Another lonely cricket, in a different October night, makes
sounds that cannot spare Hazel's fright while on her way home from the
barn***.
Years later, there's Shade's heart attack that also
happened in October, coincided with the arrival of Charles, the Beloved's
when he parachuted in America "amid an ovation of
crickets" #
Shade and Kinbote seemed to be alert to the difference between locusts,
grasshoppers and cicadas, but their references to crickets apparently leaves
these insects out of this line of associations
It seems that the appearance of a cricket is not as harmless as it sounds
but are they a sign of guilt feelings? I don't think so.##
.
In the competition between L.Hunt and J. Keats, grasshoppers are associated
to summer warmth and crickets to early winter domestic fires. I gather that
individually they don't survive through the winter - except their
brood that lie in wait of Spring, as it's also the case
of certain cicadas. I think it was Gary Lipon who connected cicadas to
Hazel's biological birth and to her death###.
....................................................................................
* -
110 In
a bright sky above a mountain
range
One opal cloudlet in an oval
form
Reflects the rainbow of a
thunderstorm
Which in a distant valley has been staged
—
For we are most artistically
caged.
And there’s the wall of sound: the nightly
wall
Raised by a trillion crickets in the
fall.
Impenetrable! Halfway up the
hill
I’d pause in thrall of their delirious
trill.
** CK notes to line 130 : "Frankly I too never
excelled in soccer and cricket; I am a passable horseman, a vigorous though
unorthodox skier, a good skater, a tricky wrestler, and an enthusiastic
rock-climber.[ ]"... The summer night was starless and stirless...The King
yawned...Above the closet, Iris Acht squared her shoulders and looked away. A
cricket cricked. The bedside light was just strong enough to put a bright gleam
on the gilt key in the lock of the closet door. And all at once that spark on
that key caused a wonderful conflagration to spread in the prisoner’s mind.// We
shall now go back from mid-August 1958 ..."
*** - CK
note to line 347: A familiar footpath with
soothing gestures and other small tokens of consolation (lone cricket, lone
streetlight) led her home. She stopped and let forth a howl of terror
[ ] I have no idea what the average temperature of an October night
in New Wye may be...
# - CK notes to line 691: John Shade’s heart
attack (Oct. 17, 1958) practically coincided with the disguised king’s arrival
in America [ ] Fain would I elucidate this business of parachuting
but (it being a matter of mere sentimental tradition rather than a useful manner
of transportation) this is not strictly necessary in these notes to Pale Fire.
[ ] I relaxed on a shooting stick he had supplied me with, sipping a
delightful Scotch and water from the car bar and glancing (amid an ovation of
crickets and that vortex of yellow and maroon butterflies that so pleased
Chateaubriand on his arrival in America) at an article in The New York Times in
which Sylvia had vigorously and messily marked out in red pencil a communication
from New Wye which told of the "distinguished poet’s"
hospitalization
## - Carolyn Kunin mentioned Walt Disney's Jiminy Cricket (euphemism for
the exclamation: "Jesus Christ"), in his movie version of Pinocchio's
polite conscience. In the original work, by Collodi,
"Gepetto isn't a kindly old man — he's hot-tempered and
grindingly poor. There is a talking cricket, but it's not named Jiminy, doesn't
wear a top hat, and gets squished by Pinocchio 12 pages in when it tries to give
him advice. This lack of sentimentality runs through the book, whose sense of
reality reflects the harshness of life in Collodi's Tuscany. This is a place
driven by hunger, brutality, greed and social. injustice" .http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101413512
### - Since the point now is broadening our
crickety horizons, I remembered the competition bt. Leigh Hunt and John
Keats. I retrieved it from the internet to share with you all.
On
December 30, 1816, John Keats and Leigh Hunt challenged each other to write a
sonnet on the subject of "the grasshopper and cricket." They wrote these two
characteristic sonnets in fifteen minutes. Who won?
|
On the Grasshopper and Cricket
John Keats
The poetry of earth is never dead:
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;
That is the Grasshopper's--he takes the lead
In summer luxury,--he has never done
With his delights; for when tired out with fun
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
On a lone winter evening, when the frost
Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever,
And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,
The Grasshopper's among some grassy hills. |
To the Grasshopper and the Cricket
Leigh Hunt
Green little vaulter in the sunny grass,
Catching your heart up at the feel of June,
Sole voice that's heard amidst the lazy noon,
When even the bees lag at the summoning brass;
And you, warm little housekeeper, who class
With those who think the candles come too soon,
Loving the fire, and with your tricksome tune
Nick the glad silent moments as they pass;
Oh sweet and tiny cousins, that belong
One to the fields, the other to the hearth,
Both have your sunshine; both, though small, are strong
At your clear hearts; and both were sent on earth
To sing in thoughtful ears this natural song:
Indoors and out, summer and
winter,--Mirth. |
btw: In oriental folklore cicadas are linked to rebirth and to transience
(cf.wiki on "cicada").
.