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Re: SIGNS: Paragraphs 1-3]
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Stephen Blackwell: "I agree with Anthony Stadlen's larger point, which is that by 1948 it was impossible to make any assumptions about the identity or reliability of any Nabokov narrator, no matter how superficially ordinary or omniscient. In this particular case, this one sentence*, I take the situation to be a variant of free-indirect discourse, where "fault-finding" reflects the attitude of Mrs. Nameless... I think that rather than specify that the narrator attributes moral agency to nature, one might instead suggest that the narrator draws attention to the fact that (nearly?) all human beings attribute such agency to nature..."
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* 2nd paragraph. Light does not find fault. People, or God, find fault. To assert that light finds fault is to fall into the Pathetic Fallacy. Therefore, if the boy is "deranged in his mind" because he attributes moral agency to inanimate nature, so is the narrator.
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Jansy Mello: Is it now possible to make assumptions about the identity or reliability of any VN narrator, even "Nabokov" himself?
On a Book Entitled Lolita he writes: After doing my impersonation of suave John Ray, the character in Lolita who pens the Foreword, any comments coming straight from me may strike one - may strike me, in fact - as an impersonation of Vladimir Nabokov talking about his own book. A few points, however, have to be discussed; and the autobiographic device may induce mimic and model to blend.... Often, while I read special texts written by Nabokov, I'm reminded of the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa ( Pessoa=Person). Unlike VN Pessoa used various "heteronyms" (writerly personas) for his different writing styles and views. [Cf. The Book of Disquiet, Fernando Pessoa, Penguin Classics, 2002].
Pessoa once wrote something roughly translatable as: "the poet is a liar who lies with such skill that the pain he then feigns expresses a pain that's real."
I think Nabokov might have achieved similar effects through autobiographical and self-referential tactics,infinite regress aso.
To attribute "moral agency to nature" means to hold "animistic beliefs", I suppose. Nabokov often deliberately employed personification, hyperboles, animism to engender doubts about a metaphorical or a literal interpretation - and yet, that the narrator or "Mrs.Nameless" were morally "fault finding" in S&S has totally eluded me.
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* 2nd paragraph. Light does not find fault. People, or God, find fault. To assert that light finds fault is to fall into the Pathetic Fallacy. Therefore, if the boy is "deranged in his mind" because he attributes moral agency to inanimate nature, so is the narrator.
..............................................
Jansy Mello: Is it now possible to make assumptions about the identity or reliability of any VN narrator, even "Nabokov" himself?
On a Book Entitled Lolita he writes: After doing my impersonation of suave John Ray, the character in Lolita who pens the Foreword, any comments coming straight from me may strike one - may strike me, in fact - as an impersonation of Vladimir Nabokov talking about his own book. A few points, however, have to be discussed; and the autobiographic device may induce mimic and model to blend.... Often, while I read special texts written by Nabokov, I'm reminded of the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa ( Pessoa=Person). Unlike VN Pessoa used various "heteronyms" (writerly personas) for his different writing styles and views. [Cf. The Book of Disquiet, Fernando Pessoa, Penguin Classics, 2002].
Pessoa once wrote something roughly translatable as: "the poet is a liar who lies with such skill that the pain he then feigns expresses a pain that's real."
I think Nabokov might have achieved similar effects through autobiographical and self-referential tactics,infinite regress aso.
To attribute "moral agency to nature" means to hold "animistic beliefs", I suppose. Nabokov often deliberately employed personification, hyperboles, animism to engender doubts about a metaphorical or a literal interpretation - and yet, that the narrator or "Mrs.Nameless" were morally "fault finding" in S&S has totally eluded me.
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