Subject
Re: Fwd: Re: John Ray Jr & Conan Doyle
From
Date
Body
----- Forwarded message from jansy@aetern.us -----
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 11:24:09 -0300
From: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello <jansy@aetern.us>
Reply-To: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello <jansy@aetern.us>
Subject: Re: Re: Fwd: Re: John Ray Jr & Conan Doyle
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Dear Don,
The entire short-story is easily available in the internet. I selected bits and
pieces from the begining and the end ( where the student´s name appears both as
Mcalister and M´Alister ).
I was struck by the details that offered exact information about the ship´s
position (Lat 81 degrees 40'N...) and wondered if it could offer some
indication that connected it to Vinland´s map ( whose importance in "Ada" is
described by B.Boyd ), but C.Kunin informed me that the Pole-Star was located
bt. Greenland and Europe, not bt. Greenland and North America. The extract
from the diary comprises only nine days and the first selected entry is for
September 11th ( another haunting coincidence?).
Jansy
Arthur Conan Doyle, "The Captain of the 'Pole-star'"
[Being an extract from the singular journal of JOHN MCALISTER RAY, student of
medicine, kept by him during the six months' voyage in the Arctic Seas, of the
steam-whaler Pole-star, of Dundee, Captain Nicholas Craigie.]
September 11th. - Lat. 81 degrees 40' N.; long. 2 degrees E. Still lying-to amid
enormous ice fields. The one which stretches away to the north of us, and to
which our ice-anchor is attached, cannot be smaller than an English county. To
the right and left unbroken sheets extend to the horizon. This morning the mate
reported that there were signs of pack ice to the southward. Should this form of
sufficient thickness to bar our return, we shall be in a position of danger, as
the food, I hear, is already running somewhat short. It is late in the season,
and the nights are beginning to reappear. This morning I saw a star twinkling
just over the fore-yard, the first since the beginning of May.
September 20th , evening. - I crossed the ice this morning with a party of men
exploring the southern part of the floe, while Mr. Milne went off in a
northerly direction (...)
We had hardly gone a hundred yards before M`Donald of Peterhead cried out that
he saw something in front of us, and began to run(...) as we raced along
together it took the shape of a man, and eventually of the man of whom we were
in search. He was lying face downwards upon a frozen bank (...) I have learned
never to ridicule any man's opinion, however strange it may seem. Sure it is
that Captain Nicholas Craigie had met with no painful end, for there was a
bright smile upon his blue pinched features, and his hands were still
outstretched as though grasping at the strange visitor which had summoned him
away into the dim world that lies beyond the grave (...)
We buried him the same afternoon with the ship's ensign around him, and a
thirty-two pound shot at his feet. (...) There he shall lie, with his secret
and his sorrows and his mystery all still buried in his breast, until that
great day when the sea shall give up its dead, and Nicholas Craigie come out
from among the ice with the smile upon his face, and his stiffened arms
outstretched in greeting(...)
I shall not continue my journal. Our road to home lies plain and clear before
us, and the great ice field will soon be but a remembrance of the past. It will
be some time before I get over the shock produced by recent events. When I began
this record of our voyage I little thought of how I should be compelled to
finish it. I am writing these final words in the lonely cabin, still starting
at times and fancying I hear the quick nervous step of the dead man upon the
deck above me. I entered his cabin to-night, as was my duty, to make a list of
his effects in order that they might be entered in the official log. All was as
it had been upon my previous visit, save that the picture which I have described
as having hung at the end of his bed had been cut out of its frame, as with a
knife, and was gone. With this last link in a strange chain of evidence I close
my diary of the voyage of the Pole-star .
[NOTE by Dr. John M'Alister Ray, senior. - I have read over the strange events
connected with the death of the Captain of the Pole-star , as narrated in the
journal of my son. That everything occurred exactly as he describes it I have
the fullest confidence, and, indeed, the most positive certainty, for I know
him to be a strong-nerved and unimaginative man, with the strictest regard for
veracity. Still, the story is, on the face of it, so vague and so improbable,
that I was long opposed to its publication. Within the last few days, however,
I have had independent testimony upon the subject which throws a new light upon
it.(...)
copied from:
www.lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/ ~matsuoka/ghost-stories-doyle.html - 55k
Jansy
----- Original Message -----
From: Donald B. Johnson
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Monday, August 22, 2005 6:23 PM
Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: John Ray Jr & Conan Doyle
----- Forwarded message from jansy@aetern.us -----
Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2005 16:37:55 -0300
From: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello <jansy@aetern.us>
Reply-To: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello <jansy@aetern.us>
Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: John Ray Jr & Conan Doyle
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Hello, Carolyn and Anthony
There are levels of misteries in Conan Doyle´s short-story, presented as an
excerpt from a diary written by the son of Dr.John M. Ray Senior.
Since the diary-writer is a medical student, in time he would also become John
Ray Jr, MD - like Lolita´s psychiatrist who divulges HH´s manuscript - were it
not for the intervening M´Alister.
Young John Ray apparently survived his adventure with madness and ghosts. Why
then is his diary presented by his father and why was the latter in the
position to prohibit or to authorize its publication?
I didn´t solve Doyle´s puzzle concerning the structuring of his short-story, but
it might offer a clue for "Lolita" when we consider Dr.John Ray Jr´s use of
HH´s manuscript ( some readers think that HH and John Ray are one, or that HH
and Quilty are one, etc ) and the storie´s mad captain, his medically-minded
companion and Dr.John M´Alister Ray, father.
----- End forwarded message -----