Subject
THOUGHTS: Stranger rhymes with danger
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Writing about The Flaws of Nature ( Curmudgeon link in
http://queue.acm.org/ ( http://queue.acm.org/ )) SK-B mentioned
"Nabokov's devious 'proofs by rhyme' (as well as "proofs by anagram")"
related to "fine literature and literary programming".
He offered an example: Nabokov, "when discussing tribal antagonisms,
adds the warning: remember that stranger rhymes with danger." And S K-B
added: "and so it does, but it also rhymes with manger..."
His conclusion, directed to his readers, not to Nabokov:"Yes, Nabokov
is playfully weaving verbal “conceits” with no serious claim that
strangers are dangerous because of a few shared syllables.Yet one must
remain alert against endowing words and sounds with fanciful
metalinguistic and a-historical "baggage." [...]
JM: Humor may serve to hide its author's tendenciousness or second
intentions. It also serves to endow words with a magic quality.
I don't see that ( I think SK-B agrees with me) VN intended to bring
about a scientific demonstration of "rhyme" or "anagram"- if considered
in isolation. It was a part of VN's kind of humor, although VN uses the
play with a "proof by rhyme" hiding a serious intent. It even is
unrelated to "rhyme" per se, nor any "cosmic-comic" consonantal games,
nor any linguistic and etymological reasonings.
Besides that ,Nabokov often uses "personification", and attributes a
human mood to objects with a humoristic twist. It looks jejune,
infantile...but it is not always the case. It often becomes something
magical.
Examples of personification or of animism abound in VN, but I chose a
less conspicuous one from "The Aurelian" ( I'll underline the special
words related to "street" and "trolley":
"Luring aside one of the trolley-car numbers, the street started at
the corner of a crowded avenue. For a long timeit crept on in obscurity,
with no shop windows or any such joys. Then came a small square (four
benches, a bed of pansies) round which the trolley steered with rasping
disapproval".
It seems to me that Nabokov is able to develop different verbal-ideas
by extracting them from the very kernel of a thing.
He must have a special relationship with the "signifying" process...
Nabokov's wardrobes moan, drawers and doors have evil intentions, the
moon has eyes, almost like the pictures found in a book for children
where the indeffinition bt what lies outside and inside is still
operating strongly.
I'll get two other examples, now from an author who is very unlike VN (
Markus Zusak, "The Book Thief"):"the snow was shivering outside"(p.143);
"The mayor's wife bruised herself again." (bruise: a difficult smile).
These inventions ( Nabokov's, Zusak's) retain a strong childish appeal
and thereby they can shock the reader into awareness, at times when
routine words have lost their effectiveness. They invite a kind of
"innocence" and openness.
Sandy Klein posts Steve Coates (NYT) "Does there not exist a high ridge
where the mountainside of “scientific” knowledge joins the opposite
slope of “artistic” imagination?": Nabokov’s fiction is always becoming
propaganda on behalf of good noticing, hence on behalf of
itself.”..."Nabokov himself, in his impish interview mode, teased
those who would question him...I love the following passage from some of
Professor Nabokov’s unpublished college lecture notes... The passage
isn’t as widely known as it should be, though it appears Brian Boyd’s
two-part biography:“Whichever subject you have chosen, you must realize
that knowledge in it is limitless [...]
JM: In Strong Opinions, interview n.2 (1962) Nabokov develops this idea
about specialization and observation: "Reality is a very subjective
affair. I can only define it as a kind of gradual accumulation of
information; and as specialization. If we take a lily, for instance, or
any other kind of natural object, a lily is more real to a naturalist
than it is to an ordinary person. But it is still more real to a
botanist... You can know more and more about one thing but you can never
know everything about one thing... we live surrounded by more or less
ghostly objects..."
There are other items connected to "specialization and ghostly
objects." In Ada ( quoted once again in S.O,p.143): "In every
individual life there goes on from cradle to deathbed the gradual
shaping and strengthening of that backbone of consciousness, which is
the Time of the strong. ‘To be’ means to know one ‘has been.’ ‘Not to be’
implies the only ‘new’ kind of (sham) time: the future. I dismiss it.
Life, love, libraries, have no future." Also, in SO, we find an
interview with A.Talmey (1969) in which Nabokov stresses the importance
of "pure imagination. Incidentally, I tend more and more to regard the
objective existence of all events as a form of impure imagination."
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/
http://queue.acm.org/ ( http://queue.acm.org/ )) SK-B mentioned
"Nabokov's devious 'proofs by rhyme' (as well as "proofs by anagram")"
related to "fine literature and literary programming".
He offered an example: Nabokov, "when discussing tribal antagonisms,
adds the warning: remember that stranger rhymes with danger." And S K-B
added: "and so it does, but it also rhymes with manger..."
His conclusion, directed to his readers, not to Nabokov:"Yes, Nabokov
is playfully weaving verbal “conceits” with no serious claim that
strangers are dangerous because of a few shared syllables.Yet one must
remain alert against endowing words and sounds with fanciful
metalinguistic and a-historical "baggage." [...]
JM: Humor may serve to hide its author's tendenciousness or second
intentions. It also serves to endow words with a magic quality.
I don't see that ( I think SK-B agrees with me) VN intended to bring
about a scientific demonstration of "rhyme" or "anagram"- if considered
in isolation. It was a part of VN's kind of humor, although VN uses the
play with a "proof by rhyme" hiding a serious intent. It even is
unrelated to "rhyme" per se, nor any "cosmic-comic" consonantal games,
nor any linguistic and etymological reasonings.
Besides that ,Nabokov often uses "personification", and attributes a
human mood to objects with a humoristic twist. It looks jejune,
infantile...but it is not always the case. It often becomes something
magical.
Examples of personification or of animism abound in VN, but I chose a
less conspicuous one from "The Aurelian" ( I'll underline the special
words related to "street" and "trolley":
"Luring aside one of the trolley-car numbers, the street started at
the corner of a crowded avenue. For a long timeit crept on in obscurity,
with no shop windows or any such joys. Then came a small square (four
benches, a bed of pansies) round which the trolley steered with rasping
disapproval".
It seems to me that Nabokov is able to develop different verbal-ideas
by extracting them from the very kernel of a thing.
He must have a special relationship with the "signifying" process...
Nabokov's wardrobes moan, drawers and doors have evil intentions, the
moon has eyes, almost like the pictures found in a book for children
where the indeffinition bt what lies outside and inside is still
operating strongly.
I'll get two other examples, now from an author who is very unlike VN (
Markus Zusak, "The Book Thief"):"the snow was shivering outside"(p.143);
"The mayor's wife bruised herself again." (bruise: a difficult smile).
These inventions ( Nabokov's, Zusak's) retain a strong childish appeal
and thereby they can shock the reader into awareness, at times when
routine words have lost their effectiveness. They invite a kind of
"innocence" and openness.
Sandy Klein posts Steve Coates (NYT) "Does there not exist a high ridge
where the mountainside of “scientific” knowledge joins the opposite
slope of “artistic” imagination?": Nabokov’s fiction is always becoming
propaganda on behalf of good noticing, hence on behalf of
itself.”..."Nabokov himself, in his impish interview mode, teased
those who would question him...I love the following passage from some of
Professor Nabokov’s unpublished college lecture notes... The passage
isn’t as widely known as it should be, though it appears Brian Boyd’s
two-part biography:“Whichever subject you have chosen, you must realize
that knowledge in it is limitless [...]
JM: In Strong Opinions, interview n.2 (1962) Nabokov develops this idea
about specialization and observation: "Reality is a very subjective
affair. I can only define it as a kind of gradual accumulation of
information; and as specialization. If we take a lily, for instance, or
any other kind of natural object, a lily is more real to a naturalist
than it is to an ordinary person. But it is still more real to a
botanist... You can know more and more about one thing but you can never
know everything about one thing... we live surrounded by more or less
ghostly objects..."
There are other items connected to "specialization and ghostly
objects." In Ada ( quoted once again in S.O,p.143): "In every
individual life there goes on from cradle to deathbed the gradual
shaping and strengthening of that backbone of consciousness, which is
the Time of the strong. ‘To be’ means to know one ‘has been.’ ‘Not to be’
implies the only ‘new’ kind of (sham) time: the future. I dismiss it.
Life, love, libraries, have no future." Also, in SO, we find an
interview with A.Talmey (1969) in which Nabokov stresses the importance
of "pure imagination. Incidentally, I tend more and more to regard the
objective existence of all events as a form of impure imagination."
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/