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Fw: [NABOKV-L] LOlithophanic note: ombrioles and china ,PS
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I was so busy with the quotations and colored underlings that I forgot to comment on two items: the links bt. Lolita, Pale Fire and Ada that shines through the references to some kind of "lithophany" ( the first mention in Lolita linked to religion, ombrioles and ardors inPale Fire, Ada or Ardors and transparent signs...)
and a new meaning to the title "Pale Fire": 'a faint phosphorescence at first, a pale light in the dimness of bodily life, and a dazzling radiance after it'
----- Original Message -----
From: jansymello
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Tuesday, May 06, 2008 1:57 PM
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] LOlithophanic note: ombrioles and china
Fran Assa: I wonder if it was the quote below that Graham Greene was thinking about when he asked VN if he were a Catholic based on something he had read in Lolita*.
Jansy Mello: Oh, yes! Lithophanic notes and Lolitophanias instead of, as I wrote before, "lithography". It seems VN used this image while considering time, hereafter, "ineffables", plus Catholic "contrition".
Here are more curious elements that might be related to "lithophany" in Nabokov's "sense" ( not an extensive search but, it seems, quite inspiring - although, maybe, off track...)
Lithophane: Porcelain impressed with figures which are made distinct by transmitted light, as in a lamp shade or when hung in a window. -- Lith`o*phan"ic, a. -- Li*thoph"a*ny, n. [Webster 1913 Suppl.]
Pale Fire
1. Litophane and OmbrioleOn July 10, the day John Shade wrote this[...} Gradus was driving [...] Our brilliant schemer had been told that Joe Lavender collected photographs of the artistic type called in French ombrioles. He had not been told what exactly these were and dismissed them mentally as "lampshades with landscapes." [...] Gradus was also unaware that the ombrioles Lavender collected (and I am sure Joe will not resent this indiscretion) combined exquisite beauty with highly indecent subject matter — nudities blending with fig trees, oversize ardors, softly shaded hindercheeks, and also a dapple of female charms.
2. Religion: faint phosphorescence bt. body and soul, contrition and forgiveness
shade: There is always a psychopompos around the corner, isn’t there?
kinbote: Not around that corner, John. With no Providence the soul must rely on the dust of its husk, on the experience gathered in the course of corporeal confinement, and cling childishly to small-town principles, local by-laws and a personality consisting mainly of the shadows of its own prison bars. Such an idea is not to be entertained one instant by the religious mind. How much more intelligent it is — even from a proud infidel’s point of view! — to accept God’s Presence — a faint phosphorescence at first, a pale light in the dimness of bodily life, and a dazzling radiance after it? I too, I too, my dear John, have been assailed in my time by religious doubts. The church helped me to fight them off. It also helped me not to ask too much, not to demand too clear an image of what is unimaginable. St. Augustine said —
shade: Why must one always quote St. Augustine to me?
ADA
1.The poor child’s final score for the fifteen rounds or so [...] The bloom streaking Ada’s arm, the pale blue of the veins in its hollow, the charred-wood odor of her hair shining brownly next to the lampshade’s parchment (a translucent lakescape with Japanese dragons), scored infinitely more points than those tensed fingers bunched on the pencil stub could ever add up in the past, present or future.
(The seven letters she had taken, S,R,E,N,O,K,I, and was sorting out in her spektrik (the little trough of japanned wood each player had before him) now formed in quick and, as it were, self-impulsed rearrangement the key word of the chance sentence that had attended their random assemblage. Another time, in the bay of the library, on a thundery evening (a few hours before the barn burned), a succession of Lucette’s blocks formed the amusing VANIADA, and from this she extracted the very piece of furniture she was in the act of referring to in a peevish little voice: ‘But I, too, perhaps, would like to sit on the divan.’)
2. [...] ‘But you remember the globe?’Dusty Tartary with Cinderella’s finger rubbing the place where the invader would fall.
‘Yes, I do: and a kind of stand with golden dragons painted all over it.’
‘That’s what I meant by "gueridon." It was really a Chinese stand japanned in red lacquer, and the scrutoir stood in between.’
‘China or Japan? Make up your mind. [...]‘Van, Vanichka, we are straying from the main point. The point is that the writing desk or if you like, secretaire —’
‘I hate both, but it stood at the opposite end of the black divan.’ Now mentioned for the first time — though both had been tacitly using it as an orientator or as a right hand painted on a transparent signboard that a philosopher’s orbitless eye, a peeled hard-boiled egg cruising free, but sensing which of its ends is proximal to an imaginary nose, sees hanging in infinite space; whereupon, with Germanic grace, the free eye sails around the glass sign and sees a left hand shining through — that’s the solution! (Bernard said six-thirty but I may be a little late.) The mental in Van always rimmed the sensuous: unforgettable, roughish, villous, Villaviciosa velour.‘Van, you are deliberately sidetracking the issue —’
.......................................................
* "Previous attempts seemed out of focus in comparison. A couple of years before, under the guidance of an intelligent French-speaking confessor, to whom, in a moment of metaphysical curiosity, I had turned over a Protestant's drab atheism for an old-fashioned popish cure, I had hoped to deduce from my sense of sin the existence of a Supreme Being. On those frosty mornings in rime-laced Quebec, the good priest worked on me with the finest tenderness and understanding. I am infinitely obliged to him and the great Institution he represented. Alas, I was unable to transcend the simple human fact that whatever spiritual solace I might find, whatever lithophanic eternities might be provided for me, nothing could make my Lolita forget the foul lust I had inflicted upon her. "
Additional data by Don B. Johnson: on the Blair Museum of Lithophanes [...] When the ambient light is extinguished and the lithophane is back-lit, a beautiful, three-dimensional picture appears in incredible depth and detail. When you see the actual lithophane at the Blair Museum, you will see some additional lithophane magic which cannot be seen in a two dimensional photograph. Due to the three dimensionality of lithophanes, the perspective will change as you walk past the lithophane. The avenue behind the fountain actually appears to move.
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and a new meaning to the title "Pale Fire": 'a faint phosphorescence at first, a pale light in the dimness of bodily life, and a dazzling radiance after it'
----- Original Message -----
From: jansymello
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Tuesday, May 06, 2008 1:57 PM
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] LOlithophanic note: ombrioles and china
Fran Assa: I wonder if it was the quote below that Graham Greene was thinking about when he asked VN if he were a Catholic based on something he had read in Lolita*.
Jansy Mello: Oh, yes! Lithophanic notes and Lolitophanias instead of, as I wrote before, "lithography". It seems VN used this image while considering time, hereafter, "ineffables", plus Catholic "contrition".
Here are more curious elements that might be related to "lithophany" in Nabokov's "sense" ( not an extensive search but, it seems, quite inspiring - although, maybe, off track...)
Lithophane: Porcelain impressed with figures which are made distinct by transmitted light, as in a lamp shade or when hung in a window. -- Lith`o*phan"ic, a. -- Li*thoph"a*ny, n. [Webster 1913 Suppl.]
Pale Fire
1. Litophane and OmbrioleOn July 10, the day John Shade wrote this[...} Gradus was driving [...] Our brilliant schemer had been told that Joe Lavender collected photographs of the artistic type called in French ombrioles. He had not been told what exactly these were and dismissed them mentally as "lampshades with landscapes." [...] Gradus was also unaware that the ombrioles Lavender collected (and I am sure Joe will not resent this indiscretion) combined exquisite beauty with highly indecent subject matter — nudities blending with fig trees, oversize ardors, softly shaded hindercheeks, and also a dapple of female charms.
2. Religion: faint phosphorescence bt. body and soul, contrition and forgiveness
shade: There is always a psychopompos around the corner, isn’t there?
kinbote: Not around that corner, John. With no Providence the soul must rely on the dust of its husk, on the experience gathered in the course of corporeal confinement, and cling childishly to small-town principles, local by-laws and a personality consisting mainly of the shadows of its own prison bars. Such an idea is not to be entertained one instant by the religious mind. How much more intelligent it is — even from a proud infidel’s point of view! — to accept God’s Presence — a faint phosphorescence at first, a pale light in the dimness of bodily life, and a dazzling radiance after it? I too, I too, my dear John, have been assailed in my time by religious doubts. The church helped me to fight them off. It also helped me not to ask too much, not to demand too clear an image of what is unimaginable. St. Augustine said —
shade: Why must one always quote St. Augustine to me?
ADA
1.The poor child’s final score for the fifteen rounds or so [...] The bloom streaking Ada’s arm, the pale blue of the veins in its hollow, the charred-wood odor of her hair shining brownly next to the lampshade’s parchment (a translucent lakescape with Japanese dragons), scored infinitely more points than those tensed fingers bunched on the pencil stub could ever add up in the past, present or future.
(The seven letters she had taken, S,R,E,N,O,K,I, and was sorting out in her spektrik (the little trough of japanned wood each player had before him) now formed in quick and, as it were, self-impulsed rearrangement the key word of the chance sentence that had attended their random assemblage. Another time, in the bay of the library, on a thundery evening (a few hours before the barn burned), a succession of Lucette’s blocks formed the amusing VANIADA, and from this she extracted the very piece of furniture she was in the act of referring to in a peevish little voice: ‘But I, too, perhaps, would like to sit on the divan.’)
2. [...] ‘But you remember the globe?’Dusty Tartary with Cinderella’s finger rubbing the place where the invader would fall.
‘Yes, I do: and a kind of stand with golden dragons painted all over it.’
‘That’s what I meant by "gueridon." It was really a Chinese stand japanned in red lacquer, and the scrutoir stood in between.’
‘China or Japan? Make up your mind. [...]‘Van, Vanichka, we are straying from the main point. The point is that the writing desk or if you like, secretaire —’
‘I hate both, but it stood at the opposite end of the black divan.’ Now mentioned for the first time — though both had been tacitly using it as an orientator or as a right hand painted on a transparent signboard that a philosopher’s orbitless eye, a peeled hard-boiled egg cruising free, but sensing which of its ends is proximal to an imaginary nose, sees hanging in infinite space; whereupon, with Germanic grace, the free eye sails around the glass sign and sees a left hand shining through — that’s the solution! (Bernard said six-thirty but I may be a little late.) The mental in Van always rimmed the sensuous: unforgettable, roughish, villous, Villaviciosa velour.‘Van, you are deliberately sidetracking the issue —’
.......................................................
* "Previous attempts seemed out of focus in comparison. A couple of years before, under the guidance of an intelligent French-speaking confessor, to whom, in a moment of metaphysical curiosity, I had turned over a Protestant's drab atheism for an old-fashioned popish cure, I had hoped to deduce from my sense of sin the existence of a Supreme Being. On those frosty mornings in rime-laced Quebec, the good priest worked on me with the finest tenderness and understanding. I am infinitely obliged to him and the great Institution he represented. Alas, I was unable to transcend the simple human fact that whatever spiritual solace I might find, whatever lithophanic eternities might be provided for me, nothing could make my Lolita forget the foul lust I had inflicted upon her. "
Additional data by Don B. Johnson: on the Blair Museum of Lithophanes [...] When the ambient light is extinguished and the lithophane is back-lit, a beautiful, three-dimensional picture appears in incredible depth and detail. When you see the actual lithophane at the Blair Museum, you will see some additional lithophane magic which cannot be seen in a two dimensional photograph. Due to the three dimensionality of lithophanes, the perspective will change as you walk past the lithophane. The avenue behind the fountain actually appears to move.
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