Subject
Re: EDITORIAL: Access to NABOKV-L archives
From
Date
Body
SES: The listserv that hosts our electronic forum made some changes on Monday, and at the moment there seems to be a problem accessing the NABOKV-L archiver anonymously, without having to enter a password. They're working on it.
JM: I hope they fix the problem soon because even when using the google-page one cannot access the Nab-L archives even now.
When we go back to Nab criticism and ancient reviews, we end up tempted to re-read various Nabokov novels, or chapters, sometimes with surprising results. Writing about "Pale Fire" in TNR, Mary McCarthy relates love to loss, moving through longing ("a kind of homesickness") to the image of a platonic "phantom half" and the kinbotean "phantom toe" and "phantom extensions beyond the board," all of which she related to a chess-move in the novel*.
Right now my chief interest lies in "The Luzhin Defense" and therefore the chess-connection, dealing with knights and a black horse, interested me anew. These phantoms, in my view, are also related to "The Enchanter," when "Arthur's" erotic fantasies envelop the innocent girl to achieve a climax without touching her body ( as it also happens with Humbert Humbert in the couch scene with his little Carmen and apple), although in their case those standing in the marginal file to feel phantom extensions do have an effect on the "real play."
John Shade (lines 659...663):"What glided down the roof and made that thud?"/"It is old winter tumbling in the mud."/ "And now what shall I do? My knight is pinned."// Who rides so late in the night and the wind?/It is the writer's grief..."
Kinbote: "Jacques d'Argus ...strolled like a pigeon with his hands behind him...From my rented cloudlet I contemplate him with quiet surprise...We must assume, I think, that the forward projection of what imagination he had, stopped at the act, on the brink of all its possible consequences; ghost consequences, comparable to the ghost toes of an amputee or to the fanning out of additional squares which a chess knight (that skip-space piece), standing on a marginal file, "feels" in phantom extensions beyond the board, but which have no effect whatever on his real moves, on the real play."
.................................................................................................................................................................................................
* "Love is the burden of Pale Fire, love and loss. Love is felt as a kind of homesickness, that yearning for union described by Plato, the pining for the other half of a once-whole body, the straining of the soul's black horse to unite with the white. The sense of loss in love, of separation (the room beyond, projected onto the snow, the phantom moves of the chess knight, that deviate piece, off the board's edge onto ghostly squares), binds mortal men in a common pattern..." (TNR, "A Bolt from the Blue")
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
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/
JM: I hope they fix the problem soon because even when using the google-page one cannot access the Nab-L archives even now.
When we go back to Nab criticism and ancient reviews, we end up tempted to re-read various Nabokov novels, or chapters, sometimes with surprising results. Writing about "Pale Fire" in TNR, Mary McCarthy relates love to loss, moving through longing ("a kind of homesickness") to the image of a platonic "phantom half" and the kinbotean "phantom toe" and "phantom extensions beyond the board," all of which she related to a chess-move in the novel*.
Right now my chief interest lies in "The Luzhin Defense" and therefore the chess-connection, dealing with knights and a black horse, interested me anew. These phantoms, in my view, are also related to "The Enchanter," when "Arthur's" erotic fantasies envelop the innocent girl to achieve a climax without touching her body ( as it also happens with Humbert Humbert in the couch scene with his little Carmen and apple), although in their case those standing in the marginal file to feel phantom extensions do have an effect on the "real play."
John Shade (lines 659...663):"What glided down the roof and made that thud?"/"It is old winter tumbling in the mud."/ "And now what shall I do? My knight is pinned."// Who rides so late in the night and the wind?/It is the writer's grief..."
Kinbote: "Jacques d'Argus ...strolled like a pigeon with his hands behind him...From my rented cloudlet I contemplate him with quiet surprise...We must assume, I think, that the forward projection of what imagination he had, stopped at the act, on the brink of all its possible consequences; ghost consequences, comparable to the ghost toes of an amputee or to the fanning out of additional squares which a chess knight (that skip-space piece), standing on a marginal file, "feels" in phantom extensions beyond the board, but which have no effect whatever on his real moves, on the real play."
.................................................................................................................................................................................................
* "Love is the burden of Pale Fire, love and loss. Love is felt as a kind of homesickness, that yearning for union described by Plato, the pining for the other half of a once-whole body, the straining of the soul's black horse to unite with the white. The sense of loss in love, of separation (the room beyond, projected onto the snow, the phantom moves of the chess knight, that deviate piece, off the board's edge onto ghostly squares), binds mortal men in a common pattern..." (TNR, "A Bolt from the Blue")
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
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/