea but isn't he mention in Ada as well.
Dane
--------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------
ED. The "HULLO" marks the narrator as a non-native speaker of English
----------------------------------
> From: "D. Barton Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
> Reply-To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
> To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
> Subject: Transparent Things Group Reading: Chapter I
> Date: Tue, 6 Jul 2004 11:06:17 -0700
>
> 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
_________________________________________________________________
Add photos to your e-mail with MSN Premium. Get 2 months FREE*
http://join.msn.com/?pgmarket=en-ca&page=byoa/prem&xAPID=1994&DI=1034&SU=ht
tp://hotmail.com/enca&HL=Market_MSNIS_Taglines
---------- End Forwarded Message ----------
D. Barton Johnson
NABOKV-L