Subject
Fw: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3403 PALE FIRE
From
Date
Body
>
> ------------------------------
>
>
> Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2003 21:38:22 EDT
> From: Bandwraith@aol.com
> Subject: Re: NPPF: preliminary - epigraph
>
> In a message dated 7/13/03 3:39:50 PM, Erik.Burns@dowjones.com writes:
>
> << As I tried to argue yesterday, I think there are certainly affinities
>
> between Kinbote & Oedipa -- they are at different phases of madness (he's
>
> gone, she's nearing the cusp). This does not an influence make, surely not
a
>
> direct one, but it raises the probability of familiarity, sure - and
>
> interest. >>
>
> Interesting, but I would submit that Oedipa is completely sane.
> She has insight into all the possibilities, including that she may
> be hallucinating. Her social interactions are appropriate and she
> has a good sense of the feelings of people around her. Given the
> sequence of her experiences, her paranoia is logical, even if it
> is a figment of her imagination (her imaginary imagination).
>
> On the other hand, I would find it difficult to make an argument
> for Kinbote being sane. Unlike Oedipa, he does not even enter-
> tain that his perceptions are anything but the truth. It is only
> through the agency of Nabokov that we are able to catch him
> at his game.
>
> respectfully
>
>
>>
> Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2003 22:29:37 -0400
> From: "Don Corathers" <gumbo@fuse.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> jbor:
>
> I don't understand why the obvious
> > possibility, that Nabokov created both Shade and Kinbote as separate and
> > independent characters, and consciously endowed them with the particular
> > artistic, critical, intellectual, emotional etc talents and foibles they
> > present with, and that (Nabokov's) Shade wrote the poem and (Nabokov's)
> > Kinbote the Foreword and Commentary, has been discarded.
>
> Certainly that's my starting position, one and a half reads through.
>
>
> How could Shade, or Kinbote, or Kinbote channeling
> > Shade's ghost, or Botkin, manage to get the text, as it stands, past the
> > publisher? They couldn't. Only Nabokov could.
> >
>
> Did we just cross the membrane between the novel and the book here? As you
> observed earlier, these internal authorship questions are really plot
> issues--an especially sophisticated kind of plot issue, but basically a
> matter of storytelling. I don't think anybody's suggesting Nabokov's not
> responsible for everything in the book. But in order to read and enjoy the
> fiction that the author has presented us with, I'm willing to accept at
face
> value, for now, Kinbote's account of his negotiations with the publisher,
> his review of the proofs, his hiring of a professional proofreader, his
> signing an agreement to take sole responsibility for everything in the
> commentary. I will leave myself open to other theories that Kinbote is
> Botkin, or that Shade wrote the whole thing and invented the deposed king,
> or that Shade is Kinbote's, uh, ghostwriter.
>
> But I think the threshhold proposition is that one of the characters in
this
> novel is responsible for its contents, and got it published. If you don't
> suspend disbelief to that point, the whole thing is an empty technical
> exercise.
>
> Don Corathers
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2003 19:48:24 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> >>>I will leave myself open to other theories that Kinbote is
> Botkin, or that Shade wrote the whole thing and invented the deposed king,
> or that Shade is Kinbote's, uh, ghostwriter.<<<
>
> I'm beginning to wonder if the commentary isn't designed to reinterpret
the
> poem to protect Shade from what he perhaps unwittingly reveals about
himself
> and his activities in the poem. Is it possible that he was molested by
Aunt
> Maud and then in turn molested Hazel, and that she either committed
suicide
> because of having been molested or was killed by Shade? Brian Boyd sees
> Shade as an embodiment of sanity and propriety, so I'm probably waxing
> loosely and prematurely, but what the hell.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2003 22:59:06 -0400
> From: "Don Corathers" <gumbo@fuse.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> Clearly I need to spend some more time with the poem. I haven't even been
> able to quite make out Shade's youthful head between his Aunt Maud's
thighs
> yet. I'll admit your cite of "gummed ant" got my attention, though.
>
> Hazel? Not Hazel.
>
> Don Corathers
>
>
> - ----- Original Message -----
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> To: <pynchon-l@waste.org>
> Sent: Sunday, July 13, 2003 10:48 PM
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
>
> > >>>I will leave myself open to other theories that Kinbote is
> > Botkin, or that Shade wrote the whole thing and invented the deposed
king,
> > or that Shade is Kinbote's, uh, ghostwriter.<<<
> >
> > I'm beginning to wonder if the commentary isn't designed to reinterpret
> the
> > poem to protect Shade from what he perhaps unwittingly reveals about
> himself
> > and his activities in the poem. Is it possible that he was molested by
> Aunt
> > Maud and then in turn molested Hazel, and that she either committed
> suicide
> > because of having been molested or was killed by Shade? Brian Boyd sees
> > Shade as an embodiment of sanity and propriety, so I'm probably waxing
> > loosely and prematurely, but what the hell.
> >
> >
> >
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2003 20:23:00 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: Honey Fish Taco
>
> >>> I haven't even been able to quite make out Shade's youthful head
between
> his Aunt Maud's thighs
> yet. <<<
>
> No free man needs a God; but was I free?
> How fully I felt nature glued to me
> And how my childish palate loved the taste
> Half-fish, half-honey, of that golden paste.
>
> Infinite foretime and
> infinite aftertime: above your head
> They close like giant wings, and you are dead.
>
> Then read 139-56 as Aunt Maud molesting him as he lay on his bed watching
> the clockwork toy:
>
> One foot on the mountaintop.
> One hand under a panting strand.
> dull throbs in my Triassic
> icy shiver down my Age of Stone
>
> But like some little lad forced by a wench
> With his pure tongue her abject thirst to quench,
> I was corrupted, terrified, allured,
> And though old doctor Colt pronounced me cured
> Of what, he said, were mainly growing pains,
> The wonder lingers and the shame remains.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2003 23:27:08 -0400
> From: "Don Corathers" <gumbo@fuse.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: Honey Fish Taco
>
> That Maud. She was something.
>
> Don
>
>
> - ----- Original Message -----
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> To: <pynchon-l@waste.org>
> Sent: Sunday, July 13, 2003 11:23 PM
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: Honey Fish Taco
>
>
> > >>> I haven't even been able to quite make out Shade's youthful head
> between
> > his Aunt Maud's thighs
> > yet. <<<
> >
> > No free man needs a God; but was I free?
> > How fully I felt nature glued to me
> > And how my childish palate loved the taste
> > Half-fish, half-honey, of that golden paste.
> >
> > Infinite foretime and
> > infinite aftertime: above your head
> > They close like giant wings, and you are dead.
> >
> > Then read 139-56 as Aunt Maud molesting him as he lay on his bed
watching
> > the clockwork toy:
> >
> > One foot on the mountaintop.
> > One hand under a panting strand.
> > dull throbs in my Triassic
> > icy shiver down my Age of Stone
> >
> > But like some little lad forced by a wench
> > With his pure tongue her abject thirst to quench,
> > I was corrupted, terrified, allured,
> > And though old doctor Colt pronounced me cured
> > Of what, he said, were mainly growing pains,
> > The wonder lingers and the shame remains.
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 14:08:36 +1000
> From: jbor <jbor@bigpond.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> on 14/7/03 12:29 PM, Don Corathers wrote:
>
> > Did we just cross the membrane between the novel and the book here? As
you
> > observed earlier, these internal authorship questions are really plot
> > issues--an especially sophisticated kind of plot issue, but basically a
> > matter of storytelling. I don't think anybody's suggesting Nabokov's not
> > responsible for everything in the book. But in order to read and enjoy
the
> > fiction that the author has presented us with, I'm willing to accept at
face
> > value, for now, Kinbote's account of his negotiations with the
publisher,
> > his review of the proofs, his hiring of a professional proofreader, his
> > signing an agreement to take sole responsibility for everything in the
> > commentary.
>
> Yes, so do I. But these are fictional arrangements, not "real" ones, and I
> read and accept them as such. It seems to me that authorship of the
various
> parts of the text exists in the exact same space, has the same status --
> i.e. fiction -- as do these publication details. I think it's a somewhat
> arbitrary act to place a threshold, or exert a "suspension of disbelief",
at
> one point rather than the other. Or, expressed differently, I think
Nabokov
> placed this "threshold", or perceived it as operating, *between* his
> authorship and the *fictional* internal authorships which he has
> orchestrated within his text.
>
> In other words, I'm also willing to take at face value that Shade "could"
> have written the poem 'Pale Fire', and that Kinbote "could" have written
the
> Foreword and Commentary, when I read the novel.
>
> > I will leave myself open to other theories that Kinbote is
> > Botkin, or that Shade wrote the whole thing and invented the deposed
king,
> > or that Shade is Kinbote's, uh, ghostwriter.
> >
> > But I think the threshhold proposition is that one of the characters in
this
> > novel is responsible for its contents, and got it published. If you
don't
> > suspend disbelief to that point, the whole thing is an empty technical
> > exercise.
>
> Not at all, though it is a technical exercise, and it did get published,
but
> by Nabokov rather than any one of his characters.
>
> My point, or suggestion really, is that we "cross the membrane between the
> novel and the book" by thinking in terms of whether or not the characters
> could write "as well as" Nabokov, just as much as we do by wondering how
> they might have got it past the publisher (what with inevitable interest
> from the criminal justice system, libel suits, a Sybilline injunction
etc).
> I think, from what little supplementary stuff I've read, that Nabokov
would
> have been enormously amused by the way some critics approached his text as
> though Shade and/or Kinbote were as "real" as the author himself, in
respect
> of its composition.
>
> This said, there might be internal ambiguities and clues around who wrote
> what, and I'm not saying these aren't worth discussing or considering. But
> they are questions which exist within the fictional ontological framework
> which Nabokov has set up, rather than in the "real" world where we, and
> Nabokov himself, engage with his text-as-novel.
>
> best
>
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 00:17:09 -0400
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <jasper@hatguild.org>
> Subject: RE: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> On
> > Behalf Of s~Z
> > >>>Pope has always seemed the touchstone here and Rape of the Lock is a
> > good
> > guess as to Nabokov's intended tone.<<<
> >
> > And a subtitle for the poem Pale Fire could be "The Rape of the Shade"
> > couldn't it? Doesn't the imagery of the first two Cantos suggest Aunt
Maud
> > forced Shade to quench her thirst with his pure tongue? Isn't the truth
> > being hidden from him, not so much truth about survival after death, but
> > the
> > truth that his memory has dimmed regarding being forced to orally
pleasure
> > Aunt Maud? My favorite references are how his childish palate loved the
> > taste/Half-fish, half-honey, of that golden paste (nature's glue, lines
> > 103-5), -- the cryptic erotic description of lines 147-156, "How
ludicrous
> > these efforts to translate/Into one's private tongue a public fate!"
> > (lines
> > 231-2) and
> >
> > Life is a message scribbled in the dark.
> > Anonymous.
> > Espied on a pine's bark.
> > As we were walking home the day she died,
> > An empty emerald case, squat and frog-eyed,
> > Hugging the trunk; and its companion piece,
> > A gum-logged ant. (235-40)
> >
> > Aunt Maud = a 'gum'-logged aunt.
> >
> > Ant = insect
> > Aunt = incest
>
>
> This is truly disturbing -- I've never considered this before. I don't
want
> to believe it, but at first glance it seems compelling....
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 00:21:28 -0400
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <jasper@hatguild.org>
> Subject: RE: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-pynchon-l@waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l@waste.org] On
> > Behalf Of Don Corathers
> > Sent: Sunday, July 13, 2003 10:30 PM
> > To: pynchon-l@waste.org
> > Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
> >
> > jbor:
> >
> > I don't understand why the obvious
> > > possibility, that Nabokov created both Shade and Kinbote as separate
and
> > > independent characters, and consciously endowed them with the
particular
> > > artistic, critical, intellectual, emotional etc talents and foibles
they
> > > present with, and that (Nabokov's) Shade wrote the poem and
(Nabokov's)
> > > Kinbote the Foreword and Commentary, has been discarded.
> >
> > Certainly that's my starting position, one and a half reads through.
> >
> >
> > How could Shade, or Kinbote, or Kinbote channeling
> > > Shade's ghost, or Botkin, manage to get the text, as it stands, past
the
> > > publisher? They couldn't. Only Nabokov could.
> > >
> >
> > Did we just cross the membrane between the novel and the book here? As
you
> > observed earlier, these internal authorship questions are really plot
> > issues--an especially sophisticated kind of plot issue, but basically a
> > matter of storytelling. I don't think anybody's suggesting Nabokov's not
> > responsible for everything in the book. But in order to read and enjoy
the
> > fiction that the author has presented us with, I'm willing to accept at
> > face
> > value, for now, Kinbote's account of his negotiations with the
publisher,
> > his review of the proofs, his hiring of a professional proofreader, his
> > signing an agreement to take sole responsibility for everything in the
> > commentary. I will leave myself open to other theories that Kinbote is
> > Botkin, or that Shade wrote the whole thing and invented the deposed
king,
> > or that Shade is Kinbote's, uh, ghostwriter.
> >
> > But I think the threshhold proposition is that one of the characters in
> > this
> > novel is responsible for its contents, and got it published. If you
don't
> > suspend disbelief to that point, the whole thing is an empty technical
> > exercise.
> >
> > Don Corathers
> >
>
> Another way to stage it is in terms of order of creation. Are both Shade
> and Kinbote on the same level of creation -- ie are they both VN's
fictions
> - -- or did one create the other?
>
> If so, then who created whom? We've mentioned the argument that wants to
> say Botkin/Kinbote created Shade (VN -> B -> K -> S) mainly because
> Kinbote's prose is more vigorous and eloquent than Shade's poetry. The
> other primary order is VN -> S -> B -> K -> C because rational people can
> create irrational people, but not the other way around. Also, there's no
> obvious reason for K to create S, while there is a reason for S -> K.
From
> Shade's direction, he's trying to come to terms with Hazel's death, and
> creates the Commentary and Kinbote as a key to a pattern that points
toward
> immortality (in one variation anyway).
>
> If the characters are assumed to be on the same level -- as Rob says --
> there are two different characters created by VN: VN -> S && VN -> K. But
> it gets tricky with the addition of Botkin, because the pattern of an
order
> of creation is developed: VN -> B -> K -> Charles the Beloved. This
> indicates defensible levels of reality in PF, multiple levels of creation,
> and begs to be extended to Shade. Of course that might be the very reason
> so many have done so.
>
> akaJasper
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 00:21:57 -0400
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <jasper@hatguild.org>
> Subject: RE: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-pynchon-l@waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l@waste.org] On
> > Behalf Of s~Z
> > Sent: Sunday, July 13, 2003 10:48 PM
> > To: pynchon-l@waste.org
> > Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
> >
> > >>>I will leave myself open to other theories that Kinbote is
> > Botkin, or that Shade wrote the whole thing and invented the deposed
king,
> > or that Shade is Kinbote's, uh, ghostwriter.<<<
> >
> > I'm beginning to wonder if the commentary isn't designed to reinterpret
> > the
> > poem to protect Shade from what he perhaps unwittingly reveals about
> > himself
> > and his activities in the poem. Is it possible that he was molested by
> > Aunt
> > Maud and then in turn molested Hazel, and that she either committed
> > suicide
> > because of having been molested or was killed by Shade? Brian Boyd sees
> > Shade as an embodiment of sanity and propriety, so I'm probably waxing
> > loosely and prematurely, but what the hell.
> >
>
> And more disturbing still!
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2003 21:29:42 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> >>>This is truly disturbing -- I've never considered this before. I don't
> want
> to believe it, but at first glance it seems compelling....<<<
>
> shame remains
> demented youth
>
> The Waxwing is of a hazel shade.
>
> Main Entry: wax╥wing
> Pronunciation: 'waks-"wi[ng]
> Function: noun
> Date: 1817
> : any of a genus (Bombycilla) of American and Eurasian chiefly brown to
gray
> oscine birds (as a cedar waxwing) having a showy crest, red waxy material
on
> the tips of the secondaries, and a yellow band on the tip of the tail
>
> Main Entry: 1ha╥zel
> 2 : a light brown to strong yellowish brown
>
> ------------------------------
>>
>
> from Elaine B. Safer, "Pynchon's World and Its Legendary Past: Humor and =
> the Absurd in a Twentieth-Century Vineland" (pp. 46 - 67)
>
> "Suggesting the pastoral world of years gone by, Pynchon's Vineland is =
> still geographically a "Harbor of Refuge" as it was in the 1850s "to =
> vessels that may have suffered on their way North from the strong =
> headwinds." It looks out on the bay (probably Humboldt Bay) with the =
> city of Vineland curving "the length of the harbor's shoreline" =
> [Pynchon, 316]. Even in later years, as one drives toward it, one comes =
> "at last up a long forest-lined grade [ . . .and as] the trees fold away =
> [ . . . ] dizzily into view," one sees Vineland, with its pale bridges, =
> salmon boats, and beautiful shoreline [317]. The narrator muses over =
> Vineland: "Someday this would be all part of a Eureka-Crescent =
> City-Vineland megalopolis, but for now the primary sea coast, forest, =
> riverbanks and bay were still not much different from what earlier =
> visitors in Spanish and Russian ships had seen" [317]. Such thoughts =
> recall the celebrated reveries of Nick Caraway at the close of The Great =
> Gatsby: "And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to =
> melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that =
> flowered once for Dutch sailors' eyes -- a fresh, green breast of the =
> new world." Pynchon's passage has been described as ringing "a =
> dirgelike note of corroboration. Out there at the New World's newest =
> New world -- the coast of California -- one catches an echo of hopes =
> mislaid, a continent betrayed." The novel's title also recalls the =
> discovery of America by Leif the Lucky and his fellow Vikings. For =
> these Norsemen exiled from their homeland, Vinland represented an =
> opportunity for a new life in a land with rich woods, white sandy =
> beaches, grapes and vines, and a good climate" [...] (49 - 50)
>
> both quotations from:
>
> The Vineland Papers. Ed. Geoffrey Green, Donald J. Greiner, and Larry =
> McCaffery. Normal, IL: Dalkey Archive Press, 1994.
>
>
> waste.org
> with "unsubscribe pynchon-l-digest" in the message body.
> ------------------------------
>
>
> Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2003 21:38:22 EDT
> From: Bandwraith@aol.com
> Subject: Re: NPPF: preliminary - epigraph
>
> In a message dated 7/13/03 3:39:50 PM, Erik.Burns@dowjones.com writes:
>
> << As I tried to argue yesterday, I think there are certainly affinities
>
> between Kinbote & Oedipa -- they are at different phases of madness (he's
>
> gone, she's nearing the cusp). This does not an influence make, surely not
a
>
> direct one, but it raises the probability of familiarity, sure - and
>
> interest. >>
>
> Interesting, but I would submit that Oedipa is completely sane.
> She has insight into all the possibilities, including that she may
> be hallucinating. Her social interactions are appropriate and she
> has a good sense of the feelings of people around her. Given the
> sequence of her experiences, her paranoia is logical, even if it
> is a figment of her imagination (her imaginary imagination).
>
> On the other hand, I would find it difficult to make an argument
> for Kinbote being sane. Unlike Oedipa, he does not even enter-
> tain that his perceptions are anything but the truth. It is only
> through the agency of Nabokov that we are able to catch him
> at his game.
>
> respectfully
>
>
>>
> Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2003 22:29:37 -0400
> From: "Don Corathers" <gumbo@fuse.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> jbor:
>
> I don't understand why the obvious
> > possibility, that Nabokov created both Shade and Kinbote as separate and
> > independent characters, and consciously endowed them with the particular
> > artistic, critical, intellectual, emotional etc talents and foibles they
> > present with, and that (Nabokov's) Shade wrote the poem and (Nabokov's)
> > Kinbote the Foreword and Commentary, has been discarded.
>
> Certainly that's my starting position, one and a half reads through.
>
>
> How could Shade, or Kinbote, or Kinbote channeling
> > Shade's ghost, or Botkin, manage to get the text, as it stands, past the
> > publisher? They couldn't. Only Nabokov could.
> >
>
> Did we just cross the membrane between the novel and the book here? As you
> observed earlier, these internal authorship questions are really plot
> issues--an especially sophisticated kind of plot issue, but basically a
> matter of storytelling. I don't think anybody's suggesting Nabokov's not
> responsible for everything in the book. But in order to read and enjoy the
> fiction that the author has presented us with, I'm willing to accept at
face
> value, for now, Kinbote's account of his negotiations with the publisher,
> his review of the proofs, his hiring of a professional proofreader, his
> signing an agreement to take sole responsibility for everything in the
> commentary. I will leave myself open to other theories that Kinbote is
> Botkin, or that Shade wrote the whole thing and invented the deposed king,
> or that Shade is Kinbote's, uh, ghostwriter.
>
> But I think the threshhold proposition is that one of the characters in
this
> novel is responsible for its contents, and got it published. If you don't
> suspend disbelief to that point, the whole thing is an empty technical
> exercise.
>
> Don Corathers
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2003 19:48:24 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> >>>I will leave myself open to other theories that Kinbote is
> Botkin, or that Shade wrote the whole thing and invented the deposed king,
> or that Shade is Kinbote's, uh, ghostwriter.<<<
>
> I'm beginning to wonder if the commentary isn't designed to reinterpret
the
> poem to protect Shade from what he perhaps unwittingly reveals about
himself
> and his activities in the poem. Is it possible that he was molested by
Aunt
> Maud and then in turn molested Hazel, and that she either committed
suicide
> because of having been molested or was killed by Shade? Brian Boyd sees
> Shade as an embodiment of sanity and propriety, so I'm probably waxing
> loosely and prematurely, but what the hell.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2003 22:59:06 -0400
> From: "Don Corathers" <gumbo@fuse.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> Clearly I need to spend some more time with the poem. I haven't even been
> able to quite make out Shade's youthful head between his Aunt Maud's
thighs
> yet. I'll admit your cite of "gummed ant" got my attention, though.
>
> Hazel? Not Hazel.
>
> Don Corathers
>
>
> - ----- Original Message -----
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> To: <pynchon-l@waste.org>
> Sent: Sunday, July 13, 2003 10:48 PM
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
>
> > >>>I will leave myself open to other theories that Kinbote is
> > Botkin, or that Shade wrote the whole thing and invented the deposed
king,
> > or that Shade is Kinbote's, uh, ghostwriter.<<<
> >
> > I'm beginning to wonder if the commentary isn't designed to reinterpret
> the
> > poem to protect Shade from what he perhaps unwittingly reveals about
> himself
> > and his activities in the poem. Is it possible that he was molested by
> Aunt
> > Maud and then in turn molested Hazel, and that she either committed
> suicide
> > because of having been molested or was killed by Shade? Brian Boyd sees
> > Shade as an embodiment of sanity and propriety, so I'm probably waxing
> > loosely and prematurely, but what the hell.
> >
> >
> >
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2003 20:23:00 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: Honey Fish Taco
>
> >>> I haven't even been able to quite make out Shade's youthful head
between
> his Aunt Maud's thighs
> yet. <<<
>
> No free man needs a God; but was I free?
> How fully I felt nature glued to me
> And how my childish palate loved the taste
> Half-fish, half-honey, of that golden paste.
>
> Infinite foretime and
> infinite aftertime: above your head
> They close like giant wings, and you are dead.
>
> Then read 139-56 as Aunt Maud molesting him as he lay on his bed watching
> the clockwork toy:
>
> One foot on the mountaintop.
> One hand under a panting strand.
> dull throbs in my Triassic
> icy shiver down my Age of Stone
>
> But like some little lad forced by a wench
> With his pure tongue her abject thirst to quench,
> I was corrupted, terrified, allured,
> And though old doctor Colt pronounced me cured
> Of what, he said, were mainly growing pains,
> The wonder lingers and the shame remains.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2003 23:27:08 -0400
> From: "Don Corathers" <gumbo@fuse.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: Honey Fish Taco
>
> That Maud. She was something.
>
> Don
>
>
> - ----- Original Message -----
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> To: <pynchon-l@waste.org>
> Sent: Sunday, July 13, 2003 11:23 PM
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: Honey Fish Taco
>
>
> > >>> I haven't even been able to quite make out Shade's youthful head
> between
> > his Aunt Maud's thighs
> > yet. <<<
> >
> > No free man needs a God; but was I free?
> > How fully I felt nature glued to me
> > And how my childish palate loved the taste
> > Half-fish, half-honey, of that golden paste.
> >
> > Infinite foretime and
> > infinite aftertime: above your head
> > They close like giant wings, and you are dead.
> >
> > Then read 139-56 as Aunt Maud molesting him as he lay on his bed
watching
> > the clockwork toy:
> >
> > One foot on the mountaintop.
> > One hand under a panting strand.
> > dull throbs in my Triassic
> > icy shiver down my Age of Stone
> >
> > But like some little lad forced by a wench
> > With his pure tongue her abject thirst to quench,
> > I was corrupted, terrified, allured,
> > And though old doctor Colt pronounced me cured
> > Of what, he said, were mainly growing pains,
> > The wonder lingers and the shame remains.
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 14:08:36 +1000
> From: jbor <jbor@bigpond.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> on 14/7/03 12:29 PM, Don Corathers wrote:
>
> > Did we just cross the membrane between the novel and the book here? As
you
> > observed earlier, these internal authorship questions are really plot
> > issues--an especially sophisticated kind of plot issue, but basically a
> > matter of storytelling. I don't think anybody's suggesting Nabokov's not
> > responsible for everything in the book. But in order to read and enjoy
the
> > fiction that the author has presented us with, I'm willing to accept at
face
> > value, for now, Kinbote's account of his negotiations with the
publisher,
> > his review of the proofs, his hiring of a professional proofreader, his
> > signing an agreement to take sole responsibility for everything in the
> > commentary.
>
> Yes, so do I. But these are fictional arrangements, not "real" ones, and I
> read and accept them as such. It seems to me that authorship of the
various
> parts of the text exists in the exact same space, has the same status --
> i.e. fiction -- as do these publication details. I think it's a somewhat
> arbitrary act to place a threshold, or exert a "suspension of disbelief",
at
> one point rather than the other. Or, expressed differently, I think
Nabokov
> placed this "threshold", or perceived it as operating, *between* his
> authorship and the *fictional* internal authorships which he has
> orchestrated within his text.
>
> In other words, I'm also willing to take at face value that Shade "could"
> have written the poem 'Pale Fire', and that Kinbote "could" have written
the
> Foreword and Commentary, when I read the novel.
>
> > I will leave myself open to other theories that Kinbote is
> > Botkin, or that Shade wrote the whole thing and invented the deposed
king,
> > or that Shade is Kinbote's, uh, ghostwriter.
> >
> > But I think the threshhold proposition is that one of the characters in
this
> > novel is responsible for its contents, and got it published. If you
don't
> > suspend disbelief to that point, the whole thing is an empty technical
> > exercise.
>
> Not at all, though it is a technical exercise, and it did get published,
but
> by Nabokov rather than any one of his characters.
>
> My point, or suggestion really, is that we "cross the membrane between the
> novel and the book" by thinking in terms of whether or not the characters
> could write "as well as" Nabokov, just as much as we do by wondering how
> they might have got it past the publisher (what with inevitable interest
> from the criminal justice system, libel suits, a Sybilline injunction
etc).
> I think, from what little supplementary stuff I've read, that Nabokov
would
> have been enormously amused by the way some critics approached his text as
> though Shade and/or Kinbote were as "real" as the author himself, in
respect
> of its composition.
>
> This said, there might be internal ambiguities and clues around who wrote
> what, and I'm not saying these aren't worth discussing or considering. But
> they are questions which exist within the fictional ontological framework
> which Nabokov has set up, rather than in the "real" world where we, and
> Nabokov himself, engage with his text-as-novel.
>
> best
>
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 00:17:09 -0400
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <jasper@hatguild.org>
> Subject: RE: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> On
> > Behalf Of s~Z
> > >>>Pope has always seemed the touchstone here and Rape of the Lock is a
> > good
> > guess as to Nabokov's intended tone.<<<
> >
> > And a subtitle for the poem Pale Fire could be "The Rape of the Shade"
> > couldn't it? Doesn't the imagery of the first two Cantos suggest Aunt
Maud
> > forced Shade to quench her thirst with his pure tongue? Isn't the truth
> > being hidden from him, not so much truth about survival after death, but
> > the
> > truth that his memory has dimmed regarding being forced to orally
pleasure
> > Aunt Maud? My favorite references are how his childish palate loved the
> > taste/Half-fish, half-honey, of that golden paste (nature's glue, lines
> > 103-5), -- the cryptic erotic description of lines 147-156, "How
ludicrous
> > these efforts to translate/Into one's private tongue a public fate!"
> > (lines
> > 231-2) and
> >
> > Life is a message scribbled in the dark.
> > Anonymous.
> > Espied on a pine's bark.
> > As we were walking home the day she died,
> > An empty emerald case, squat and frog-eyed,
> > Hugging the trunk; and its companion piece,
> > A gum-logged ant. (235-40)
> >
> > Aunt Maud = a 'gum'-logged aunt.
> >
> > Ant = insect
> > Aunt = incest
>
>
> This is truly disturbing -- I've never considered this before. I don't
want
> to believe it, but at first glance it seems compelling....
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 00:21:28 -0400
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <jasper@hatguild.org>
> Subject: RE: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-pynchon-l@waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l@waste.org] On
> > Behalf Of Don Corathers
> > Sent: Sunday, July 13, 2003 10:30 PM
> > To: pynchon-l@waste.org
> > Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
> >
> > jbor:
> >
> > I don't understand why the obvious
> > > possibility, that Nabokov created both Shade and Kinbote as separate
and
> > > independent characters, and consciously endowed them with the
particular
> > > artistic, critical, intellectual, emotional etc talents and foibles
they
> > > present with, and that (Nabokov's) Shade wrote the poem and
(Nabokov's)
> > > Kinbote the Foreword and Commentary, has been discarded.
> >
> > Certainly that's my starting position, one and a half reads through.
> >
> >
> > How could Shade, or Kinbote, or Kinbote channeling
> > > Shade's ghost, or Botkin, manage to get the text, as it stands, past
the
> > > publisher? They couldn't. Only Nabokov could.
> > >
> >
> > Did we just cross the membrane between the novel and the book here? As
you
> > observed earlier, these internal authorship questions are really plot
> > issues--an especially sophisticated kind of plot issue, but basically a
> > matter of storytelling. I don't think anybody's suggesting Nabokov's not
> > responsible for everything in the book. But in order to read and enjoy
the
> > fiction that the author has presented us with, I'm willing to accept at
> > face
> > value, for now, Kinbote's account of his negotiations with the
publisher,
> > his review of the proofs, his hiring of a professional proofreader, his
> > signing an agreement to take sole responsibility for everything in the
> > commentary. I will leave myself open to other theories that Kinbote is
> > Botkin, or that Shade wrote the whole thing and invented the deposed
king,
> > or that Shade is Kinbote's, uh, ghostwriter.
> >
> > But I think the threshhold proposition is that one of the characters in
> > this
> > novel is responsible for its contents, and got it published. If you
don't
> > suspend disbelief to that point, the whole thing is an empty technical
> > exercise.
> >
> > Don Corathers
> >
>
> Another way to stage it is in terms of order of creation. Are both Shade
> and Kinbote on the same level of creation -- ie are they both VN's
fictions
> - -- or did one create the other?
>
> If so, then who created whom? We've mentioned the argument that wants to
> say Botkin/Kinbote created Shade (VN -> B -> K -> S) mainly because
> Kinbote's prose is more vigorous and eloquent than Shade's poetry. The
> other primary order is VN -> S -> B -> K -> C because rational people can
> create irrational people, but not the other way around. Also, there's no
> obvious reason for K to create S, while there is a reason for S -> K.
From
> Shade's direction, he's trying to come to terms with Hazel's death, and
> creates the Commentary and Kinbote as a key to a pattern that points
toward
> immortality (in one variation anyway).
>
> If the characters are assumed to be on the same level -- as Rob says --
> there are two different characters created by VN: VN -> S && VN -> K. But
> it gets tricky with the addition of Botkin, because the pattern of an
order
> of creation is developed: VN -> B -> K -> Charles the Beloved. This
> indicates defensible levels of reality in PF, multiple levels of creation,
> and begs to be extended to Shade. Of course that might be the very reason
> so many have done so.
>
> akaJasper
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 00:21:57 -0400
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <jasper@hatguild.org>
> Subject: RE: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-pynchon-l@waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l@waste.org] On
> > Behalf Of s~Z
> > Sent: Sunday, July 13, 2003 10:48 PM
> > To: pynchon-l@waste.org
> > Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
> >
> > >>>I will leave myself open to other theories that Kinbote is
> > Botkin, or that Shade wrote the whole thing and invented the deposed
king,
> > or that Shade is Kinbote's, uh, ghostwriter.<<<
> >
> > I'm beginning to wonder if the commentary isn't designed to reinterpret
> > the
> > poem to protect Shade from what he perhaps unwittingly reveals about
> > himself
> > and his activities in the poem. Is it possible that he was molested by
> > Aunt
> > Maud and then in turn molested Hazel, and that she either committed
> > suicide
> > because of having been molested or was killed by Shade? Brian Boyd sees
> > Shade as an embodiment of sanity and propriety, so I'm probably waxing
> > loosely and prematurely, but what the hell.
> >
>
> And more disturbing still!
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2003 21:29:42 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> >>>This is truly disturbing -- I've never considered this before. I don't
> want
> to believe it, but at first glance it seems compelling....<<<
>
> shame remains
> demented youth
>
> The Waxwing is of a hazel shade.
>
> Main Entry: wax╥wing
> Pronunciation: 'waks-"wi[ng]
> Function: noun
> Date: 1817
> : any of a genus (Bombycilla) of American and Eurasian chiefly brown to
gray
> oscine birds (as a cedar waxwing) having a showy crest, red waxy material
on
> the tips of the secondaries, and a yellow band on the tip of the tail
>
> Main Entry: 1ha╥zel
> 2 : a light brown to strong yellowish brown
>
> ------------------------------
>>
>
> from Elaine B. Safer, "Pynchon's World and Its Legendary Past: Humor and =
> the Absurd in a Twentieth-Century Vineland" (pp. 46 - 67)
>
> "Suggesting the pastoral world of years gone by, Pynchon's Vineland is =
> still geographically a "Harbor of Refuge" as it was in the 1850s "to =
> vessels that may have suffered on their way North from the strong =
> headwinds." It looks out on the bay (probably Humboldt Bay) with the =
> city of Vineland curving "the length of the harbor's shoreline" =
> [Pynchon, 316]. Even in later years, as one drives toward it, one comes =
> "at last up a long forest-lined grade [ . . .and as] the trees fold away =
> [ . . . ] dizzily into view," one sees Vineland, with its pale bridges, =
> salmon boats, and beautiful shoreline [317]. The narrator muses over =
> Vineland: "Someday this would be all part of a Eureka-Crescent =
> City-Vineland megalopolis, but for now the primary sea coast, forest, =
> riverbanks and bay were still not much different from what earlier =
> visitors in Spanish and Russian ships had seen" [317]. Such thoughts =
> recall the celebrated reveries of Nick Caraway at the close of The Great =
> Gatsby: "And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to =
> melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that =
> flowered once for Dutch sailors' eyes -- a fresh, green breast of the =
> new world." Pynchon's passage has been described as ringing "a =
> dirgelike note of corroboration. Out there at the New World's newest =
> New world -- the coast of California -- one catches an echo of hopes =
> mislaid, a continent betrayed." The novel's title also recalls the =
> discovery of America by Leif the Lucky and his fellow Vikings. For =
> these Norsemen exiled from their homeland, Vinland represented an =
> opportunity for a new life in a land with rich woods, white sandy =
> beaches, grapes and vines, and a good climate" [...] (49 - 50)
>
> both quotations from:
>
> The Vineland Papers. Ed. Geoffrey Green, Donald J. Greiner, and Larry =
> McCaffery. Normal, IL: Dalkey Archive Press, 1994.
>
>
> waste.org
> with "unsubscribe pynchon-l-digest" in the message body.