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Re: [NABOKOV-L] Of bards and beards and then Browns, Brownings,
Pippa and peaches, Andrea del Sarto...
Pippa and peaches, Andrea del Sarto...
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Re: [NABOKV-L] [NABOKOV-L] Of bards and beards and then Browns, Brownings, Pippa and peaches, Andrea del Sarto...Stan Kelly-Bootle [to Jansy] "thanks for your tireless trawling for exciting Robert Browning links to VN. That your net also catches links to the colour Brown is a tad lesser catching, since the original Anglo-Saxon nickname Brun referred to hair-colour...Can we link Robert B's beard to John Shade's shaving interlude and the Abe Lincoln allusions? The definitions and dating of beard-styles, like Newgate and Tyburn Frills and Collars (originally thieves cant for the hangman's noose), seem too vague to form strong opinions. Since VN makes overt, not-to-be-missed allusions to Robert Browning (ditto Frost, Eliot, Dryden, Pope et al), why do we search for obscure, hidden references?" [to All] "... And according to Prof. Gwynn, John Shade is based on poet/critic Yvor Winters, which VN's readers ought to know about but, I my case, didn't until recently. Following Ron Rosenbaum's 'leaks,' I can't wait to buy Pale Fire, the unmolested Poem...By the way, is anyone interested in what Winters thought or might have thought of Lolita? He never wrote a single word about Nabokov that I am aware of, though they both taught at Stanford for a short while in 1941. I think Winters would have found Nabokov's style fragmented and wasteful and his theme improperly developed. More importantly, he would have had very serious doubts about ..."
JM: Haha. You're a confirmed prankster, saying whatever you wish by applying a hidden un-kiplingian "IF" for whatever Winters would have thought...
I think that my PF theory (which nobody commented so far since I lack the heraldic ring) is rather neat: instead of considering that Kinbote is a character who wants to get out of the fictional world, I see Kinbote as trying to kill a real poet (Nabokov) to be able to pull him into fiction and turn him into a fictional poet...After I read about Browning's putative competition with his wife's fame, I made a dream (related to fake beards and shavings as planned for Kinbote's beaver and Shade's naked neck), in which PF was written entirelly by...Sybil!
Its plot was rather intrincate but I was woken up by a person from Porlock (disguised as an alarm clock), so I cannot reproduce it here.
I was very careful not to use links to colour directly. There is, in "Ada," a butterfly with a "brown" added to its tag name but, I suppose, it must be merely descriptive of its colour brown (as for the Nabokov Blues), so I omitted it. But I also found (no heart to check it now against the text) a sexy mosquito named something like "Chateaubriand brown" and this "brown" probably serves to indicate a certain Professor Robert Brown (whom I mentioned). About the romantic Browning couple I know almost nothing (did you read Sordello?), except the marvellous "biography" of their elopement as seen through the eyes of a dog ("Flush") and bits of flush here and there.
Sandy Klein sends the link on "Waxwing slain" by John Crowley ( http://crowleycrow.livejournal.com/152467.html), in which he mentions Ron Rosenbaum's review for Slate with more than a grain of salt.
Yes!!!! Rosenbaum wants to see the poem, "Pale Fire," by Vladimir Nabokov, included in the "poetry" shelves ( Nabokov "wrote the poem and it's time to claim it for him) and then he goes on to state that he doesn't want to "downplay the two essays in the booklet called 'Pale Fire Reflections'..." but, as I see it, his entire review contradicts his own former assertions. Perhaps, his personal opinions and frequent readings of "Pale Fire" are authoritative enough to garantee a wide readership in the Slate. R.Ron's playfulness must be exemplary of a kind of humor that I cannot grasp. Right at the begining of his article there's a striking analogy. He writes: "...You know the line: 'Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.' It's Pacino, complaining about the mob in Godfather III... Here I'm talking about the world of Nabokov controversies. Some pretty rough characters in that mob, too. You don't want to get on the Don's bad side." and later on, he returns to the thread: "Now the object Mo Cohen sent me is likely to touch off this debate again. Only this time I think those of us who want to free "Pale Fire" may have the edge, since the object has the blessing not only of Dmitri Nabokov, the godfather, but of Brian Boyd, his consigliere, the world's foremost Nabokov biographer." Can anyone help me get a laugh out of this?
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JM: Haha. You're a confirmed prankster, saying whatever you wish by applying a hidden un-kiplingian "IF" for whatever Winters would have thought...
I think that my PF theory (which nobody commented so far since I lack the heraldic ring) is rather neat: instead of considering that Kinbote is a character who wants to get out of the fictional world, I see Kinbote as trying to kill a real poet (Nabokov) to be able to pull him into fiction and turn him into a fictional poet...After I read about Browning's putative competition with his wife's fame, I made a dream (related to fake beards and shavings as planned for Kinbote's beaver and Shade's naked neck), in which PF was written entirelly by...Sybil!
Its plot was rather intrincate but I was woken up by a person from Porlock (disguised as an alarm clock), so I cannot reproduce it here.
I was very careful not to use links to colour directly. There is, in "Ada," a butterfly with a "brown" added to its tag name but, I suppose, it must be merely descriptive of its colour brown (as for the Nabokov Blues), so I omitted it. But I also found (no heart to check it now against the text) a sexy mosquito named something like "Chateaubriand brown" and this "brown" probably serves to indicate a certain Professor Robert Brown (whom I mentioned). About the romantic Browning couple I know almost nothing (did you read Sordello?), except the marvellous "biography" of their elopement as seen through the eyes of a dog ("Flush") and bits of flush here and there.
Sandy Klein sends the link on "Waxwing slain" by John Crowley ( http://crowleycrow.livejournal.com/152467.html), in which he mentions Ron Rosenbaum's review for Slate with more than a grain of salt.
Yes!!!! Rosenbaum wants to see the poem, "Pale Fire," by Vladimir Nabokov, included in the "poetry" shelves ( Nabokov "wrote the poem and it's time to claim it for him) and then he goes on to state that he doesn't want to "downplay the two essays in the booklet called 'Pale Fire Reflections'..." but, as I see it, his entire review contradicts his own former assertions. Perhaps, his personal opinions and frequent readings of "Pale Fire" are authoritative enough to garantee a wide readership in the Slate. R.Ron's playfulness must be exemplary of a kind of humor that I cannot grasp. Right at the begining of his article there's a striking analogy. He writes: "...You know the line: 'Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.' It's Pacino, complaining about the mob in Godfather III... Here I'm talking about the world of Nabokov controversies. Some pretty rough characters in that mob, too. You don't want to get on the Don's bad side." and later on, he returns to the thread: "Now the object Mo Cohen sent me is likely to touch off this debate again. Only this time I think those of us who want to free "Pale Fire" may have the edge, since the object has the blessing not only of Dmitri Nabokov, the godfather, but of Brian Boyd, his consigliere, the world's foremost Nabokov biographer." Can anyone help me get a laugh out of this?
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/