Thursday, October 15

"Have you Achieved Pale Fire readiness?"

lemniscate Nabokov's ladder:

1. when you haven't read it
2. elementary discoveries
3. starting to grasp it
4. discovery of discovery

Vlad is the puppet master:

he wrote a commentary about Kinbote's commentary about Shade's poem, so basically a commentary on a commentary on a commentary that he wrote! Is that like a commentary cubed?

Other puppet masters:

Gepetto

N'SYNC

intentional fallacy

Indexes:

• 'A Clockwork Orange'
• Pale Fire

Arden Shakespeare: Timon of Athens: "The sun's a thief, and with his great attraction / Robs the vast sea: the moon's an arrant thief, / And her pale fire she snatches from the sun..."

The Index: "a cornucopia of clues for understanding the novel" ~Dr S

• G: Graddus- the killer of Shade, never mentioned in the poem. Perhaps in CK's mind?
• K: Kinbote- the narcissistic commentator, suffers from NPD who imposed himself into S's poem and life
• S: Shade- author of the poem, hardly mentioned at all in the index, always in reference to K
• Hazel and Sybil Shade: are the center of the poem, and yet almost entirely left out of the index

Serious Naricissm: failure to note other people exist and are important

Ben Chapman: in baseball AND literature!

There is no Frigate like a book! ~Emily Dickinson

"The person with the imagination has it all" "If you understand the imagination, you understand everything!" ~Dr S

Nabokov is like a temple priest

"Who do you go to to learn about 12 year old girls? You do not go to 12 year old girls! They know nothing! You go to the artist." ~ Dr S

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane

"Mr. Rogers was wrong! Everyone is NOT special!" ~Dr S

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern: "The world is a cage!"

"We are most artistically caged" ~pg 37

'the great bear' Hogarthian photos:

Starover Blue: Flag for the Russian navy

Hazel: ugly, but intelligent

Sibylian oracles