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Fw: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3438 PALE FIRE Canto I (cont.)
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----- Original Message -----
From: "pynchon-l-digest" <owner-pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
To: <pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2003 5:53 PM
Subject: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3438
> Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 12:04:29 EDT
> From: Elainemmbell@aol.com
> Subject: Re: NN/NP "Elegant Gothic Lolita"
>
>
> THANK YOU! I love this link...and just when I really didn't need a new
> hobby...would write more but now I've got to go make myself a lemniscated
ashen
> gray parasol with iridule ribbons...
>
> Elaine M.M. Bell, Writer
> (860) 523-9225
>
> Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 12:01:24 -0400
> From: "cfalbert" <calbert@hslboxmaster.com>
> Subject: Re: CANTO ONE: "slain/By"
>
> > He goes on, speaking of visual deceptions(710):
>
>
> Its repeated in the verse, after Aunt Maud, I think (I don't have my copy
> handy here).........where he speaks of "something" causing his vision to
> fail, and speaks of a fold in time, as I recall......
>
> Also the "resurrection" theme applies to Shade's seizures, which can be
> interpreted as a form of "petit mort" - as Folwer points out, the first
> attack occurs while Shade is playing with the mechanical wheel barrow
man -
> who will reappear in animate form at the "murder scene"......
>
> love,
> cfa
> - ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Malignd" <malignd@yahoo.com>
> To: <pynchon-l@waste.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2003 10:50 AM
> Subject: Re: CANTO ONE: "slain/By"
>
>
> > Why "slain"?
> >
> > and
> >
> > <<Shade characterises himself as the "shadow" of the
> > bird which was killed by (because of/due to) the
> > reflection of sky in the window. All the definite
> > articles make it sound like something which had
> > actually happened, a scene Shade had witnessed from
> > inside his bedroom. But it's the "I was ... I was ...
> > I lived ... " -- the unashamed yet hopelessly banal
> > self-involvement of it all -- which butchers what
> > could otherwise have been quite a stunning setpiece.>>
> >
> > Another possibility here is that the "I"s are not
> > banal self-involvement but a specific reference to
> > Shade's near-death experience following his attack
> > (line 691). He was "slain," momentarily (his heart
> > stopped), brought down by an attack, then his heart
> > began again to beat and he "lived on, flew on ..."
> > etc.
> >
> > He goes on, speaking of visual deceptions(710):
> >
> > The scene was not our sense. In life, the mind
> > Of any man is quick to recognize
> > Natural shams, and then before his eyes
> > The reed becomes a bird, the knobby twig
> > An inchworm, and the cobra head, a big
> > Wickedly folded moth. ...
> >
> >
> >
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 12:19:36 -0400
> From: The Great Quail <quail@libyrinth.com>
> Subject: Re: CANTO ONE: "slain/By"
>
> > "slain / By the false azure in the windowpane,"
>
> I don't think I've seen this mentioned yet, but "slain" is also a
beautiful
> word, and adds a powerful feel to the verse itself. It is definitely a
word
> of poetic dimensions, and its mythic repercussions also call to mind
fallen
> kings....
>
> - --Quail
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 09:31:50 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Malignd <malignd@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Curdy Buff
>
> Off on my own meaningless tangent--
>
> I was noting in the Index that the "Zemblan patriot"
> Baron Harfar Shalksbore was known as Curdy Buff.
> Aside from Curdy Buff's being funny, I was wondering
> what connections might come from the joining as a name
> of "curdy" and "buff," particularly in relation to
> Shalksbore, begging to be read as "Shakespeare."
>
> Googling Curdy Buff led to:
>
> http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001Lx0
>
> - --which, as it turned out, contained a somewhat
> simple-minded discussion of Hamlet's "To be or not to
> be" soliloquy: the name of one poster being Joseph S.
> Curdy and another poster writing " I think I am
> related to Hamlet! And I have pics of him in the
> buff."
>
> Whatever that might mean.
>
> This last poster signed him(her)self Zor Ko
> (shackoflove@hotmail.com).
>
> A Zemblan name if ever I've heard one.
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 12:49:31 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Michael Joseph <mjoseph@rci.rutgers.edu>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Canto 1: 1-4 some random notes
>
> I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
> By the false azure in the windowpane;
> I was the smudge of ashen fluff--and I
> Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky.
> And from the inside, too, I'd duplicate
> Myself. . . .
>
> "Slain" also echoes Biblical language, which is exactly right for Shade
> who contemplates transcendence, or a "feigned" (i.e., supposed; imaginary)
> transcendence, a fairly conventional reading of "azure." The slaying could
> conceivably have a secondary meaning in that Shade's implicit wish to
> survive in his poetry is ironically granted in Kinbote's slaying of its
> meaning and beauty. Kinbote of course peers in at Shade's windowpane, and
> just as "azure" signifies (See Milton) the vault of Heaven, it also
> signifies the blue color in coats of arms thus the "false azure" could
> well represent the clownish Kinbote's delusion of being the self-exiled
> King Charles: a false King.
>
> If someone has discussed the form of the opening, I apologize for possible
> duplication, but I awnt to point out that it seems very like a form of
> Welsh poetry, such as we see for example in the Song of Amergin:
>
> "I am the womb of every holt,
> "I have been in many shapes....
> I am the blaze on every hill,
> I have been a drop in the air.
> I am the queen of every hive,
> I have been a shining star.
> I am the shield to every head,
> I have been a word in a book. ...
> I am the tomb to every hope."
> I have traveled, I have made a circuit,
> -- THE SONG OF AMERGIN.
>
> .... and The Hanes taliesin
>
> THE BATTLE OF THE TREES.
>
> "I have obtained the muse from the Cauldron of Cerridwen;
> I have been bard of the harp to Lleon of Lochlin;
> I have been on the White Hill, in the court of Cynvelyn...."
> -- THE HANES TALIESIN.
>
> .... which Nabokov could conceivably have seen in several places,
> including Graves's The White Goddess (1948).
>
> These poems are generally considered to be involved with religious beliefs
> and are incantatory - a telling choice for someone like Shade who, as
> Brian Boyd points out, has "dedicated his whole life to fighting the
> "inadmissible abyss" of death
> (http://www.libraries.psu.edu/iasweb/nabokov/boydpf1.htm), and for someone
> like Nabokov, of course, who famously said "I do not believe in time." The
> form is also possibly interesting for another, unrelated, reason: the
> voice of the poem is multiple; that is, the "I" does not refer to one
> single persona, but to multiple personae, or a transpersonal corporate
> identity.
>
>
> Michael
>
> ------------------------------
------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 09:57:16 -0700 (PDT)
> From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: CANTO ONE: "slain/By"
>
> http://www.spirithome.com/slainman.html
>
> One of the most common manifestations is that of being 'slain in the
Spirit',
> when a person loses all motor control over their body and falls to the
floor or
> ground. The context for it is almost always a revival meeting or a
> prayer-and-praise service, though it has been known to happen at religious
> music concerts and programs. In a development that has taken hold after
the
> Second World War, it's often brought on when the preacher or designated
> assistant comes directly to a person and lays hands on them or speaks a
prayer
> over them. Sometimes, the planning at these events is very thorough, to
the
> point where padded folding chair are used in the section the evangelist
will
> head off to, and there are designated catchers who are trained at how to
make
> the fall less abrupt. (The best method for catchers is to put their hands
> lightly on the small of the back of the 'slain' as they begin to fall;
this
> takes away some of the fear of falling. Pushing, pulling, grabbing,
shaking,
> tickling and rubbing are no-nos.)
>
>
>
, easy-to-use web site design software
> http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 10:41:45 -0700
> From: "Glenn Scheper" <glenn_scheper@earthlink.net>
> Subject: AF and PF Canto One.
>
> From two basic premises (FF makes effete, AF restores),
> I read 1-6 as evidence of the effete son, living as if
> looking through a pane of glass that separates his, a
> narrowly constrained diminished life, from real lives.
>
> If AF collapses the distinction, or makes oneself one's
> own parent, ornithologist in 71-72 extends the AF=Bird
> metaphor prevalent in poetics unto him who studies AF.
> I have also wondered, does this rebirth as self-parent
> only occur at the initial AF, or is it a regeneration
> every time, yielding 1000's of self-parents, as at 74?
>
> 90: "She lived to hear the next babe cry." Since AF as
> speech act assumes many tropes, including to cry, Maud
> may await the chance to abuse each new infant with CL.
>
> 109-113: Iridule is much weighted elsewhere. Staring
> reveals this trope: Since AF is used to infer, much as
> a shaman's fetish to access what is transcendent, the
> knowledge of some particular target partner in coitus;
> separation of a rainbow from its thunderstorm reflects
> this same split, much as Emily Dickinson (AC poetics!)
> wrote once that she only wrote the syntax, leaving the
> verb and pronoun out. The iridule is "strange" as the
> hagios (saint) is uncommon, as AF and AC are uncommon.
> The "oval form" is the posture, like Wallace Steven's
> "ring-of-men". Since Revelation's opening of the first
> seal marks virgin coitus with a whore, there sound of
> thunder is attached to coitus--It is a non-speech act
> paralleling the speech act of AF in its penile effect.
>
> 1-131-1000: I've seen three WaxWings slain (at 1:FF,
> 131:AF, 1000:decease). Prone and supine always perk
> up my ears: The prone-bypass-beneath of 143-145 sound
> to me like the jumbled body position of AF. Tin tells
> me of an effete son, living a tin soldier's non-life.
>
> 146-148 parallel exactly my experiences in an acute
> psychosis that followed immediately upon my own AF:
> First a grand illumination and mania of being Jesus,
> then the despair of being unrecoverably lost, alone.
>
> For me, that act produced an internalized Other, and psychosis.
> To wit: self-interpenetration produced the psychotic ideation
> of a vase that was spontaneously crazing, becoming an evenly
> distributed version of a Klein bottle, everywhere a boundary
> where every possible extreme opposite met, touched, were one.
>
> So, this experience felt like the collapse of a wave function,
> and I took interest in Hiroshima, as if it's event wave front
> were just now passing over me. My self became an atomic bomb,
> cringing with every heartbeat as if that were the final tick.
>
> At 161-163, this "tongue" is actually "penis" for I recall in
> some extra-canonical work, Gospel of Thomas perhaps, that the
> tongue of the beliver is the Holy Spirit: uncommon ejaculation.
> Also the Fairie Queene made of AF a knight entering the cave
> (his own mouth) of a female serpent, whose dugs (his own penis)
> feed her offspring (himself), vomiting up words, books, etc.
>
> And of course, some slight shame of this abject domain lingers,
> even for me who's quite the out theorist and expositor of AF.
>
> Yours truly,
> Glenn Scheper
> http://home.earthlink.net/~glenn_scheper/
> glenn_scheper + at + earthlink.net
> Copyleft(!) Forward freely.
>
> ------------------------------
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 14:52:53 -0400
> From: <gumbo@fuse.net>
> Subject: Re: Curdy Buff
>
> Discussing "our manly Zemblan customs" (p 208):
>
> "...everywhere along the road powerful temptations stood at attention.
[Charles] succumbed to them from time to time, then every other day, then
several times daily--especially during the robust regime of Harfar Baron of
Shalksbore, a phenomenally endowed young brute (whose family name, "knave's
farm," is the most probable derivation of "Shakespeare." Curdy Buff--as
Harfar was nicknamed by his admirers--had a huge escort of acrobats and
bareback riders, and the whole affair got rather out of hand so that Disa,
upon unexpectedly returning from a trip to Sweden, found the palace
transformed into a circus."
>
> The passage suggests that the nickname had something to do with the
endowment, or what old Curdy did with it, filtered through Nabokov's
well-known attitudes on the subject. I note that in addition to the familiar
cheesy connection, curd is also a name for the edible part of the
cauliflower plant. If that helps.
>
> Don Corathers
>
>
> >
> > From: Malignd <malignd@yahoo.com>
> > Date: 2003/07/23 Wed PM 12:31:50 EDT
> > To: pynchon-l@waste.org
> > Subject: Curdy Buff
> >
> > Off on my own meaningless tangent--
> >
> > I was noting in the Index that the "Zemblan patriot"
> > Baron Harfar Shalksbore was known as Curdy Buff.
> > Aside from Curdy Buff's being funny, I was wondering
> > what connections might come from the joining as a name
> > of "curdy" and "buff," particularly in relation to
> > Shalksbore, begging to be read as "Shakespeare."
> >
> > Googling Curdy Buff led to:
> >
> > http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001Lx0
> >
> > --which, as it turned out, contained a somewhat
> > simple-minded discussion of Hamlet's "To be or not to
> > be" soliloquy: the name of one poster being Joseph S.
> > Curdy and another poster writing " I think I am
> > related to Hamlet! And I have pics of him in the
> > buff."
> >
> > Whatever that might mean.
> >
> > This last poster signed him(her)self Zor Ko
> > (shackoflove@hotmail.com).
> >
> > A Zemblan name if ever I've heard one.
> >
> >
> > > ------------------------------
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 13:23:10 -0700 (PDT)
> From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> Subject: NPPF - Nabokov & Time
>
>
> We can imagine all kinds of time, such as for example
> "applied time"-- time applied to events, which we measure by
> means of clocks and calendars; but those types of time are
> inevitably tainted by our notion of space, spatial succession,
> stretches and sections of space. When we speak of the "passage
> of time," we visualize an abstract river flowing through a
> generalized landscape. Applied time, measurable illusions of
> time, are useful for the purposes of historians or physicists,
> they do not interest me, and they did not interest my creature
> Van Veen in Part Four of my Ada.
> He and I in that book attempt to examine the essence of
> Time, not its lapse. Van mentions the possibility of being
> "an amateur of Time, an epicure of duration," of being able to
> delight sensually in the texture of time, "in its stuff and
> spread, in the fall of its folds, in the very impalpability of
> its grayish gauze, in the coolness of its continuum." He also
> is aware that "Time is a fluid medium for the culture of
> metaphors."
> Time, though akin to rhythm, is not simply rhythm, which
> would imply motion-- and Time does not move. Van's greatest
> discovery is his perception of Time as the dim hollow between
> two rhythmic beats, the narrow and bottomless silence
> between the beats, not the beats themselves, which only
> embar Time. In this sense human life is not a pulsating heart
> but the missed heartbeat.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 13:40:53 -0700 (PDT)
> From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> Subject: NPPF - Nabokov & Time
>
> More
>
>
> The Past is also part of the tissue, part of the present,
> but it looks somewhat out of focus. The Past is a constant
> accumulation of images, but our brain is not an ideal organ for
> constant retrospection and the best we can do is to pick out
> and try to retain those patches of rainbow light flitting
> through memory. The act of retention is the act of art,
> artistic selection, artistic blending, artistic re-combination
> of actual events.
>
> [...]
>
> Nabokov's River in Nova Zembla of all places, so named after
> my great-grandfather, who participated at the beginning of the
> nineteenth century in an arctic expedition.
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 13:50:03 -0700 (PDT)
> From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> Subject: NPPF - Nabokov & Time
>
>
>
> Q: The following two quotations seem closely related: "I
> confess I do not believe in time. I like to fold my magic
> carpet, after use, in such a way as to superimpose one part of
> the pattern upon another. " (Speak, Memory) and "pure
> time, perceptual time, tangible time, time free of content,
> context and running commentary-- this is my time and theme. All
> the rest is numerical symbol or some aspect of space. "
> (Ada). Will you give me a lift on your magic carpet to point
> out bow time is animated in the story of Van and Ada?
>
> VN: In his study of time my creature distinguishes between
> text and texture, between the contents of time and its almost
> tangible essence. I ignored that distinction in my Speak,
> Memory and was mainly concerned with being faithful to the
> patterns of my past. I suspect that Van Veen, having less
> control over his imagination than I, novelized in his indulgent
> old age many images of his youth.
>
> Q: You have spoken in the past of your indifference to
> music, but in Ada you describe time as "rhythm, the
> tender intervals between Stresses. " Are these rhythms musical,
> aural, physical, cerebral, what?
>
> VN: Those "intervals" which seem to reveal the gray gaps of
> time between the black bars of space are much more similar to
> the interspaces between a metronome's monotonous beats than to
> the varied rhythms of music or verse.
>
>
> __________________________________
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 14:11:34 -0700 (PDT)
> From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> Subject: NPPF Nabokov & Time
>
> From Ada:
>
> http://www.cyberartsweb.org/cpace/theory/velvet-inc/html/nabokov.html
>
> I wish to examine the essence of Time, not its lapse, for I do not believe
that
> its essence can be reduced to its lapse. I wish to caress Time.
>
> One can be a lover of Space and its possibilities: take, for example,
speed,
> the smoothness and sword-swish of speed; the aquiline glory of ruling
velocity;
> the joy cry of the curve; and one can be an amateur of Time, an epicure of
> duration. I delight sensually in Time, in its stuff and spread, in the
fall of
> its folds, in the very impalpability of its grayish gauze, in the coolness
of
> its continuum.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 15:04:32 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF - CANTO ONE: Reflections Of A Silky-Tailed Slain
>
> >>> Slain is the word of choice, and the word of
> choice is replete with connotations. <<<
>
> Shade is the mirror reflection of a 'waxwing' overwhelmed (with ?) by the
> false azure/feigned remoteness of the 'windowpane.'
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 15:06:54 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Protocol Query/CANTO ONE
>
> Is one week going to be enough for CANTO ONE?
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 08:59:17 +1000
> From: jbor <jbor@bigpond.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Canto 1: 1-4
>
> >>
> >> As the bird hits the window it leaves a "smudge of ashen fluff" (the
first
> >> of many jarring prosodies and a hopelessly overwrought image to
boot) --
>
> on 23/7/03 11:22 PM, charles albert at calbert@hslboxmaster.com wrote:
>
> > Smudge works because its a WAXwing, and as I pointed out, ashen plays to
> > both Gray and shade........
>
> It doesn't work because the series of consonant blends creates a dissonant
> effect which, as a soundscape, doesn't correlate in any way to the scene
or
> attempted mood. And that "smudge" goes with "wax" (rather than the actual
> remnant of bird) isn't poetic; it's corny.
>
> > but the "I"s don't consistently point to the same "entity" and more
> > importantly, have you eyeballed many elegies lately? 1st person,
singular
> > and plural dominates the action. Elegies, are, after all, the
reminiscences
> > of someone.....
> >
> > For one of many Wordsworthian examples see
> >
> > ODE: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood
>
> The first person in the first stanza is Shade talking about himself ("And
> from the inside, too, I'd duplicate myself ... ".) But I do acknowledge
the
> connections made by Paul & MalignD to Shade's recount of his own
near-death
> experiences later on (comical though at least one of these also is).
>
> I think 'The Prelude' or Tennyson's 'In Memoriam' are more likely
> candidates, and the latter's 'Maud' might be worth another look (I'll cite
> the first four lines below as contrast). Shade's poem suffers in
comparison
> to any of these, in any capacity you'd like to name.
>
> Did Nabokov compose and publish this style of poem under his own name? Did
> he express a liking for this style of poem in his interviews and critical
> work? These questions need to be addressed if you're arguing that Nabokov
> meant to depict Shade's 'Pale Fire' (Shade the poet, Shade the man) in an
> unironic light.
>
> My point, of course, is not that Shade is using Pope as his model, but
that
> Nabokov is. It's traditional parody -- parody which ridicules and
condemns.
> Here, as in 'The Rape of the Lock', it ridicules and condemns a particular
> mode and style of poetry (my first reaction to the poem was that it was a
> parody of Eliot, and of some of the worst excesses of the Romantics, and
I'm
> pleased to see from one of your subsequent posts that I'm not totally out
on
> a limb there -- Is this "Fowler" Douglas Fowler of the reader's guide to
> _GR_ fame perchance?) Anyway, it's quite unlike the type of "blank parody"
> which Pynchon deploys in _Vineland_, in his tv show and telemovie send-ups
> for example, where there's an underlying ambivalence towards the erstwhile
> cultural referents themselves, such as noted in the Mark Robberds
_Critique_
> essay on that novel for example. Though not the first to identify the
shift
> in how irony and satire are articulated in postmodern fiction, this sort
of
> thing is criticised by Fredric Jameson (he calls it "parody that has lost
> its sense of humour", which is, after all, a rather subjective
judgement --
> I find Pynchon's send-ups, if nothing else, quite hilarious). Even though
> largely critical of it (he's coming from a Left political stance, of
course,
> and I guess he perceives it as something which depoliticises the satiric
> mode, or that dilutes its function as social critique) Jameson does
> acknowledge that such a shift in the mode has occurred.
>
> Anyway --
>
> 'Maud; A Monodrama' (1855)
>
> Part 1
>
> Section 1
>
> I hate the dreadful hollow behind the little wood;
> Its lips in the field above are dabbled with blood-red heath,
> The red-ribb'd ledges drip with a silent horror of blood,
> And Echo there, whatever is ask'd her, answers "Death."
>
> http://tennysonpoetry.home.att.net/mma.htm
>
> best
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 19:53:01 -0500
> From: "Tim Strzechowski" <dedalus204@comcast.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Canto 1: 1-4 some random notes
>
> Excellent points, Michael. And I couldn't help noticing some distinct
> echoes of John Milton throughout Canto 1 of _Pale Fire_, especially the
> sections of _Paradise Lost_ in which the Miltonic bard invokes the Muse,
or
> laments his loss of Sight in light of the need for poetic vision (cf. Book
> III, lines 1-32, for example). Of course secular Shade, who comes across
as
> somewhat arrogant in Canto 1 when describing the extent of his poetic
vision
> and ability, contrasts with the bard of _PL_ who, despite his desire to
> create "things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme," assumes much more
> humility as he struggles with the need for poetic inspiration.
>
> I don't have my copy of PF handy, but something tells me the back cover
> (maybe?) describes the Shade poem as an "epic poem." This, of course, is
> hardly the case in the classical sense, but Milton (and the epic
tradition)
> was no doubt in the back of Nabokov's mind as he fashioned this longer
poem,
> written in a series of cantos (or books), and composed in a traditional
> metric form, and dealing (in a way) with lofty themes.
>
>
>
> - ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Michael Joseph" <mjoseph@rci.rutgers.edu>
> Cc: <pynchon-l@waste.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2003 11:49 AM
> Subject: Re: NPPF Canto 1: 1-4 some random notes
>
>
> >
> > I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
> > By the false azure in the windowpane;
> > I was the smudge of ashen fluff--and I
> > Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky.
> > And from the inside, too, I'd duplicate
> > Myself. . . .
> >
> > "Slain" also echoes Biblical language, which is exactly right for Shade
> > who contemplates transcendence, or a "feigned" (i.e., supposed;
imaginary)
> > transcendence, a fairly conventional reading of "azure." The slaying
could
> > conceivably have a secondary meaning in that Shade's implicit wish to
> > survive in his poetry is ironically granted in Kinbote's slaying of its
> > meaning and beauty. Kinbote of course peers in at Shade's windowpane,
and
> > just as "azure" signifies (See Milton) the vault of Heaven, it also
> > signifies the blue color in coats of arms thus the "false azure" could
> > well represent the clownish Kinbote's delusion of being the self-exiled
> > King Charles: a false King.
> >
> > If someone has discussed the form of the opening, I apologize for
possible
> > duplication, but I awnt to point out that it seems very like a form of
> > Welsh poetry, such as we see for example in the Song of Amergin:
> >
> > "I am the womb of every holt,
> > "I have been in many shapes....
> > I am the blaze on every hill,
> > I have been a drop in the air.
> > I am the queen of every hive,
> > I have been a shining star.
> > I am the shield to every head,
> > I have been a word in a book. ...
> > I am the tomb to every hope."
> > I have traveled, I have made a circuit,
> > -- THE SONG OF AMERGIN.
> >
> > ... and The Hanes taliesin
> >
> > THE BATTLE OF THE TREES.
> >
> > "I have obtained the muse from the Cauldron of Cerridwen;
> > I have been bard of the harp to Lleon of Lochlin;
> > I have been on the White Hill, in the court of Cynvelyn...."
> > -- THE HANES TALIESIN.
> >
> > ... which Nabokov could conceivably have seen in several places,
> > including Graves's The White Goddess (1948).
> >
> > These poems are generally considered to be involved with religious
beliefs
> > and are incantatory - a telling choice for someone like Shade who, as
> > Brian Boyd points out, has "dedicated his whole life to fighting the
> > "inadmissible abyss" of death
> > (http://www.libraries.psu.edu/iasweb/nabokov/boydpf1.htm), and for
someone
> > like Nabokov, of course, who famously said "I do not believe in time."
The
> > form is also possibly interesting for another, unrelated, reason: the
> > voice of the poem is multiple; that is, the "I" does not refer to one
> > single persona, but to multiple personae, or a transpersonal corporate
> > identity.
> >
> >
> > Michael
> >
> >
> >
>
> ------------------------------
>
> End of pynchon-l-digest V2 #3438
> ********************************
>
From: "pynchon-l-digest" <owner-pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
To: <pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2003 5:53 PM
Subject: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3438
> Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 12:04:29 EDT
> From: Elainemmbell@aol.com
> Subject: Re: NN/NP "Elegant Gothic Lolita"
>
>
> THANK YOU! I love this link...and just when I really didn't need a new
> hobby...would write more but now I've got to go make myself a lemniscated
ashen
> gray parasol with iridule ribbons...
>
> Elaine M.M. Bell, Writer
> (860) 523-9225
>
> Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 12:01:24 -0400
> From: "cfalbert" <calbert@hslboxmaster.com>
> Subject: Re: CANTO ONE: "slain/By"
>
> > He goes on, speaking of visual deceptions(710):
>
>
> Its repeated in the verse, after Aunt Maud, I think (I don't have my copy
> handy here).........where he speaks of "something" causing his vision to
> fail, and speaks of a fold in time, as I recall......
>
> Also the "resurrection" theme applies to Shade's seizures, which can be
> interpreted as a form of "petit mort" - as Folwer points out, the first
> attack occurs while Shade is playing with the mechanical wheel barrow
man -
> who will reappear in animate form at the "murder scene"......
>
> love,
> cfa
> - ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Malignd" <malignd@yahoo.com>
> To: <pynchon-l@waste.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2003 10:50 AM
> Subject: Re: CANTO ONE: "slain/By"
>
>
> > Why "slain"?
> >
> > and
> >
> > <<Shade characterises himself as the "shadow" of the
> > bird which was killed by (because of/due to) the
> > reflection of sky in the window. All the definite
> > articles make it sound like something which had
> > actually happened, a scene Shade had witnessed from
> > inside his bedroom. But it's the "I was ... I was ...
> > I lived ... " -- the unashamed yet hopelessly banal
> > self-involvement of it all -- which butchers what
> > could otherwise have been quite a stunning setpiece.>>
> >
> > Another possibility here is that the "I"s are not
> > banal self-involvement but a specific reference to
> > Shade's near-death experience following his attack
> > (line 691). He was "slain," momentarily (his heart
> > stopped), brought down by an attack, then his heart
> > began again to beat and he "lived on, flew on ..."
> > etc.
> >
> > He goes on, speaking of visual deceptions(710):
> >
> > The scene was not our sense. In life, the mind
> > Of any man is quick to recognize
> > Natural shams, and then before his eyes
> > The reed becomes a bird, the knobby twig
> > An inchworm, and the cobra head, a big
> > Wickedly folded moth. ...
> >
> >
> >
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 12:19:36 -0400
> From: The Great Quail <quail@libyrinth.com>
> Subject: Re: CANTO ONE: "slain/By"
>
> > "slain / By the false azure in the windowpane,"
>
> I don't think I've seen this mentioned yet, but "slain" is also a
beautiful
> word, and adds a powerful feel to the verse itself. It is definitely a
word
> of poetic dimensions, and its mythic repercussions also call to mind
fallen
> kings....
>
> - --Quail
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 09:31:50 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Malignd <malignd@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Curdy Buff
>
> Off on my own meaningless tangent--
>
> I was noting in the Index that the "Zemblan patriot"
> Baron Harfar Shalksbore was known as Curdy Buff.
> Aside from Curdy Buff's being funny, I was wondering
> what connections might come from the joining as a name
> of "curdy" and "buff," particularly in relation to
> Shalksbore, begging to be read as "Shakespeare."
>
> Googling Curdy Buff led to:
>
> http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001Lx0
>
> - --which, as it turned out, contained a somewhat
> simple-minded discussion of Hamlet's "To be or not to
> be" soliloquy: the name of one poster being Joseph S.
> Curdy and another poster writing " I think I am
> related to Hamlet! And I have pics of him in the
> buff."
>
> Whatever that might mean.
>
> This last poster signed him(her)self Zor Ko
> (shackoflove@hotmail.com).
>
> A Zemblan name if ever I've heard one.
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 12:49:31 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Michael Joseph <mjoseph@rci.rutgers.edu>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Canto 1: 1-4 some random notes
>
> I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
> By the false azure in the windowpane;
> I was the smudge of ashen fluff--and I
> Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky.
> And from the inside, too, I'd duplicate
> Myself. . . .
>
> "Slain" also echoes Biblical language, which is exactly right for Shade
> who contemplates transcendence, or a "feigned" (i.e., supposed; imaginary)
> transcendence, a fairly conventional reading of "azure." The slaying could
> conceivably have a secondary meaning in that Shade's implicit wish to
> survive in his poetry is ironically granted in Kinbote's slaying of its
> meaning and beauty. Kinbote of course peers in at Shade's windowpane, and
> just as "azure" signifies (See Milton) the vault of Heaven, it also
> signifies the blue color in coats of arms thus the "false azure" could
> well represent the clownish Kinbote's delusion of being the self-exiled
> King Charles: a false King.
>
> If someone has discussed the form of the opening, I apologize for possible
> duplication, but I awnt to point out that it seems very like a form of
> Welsh poetry, such as we see for example in the Song of Amergin:
>
> "I am the womb of every holt,
> "I have been in many shapes....
> I am the blaze on every hill,
> I have been a drop in the air.
> I am the queen of every hive,
> I have been a shining star.
> I am the shield to every head,
> I have been a word in a book. ...
> I am the tomb to every hope."
> I have traveled, I have made a circuit,
> -- THE SONG OF AMERGIN.
>
> .... and The Hanes taliesin
>
> THE BATTLE OF THE TREES.
>
> "I have obtained the muse from the Cauldron of Cerridwen;
> I have been bard of the harp to Lleon of Lochlin;
> I have been on the White Hill, in the court of Cynvelyn...."
> -- THE HANES TALIESIN.
>
> .... which Nabokov could conceivably have seen in several places,
> including Graves's The White Goddess (1948).
>
> These poems are generally considered to be involved with religious beliefs
> and are incantatory - a telling choice for someone like Shade who, as
> Brian Boyd points out, has "dedicated his whole life to fighting the
> "inadmissible abyss" of death
> (http://www.libraries.psu.edu/iasweb/nabokov/boydpf1.htm), and for someone
> like Nabokov, of course, who famously said "I do not believe in time." The
> form is also possibly interesting for another, unrelated, reason: the
> voice of the poem is multiple; that is, the "I" does not refer to one
> single persona, but to multiple personae, or a transpersonal corporate
> identity.
>
>
> Michael
>
> ------------------------------
------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 09:57:16 -0700 (PDT)
> From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: CANTO ONE: "slain/By"
>
> http://www.spirithome.com/slainman.html
>
> One of the most common manifestations is that of being 'slain in the
Spirit',
> when a person loses all motor control over their body and falls to the
floor or
> ground. The context for it is almost always a revival meeting or a
> prayer-and-praise service, though it has been known to happen at religious
> music concerts and programs. In a development that has taken hold after
the
> Second World War, it's often brought on when the preacher or designated
> assistant comes directly to a person and lays hands on them or speaks a
prayer
> over them. Sometimes, the planning at these events is very thorough, to
the
> point where padded folding chair are used in the section the evangelist
will
> head off to, and there are designated catchers who are trained at how to
make
> the fall less abrupt. (The best method for catchers is to put their hands
> lightly on the small of the back of the 'slain' as they begin to fall;
this
> takes away some of the fear of falling. Pushing, pulling, grabbing,
shaking,
> tickling and rubbing are no-nos.)
>
>
>
, easy-to-use web site design software
> http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 10:41:45 -0700
> From: "Glenn Scheper" <glenn_scheper@earthlink.net>
> Subject: AF and PF Canto One.
>
> From two basic premises (FF makes effete, AF restores),
> I read 1-6 as evidence of the effete son, living as if
> looking through a pane of glass that separates his, a
> narrowly constrained diminished life, from real lives.
>
> If AF collapses the distinction, or makes oneself one's
> own parent, ornithologist in 71-72 extends the AF=Bird
> metaphor prevalent in poetics unto him who studies AF.
> I have also wondered, does this rebirth as self-parent
> only occur at the initial AF, or is it a regeneration
> every time, yielding 1000's of self-parents, as at 74?
>
> 90: "She lived to hear the next babe cry." Since AF as
> speech act assumes many tropes, including to cry, Maud
> may await the chance to abuse each new infant with CL.
>
> 109-113: Iridule is much weighted elsewhere. Staring
> reveals this trope: Since AF is used to infer, much as
> a shaman's fetish to access what is transcendent, the
> knowledge of some particular target partner in coitus;
> separation of a rainbow from its thunderstorm reflects
> this same split, much as Emily Dickinson (AC poetics!)
> wrote once that she only wrote the syntax, leaving the
> verb and pronoun out. The iridule is "strange" as the
> hagios (saint) is uncommon, as AF and AC are uncommon.
> The "oval form" is the posture, like Wallace Steven's
> "ring-of-men". Since Revelation's opening of the first
> seal marks virgin coitus with a whore, there sound of
> thunder is attached to coitus--It is a non-speech act
> paralleling the speech act of AF in its penile effect.
>
> 1-131-1000: I've seen three WaxWings slain (at 1:FF,
> 131:AF, 1000:decease). Prone and supine always perk
> up my ears: The prone-bypass-beneath of 143-145 sound
> to me like the jumbled body position of AF. Tin tells
> me of an effete son, living a tin soldier's non-life.
>
> 146-148 parallel exactly my experiences in an acute
> psychosis that followed immediately upon my own AF:
> First a grand illumination and mania of being Jesus,
> then the despair of being unrecoverably lost, alone.
>
> For me, that act produced an internalized Other, and psychosis.
> To wit: self-interpenetration produced the psychotic ideation
> of a vase that was spontaneously crazing, becoming an evenly
> distributed version of a Klein bottle, everywhere a boundary
> where every possible extreme opposite met, touched, were one.
>
> So, this experience felt like the collapse of a wave function,
> and I took interest in Hiroshima, as if it's event wave front
> were just now passing over me. My self became an atomic bomb,
> cringing with every heartbeat as if that were the final tick.
>
> At 161-163, this "tongue" is actually "penis" for I recall in
> some extra-canonical work, Gospel of Thomas perhaps, that the
> tongue of the beliver is the Holy Spirit: uncommon ejaculation.
> Also the Fairie Queene made of AF a knight entering the cave
> (his own mouth) of a female serpent, whose dugs (his own penis)
> feed her offspring (himself), vomiting up words, books, etc.
>
> And of course, some slight shame of this abject domain lingers,
> even for me who's quite the out theorist and expositor of AF.
>
> Yours truly,
> Glenn Scheper
> http://home.earthlink.net/~glenn_scheper/
> glenn_scheper + at + earthlink.net
> Copyleft(!) Forward freely.
>
> ------------------------------
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 14:52:53 -0400
> From: <gumbo@fuse.net>
> Subject: Re: Curdy Buff
>
> Discussing "our manly Zemblan customs" (p 208):
>
> "...everywhere along the road powerful temptations stood at attention.
[Charles] succumbed to them from time to time, then every other day, then
several times daily--especially during the robust regime of Harfar Baron of
Shalksbore, a phenomenally endowed young brute (whose family name, "knave's
farm," is the most probable derivation of "Shakespeare." Curdy Buff--as
Harfar was nicknamed by his admirers--had a huge escort of acrobats and
bareback riders, and the whole affair got rather out of hand so that Disa,
upon unexpectedly returning from a trip to Sweden, found the palace
transformed into a circus."
>
> The passage suggests that the nickname had something to do with the
endowment, or what old Curdy did with it, filtered through Nabokov's
well-known attitudes on the subject. I note that in addition to the familiar
cheesy connection, curd is also a name for the edible part of the
cauliflower plant. If that helps.
>
> Don Corathers
>
>
> >
> > From: Malignd <malignd@yahoo.com>
> > Date: 2003/07/23 Wed PM 12:31:50 EDT
> > To: pynchon-l@waste.org
> > Subject: Curdy Buff
> >
> > Off on my own meaningless tangent--
> >
> > I was noting in the Index that the "Zemblan patriot"
> > Baron Harfar Shalksbore was known as Curdy Buff.
> > Aside from Curdy Buff's being funny, I was wondering
> > what connections might come from the joining as a name
> > of "curdy" and "buff," particularly in relation to
> > Shalksbore, begging to be read as "Shakespeare."
> >
> > Googling Curdy Buff led to:
> >
> > http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001Lx0
> >
> > --which, as it turned out, contained a somewhat
> > simple-minded discussion of Hamlet's "To be or not to
> > be" soliloquy: the name of one poster being Joseph S.
> > Curdy and another poster writing " I think I am
> > related to Hamlet! And I have pics of him in the
> > buff."
> >
> > Whatever that might mean.
> >
> > This last poster signed him(her)self Zor Ko
> > (shackoflove@hotmail.com).
> >
> > A Zemblan name if ever I've heard one.
> >
> >
> > > ------------------------------
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 13:23:10 -0700 (PDT)
> From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> Subject: NPPF - Nabokov & Time
>
>
> We can imagine all kinds of time, such as for example
> "applied time"-- time applied to events, which we measure by
> means of clocks and calendars; but those types of time are
> inevitably tainted by our notion of space, spatial succession,
> stretches and sections of space. When we speak of the "passage
> of time," we visualize an abstract river flowing through a
> generalized landscape. Applied time, measurable illusions of
> time, are useful for the purposes of historians or physicists,
> they do not interest me, and they did not interest my creature
> Van Veen in Part Four of my Ada.
> He and I in that book attempt to examine the essence of
> Time, not its lapse. Van mentions the possibility of being
> "an amateur of Time, an epicure of duration," of being able to
> delight sensually in the texture of time, "in its stuff and
> spread, in the fall of its folds, in the very impalpability of
> its grayish gauze, in the coolness of its continuum." He also
> is aware that "Time is a fluid medium for the culture of
> metaphors."
> Time, though akin to rhythm, is not simply rhythm, which
> would imply motion-- and Time does not move. Van's greatest
> discovery is his perception of Time as the dim hollow between
> two rhythmic beats, the narrow and bottomless silence
> between the beats, not the beats themselves, which only
> embar Time. In this sense human life is not a pulsating heart
> but the missed heartbeat.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 13:40:53 -0700 (PDT)
> From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> Subject: NPPF - Nabokov & Time
>
> More
>
>
> The Past is also part of the tissue, part of the present,
> but it looks somewhat out of focus. The Past is a constant
> accumulation of images, but our brain is not an ideal organ for
> constant retrospection and the best we can do is to pick out
> and try to retain those patches of rainbow light flitting
> through memory. The act of retention is the act of art,
> artistic selection, artistic blending, artistic re-combination
> of actual events.
>
> [...]
>
> Nabokov's River in Nova Zembla of all places, so named after
> my great-grandfather, who participated at the beginning of the
> nineteenth century in an arctic expedition.
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 13:50:03 -0700 (PDT)
> From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> Subject: NPPF - Nabokov & Time
>
>
>
> Q: The following two quotations seem closely related: "I
> confess I do not believe in time. I like to fold my magic
> carpet, after use, in such a way as to superimpose one part of
> the pattern upon another. " (Speak, Memory) and "pure
> time, perceptual time, tangible time, time free of content,
> context and running commentary-- this is my time and theme. All
> the rest is numerical symbol or some aspect of space. "
> (Ada). Will you give me a lift on your magic carpet to point
> out bow time is animated in the story of Van and Ada?
>
> VN: In his study of time my creature distinguishes between
> text and texture, between the contents of time and its almost
> tangible essence. I ignored that distinction in my Speak,
> Memory and was mainly concerned with being faithful to the
> patterns of my past. I suspect that Van Veen, having less
> control over his imagination than I, novelized in his indulgent
> old age many images of his youth.
>
> Q: You have spoken in the past of your indifference to
> music, but in Ada you describe time as "rhythm, the
> tender intervals between Stresses. " Are these rhythms musical,
> aural, physical, cerebral, what?
>
> VN: Those "intervals" which seem to reveal the gray gaps of
> time between the black bars of space are much more similar to
> the interspaces between a metronome's monotonous beats than to
> the varied rhythms of music or verse.
>
>
> __________________________________
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 14:11:34 -0700 (PDT)
> From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> Subject: NPPF Nabokov & Time
>
> From Ada:
>
> http://www.cyberartsweb.org/cpace/theory/velvet-inc/html/nabokov.html
>
> I wish to examine the essence of Time, not its lapse, for I do not believe
that
> its essence can be reduced to its lapse. I wish to caress Time.
>
> One can be a lover of Space and its possibilities: take, for example,
speed,
> the smoothness and sword-swish of speed; the aquiline glory of ruling
velocity;
> the joy cry of the curve; and one can be an amateur of Time, an epicure of
> duration. I delight sensually in Time, in its stuff and spread, in the
fall of
> its folds, in the very impalpability of its grayish gauze, in the coolness
of
> its continuum.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 15:04:32 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF - CANTO ONE: Reflections Of A Silky-Tailed Slain
>
> >>> Slain is the word of choice, and the word of
> choice is replete with connotations. <<<
>
> Shade is the mirror reflection of a 'waxwing' overwhelmed (with ?) by the
> false azure/feigned remoteness of the 'windowpane.'
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 15:06:54 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Protocol Query/CANTO ONE
>
> Is one week going to be enough for CANTO ONE?
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 08:59:17 +1000
> From: jbor <jbor@bigpond.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Canto 1: 1-4
>
> >>
> >> As the bird hits the window it leaves a "smudge of ashen fluff" (the
first
> >> of many jarring prosodies and a hopelessly overwrought image to
boot) --
>
> on 23/7/03 11:22 PM, charles albert at calbert@hslboxmaster.com wrote:
>
> > Smudge works because its a WAXwing, and as I pointed out, ashen plays to
> > both Gray and shade........
>
> It doesn't work because the series of consonant blends creates a dissonant
> effect which, as a soundscape, doesn't correlate in any way to the scene
or
> attempted mood. And that "smudge" goes with "wax" (rather than the actual
> remnant of bird) isn't poetic; it's corny.
>
> > but the "I"s don't consistently point to the same "entity" and more
> > importantly, have you eyeballed many elegies lately? 1st person,
singular
> > and plural dominates the action. Elegies, are, after all, the
reminiscences
> > of someone.....
> >
> > For one of many Wordsworthian examples see
> >
> > ODE: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood
>
> The first person in the first stanza is Shade talking about himself ("And
> from the inside, too, I'd duplicate myself ... ".) But I do acknowledge
the
> connections made by Paul & MalignD to Shade's recount of his own
near-death
> experiences later on (comical though at least one of these also is).
>
> I think 'The Prelude' or Tennyson's 'In Memoriam' are more likely
> candidates, and the latter's 'Maud' might be worth another look (I'll cite
> the first four lines below as contrast). Shade's poem suffers in
comparison
> to any of these, in any capacity you'd like to name.
>
> Did Nabokov compose and publish this style of poem under his own name? Did
> he express a liking for this style of poem in his interviews and critical
> work? These questions need to be addressed if you're arguing that Nabokov
> meant to depict Shade's 'Pale Fire' (Shade the poet, Shade the man) in an
> unironic light.
>
> My point, of course, is not that Shade is using Pope as his model, but
that
> Nabokov is. It's traditional parody -- parody which ridicules and
condemns.
> Here, as in 'The Rape of the Lock', it ridicules and condemns a particular
> mode and style of poetry (my first reaction to the poem was that it was a
> parody of Eliot, and of some of the worst excesses of the Romantics, and
I'm
> pleased to see from one of your subsequent posts that I'm not totally out
on
> a limb there -- Is this "Fowler" Douglas Fowler of the reader's guide to
> _GR_ fame perchance?) Anyway, it's quite unlike the type of "blank parody"
> which Pynchon deploys in _Vineland_, in his tv show and telemovie send-ups
> for example, where there's an underlying ambivalence towards the erstwhile
> cultural referents themselves, such as noted in the Mark Robberds
_Critique_
> essay on that novel for example. Though not the first to identify the
shift
> in how irony and satire are articulated in postmodern fiction, this sort
of
> thing is criticised by Fredric Jameson (he calls it "parody that has lost
> its sense of humour", which is, after all, a rather subjective
judgement --
> I find Pynchon's send-ups, if nothing else, quite hilarious). Even though
> largely critical of it (he's coming from a Left political stance, of
course,
> and I guess he perceives it as something which depoliticises the satiric
> mode, or that dilutes its function as social critique) Jameson does
> acknowledge that such a shift in the mode has occurred.
>
> Anyway --
>
> 'Maud; A Monodrama' (1855)
>
> Part 1
>
> Section 1
>
> I hate the dreadful hollow behind the little wood;
> Its lips in the field above are dabbled with blood-red heath,
> The red-ribb'd ledges drip with a silent horror of blood,
> And Echo there, whatever is ask'd her, answers "Death."
>
> http://tennysonpoetry.home.att.net/mma.htm
>
> best
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 19:53:01 -0500
> From: "Tim Strzechowski" <dedalus204@comcast.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Canto 1: 1-4 some random notes
>
> Excellent points, Michael. And I couldn't help noticing some distinct
> echoes of John Milton throughout Canto 1 of _Pale Fire_, especially the
> sections of _Paradise Lost_ in which the Miltonic bard invokes the Muse,
or
> laments his loss of Sight in light of the need for poetic vision (cf. Book
> III, lines 1-32, for example). Of course secular Shade, who comes across
as
> somewhat arrogant in Canto 1 when describing the extent of his poetic
vision
> and ability, contrasts with the bard of _PL_ who, despite his desire to
> create "things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme," assumes much more
> humility as he struggles with the need for poetic inspiration.
>
> I don't have my copy of PF handy, but something tells me the back cover
> (maybe?) describes the Shade poem as an "epic poem." This, of course, is
> hardly the case in the classical sense, but Milton (and the epic
tradition)
> was no doubt in the back of Nabokov's mind as he fashioned this longer
poem,
> written in a series of cantos (or books), and composed in a traditional
> metric form, and dealing (in a way) with lofty themes.
>
>
>
> - ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Michael Joseph" <mjoseph@rci.rutgers.edu>
> Cc: <pynchon-l@waste.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2003 11:49 AM
> Subject: Re: NPPF Canto 1: 1-4 some random notes
>
>
> >
> > I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
> > By the false azure in the windowpane;
> > I was the smudge of ashen fluff--and I
> > Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky.
> > And from the inside, too, I'd duplicate
> > Myself. . . .
> >
> > "Slain" also echoes Biblical language, which is exactly right for Shade
> > who contemplates transcendence, or a "feigned" (i.e., supposed;
imaginary)
> > transcendence, a fairly conventional reading of "azure." The slaying
could
> > conceivably have a secondary meaning in that Shade's implicit wish to
> > survive in his poetry is ironically granted in Kinbote's slaying of its
> > meaning and beauty. Kinbote of course peers in at Shade's windowpane,
and
> > just as "azure" signifies (See Milton) the vault of Heaven, it also
> > signifies the blue color in coats of arms thus the "false azure" could
> > well represent the clownish Kinbote's delusion of being the self-exiled
> > King Charles: a false King.
> >
> > If someone has discussed the form of the opening, I apologize for
possible
> > duplication, but I awnt to point out that it seems very like a form of
> > Welsh poetry, such as we see for example in the Song of Amergin:
> >
> > "I am the womb of every holt,
> > "I have been in many shapes....
> > I am the blaze on every hill,
> > I have been a drop in the air.
> > I am the queen of every hive,
> > I have been a shining star.
> > I am the shield to every head,
> > I have been a word in a book. ...
> > I am the tomb to every hope."
> > I have traveled, I have made a circuit,
> > -- THE SONG OF AMERGIN.
> >
> > ... and The Hanes taliesin
> >
> > THE BATTLE OF THE TREES.
> >
> > "I have obtained the muse from the Cauldron of Cerridwen;
> > I have been bard of the harp to Lleon of Lochlin;
> > I have been on the White Hill, in the court of Cynvelyn...."
> > -- THE HANES TALIESIN.
> >
> > ... which Nabokov could conceivably have seen in several places,
> > including Graves's The White Goddess (1948).
> >
> > These poems are generally considered to be involved with religious
beliefs
> > and are incantatory - a telling choice for someone like Shade who, as
> > Brian Boyd points out, has "dedicated his whole life to fighting the
> > "inadmissible abyss" of death
> > (http://www.libraries.psu.edu/iasweb/nabokov/boydpf1.htm), and for
someone
> > like Nabokov, of course, who famously said "I do not believe in time."
The
> > form is also possibly interesting for another, unrelated, reason: the
> > voice of the poem is multiple; that is, the "I" does not refer to one
> > single persona, but to multiple personae, or a transpersonal corporate
> > identity.
> >
> >
> > Michael
> >
> >
> >
>
> ------------------------------
>
> End of pynchon-l-digest V2 #3438
> ********************************
>