Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0008660, Sat, 27 Sep 2003 10:14:43 -0700

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Fw: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3571
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Sent: Friday, September 26, 2003 10:27 PM
Subject: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3571


>
> pynchon-l-digest Saturday, September 27 2003 Volume 02 : Number
3571
>
>
> Date: Sat, 27 Sep 2003 00:05:49 +1000
> From: jbor <jbor@bigpond.com>
> Subject: NPPF Speaking of overt politics ...
>
> Of Gradus, the "Extremist":
>
> Mere springs and coils produced the inward movements of
> our clockwork man. He might be termed a Puritan. One essential
> dislike, formidable in its simplicity, pervaded his dull soul:
> he disliked injustice and deception. He disliked their union -
> they were always together - with a wooden passion that neither
> had, nor needed, words to express itself. Such a dislike should
> have deserved praise had it not been a by-product of the man's
> hopeless stupidity. He called unjust and deceitful everything
> that surpassed his understanding. He worshipped general ideas
> and did so with pedantic aplomb. The generality was godly, the
> specific diabolical. If one person was poor and the other
> wealthy it did not matter what precisely had ruined one or made
> the other rich: the difference itself was unfair, and the poor
> man who did not denounce it was as wicked as the rich one who
> ignored it. People who knew too much, scientists, writers,
> mathematicians, crystalographers and so forth, were no better
> than kings or priests: they all held an unfair share of
> power of which others were cheated. A plain decent fellow should
> constantly be on the watch for some piece of clever knavery
> on the part of nature and neighbor. (line 171 note)
>
> Gradus, filtered through Kinbote (filtering Botkin, if necessary), but
> filtering, not too indirectly, Nabokov.
>
> Marvellous.
>
> I'm amazed by how much this passage pre-empts _V._, and on in Pynchon's
> oeuvre: thematically, politically, the whole shooting match!
>
> Comments?
>
> How bizarre that some readers believe that in denying character and event
> they can impose base ideological doctrine onto these fictions.
>
> best
>
>
> > From: "sZ" <keithsz@[omitted]>
> > To: <pynchon-l@[omitted]>
> > Subject: Left-wing Infinitude
> > Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2003 21:13:15 -0700
> >
> >
> > All you lefties should come over to the Pale Fire discussion. We are
deftly
> > and nonchalantly enjoying Nabokov's words about the miracle of the
> > lemniscate left.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2003 12:59:40 -0400
> From: joeallonby <vze422fs@verizon.net>
> Subject: Re: NP
>
> on 9/26/03 10:05 AM, Otto at ottosell@yahoo.de wrote:
>
> > a literary website, sort of
> > http://www.identitytheory.com/
> >
> > David Hadju interview:
> > http://www.identitytheory.com/people/birnbaum18.html
>
> >
> > RB: Well, yeah sure...In looking over who you have talked to, there are
two
> > questions that pop up. One, did you in fact, talk to Thomas Pynchon
directly
> > or by fax?
> >
> > DH: It was by fax. It╧s funny this is another thing that nobody asks me
about.
> > I interviewed Thomas Pynchon, I╧d like a little bit of credit for
that...
> >
> > RB: Right, right.
> >
> > DH: He╧s never talked to anyone. I mean he╧s so reclusive he makes
Salinger
> > look like Madonna for goodness sakes. We did an epistolary interview. At
first
> > by fax and then there was an exchange of letters, three letters. I was
> > shocked. I never requested an interview with him because I knew he would
say
> > no. So, instead I did all of my homework, spent a few months and
fashioned all
> > the questions, everything I╧d ever want to ask him and just sent them.
In the
> > hope that he╧d be so intrigued by the questions that I might catch him
at the
> > right moment.
> >
> > He then proceeded to read my first book and he requested through his
agent a
> > copy of my proposal for this book. And he read it. (snorts) Then he
responded.
> > I knew from my editor (who did not send the proposal without my
permission)
> > that Pynchon was poring this over in his mind. So I keep my fingers
crossed
> > and I actually said a couple of prayers. I made some promises to God,
"Just
> > give me Pynchon, God." I╧m not going to tell you what I promised God,
but I
> > have not delivered yet. (laughs)
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2003 12:04:37 -0700
> From: "sZ" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: NPPF Still curious
>
> By the way, what does 'cloutish' mean? One of the definitions of
> 'clout' is a powerful baseball hit, so it's an intriguing descriptor for
> Shade. I just realized I had been reading it as 'loutish.'
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2003 15:30:52 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Michael Joseph <mjoseph@rci.rutgers.edu>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Still curious
>
> Perhaps like cloutery it means the following ...
>
> Like or characteristic of a botcher; clumsy, awkward; clownish.
>
> 1675 E. PHILLIPS Theatr. Poet. Pref. 14 Spencer, with all his Rustic,
> obsolete words, with all his rough-hewn clowterly Verses. a1707 BP.
> PATRICK Autobiog. (1839) 194 The coffin..of elm, hooped with iron, very
> coarse and clouter[l]y. 1712 J. JAMES tr. Le Blond's Gardening 32 The
> Designs..made Parterres look very heavy and clouterly. 1741 RICHARDSON
> Pamela. I. (1824) 112 Some clouterly plow-boy. 1826 SCOTT Woodst. xx,
> Huge clouterly shoes. 1842 BRONTE Shirley. II. (1842) 243 A clouterly
> scrivener made idle lemniscates over his legal papers, which made poor
> father savage.
>
>
> On Fri, 26 Sep 2003, sZ wrote:
>
> > By the way, what does 'cloutish' mean? One of the definitions of
> > 'clout' is a powerful baseball hit, so it's an intriguing descriptor for
> > Shade. I just realized I had been reading it as 'loutish.'
> >
> >
> >
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2003 19:34:34 +0000
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2003 13:54:36 -0700
> From: "sZ" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Still curious
>
> >>>Perhaps like cloutery it means the following ...
> Like or characteristic of a botcher; clumsy, awkward; clownish.<<<
>
> That fits perfectly. I'll bet cloutery is in VN's Websters.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2003 14:30:53 -0700
> From: "sZ" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: NPPF Cloutish: Spenser For [Pale] Fire
>
> http://www.jimnielson.com/grooves/colin.html
>
> These isolated allusions to Colin in the 1580s already exemplify the
triplex
> person of the Cloutish trinity to come: author, character, and wholly
ghost.
> But it is in an uneasy mix of the first and last that he tends to make his
> reappearances, a kind of extant patron saint of upwardly mobile
pastoralists
> subject to endless revision as the attributes of the historical Spenser
that
> are inconsistent with the closed myth of the calendrical Colin get
> anachronistically attached to him.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> ------------------------------
> From: "sZ" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: NPPF Still Wondering About This, Too
>
> Why is there special instruction to see the entries for the letters G, K,
> and S in the Index, and then when you check them out you find entries for
G
> and K, and none for S? Why is the entry for S nonexistent?
>
> ------------------------------
> Date: Sat, 27 Sep 2003 11:14:39 +1000
> From: jbor <jbor@bigpond.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Speaking of overt politics ...
>
> All this is as it should be: the world needs Gradus. But
> Gradus should not kill kings. Vinogradus should never, never
> provoke God. Leningradus should not aim his peashooter at
> people even in dreams, because if he does, a pair of
> colossally thick, abnormally hairy arms will hug him from
> behind and squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. (line 171 note)
>
> best
>
>
> on 27/9/03 12:05 AM, jbor wrote:
>
> > Of Gradus, the "Extremist":
> >
> > Mere springs and coils produced the inward movements of
> > our clockwork man. He might be termed a Puritan. One essential
> > dislike, formidable in its simplicity, pervaded his dull soul:
> > he disliked injustice and deception. He disliked their union -
> > they were always together - with a wooden passion that neither
> > had, nor needed, words to express itself. Such a dislike should
> > have deserved praise had it not been a by-product of the man's
> > hopeless stupidity. He called unjust and deceitful everything
> > that surpassed his understanding. He worshipped general ideas
> > and did so with pedantic aplomb. The generality was godly, the
> > specific diabolical. If one person was poor and the other
> > wealthy it did not matter what precisely had ruined one or made
> > the other rich: the difference itself was unfair, and the poor
> > man who did not denounce it was as wicked as the rich one who
> > ignored it. People who knew too much, scientists, writers,
> > mathematicians, crystalographers and so forth, were no better
> > than kings or priests: they all held an unfair share of
> > power of which others were cheated. A plain decent fellow should
> > constantly be on the watch for some piece of clever knavery
> > on the part of nature and neighbor. (line 171 note)
> >
> > Gradus, filtered through Kinbote (filtering Botkin, if necessary), but
> > filtering, not too indirectly, Nabokov.
> >
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Sat, 27 Sep 2003 13:53:30 +1000
> From: jbor <jbor@bigpond.com>
> Subject: VLVL (6) Brock
>
> on 25/9/03 9:42 PM, Terrance wrote:
>
> > "Many informants said they'd expected him to take off his clothes and do
> > something unspeakable."
> >
> > Wild eyed and terminally depressed Brock Vond is almost as wacko as
> > Frenesi's husband (can't quite say, ex-husband) Zoyd.
>
> Yes, the previous chapter illustrated the petulant and self-centred way
Zoyd
> behaved when he realised Frenesi was going to leave him, and it's directly
> juxtaposed here with the description of Brock's similar behaviour when
> Frenesi left him for good after the second time they were together. It's
> ironic that it's Zoyd's paranoia (58.4-10) and his accusations -- "I don't
> see Superfuck any place" he spits at Frenesi in the balcony scene
(59.2) --
> which probably helped to make up her mind to go back with Brock when she
did
> eventually meet up with him again back in California.
>
> I like the way the narrator offers up a couple of different perspectives
on
> Brock's behaviour after losing Frenesi:
>
> But it was to be a while yet before reports stopped coming in
> from lunch counters and saloons, often known to have strictly
> enforced attitude codes, in unlikely West Coast locales, of
> disruptions by a, some said "wild-eyed," others "terminally
> depressed," Brock Vond. (69.25-30)
>
> There are a couple of wry remarks in this passage -- the quip about
> "strictly enforced attitude codes" is one, and the reference to the
"[m]any
> informants" who offered testimony about Brock's behaviour is another.
>
> > If Robert's hunch is correct and Frenesi had a hand in Zoyd's set-up
> > and the Letter Of Agreement, is she responsible for the Insanity
> > clause?
>
> Brock could easily have made Zoyd report to a parole officer after that
drug
> bust, and have kept tabs on him that way if that was the only motive
behind
> it all. Instead he arranges the whole "insanity clause" and disability
> benefit scam, which will also ensure that Prairie is looked after.
>
> best
>
> ------------------------------
>
> From: "Glenn Scheper" <glenn_scheper@earthlink.net>
> Subject: RE: NPPR Line 143 a clockwork toy
>
> Please, How is a candle(stick) related to broken time symbolism?
>
> > Shade and Kinbote's sojourn constitutes an escape from time:
> > the candle, handless clock, broken clockwork toy, are all broken
> > symbols of time, or symbols of broken or stopped time.
>
> C. line 143 says candle-stick, a hyphen at line end in my copy.
>
> Solving candlestick is half the key of a mystery in Revelation:
>
> 1:19 Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which
> are, and the things which shall be hereafter;
>
> 1:20 The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right
> hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are
> the angels of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks
> which thou sawest are the seven churches.
>
> Is a candlestick the candle itself or the candle's receptacle?
> Websters: Candlestick: a cupped or spiked holder for a candle.
>
> Funny, I opened my oldest reference, Harper's Bible Dictionary,
> wherein the entry Candlestick said, See Lampstand. These past
> 20 years I've been trying to see the symbolic importance of a
> thing that supports an oil lamp, which in my mental image had
> deteriorated by now to approximately a bedside night-stand.
>
> But now I find the Candlestick of Rev. is Greek LYCHNOS, which
> I can now properly map to Lamp, which discussion indicates no
> candle at all, but for that age, a vessel with oil and a wick.
>
> Which might VN mean by candlestick?
>
> From my AF perspective, Aladdin's lamp is Aladdin himself.
> The djinn comes out of a bottle which is himself. Rather,
> he is intertwined with the bottle, like the vase my wife
> bought, that has a serpent passing through cracks in it.
> Depending what end's what, putting a lamp under a bushel
> resembles coitus, but the lamp on a lampstand his mouth.
>
> Yours truly,
> Glenn Scheper
> http://home.earthlink.net/~glenn_scheper/
> glenn_scheper + at + earthlink.net
> Copyleft(!) Forward freely.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> End of pynchon-l-digest V2 #3571
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