Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0008693, Thu, 2 Oct 2003 11:41:14 -0700

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Fw: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3583 Pale Fire
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From: "pynchon-l-digest" <owner-pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
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Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2003 11:06 AM
Subject: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3583


>> Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2003 18:04:46 +0000
> From: "Ghetta Life" <ghetta_outta@hotmail.com>
> Subject: RE: NPPF commentary line 149, p. 143- continued
>
> Wow! Some of Michael's commentary on the Commentary is as surreal as
> Kinbote's. I'll just skip around to a few points:
>
> >From: Michael Joseph <mjoseph@rci.rutgers.edu>
> >
> >"... after a while he stopped again to take stock of conditions and
decide
> >whether to scramble up the steep debris slope in front of him or to
strike
> >off to the right along a strip of grass, gay with gentians, that went
> >winding between lichened rocks." (143) The choice seems as clear as, say,
> >the choice between sex and death, and yet it takes Charles--a king, whose
> >royal function is to choose--a second or two to choose.
>
> You are playing with a Freudian take on a novel by an author who's
professed
> disdain for Freud. Of course, still, even Nabokov can pe psychoanalized..
>
> >Oddly, Charles's perceptions (which are consubstantial with Kinbote's)
> >embrace imagery of violently forced sexual abstinence.
> >
> >"Falkberg with its hood of snow" (144) suggests a penis covered by a
> >leperous foreskin (rather than a hardon with a ruddy head or an
> >upright leader with a crown)
>
> Please! I've just finished my lunch! But really, I can't see this
> "suggestion."
>
> >"Paberg (Mt. Peacock), and others,--separated by narrow dim valleys with
> >intercalated cotton-wool bits of cloud that seemed placed ... to prevent
> >their flanks from scraping against one another" (144) suggests a kind of
> >sexual restraint inhibiting consenting thighs.
> >
> >"Mt. Glitterntin a serrated edge of bright foil" (144) suggests a
menacing
> >gelding knife.
> >
> >"a tender haze enveloped more distant ridges" (144) suggests the painful,
> >fading memory of one's one-time ridged (manly) self.
> >
> >".. an endless array, through every grade of soft evanescence" (144)
> >suggests disintegration, though perhaps ecstatic disintegration: a
rainbow
> >of indistinctiveness; the full monty of death.
>
> Or maybe detumescence, yeah, I think I'm getting it...
>
> Crazy, but sort of fun...
>
> Ghetta
>
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> End of pynchon-l-digest V2 #3583
> ********************************
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