Subject
Fw: [NABOKV-L] Night Rote
From
Date
Body
Stephen Blackwell: ... "I noticed a parallel between Humbert's spoonerism "Show, wight ray" and Shade's "Night Rote." Shade's title could have been triggered by play with the phrase "right note". Wight ray, indeed!"
Steve informed us that he's been teaching "Lolita" and brought us a delightful alternate clue for Night Rote and Right Note.
Since I cannot be one of his pupils reading "Lolita" in class, or Matt's with "Pale Fire", I tried to do a little homework on my own.
In the first place I tried to make a list of words linked to "ray" (not "wight"): ashtray, fray,stray, betray, gray... Lolita dies in "Gray star" (a subdued rayonnement?).
Next I set myself the task of finding references to "ray". Surprisingly, there were only four other mentions to "ray" which I could glean ( not counting the suave dr. John Ray Jr.).
1. Writes HH: ..."Ces matins gris si doux..." [...] I am like one of those inflated pale spiders you see in old gardens. Sitting in the middle of a luminous web and giving little jerks to this or that strand. My web is spread all over the house...Is Lo in her room? Gently I tug on the silk. Ray-like, I glide in through to the parlor and find the radio silent ... So my nymphet is not in the house at all! Gone! What I thought was a prismatic weave turns out to be but an old gray cobweb, the house is empty, is dead. And then comes Lolita's soft sweet chuckle through my half-open door "Don't tell Mother but I've eaten all your bacon." Gone when I scuttle out of my room..."
2. Later he goes on: "The week of scattered showers and shadows ...was one of the gloomiest I can recall. Then came two or three dim rays of hope - before the ultimate sunburst...One evening, Charlotte herself provided me with an opening."I have a surprise for you," she said looking at me with fond eyes over a spoonful of soup...I swallowed my spoonful, wiped my lips with pink paper (Oh, the cool rich linens of Mirana Hotel!) ... I can well imagine the thrill that you, a healthy American gal, must experience with Lady Bumble ...or a Hollywood harlot...you, frankly starry-eyed - at the ... Beaver Eaters, or whatever they are called. But I happen to be allergic to Europe, including merry old England....
3. Then, on chapter 29: The door of the lighted bathroom stood ajar; in addition to that, a skeleton glow came though the Venetian blind from the outside arclights; these intercrossed rays penetrated the darkness of the bedroom and revealed ...
4. My last find was: If you really wish to triumph in your mind over the idea of death -" "Ray," said Lo for hurrah...
A selection from the lines in the context of Stephen's quote: She walked up to the open suitcase as if stalking it from afar, at a kind of slow-motion walk, peering at that distant treasure box on the luggage support. (Was there something wrong, I wondered, with those great gray eyes of hers, or were we both plunged in the same enchanted mist?) [...] as if she were a bemused bird-hunter holding his breath over the incredible bird he spreads out by the tips of its flaming wings[...] Then she crept into my waiting arms, radiant, relaxed, caressing me with her tender, mysterious, impure, indifferent, twilight eyes - for all the world, like the cheapest of cheap cuties. For that is what nymphets imitate - while we moan and die.
"What's the katter with misses?" I muttered (word-control gone) into her hair.
"If you must know," she said, "you do it the wrong way."
"Show, wight ray."
"All in good time," responded the spoonerette.
....................
I added longer sentences just because there are recurrent words ( Beaver... Beef-eaters? Kinbote a vegetarian?), VN's insistence on the harlot-theme ( The return of Chorb, Transparent Things, Ada... In The Defense, Luzhin's fiancée is familiar to him because he felt nostalgic for a prostitute from his old days with Valentinov...) which now begins to make sense: like the cheapest of cheap cuties. For that is what nymphets imitate ...
Rays are not only light-rays but spiderweb preying extensions...
Stephen B... the sentence "Show, wight ray" seems to be peculiarly worded even when we exchange the letters, because of the "coma" after "show".
Lo's answer suggests VN was also playing with "right away" ( "all in good time").
Why did he describe Lo as a "spoonerette"? Was it because she transformed "right way" into "right away"?
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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
Steve informed us that he's been teaching "Lolita" and brought us a delightful alternate clue for Night Rote and Right Note.
Since I cannot be one of his pupils reading "Lolita" in class, or Matt's with "Pale Fire", I tried to do a little homework on my own.
In the first place I tried to make a list of words linked to "ray" (not "wight"): ashtray, fray,stray, betray, gray... Lolita dies in "Gray star" (a subdued rayonnement?).
Next I set myself the task of finding references to "ray". Surprisingly, there were only four other mentions to "ray" which I could glean ( not counting the suave dr. John Ray Jr.).
1. Writes HH: ..."Ces matins gris si doux..." [...] I am like one of those inflated pale spiders you see in old gardens. Sitting in the middle of a luminous web and giving little jerks to this or that strand. My web is spread all over the house...Is Lo in her room? Gently I tug on the silk. Ray-like, I glide in through to the parlor and find the radio silent ... So my nymphet is not in the house at all! Gone! What I thought was a prismatic weave turns out to be but an old gray cobweb, the house is empty, is dead. And then comes Lolita's soft sweet chuckle through my half-open door "Don't tell Mother but I've eaten all your bacon." Gone when I scuttle out of my room..."
2. Later he goes on: "The week of scattered showers and shadows ...was one of the gloomiest I can recall. Then came two or three dim rays of hope - before the ultimate sunburst...One evening, Charlotte herself provided me with an opening."I have a surprise for you," she said looking at me with fond eyes over a spoonful of soup...I swallowed my spoonful, wiped my lips with pink paper (Oh, the cool rich linens of Mirana Hotel!) ... I can well imagine the thrill that you, a healthy American gal, must experience with Lady Bumble ...or a Hollywood harlot...you, frankly starry-eyed - at the ... Beaver Eaters, or whatever they are called. But I happen to be allergic to Europe, including merry old England....
3. Then, on chapter 29: The door of the lighted bathroom stood ajar; in addition to that, a skeleton glow came though the Venetian blind from the outside arclights; these intercrossed rays penetrated the darkness of the bedroom and revealed ...
4. My last find was: If you really wish to triumph in your mind over the idea of death -" "Ray," said Lo for hurrah...
A selection from the lines in the context of Stephen's quote: She walked up to the open suitcase as if stalking it from afar, at a kind of slow-motion walk, peering at that distant treasure box on the luggage support. (Was there something wrong, I wondered, with those great gray eyes of hers, or were we both plunged in the same enchanted mist?) [...] as if she were a bemused bird-hunter holding his breath over the incredible bird he spreads out by the tips of its flaming wings[...] Then she crept into my waiting arms, radiant, relaxed, caressing me with her tender, mysterious, impure, indifferent, twilight eyes - for all the world, like the cheapest of cheap cuties. For that is what nymphets imitate - while we moan and die.
"What's the katter with misses?" I muttered (word-control gone) into her hair.
"If you must know," she said, "you do it the wrong way."
"Show, wight ray."
"All in good time," responded the spoonerette.
....................
I added longer sentences just because there are recurrent words ( Beaver... Beef-eaters? Kinbote a vegetarian?), VN's insistence on the harlot-theme ( The return of Chorb, Transparent Things, Ada... In The Defense, Luzhin's fiancée is familiar to him because he felt nostalgic for a prostitute from his old days with Valentinov...) which now begins to make sense: like the cheapest of cheap cuties. For that is what nymphets imitate ...
Rays are not only light-rays but spiderweb preying extensions...
Stephen B... the sentence "Show, wight ray" seems to be peculiarly worded even when we exchange the letters, because of the "coma" after "show".
Lo's answer suggests VN was also playing with "right away" ( "all in good time").
Why did he describe Lo as a "spoonerette"? Was it because she transformed "right way" into "right away"?
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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