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Fw: Fw: Fw: Pale Fire and Lolita
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EDNOTE, See below.
----- Original Message -----
From: Jimmy Dee
That's quite interesting. I also happen to be a big Pynchon fan. I will check out those archives.
While reading Lolita, at least once I was reminded of Pynchon. There is a point in Lolita where someone is discussing a play. There is a line in French (which language I don't understand) quoted from that play that includes the phrase "... qu'il t'y...," followed by the remark that it is an odd French construction (I have a vague memory that it may have been Dolly speaking to Humbert, which makes the remark particularly disingenuous).
This is obviously completely coincidental, but in Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49, one central figure is a mysterious and sinister cabal called Trystero. That book also includes a fictitious play that concerns Trystero obliquely. In fictitious commentary on the play, someone notes a line that includes the phrase, "This tryst or odious awry." The oblivious commentator adds that this is an odd phrase that might be a play on, "This trystero dies irae," if only one could make sense of that nonsense word Trystero. This is a very similar device to the one employed by Nabokov using "... qu'il t'y..."
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EDNOTE. The connections between VN and TP are many and varied.For a good survey, see:
Sweeney, Susan Elizabeth. "The V-Shaped Paradigm: Nabokov and Pynchon." Cycnos, v. 12, no. 2, 1995, pp. 173-180. [Discusses The Real Life of Sebastian Knight and V.]
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----- Original Message -----
From: Jimmy Dee
That's quite interesting. I also happen to be a big Pynchon fan. I will check out those archives.
While reading Lolita, at least once I was reminded of Pynchon. There is a point in Lolita where someone is discussing a play. There is a line in French (which language I don't understand) quoted from that play that includes the phrase "... qu'il t'y...," followed by the remark that it is an odd French construction (I have a vague memory that it may have been Dolly speaking to Humbert, which makes the remark particularly disingenuous).
This is obviously completely coincidental, but in Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49, one central figure is a mysterious and sinister cabal called Trystero. That book also includes a fictitious play that concerns Trystero obliquely. In fictitious commentary on the play, someone notes a line that includes the phrase, "This tryst or odious awry." The oblivious commentator adds that this is an odd phrase that might be a play on, "This trystero dies irae," if only one could make sense of that nonsense word Trystero. This is a very similar device to the one employed by Nabokov using "... qu'il t'y..."
-------------------------------------------------
EDNOTE. The connections between VN and TP are many and varied.For a good survey, see:
Sweeney, Susan Elizabeth. "The V-Shaped Paradigm: Nabokov and Pynchon." Cycnos, v. 12, no. 2, 1995, pp. 173-180. [Discusses The Real Life of Sebastian Knight and V.]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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