Subject
[NABOKOV-L] POL and political pollinations... Freud and Nabokov
From
Date
Body
Jerry Friedman: ..."symbolic substitutes ...such as sticks, umbrellas, posts... Jerry Friedman is checking his post carefully for parapraxes."
JM: Sometimes a post is only a post.
Only a few clicks away in the internet, and related to umbrellas and "pol" ( " 'pol' imeans 'sex' in Russian").
1. Pale Fire, Charles Kinbote, Line 172: "...letting my illustrious friend speak for himself... The subject of teaching Shakespeare at college level ...Kinbote: 'You appreciate particularly the purple passages?' Shade: 'Yes, my dear Charles, I roll upon them as a grateful mongrel on a spot of turf fouled by a Great Dane.'...The respective impacts and penetrations of Marxism and Freudism being talked of, I said: 'The worst of two false doctrines is always that which is harder to eradicate.' Shade: "No, Charlie, there are simpler criteria: Marxism needs a dictator, and a dictator needs a secret police, and that is the end of the world; but the Freudian, no matter how stupid, can still cast his vote at the poll, even if he is pleased to call it [smiling] political pollination.'...Of students' papers: 'I am generally very benevolent [said Shade]. But there are certain trifles I do not forgive.' Kinbote: 'For instance?' 'Not having read the required book. Having read it like an idiot. Looking in it for symbols; example: 'The author uses the striking image green leaves because green is the symbol of happiness and frustration.' ..."
2. Why Nabokov Detests Freud, January 30, 1966 ( interview:Robert Hughes)
VN: "...I'm not a good speaker, you see. When I start to speak, I have immediately four or five lines of thought...And I have to decide which trail I'm going to follow...I can never understand those limpid, fluid speakers, as my father was...I have to think it out; I have to take a pencil; I have to write it down laboriously; have it before me. I do things like that. It's probably psychological. I can imagine what old Freud would have said, whom I heartily detest, as my readers know by now. "
RH: Mr. Nabokov, would you tell us why it is that you detest Dr. Freud?
VN: "I think he's crude, I think he's medieval, and I don't want an elderly gentleman from Vienna with an umbrella inflicting his dreams upon me. I don't have the dreams that he discusses in his books. I don't see umbrellas in my dreams. Or balloons. I think that the creative artist is an exile in his study, in his bedroom, in the circle of his lamplight. He's quite alone there; he's the lone wolf. As soon as he's together with somebody else he shares his secret, he shares his mystery, he shares his God with somebody else."
Two different sets of interviews. Fictional Kinbote reports the first one, moving from Shade's reaction to Shakespeare's "purple passages" towards the "impacts and penetrations of Marxism and Freudism." As I see it, it's hardly a coincidence to find, close to the word "police", a critical and clever succession of "poll- political-pollination."
In the second interview Nabokov compares his talents as a speaker to his father's, before he adds:"It's probably psychological" and asserts that he "can imagine what old Freud would have said." In his article about "Negation" Freud observes that when a patient exclaims: " I'm not thinking about my mother now," such a comment is obviously contradictory and self-revealing. No secret police is needed, nor any indiscrete freudian probing.
To avoid disclosing one's secrets the only solution is the one Nabokov has just described when he compares the creative artist to a lone wolf for "as soon as he's together with somebody else he shares his secret..." Freud believes that the more one tries to hide a particular thought the bigger are one's chances of revealing it by a gesture, a wink, a word.* And yet I think that, in this case, what bothered Nabokov the most was having to share "his God with somebody else," which I interpret as a fear of being robbed of his uniqueness and private mysteries.** Nabokov feels a similar loss (and describes it in SO) after he's lent one of his cherished memories to one of his characters. Nevertheless, Nabokov remains a generous author since this realization hasn't kept him from vividly sharing his dearest childhood recollections with an invisible audience - once they'd been artistically caged and contained by the covers of "Speak, Memory."
................................................................................
* "He that has eyes to see and ears to hear may convince himself that no mortal can keep a secret. If his lips are silent, he chatters with his fingertips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore." Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria (1905) Ch. 2 : The First Dream
**In Richard Rorty's view, the obsessive and strident animosity that Nabokov felt towards Freud was "the resentment of a precursor who may already have written all one's best lines".Alan C. Elms (1994), quoted by Durantaye: "Nabokov didn't hate Freud because their basic concepts of human nature were so radically opposed; he hated Freud because they were so much alike" (169).
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/
JM: Sometimes a post is only a post.
Only a few clicks away in the internet, and related to umbrellas and "pol" ( " 'pol' imeans 'sex' in Russian").
1. Pale Fire, Charles Kinbote, Line 172: "...letting my illustrious friend speak for himself... The subject of teaching Shakespeare at college level ...Kinbote: 'You appreciate particularly the purple passages?' Shade: 'Yes, my dear Charles, I roll upon them as a grateful mongrel on a spot of turf fouled by a Great Dane.'...The respective impacts and penetrations of Marxism and Freudism being talked of, I said: 'The worst of two false doctrines is always that which is harder to eradicate.' Shade: "No, Charlie, there are simpler criteria: Marxism needs a dictator, and a dictator needs a secret police, and that is the end of the world; but the Freudian, no matter how stupid, can still cast his vote at the poll, even if he is pleased to call it [smiling] political pollination.'...Of students' papers: 'I am generally very benevolent [said Shade]. But there are certain trifles I do not forgive.' Kinbote: 'For instance?' 'Not having read the required book. Having read it like an idiot. Looking in it for symbols; example: 'The author uses the striking image green leaves because green is the symbol of happiness and frustration.' ..."
2. Why Nabokov Detests Freud, January 30, 1966 ( interview:Robert Hughes)
VN: "...I'm not a good speaker, you see. When I start to speak, I have immediately four or five lines of thought...And I have to decide which trail I'm going to follow...I can never understand those limpid, fluid speakers, as my father was...I have to think it out; I have to take a pencil; I have to write it down laboriously; have it before me. I do things like that. It's probably psychological. I can imagine what old Freud would have said, whom I heartily detest, as my readers know by now. "
RH: Mr. Nabokov, would you tell us why it is that you detest Dr. Freud?
VN: "I think he's crude, I think he's medieval, and I don't want an elderly gentleman from Vienna with an umbrella inflicting his dreams upon me. I don't have the dreams that he discusses in his books. I don't see umbrellas in my dreams. Or balloons. I think that the creative artist is an exile in his study, in his bedroom, in the circle of his lamplight. He's quite alone there; he's the lone wolf. As soon as he's together with somebody else he shares his secret, he shares his mystery, he shares his God with somebody else."
Two different sets of interviews. Fictional Kinbote reports the first one, moving from Shade's reaction to Shakespeare's "purple passages" towards the "impacts and penetrations of Marxism and Freudism." As I see it, it's hardly a coincidence to find, close to the word "police", a critical and clever succession of "poll- political-pollination."
In the second interview Nabokov compares his talents as a speaker to his father's, before he adds:"It's probably psychological" and asserts that he "can imagine what old Freud would have said." In his article about "Negation" Freud observes that when a patient exclaims: " I'm not thinking about my mother now," such a comment is obviously contradictory and self-revealing. No secret police is needed, nor any indiscrete freudian probing.
To avoid disclosing one's secrets the only solution is the one Nabokov has just described when he compares the creative artist to a lone wolf for "as soon as he's together with somebody else he shares his secret..." Freud believes that the more one tries to hide a particular thought the bigger are one's chances of revealing it by a gesture, a wink, a word.* And yet I think that, in this case, what bothered Nabokov the most was having to share "his God with somebody else," which I interpret as a fear of being robbed of his uniqueness and private mysteries.** Nabokov feels a similar loss (and describes it in SO) after he's lent one of his cherished memories to one of his characters. Nevertheless, Nabokov remains a generous author since this realization hasn't kept him from vividly sharing his dearest childhood recollections with an invisible audience - once they'd been artistically caged and contained by the covers of "Speak, Memory."
................................................................................
* "He that has eyes to see and ears to hear may convince himself that no mortal can keep a secret. If his lips are silent, he chatters with his fingertips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore." Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria (1905) Ch. 2 : The First Dream
**In Richard Rorty's view, the obsessive and strident animosity that Nabokov felt towards Freud was "the resentment of a precursor who may already have written all one's best lines".Alan C. Elms (1994), quoted by Durantaye: "Nabokov didn't hate Freud because their basic concepts of human nature were so radically opposed; he hated Freud because they were so much alike" (169).
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/