Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] On symmetry II
From: "jansymello" <[email-masked]>
To: "Vladimir Nabokov Forum" <[email-masked]>
Cc: <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2006 15:05:31 -0400

Dear Anthony Stadlen and Penny McC,

A.Stadlen answered my comment on symmetry and narcissistic characters: "
I never said this. Of course there are beautiful symmetries in nature
and art and mathematics, and real circularities as in Finnegans Wake and
VN's circular short story. But there are also unreliable ones proposed
by unreliable people, such as some of VN's narrators, who try to reduce
otherness to sameness. 

I misread your statements and generalized what had been limited to a
special context. Sorry. 
I had the impression you ascribed symmetry (and "obsessive patterning")
mainly to VN's unreliable narrators and not to VN himself.    

Stadlen wrote: " VN did (in Strong Opinions, or was it Lectures on
Literature, or Speak Memory, or perhaps all three?) praise the
Hegelian-dialectical spiral as something that meant much to him. That is
something different from either symmetry or circularity."   
I'm a bit confused with what the term "symmetry" means:  If someone with
mathematical abilities could correct me here: I don't think Symmetry
only applies to mirror-like reflections or doublings. Wouldn't the
regularities of, say, a spiral shell or caracole or any helicoidals
represent one kind of "symmetry"? 

Stephen, I think the philosopher Epicurus was a monist and an "atomist"
(  I suppose VN read Lucrecius and "De Rerum Natura"?) and this is why I
mentioned VN's sentence on Van as "an epicure of duration" in the
context of "monism", while  hoping someone would take up this matter and
add more information to my scant notions. 
After all "a-tomism" could mean something related to what was suggested
by VN's description of himself as an  "undivided monist".
Jansy
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Anthony Stadlen 
  To: [email-masked] 
  Sent: Thursday, September 28, 2006 11:31 AM
  Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] On symmetry II

  In a message dated 28/09/2006 14:29:00 GMT Standard Time,
[email-masked] writes:
    A. Stadlen asked: "As a general rule, is it not crucial not to fall
for the symmetries and circularities proposed by self-absorbed
narcissists like Hermann and Kinbote? A large part of VN's challenge to
the reader is not to be seduced by such unreliable (to put it absurdly
mildly) narrators..."   I'm curious to learn  why A.Stadlen thinks that
"symmetries and circularities" are merely the ones we find in VN's
"self-absorbed narcissists" ( A.Appel.Jr. discussed this in relation to
"an escape from solipsism").

    Jansy 
  But I don't think so.VN did (in Strong Opinions, or was it Lectures on
Literature, or Speak Memory, or perhaps all three?) praise the
Hegelian-dialectical spiral as something that meant much to him. That is
something different from either symmetry or circularity.

  Anthony Stadlen          
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