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Fw: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3536 pale fire
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----- Original Message -----
From: "pynchon-l-digest" <owner-pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
To: <pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
Sent: Friday, September 05, 2003 9:49 PM
Subject: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3536
> Subject: Re: NPPF Zembla & the Criminal Imagination
>
> The article referenced below speaks to one of the similarities between
> Pynchon and Nabokov. While many look for content in Pynchon to support
their
> political (or other) views, or to find his, the proof is the pudding. It
is
> not *in* the pudding.
>
> "Pale Fire is probably Nabokov's most ludic and liberated Gumilevian
> performance: a hare's nest of formal patterns, mock-scholarly apparatus,
and
> shifting motives, Pale Fire is a cryptic, secretive text designed to
disrupt
> and confound totalizing systems. It is a provocative gauntlet thrown down
> before systemizers of every stripe, an aesthetic performance put on with
> smiling fierceness."
>
> http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/monroe1.htm
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 10:44:22 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF That'd be up the butt, Bob [was Comm 2: My bedroom, part
2 (tendril)]
>
> >>>> I think such details are worth caring about in Pale Fire [...]
Thought
> that
> was why we were reading the book. <<<<
>
> "The main favor I ask of a serious critic is sufficient perceptiveness to
> understand that whatever term or trope I use, my purpose is not to be
> facetiously flashy or grotesquely obscure but to express what I feel and
> think with the utmost truthfulness and [precision]." --VN
>
> ------------------------------
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 11:00:34 -0700 (PDT)
> From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF That'd be up the butt, Bob [was Comm 2: My bedroom, part
2 (tendril)]
>
> - --- s~Z <keithsz@concentric.net> wrote:
> >
> > "The main favor I ask of a serious critic is sufficient perceptiveness
to
> understand that whatever term or trope I use, my purpose is not to be
> facetiously flashy or grotesquely obscure but to express what I feel and
think
> with the utmost truthfulness and [precision]." --VN
>
> Like so many quotes from Nabokov, I find this one preposterous. VN is
nothing
> if not a liguistic show-off, especially in his later works.
>
> DM
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
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>
> ------------------------------
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 11:04:30 -0700 (PDT)
> From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Get Real
>
> - --- s~Z <keithsz@concentric.net> wrote:
> > >>>No, it is an imaginary place "biologically" similar to Scandinavia
(VN
> > said).<<<
> >
> > No, it is a fictional country in a work of fiction in the same
biological
> > zone as another fictional country in another work of fiction...
> .... both of which have a biological similarity to Scandinavia, a real
place.
>
> if A=B
> and B=C
> then A=C
>
> DM
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
> http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 11:12:04 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Get Real
>
> >>>if A=B
> and B=C
> then A=C<<<
>
> That's why it is important to
> accurately define A, B, and C.
>
> Nowhere does Nabokov compare Scandinavia with Zembla.
>
> ------------------------------
>
.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 05 Sep 2003 14:30:04 -0400
> From: Terrance <lycidas2@earthlink.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Zembla & the Criminal Imagination (Anatomy Of Frenesi)
>
> Line 42: I Could make out
> Vintage Pale Fire page 80
>
>
> By the end of May I could make out the outline of some of my images in
> the shape his genius might give them; by mid-June I felt sure at last
> that he would recreate in a poem the dazzling Zembla burning in my
> brain. I mesmerized him with it, I saturated him with my vision, I
> pressed upon him, with a drunkard's wild generosity, all that I was
> helpless myself to put into verse.
>
> AL&CS
>
> A madman is reluctant to look at himself in the mirror because the face
> he sees is not his own: his personality is beheaded; that of the artist
> is increased. Madness is but a diseased bit of commonsense, whereas
> genius is the greatest sanity of the spirit--and the criminologist
> Lombroso (psssss Brock uses the Lombroso model, but can not quite find
> Frenesi in it) when attempting to find their affinities got into a bad
> muddle by not realizing the anatomic differences between obsession and
> inspiration, between a bat and a bird, a dead twig and twiglike insect,
> a bush vet and veteran of the jungle. Lunatics are lunatics just because
> they have thoroughly and recklessly dismembered a familiar world but
> have not the power--or have lost the power--to create a new one as
> harmonious as the old. The artist on the other hand disconnects what he
> chooses and while doing so he is aware that something in him is aware of
> the final result. When he examines his completed masterpiece he
> perceives that whatever unconscious cerebration had been involved in the
> creative plunge, this final result is the outcome of a definite plan
> which had been contained in the initial shock, as the future development
> of a live creature is said to be contained in the genes of its germ
> cell.
>
> Canto 4
>
> Two methods of composing
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 11:37:13 -0700 (PDT)
> From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Get Real
>
> - --- s~Z <keithsz@concentric.net> wrote:
> > >>>if A=B
> > and B=C
> > then A=C<<<
> >
> > That's why it is important to
> > accurately define A, B, and C.
> >
> > Nowhere does Nabokov compare Scandinavia with Zembla.
> >
>
> Correct me if I'm mistaken, but I believe he compared Zembla to Ultima
Thule
> and Ultima Thule to Scandanavia, thus the equation.
>
> DM
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
> http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 14:38:16 -0400
> From: <gumbo@fuse.net>
> Subject: NPPF schedule
>
> Hate to duck out with the pot bubbling so nicely, but duty summons me to
the rustic hills of Kentucky for the weekend. I guess that leaves the NPPF
officially and completely in the capable hands of J. Fidget.
>
> Thanks to all for the insights, outbursts, postulations, interjections,
and tangents over the past couple of weeks.
>
> Don
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 11:50:54 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Get Real
>
> >>>Correct me if I'm mistaken, but I believe he compared Zembla to Ultima
> Thule
> and Ultima Thule to Scandinavia, thus the equation.<<<
>
> There is no such equation of Ultima Thule and Scandinavia.
> Ultima Thule is another fictional far-off land.
>
> Your initial point confuses the reality out here with the reality of Pale
> Fire.
> I am quite aware that Zembla is Nabokov's fictional realm. I was
addressing
> the issue of whether or not Zembla is a real land within the novel, one
that
> John Shade and Chuck K recognized, or if it is a delusional creation of
> Chuck's. Nabokov's comment points towards it being fictionally consensual.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 12:00:23 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Zembla & the Criminal Imagination (Anatomy Of
Shadencholy)
>
> Line 146
> There was a sudden sunburst in my head.
> And then black night. That blackness was sublime.
> I felt distributed through space and time:
> One foot upon a mountaintop, one hand
> Under the pebbles of a panting strand,
> One ear in Italy, one eye in Spain,
> In caves, my blood, and in the stars, my brain.
> There were dull throbs in my Triassic; green
> Optical spots in Upper Pleistocene,
> An icy shiver down my Age of Stone,
> And all tomorrows in my funnybone.
>
> AL & CS
>
> "[I]t is the past and the present and the future (your book) that come
> together in a sudden flash; that time ceases to exist. It is a combined
> sensation of having the whole universe entering you and of yourself wholly
> dissolving in the universe surrounding you. It is the prison wall of the
ego
> suddenly crumbling away with the nonego rushing in from the outside to
save
> the prisoner--who is already dancing in the open."
>
> "But in one way or another the process may still be reduced to the most
> natural form of creative thrill--a sudden live image constructed in a
flash
> out of dissimilar units which are apprehended all at once in a stellar
> explosion of the mind."
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 12:15:31 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Criminal Imagination (Anatomy Of Smilewinkfolly)
>
> "I said I always preferred the literal meaning of a description to the
> symbol behind it. She nodded thoughtfully but did not seem convinced."
>
> Look at the Harlequins! -p.22
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 12:21:40 -0700 (PDT)
> From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Get Real
>
> - --- s~Z <keithsz@concentric.net> wrote:
>
> > I am quite aware that Zembla is Nabokov's fictional realm. I was
addressing
> the issue of whether or not Zembla is a real land within the novel, one
that
> John Shade and Chuck K recognized, or if it is a delusional creation of
> Chuck's. Nabokov's comment points towards it being fictionally consensual.
>
> N's comments are about Charles/Kinbote's belief that it is a "real" place
> (where he was king). I don't think that makes it a "fictional concensus."
If
> we are to believe what Kinbote tells us about his conversations with Shade
and
> other faculty members about Zemble, then I'd say it was "real." But I
think we
> can question whether he's made them up too.
>
> David Morris
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 12:26:17 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Get Real
>
> >>>N's comments are about Charles/Kinbote's belief that it is a "real"
place
> (where he was king). I don't think that makes it a "fictional concensus."
> <<<
>
> I don't know what you are referring to here.
> What comments 'are about' K's 'belief.'
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 15:12:05 -0400
> From: <gumbo@fuse.net>
> Subject: Re: Re: NPPF Get Real
>
> I was addressing
> > the issue of whether or not Zembla is a real land within the novel, one
that
> > John Shade and Chuck K recognized, or if it is a delusional creation of
> > Chuck's. Nabokov's comment points towards it being fictionally
consensual.
>
>
> As do the gentlemen at Shade's table in the faculty lounge who have seen
photographs of the king of Zembla in magazines and newsreels, and the German
visitor who "had the honor of being seated within a few yards of the royal
box at a Sport Festival in Onhava..." (265)
>
> Zembla seems unequivocally to be real in the world of the novel. Just not
as Charles describes it, probably.
>
> Don
>
> >
> > From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> > Date: 2003/09/05 Fri PM 02:50:54 EDT
> > To: <pynchon-l@waste.org>
> > Subject: Re: NPPF Get Real
> >
> > >>>Correct me if I'm mistaken, but I believe he compared Zembla to
Ultima
> > Thule
> > and Ultima Thule to Scandinavia, thus the equation.<<<
> >
> > There is no such equation of Ultima Thule and Scandinavia.
> > Ultima Thule is another fictional far-off land.
> >
> > Your initial point confuses the reality out here with the reality of
Pale
> > Fire.
> > I am quite aware that Zembla is Nabokov's fictional realm. >
> >
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 12:44:41 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF the Criminal Imagination (Anatomy Of Incestoly)
>
> Perhaps the incest and versipel imagery point to Nabokov's view that art
is
> breaking the taboos of commonsense culture which views inspiration as
> madness. Aunt Maud's bizarre influence may be the influence of valuing
> creativity vis a vis the worldview embodied by John Shade's scientific
> parents. Creativity arises from the unlawful intercourse of magic/madness
> and reason/craftsmanship. It is incestuous and shapeshifting.
>
> The Russian language which otherwise is comparatively poor in abstract
> terms, supplies definitions for two types of inspiration, 'vostorg' and
> 'vdokhnovenie,' which can be paraphrased as "rapture" and "recapture." the
> difference between them is mainly of a climatic kind, the first being hot
> and brief, the second cool and sustained. the kind alluded to up to now is
> the pure flame of vorstog, initial rapture, which has no conscious purpose
> in view but which is all-important in linking the breaking up of the old
> world with the building up of the new one. When the time is ripe and the
> writer settles down to the actual composing of his book, he will rely on
the
> second serene and steady kind of inspiration, vdokhnovenie, the trusted
mate
> who helps to recapture and reconstruct the world.
> AL&CS - pp. 378-9
>
> In those
> days I seemed to have had two muses: the essential, hysterical, genuine
one,
> who tortured me with elusive snatches of imagery and wrung her hands over
my
> inability to appropriate the magic and madness offered me; and
her
> apprentice, her palette girl and stand-in, a little logician, who
stuffed
> the torn gaps left by her mistress with explanatory or meter-mending
fillers
> which became more and more numerous the further I moved away from
the
> initial, evanescent, savage perfection. The treacherous music of
Russian
> rhythms came to my specious rescue like those demons who break the
black
> silence of an artist's hell with imitations of Greek poets and
prehistorical
> birds. Another and final deception would come with the Fair Copy in
which,
> for a short while, calligraphy, vellum paper, and India ink beautified
a
> dead doggerel. And to think that for almost five years I kept trying
and
> kept getting caught--until I fired that painted, pregnant, meek,
miserable
> little assistant! LATH! - p.44
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 13:07:09 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF the Criminal Imagination (Anatomy Of Vdokhnovenieoly)
>
> And a patrol car on our bumpy road
> Came to a crunching stop. Vdokhnovenie, vdokhnovenie!
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 16:19:23 -0400
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <fakename@verizon.net>
> Subject: RE: NPPF Get Real
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-pynchon-l@waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l@waste.org] On
> > Behalf Of s~Z
> > Sent: Friday, September 05, 2003 2:51 PM
> > To: pynchon-l@waste.org
> > Subject: Re: NPPF Get Real
> >
> > >>>Correct me if I'm mistaken, but I believe he compared Zembla to
Ultima
> > Thule
> > and Ultima Thule to Scandinavia, thus the equation.<<<
> >
> > There is no such equation of Ultima Thule and Scandinavia.
> > Ultima Thule is another fictional far-off land.
> >
> > Your initial point confuses the reality out here with the reality of
Pale
> > Fire.
> > I am quite aware that Zembla is Nabokov's fictional realm. I was
> > addressing
> > the issue of whether or not Zembla is a real land within the novel, one
> > that
> > John Shade and Chuck K recognized, or if it is a delusional creation of
> > Chuck's. Nabokov's comment points towards it being fictionally
consensual.
>
> Personally I'm inclined to believe K made it up, but there is a middle
> ground -- if it's fictionally consensual that doesn't necessarily mean
that
> our narrator was the king there. After the Russian revolution, Europe and
> America had no shortage of ИmigrИs claiming to be Romanovs, pretenders, or
> otherwise connected to royalty, maybe in the hope of kinder treatment
there
> or maybe hoping for a piece of Tsar Nicholas II's legendary bank or land
> holdings or maybe because they really believed it (hell, some members of
my
> own family have claimed as much) -- for instance the case of Anna
Anderson,
> who was quite thoroughly convinced she was the Tsar's youngest daughter,
> Grand Duchess Anastasia:
>
> http://www.freewarehof.org/manahans.html
>
> I wonder if this was one of the Life clippings Aunt Maud had pasted in her
> scrapbook by the way:
>
> http://www.freewarehof.org/czarkids.jpg
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 13:34:44 -0700 (PDT)
> From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Get Real
>
> - --- s~Z <keithsz@concentric.net> wrote:
> >
> > I don't know what you are referring to here.
> > What comments 'are about' K's 'belief.'
>
> N posits that if Kinbote were taken to UT he would find the smells and
sounds
> familiar. This would only be true if Kinbote really was from Zembla,
which is
> unlikely. Therefore his "familiarity" would be true only in the most
extended
> imaginary sense.
>
> Zembla is probably a "real" place in the novel, although there is still
room
> for doubt. For instance, does Zembla's fugitve king really look like
Kinbote?
> The faculty club discussions would support Zembla's existence along w/ a
> fugitive king resembling Kinbote. EVERYTHING Kinbote says is suspect.
>
> David Morris
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
> http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 13:41:24 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Get Real
>
> >>>Personally I'm inclined to believe K made it up, but there is a middle
> ground -- if it's fictionally consensual that doesn't necessarily mean
that
> our narrator was the king there. After the Russian revolution, Europe and
> America had no shortage of ИmigrИs claiming to be Romanovs, pretenders, or
> otherwise connected to royalty <<<
>
> And even Kinbote's account has no shortage of Zemblans impersonating the
> King. Some of his descriptions of such read like a logoversion of a
Where's
> Waldo picturebook.
>
> The novel coaxes us to do to Kinbote's writings what he
> is doing to John Shade's poem. It obviously doesn't
> mean what Kinbote says. He's a mad Narcissus after all.
> Looking at his own reflection in the poem.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 13:43:04 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Get Real
>
> >>> EVERYTHING Kinbote says is suspect. <<<
>
> One of the ways he is the shadow of his author.
>
> ------------------------------
>>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 17:05:05 -0400
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <fakename@verizon.net>
> Subject: RE: NPPF Get Real
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-pynchon-l@waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l@waste.org] On
> > Behalf Of David Morris
> > Sent: Friday, September 05, 2003 4:35 PM
> > To: s~Z; pynchon-l@waste.org
> > Subject: Re: NPPF Get Real
> >
> >
> > --- s~Z <keithsz@concentric.net> wrote:
> > >
> > > I don't know what you are referring to here.
> > > What comments 'are about' K's 'belief.'
> >
> > N posits that if Kinbote were taken to UT he would find the smells and
> > sounds
> > familiar. This would only be true if Kinbote really was from Zembla,
> > which is
> > unlikely. Therefore his "familiarity" would be true only in the most
> > extended
> > imaginary sense.
> >
> > Zembla is probably a "real" place in the novel, although there is still
> > room
> > for doubt. For instance, does Zembla's fugitve king really look like
> > Kinbote?
> > The faculty club discussions would support Zembla's existence along w/ a
> > fugitive king resembling Kinbote. EVERYTHING Kinbote says is suspect.
> >
> > David Morris
> >
> >
>
> I agree with this but I have one point I'm stuck on: with Kinbote as the
> only source of information, how can one suspect his assertions about his
> Zemblan royal identity while trusting his account of a conversation in the
> Wordsmith faculty room? On what basis should we believe in the New Wye
> setting any more than in the Zembla? If Jack Grey is the killer and not
> Jakob Gradus, then Kinbote's delusions (or lies) have clearly made their
way
> to Wye.
>
> JF
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 17:17:10 -0400
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <fakename@verizon.net>
> Subject: RE: NPPF Get Real
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-pynchon-l@waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l@waste.org] On
> > Behalf Of s~Z
>
>
> >
> > And even Kinbote's account has no shortage of Zemblans impersonating the
> > King. Some of his descriptions of such read like a logoversion of a
> > Where's
> > Waldo picturebook.
>
> Hahah, that's exactly the image I had too.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 14:18:26 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Get Real
>
> >>>I agree with this but I have one point I'm stuck on: with Kinbote as
the
> only source of information, how can one suspect his assertions about his
> Zemblan royal identity while trusting his account of a conversation in the
> Wordsmith faculty room? <<<
>
> Mirror, mirror on the wall -
> We are Kinbote, one and all.
>
> ------------------------------
> ------------------------------
From: "pynchon-l-digest" <owner-pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
To: <pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
Sent: Friday, September 05, 2003 9:49 PM
Subject: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3536
> Subject: Re: NPPF Zembla & the Criminal Imagination
>
> The article referenced below speaks to one of the similarities between
> Pynchon and Nabokov. While many look for content in Pynchon to support
their
> political (or other) views, or to find his, the proof is the pudding. It
is
> not *in* the pudding.
>
> "Pale Fire is probably Nabokov's most ludic and liberated Gumilevian
> performance: a hare's nest of formal patterns, mock-scholarly apparatus,
and
> shifting motives, Pale Fire is a cryptic, secretive text designed to
disrupt
> and confound totalizing systems. It is a provocative gauntlet thrown down
> before systemizers of every stripe, an aesthetic performance put on with
> smiling fierceness."
>
> http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/monroe1.htm
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 10:44:22 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF That'd be up the butt, Bob [was Comm 2: My bedroom, part
2 (tendril)]
>
> >>>> I think such details are worth caring about in Pale Fire [...]
Thought
> that
> was why we were reading the book. <<<<
>
> "The main favor I ask of a serious critic is sufficient perceptiveness to
> understand that whatever term or trope I use, my purpose is not to be
> facetiously flashy or grotesquely obscure but to express what I feel and
> think with the utmost truthfulness and [precision]." --VN
>
> ------------------------------
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 11:00:34 -0700 (PDT)
> From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF That'd be up the butt, Bob [was Comm 2: My bedroom, part
2 (tendril)]
>
> - --- s~Z <keithsz@concentric.net> wrote:
> >
> > "The main favor I ask of a serious critic is sufficient perceptiveness
to
> understand that whatever term or trope I use, my purpose is not to be
> facetiously flashy or grotesquely obscure but to express what I feel and
think
> with the utmost truthfulness and [precision]." --VN
>
> Like so many quotes from Nabokov, I find this one preposterous. VN is
nothing
> if not a liguistic show-off, especially in his later works.
>
> DM
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
> http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
>
> ------------------------------
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 11:04:30 -0700 (PDT)
> From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Get Real
>
> - --- s~Z <keithsz@concentric.net> wrote:
> > >>>No, it is an imaginary place "biologically" similar to Scandinavia
(VN
> > said).<<<
> >
> > No, it is a fictional country in a work of fiction in the same
biological
> > zone as another fictional country in another work of fiction...
> .... both of which have a biological similarity to Scandinavia, a real
place.
>
> if A=B
> and B=C
> then A=C
>
> DM
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
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>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 11:12:04 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Get Real
>
> >>>if A=B
> and B=C
> then A=C<<<
>
> That's why it is important to
> accurately define A, B, and C.
>
> Nowhere does Nabokov compare Scandinavia with Zembla.
>
> ------------------------------
>
.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 05 Sep 2003 14:30:04 -0400
> From: Terrance <lycidas2@earthlink.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Zembla & the Criminal Imagination (Anatomy Of Frenesi)
>
> Line 42: I Could make out
> Vintage Pale Fire page 80
>
>
> By the end of May I could make out the outline of some of my images in
> the shape his genius might give them; by mid-June I felt sure at last
> that he would recreate in a poem the dazzling Zembla burning in my
> brain. I mesmerized him with it, I saturated him with my vision, I
> pressed upon him, with a drunkard's wild generosity, all that I was
> helpless myself to put into verse.
>
> AL&CS
>
> A madman is reluctant to look at himself in the mirror because the face
> he sees is not his own: his personality is beheaded; that of the artist
> is increased. Madness is but a diseased bit of commonsense, whereas
> genius is the greatest sanity of the spirit--and the criminologist
> Lombroso (psssss Brock uses the Lombroso model, but can not quite find
> Frenesi in it) when attempting to find their affinities got into a bad
> muddle by not realizing the anatomic differences between obsession and
> inspiration, between a bat and a bird, a dead twig and twiglike insect,
> a bush vet and veteran of the jungle. Lunatics are lunatics just because
> they have thoroughly and recklessly dismembered a familiar world but
> have not the power--or have lost the power--to create a new one as
> harmonious as the old. The artist on the other hand disconnects what he
> chooses and while doing so he is aware that something in him is aware of
> the final result. When he examines his completed masterpiece he
> perceives that whatever unconscious cerebration had been involved in the
> creative plunge, this final result is the outcome of a definite plan
> which had been contained in the initial shock, as the future development
> of a live creature is said to be contained in the genes of its germ
> cell.
>
> Canto 4
>
> Two methods of composing
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 11:37:13 -0700 (PDT)
> From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Get Real
>
> - --- s~Z <keithsz@concentric.net> wrote:
> > >>>if A=B
> > and B=C
> > then A=C<<<
> >
> > That's why it is important to
> > accurately define A, B, and C.
> >
> > Nowhere does Nabokov compare Scandinavia with Zembla.
> >
>
> Correct me if I'm mistaken, but I believe he compared Zembla to Ultima
Thule
> and Ultima Thule to Scandanavia, thus the equation.
>
> DM
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
> http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 14:38:16 -0400
> From: <gumbo@fuse.net>
> Subject: NPPF schedule
>
> Hate to duck out with the pot bubbling so nicely, but duty summons me to
the rustic hills of Kentucky for the weekend. I guess that leaves the NPPF
officially and completely in the capable hands of J. Fidget.
>
> Thanks to all for the insights, outbursts, postulations, interjections,
and tangents over the past couple of weeks.
>
> Don
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 11:50:54 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Get Real
>
> >>>Correct me if I'm mistaken, but I believe he compared Zembla to Ultima
> Thule
> and Ultima Thule to Scandinavia, thus the equation.<<<
>
> There is no such equation of Ultima Thule and Scandinavia.
> Ultima Thule is another fictional far-off land.
>
> Your initial point confuses the reality out here with the reality of Pale
> Fire.
> I am quite aware that Zembla is Nabokov's fictional realm. I was
addressing
> the issue of whether or not Zembla is a real land within the novel, one
that
> John Shade and Chuck K recognized, or if it is a delusional creation of
> Chuck's. Nabokov's comment points towards it being fictionally consensual.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 12:00:23 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Zembla & the Criminal Imagination (Anatomy Of
Shadencholy)
>
> Line 146
> There was a sudden sunburst in my head.
> And then black night. That blackness was sublime.
> I felt distributed through space and time:
> One foot upon a mountaintop, one hand
> Under the pebbles of a panting strand,
> One ear in Italy, one eye in Spain,
> In caves, my blood, and in the stars, my brain.
> There were dull throbs in my Triassic; green
> Optical spots in Upper Pleistocene,
> An icy shiver down my Age of Stone,
> And all tomorrows in my funnybone.
>
> AL & CS
>
> "[I]t is the past and the present and the future (your book) that come
> together in a sudden flash; that time ceases to exist. It is a combined
> sensation of having the whole universe entering you and of yourself wholly
> dissolving in the universe surrounding you. It is the prison wall of the
ego
> suddenly crumbling away with the nonego rushing in from the outside to
save
> the prisoner--who is already dancing in the open."
>
> "But in one way or another the process may still be reduced to the most
> natural form of creative thrill--a sudden live image constructed in a
flash
> out of dissimilar units which are apprehended all at once in a stellar
> explosion of the mind."
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 12:15:31 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Criminal Imagination (Anatomy Of Smilewinkfolly)
>
> "I said I always preferred the literal meaning of a description to the
> symbol behind it. She nodded thoughtfully but did not seem convinced."
>
> Look at the Harlequins! -p.22
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 12:21:40 -0700 (PDT)
> From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Get Real
>
> - --- s~Z <keithsz@concentric.net> wrote:
>
> > I am quite aware that Zembla is Nabokov's fictional realm. I was
addressing
> the issue of whether or not Zembla is a real land within the novel, one
that
> John Shade and Chuck K recognized, or if it is a delusional creation of
> Chuck's. Nabokov's comment points towards it being fictionally consensual.
>
> N's comments are about Charles/Kinbote's belief that it is a "real" place
> (where he was king). I don't think that makes it a "fictional concensus."
If
> we are to believe what Kinbote tells us about his conversations with Shade
and
> other faculty members about Zemble, then I'd say it was "real." But I
think we
> can question whether he's made them up too.
>
> David Morris
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 12:26:17 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Get Real
>
> >>>N's comments are about Charles/Kinbote's belief that it is a "real"
place
> (where he was king). I don't think that makes it a "fictional concensus."
> <<<
>
> I don't know what you are referring to here.
> What comments 'are about' K's 'belief.'
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 15:12:05 -0400
> From: <gumbo@fuse.net>
> Subject: Re: Re: NPPF Get Real
>
> I was addressing
> > the issue of whether or not Zembla is a real land within the novel, one
that
> > John Shade and Chuck K recognized, or if it is a delusional creation of
> > Chuck's. Nabokov's comment points towards it being fictionally
consensual.
>
>
> As do the gentlemen at Shade's table in the faculty lounge who have seen
photographs of the king of Zembla in magazines and newsreels, and the German
visitor who "had the honor of being seated within a few yards of the royal
box at a Sport Festival in Onhava..." (265)
>
> Zembla seems unequivocally to be real in the world of the novel. Just not
as Charles describes it, probably.
>
> Don
>
> >
> > From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> > Date: 2003/09/05 Fri PM 02:50:54 EDT
> > To: <pynchon-l@waste.org>
> > Subject: Re: NPPF Get Real
> >
> > >>>Correct me if I'm mistaken, but I believe he compared Zembla to
Ultima
> > Thule
> > and Ultima Thule to Scandinavia, thus the equation.<<<
> >
> > There is no such equation of Ultima Thule and Scandinavia.
> > Ultima Thule is another fictional far-off land.
> >
> > Your initial point confuses the reality out here with the reality of
Pale
> > Fire.
> > I am quite aware that Zembla is Nabokov's fictional realm. >
> >
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 12:44:41 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF the Criminal Imagination (Anatomy Of Incestoly)
>
> Perhaps the incest and versipel imagery point to Nabokov's view that art
is
> breaking the taboos of commonsense culture which views inspiration as
> madness. Aunt Maud's bizarre influence may be the influence of valuing
> creativity vis a vis the worldview embodied by John Shade's scientific
> parents. Creativity arises from the unlawful intercourse of magic/madness
> and reason/craftsmanship. It is incestuous and shapeshifting.
>
> The Russian language which otherwise is comparatively poor in abstract
> terms, supplies definitions for two types of inspiration, 'vostorg' and
> 'vdokhnovenie,' which can be paraphrased as "rapture" and "recapture." the
> difference between them is mainly of a climatic kind, the first being hot
> and brief, the second cool and sustained. the kind alluded to up to now is
> the pure flame of vorstog, initial rapture, which has no conscious purpose
> in view but which is all-important in linking the breaking up of the old
> world with the building up of the new one. When the time is ripe and the
> writer settles down to the actual composing of his book, he will rely on
the
> second serene and steady kind of inspiration, vdokhnovenie, the trusted
mate
> who helps to recapture and reconstruct the world.
> AL&CS - pp. 378-9
>
> In those
> days I seemed to have had two muses: the essential, hysterical, genuine
one,
> who tortured me with elusive snatches of imagery and wrung her hands over
my
> inability to appropriate the magic and madness offered me; and
her
> apprentice, her palette girl and stand-in, a little logician, who
stuffed
> the torn gaps left by her mistress with explanatory or meter-mending
fillers
> which became more and more numerous the further I moved away from
the
> initial, evanescent, savage perfection. The treacherous music of
Russian
> rhythms came to my specious rescue like those demons who break the
black
> silence of an artist's hell with imitations of Greek poets and
prehistorical
> birds. Another and final deception would come with the Fair Copy in
which,
> for a short while, calligraphy, vellum paper, and India ink beautified
a
> dead doggerel. And to think that for almost five years I kept trying
and
> kept getting caught--until I fired that painted, pregnant, meek,
miserable
> little assistant! LATH! - p.44
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 13:07:09 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF the Criminal Imagination (Anatomy Of Vdokhnovenieoly)
>
> And a patrol car on our bumpy road
> Came to a crunching stop. Vdokhnovenie, vdokhnovenie!
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 16:19:23 -0400
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <fakename@verizon.net>
> Subject: RE: NPPF Get Real
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-pynchon-l@waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l@waste.org] On
> > Behalf Of s~Z
> > Sent: Friday, September 05, 2003 2:51 PM
> > To: pynchon-l@waste.org
> > Subject: Re: NPPF Get Real
> >
> > >>>Correct me if I'm mistaken, but I believe he compared Zembla to
Ultima
> > Thule
> > and Ultima Thule to Scandinavia, thus the equation.<<<
> >
> > There is no such equation of Ultima Thule and Scandinavia.
> > Ultima Thule is another fictional far-off land.
> >
> > Your initial point confuses the reality out here with the reality of
Pale
> > Fire.
> > I am quite aware that Zembla is Nabokov's fictional realm. I was
> > addressing
> > the issue of whether or not Zembla is a real land within the novel, one
> > that
> > John Shade and Chuck K recognized, or if it is a delusional creation of
> > Chuck's. Nabokov's comment points towards it being fictionally
consensual.
>
> Personally I'm inclined to believe K made it up, but there is a middle
> ground -- if it's fictionally consensual that doesn't necessarily mean
that
> our narrator was the king there. After the Russian revolution, Europe and
> America had no shortage of ИmigrИs claiming to be Romanovs, pretenders, or
> otherwise connected to royalty, maybe in the hope of kinder treatment
there
> or maybe hoping for a piece of Tsar Nicholas II's legendary bank or land
> holdings or maybe because they really believed it (hell, some members of
my
> own family have claimed as much) -- for instance the case of Anna
Anderson,
> who was quite thoroughly convinced she was the Tsar's youngest daughter,
> Grand Duchess Anastasia:
>
> http://www.freewarehof.org/manahans.html
>
> I wonder if this was one of the Life clippings Aunt Maud had pasted in her
> scrapbook by the way:
>
> http://www.freewarehof.org/czarkids.jpg
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 13:34:44 -0700 (PDT)
> From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Get Real
>
> - --- s~Z <keithsz@concentric.net> wrote:
> >
> > I don't know what you are referring to here.
> > What comments 'are about' K's 'belief.'
>
> N posits that if Kinbote were taken to UT he would find the smells and
sounds
> familiar. This would only be true if Kinbote really was from Zembla,
which is
> unlikely. Therefore his "familiarity" would be true only in the most
extended
> imaginary sense.
>
> Zembla is probably a "real" place in the novel, although there is still
room
> for doubt. For instance, does Zembla's fugitve king really look like
Kinbote?
> The faculty club discussions would support Zembla's existence along w/ a
> fugitive king resembling Kinbote. EVERYTHING Kinbote says is suspect.
>
> David Morris
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
> http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 13:41:24 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Get Real
>
> >>>Personally I'm inclined to believe K made it up, but there is a middle
> ground -- if it's fictionally consensual that doesn't necessarily mean
that
> our narrator was the king there. After the Russian revolution, Europe and
> America had no shortage of ИmigrИs claiming to be Romanovs, pretenders, or
> otherwise connected to royalty <<<
>
> And even Kinbote's account has no shortage of Zemblans impersonating the
> King. Some of his descriptions of such read like a logoversion of a
Where's
> Waldo picturebook.
>
> The novel coaxes us to do to Kinbote's writings what he
> is doing to John Shade's poem. It obviously doesn't
> mean what Kinbote says. He's a mad Narcissus after all.
> Looking at his own reflection in the poem.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 13:43:04 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Get Real
>
> >>> EVERYTHING Kinbote says is suspect. <<<
>
> One of the ways he is the shadow of his author.
>
> ------------------------------
>>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 17:05:05 -0400
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <fakename@verizon.net>
> Subject: RE: NPPF Get Real
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-pynchon-l@waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l@waste.org] On
> > Behalf Of David Morris
> > Sent: Friday, September 05, 2003 4:35 PM
> > To: s~Z; pynchon-l@waste.org
> > Subject: Re: NPPF Get Real
> >
> >
> > --- s~Z <keithsz@concentric.net> wrote:
> > >
> > > I don't know what you are referring to here.
> > > What comments 'are about' K's 'belief.'
> >
> > N posits that if Kinbote were taken to UT he would find the smells and
> > sounds
> > familiar. This would only be true if Kinbote really was from Zembla,
> > which is
> > unlikely. Therefore his "familiarity" would be true only in the most
> > extended
> > imaginary sense.
> >
> > Zembla is probably a "real" place in the novel, although there is still
> > room
> > for doubt. For instance, does Zembla's fugitve king really look like
> > Kinbote?
> > The faculty club discussions would support Zembla's existence along w/ a
> > fugitive king resembling Kinbote. EVERYTHING Kinbote says is suspect.
> >
> > David Morris
> >
> >
>
> I agree with this but I have one point I'm stuck on: with Kinbote as the
> only source of information, how can one suspect his assertions about his
> Zemblan royal identity while trusting his account of a conversation in the
> Wordsmith faculty room? On what basis should we believe in the New Wye
> setting any more than in the Zembla? If Jack Grey is the killer and not
> Jakob Gradus, then Kinbote's delusions (or lies) have clearly made their
way
> to Wye.
>
> JF
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 17:17:10 -0400
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <fakename@verizon.net>
> Subject: RE: NPPF Get Real
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-pynchon-l@waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l@waste.org] On
> > Behalf Of s~Z
>
>
> >
> > And even Kinbote's account has no shortage of Zemblans impersonating the
> > King. Some of his descriptions of such read like a logoversion of a
> > Where's
> > Waldo picturebook.
>
> Hahah, that's exactly the image I had too.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 14:18:26 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Get Real
>
> >>>I agree with this but I have one point I'm stuck on: with Kinbote as
the
> only source of information, how can one suspect his assertions about his
> Zemblan royal identity while trusting his account of a conversation in the
> Wordsmith faculty room? <<<
>
> Mirror, mirror on the wall -
> We are Kinbote, one and all.
>
> ------------------------------
> ------------------------------