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Fwd: [Tomasz] ping-pong theme in "Pale fire"
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ping-pong theme in "Pale fire"
"A few days later, however, namely on Monday, February 16, I was
introduced to the old poet at lunch time in the faculty club. "At
last presented credentials," as noted, a little ironically, in my
agenda. I was invited to join him and four or five other eminent
professors at his usual table, under an enlarged photograph of
Wordsmith College as it was, stunned and shabby, on a remarkably
gloomy summer day in 1903. His laconic suggestion that I "try the
pork" amused me. I am a strict vegetarian, and I like to cook my
own meals. Consuming something that had been handled by a fellow
creature was, I explained to the rubicund convives, as repulsive
to me as eating any creature, and that would include - lowering
my voice - the pulpous pony-tailed girl student who served us and
licked her pencil. Moreover, I had already finished the fruit brought
with me in my briefcase, so I would content myself, I said, with
a bottle of good college ale. My free and simple demeanor set
everybody at ease. The usual questionsmere fired at me about eggnogs
and milkshakes being or not being acceptable to one of my persuasion.
Shade said that with him it was the other way around: he must make a
definite effort to partake of a vegetable. Beginning a salad, was to
him like stepping into sea water on a chilly day, and he had always
to brace himself in order to attack the fortress of an apple. I was
not yet used to the rather fatiguing jesting and teasing that goes on
among American intellectuals of the inbreeding academic type and so
abstained from telling John Shade in front of all those grinning old
males how much I admired his work lest a serious discussion of literature
degenerate into mere facetiation. Instead I asked him about one of my
newly acquired students who also attended his course, a moody, delicate,
rather wonderful boy; but with a resolute shake of his hoary forelock
the old poet answered that he had ceased long ago to memorize faces
and names of students and that the only person in his poetry class whom
he could visualize was an extramural lady on crutches. "Come, come,"
said Professor Hufey, "do you mean, John, you really don't have a mental
or visceral picture of that stunning blonde in the black leotard who
haunts Lit. 202?" Shade, all his wrinkles beaming, benignly tapped
Hurley on the wrist to make him stop. Another tormentor inquired if it
was true that I had installed two ping-pong tables in my basement.
I asked, was it a crime? No, he said, but why two? "Is that a crime?"
I countered, and they all laughed. "
<sory for my bad english>
Some people call a some form of a tiresome and stupid talk
(used sometimes by in my opinion-cretins) "ping-pong". I found
in this quote above six examples - "parts" ("hits and re-hits") of
this. [So I found it as a little tractat from Nabokov to Me
("be aware of this ping-pong") - but a reason of putting this
tractat here is obscure to me]
1. Shade -> Kinbote (proposal of pork), Kinbote -> Other
2. Other -> Kinbote, (eggnogs and milkshakes), Shade -> All or Kinbote
3. this not came into being practically:
Kinbote -> Shade, (admiration)
:)
4. Kinbote -> Shade, (moody boy) Shade -> Kinbote (All)
5. Hurley -> Shade, (blonde) Shade -> Hurley
6. Tormentor -> Kinbote, (ping-pong table) Kinbote -> Tormentor (All)
Tomasz Kaminski
----- End forwarded message -----
"A few days later, however, namely on Monday, February 16, I was
introduced to the old poet at lunch time in the faculty club. "At
last presented credentials," as noted, a little ironically, in my
agenda. I was invited to join him and four or five other eminent
professors at his usual table, under an enlarged photograph of
Wordsmith College as it was, stunned and shabby, on a remarkably
gloomy summer day in 1903. His laconic suggestion that I "try the
pork" amused me. I am a strict vegetarian, and I like to cook my
own meals. Consuming something that had been handled by a fellow
creature was, I explained to the rubicund convives, as repulsive
to me as eating any creature, and that would include - lowering
my voice - the pulpous pony-tailed girl student who served us and
licked her pencil. Moreover, I had already finished the fruit brought
with me in my briefcase, so I would content myself, I said, with
a bottle of good college ale. My free and simple demeanor set
everybody at ease. The usual questionsmere fired at me about eggnogs
and milkshakes being or not being acceptable to one of my persuasion.
Shade said that with him it was the other way around: he must make a
definite effort to partake of a vegetable. Beginning a salad, was to
him like stepping into sea water on a chilly day, and he had always
to brace himself in order to attack the fortress of an apple. I was
not yet used to the rather fatiguing jesting and teasing that goes on
among American intellectuals of the inbreeding academic type and so
abstained from telling John Shade in front of all those grinning old
males how much I admired his work lest a serious discussion of literature
degenerate into mere facetiation. Instead I asked him about one of my
newly acquired students who also attended his course, a moody, delicate,
rather wonderful boy; but with a resolute shake of his hoary forelock
the old poet answered that he had ceased long ago to memorize faces
and names of students and that the only person in his poetry class whom
he could visualize was an extramural lady on crutches. "Come, come,"
said Professor Hufey, "do you mean, John, you really don't have a mental
or visceral picture of that stunning blonde in the black leotard who
haunts Lit. 202?" Shade, all his wrinkles beaming, benignly tapped
Hurley on the wrist to make him stop. Another tormentor inquired if it
was true that I had installed two ping-pong tables in my basement.
I asked, was it a crime? No, he said, but why two? "Is that a crime?"
I countered, and they all laughed. "
<sory for my bad english>
Some people call a some form of a tiresome and stupid talk
(used sometimes by in my opinion-cretins) "ping-pong". I found
in this quote above six examples - "parts" ("hits and re-hits") of
this. [So I found it as a little tractat from Nabokov to Me
("be aware of this ping-pong") - but a reason of putting this
tractat here is obscure to me]
1. Shade -> Kinbote (proposal of pork), Kinbote -> Other
2. Other -> Kinbote, (eggnogs and milkshakes), Shade -> All or Kinbote
3. this not came into being practically:
Kinbote -> Shade, (admiration)
:)
4. Kinbote -> Shade, (moody boy) Shade -> Kinbote (All)
5. Hurley -> Shade, (blonde) Shade -> Hurley
6. Tormentor -> Kinbote, (ping-pong table) Kinbote -> Tormentor (All)
Tomasz Kaminski
----- End forwarded message -----