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Re: iridules & cloud iridescence
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Gary Lipon: Researching iridule. I got it in my head that most readers interpreted iridules as sundogs, also called parhelion. Google somewhat surprisingly returned a Fri, 19 Jun 2009 22:00:42 -0400 post from the archives from Jerry Friedman..."An iridescent cloud is one thing, a parhelion is another, and a mother-of-pearl cloud is yet another. I still suspect that Nabokov saw a parhelion and a rainbow at the same time and thought, or let Shade think, that the former was a reflection of the latter. In that case Kinbote, of all people, would be right." I disagree with the conclusion...shimmering pastels sounds rather rare and wonderful to me, and would be something likely to be remembered.The definition that Shade gives is to be taken metronymic-ally: serving merely to associate iridule and rainbow, the container and the contained.I'm voting for cloud iridescence.
JM: Thanks to Gary Lipon because he returned to the fantastic "iridule" image in PF: "The iridule — when, beautiful and strange, / In a bright sky above a mountain range/ One opal cloudlet in an oval form/ Reflects the rainbow of a thunderstorm/ Which in a distant valley has been staged ..."
I've seen rainbows in Brasilia that look like wide open three-dimensional arch-ways (not flat ribbons), something perhaps caused by our location in relation to the setting sun. Parhelions lie "parhelially," ie, usually at the opposite side of a rainbow and, mostly, against a "bright sky" as Shade's "iridule".
Incessant rain over wide watery surfaces, in the setting sun, extend the rainbow-colors all over the landscape (once, driving over a bridge, I felt I was inside an iridescent crystal hemisphere) and, in this particular case, they differ from "cloud iridescence" for there's no cloud standing in isolation, nor the refraction takes on the shape of a bow*. However (who knows?) this peculiarity may be tied with the formation of Shade's cloudy iridule, since a rainbow can also be reflected onto a glistening surface right under one's feet. I'd have believed in the "physical reality" of Shade's description were it not for his powerful metaphor (the turmoils of a distant thunderstorm can be reflected as a deceitful peaceful scenery, for example...)
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*- perhaps Nabokov is indicating the unattentive insistence when applying the word "bow" automatically when, what the eye is then registering, is only an "iridescence".
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JM: Thanks to Gary Lipon because he returned to the fantastic "iridule" image in PF: "The iridule — when, beautiful and strange, / In a bright sky above a mountain range/ One opal cloudlet in an oval form/ Reflects the rainbow of a thunderstorm/ Which in a distant valley has been staged ..."
I've seen rainbows in Brasilia that look like wide open three-dimensional arch-ways (not flat ribbons), something perhaps caused by our location in relation to the setting sun. Parhelions lie "parhelially," ie, usually at the opposite side of a rainbow and, mostly, against a "bright sky" as Shade's "iridule".
Incessant rain over wide watery surfaces, in the setting sun, extend the rainbow-colors all over the landscape (once, driving over a bridge, I felt I was inside an iridescent crystal hemisphere) and, in this particular case, they differ from "cloud iridescence" for there's no cloud standing in isolation, nor the refraction takes on the shape of a bow*. However (who knows?) this peculiarity may be tied with the formation of Shade's cloudy iridule, since a rainbow can also be reflected onto a glistening surface right under one's feet. I'd have believed in the "physical reality" of Shade's description were it not for his powerful metaphor (the turmoils of a distant thunderstorm can be reflected as a deceitful peaceful scenery, for example...)
.......................................................................................................
*- perhaps Nabokov is indicating the unattentive insistence when applying the word "bow" automatically when, what the eye is then registering, is only an "iridescence".
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
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Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/