Thursday, November 19

TRANSPARENT THINGS: the end

"'Why do you do this to me?' asks a student. 'Because I am God', replied Dr S."

Important TT things to know:

• "mysterious mental maneuver" pg 562

past, present and future are all going on at the same time- much like the saw films, where all the films are happening at the same time!

Sam's blog: pics that VN talks about at the end

Rebecca's blog: transparent

Vlad wrote this to "baffle the wise and mislead the silly"

tension film: pg 489

"the surface of the present, not the ooze of the past" ~ VN

"all art is both surface and symbol" ~Oscar Wilde

Mr R is helping Hugh into the world of the dead, like Charon and Hermes

Mr. N does not = Mr. R: although they look the same, they are NOT the same!

Vertigo and TT

Heracles: Hugh Person

Deianira: Armonde

Nessus poisoned him and H had to "redeem himself from fire, with fire"

Robert's blog

Lee's blog

313: prisoner in the middle, guards on either side

Synecdoche, NY

Initial Response to TT:

I sat down and read this story in its entirety, which is something that I don't usually do. Overall, I thought it was really strange, but I think maybe when I read it again it will make more sense. A few of the passages I found most interesting/ noticeable/ funny are these:

• "But the future has no such reality" pg 489~ I really liked this for the simple fact that it was so Nabokovian. His dealings with 'reality' have always interested and entertained me, and since this was on the first page of the story, I knew that this was like the others. 'Reality' would be questioned, and I would be confused.
• "We recognized its presence in the log as we recognized the log in the tree and the tree in the forest and the forest in the world that Jack built" pg 493~ This also deals with the delicate balance that is 'reality'. With the repetition and the fictional reference, it alerts the reader to the fairy tale that is about to unfold. Dark and twisted, yes, but a fairy tale none-the-less.
• "He found rather fetching the green figurine of a female skier made of a substance he could not identify through the show glass (it was 'alabasterette,' imitation aragonite, carved and colored in the Grumbel jail by a homosexual convict, rugged Armand Rave, who had strangled his boyfriend's incestuous sister.)" pg 496~ Armand, of course, made me pay attention because of characters like him discussed in the past. Was he a difficult as the Casbeam Barber? As Taxonovich? Who knows! But because of who the author is, it made me pay attention.
• My biggest discovery however is that I believe Hugh Person (You Person) is supposed to be the story of A. Person from Porlock England. I'm not sure why exactly I feel this in my gut, but it seems that because of who A. Person was, and because of what he interrupted, it would make sense to me that Nabokov would create for him and tortuous and depressing life.
• Another part that made me pay attention was that of the tennis game that began on pg 527. Nabokov's obsession with tennis both confuses and intrigues me. Not an avid player myself, I perhaps don't understand the complexities that are involved in playing the game, but it seems to me that VN's obsession is a consuming one. I also thought the line "it had an element of art-for-art's sake about it, since it could not deal with low, awkward balls" was just funny too (pg 527-8).
• "Everyone had secret tensions stored up from infancy. Hugh need not be ashamed of them. in fact at puberty sexual desire arises as a substitute for the desire to kill, which one normally fulfills in one's dreams; and insomnia is merely the fear of becoming aware in sleep of one's unconscious desires for slaughter and sex." pg 531~ This I found very interesting because if it is in one's sleep that you purge your desires kill, and he killed her while asleep, was it something that he subconsciously wanted to do all along? Many subconscious desires manifest themselves in our dreams, so this theory would technically make sense, but then again, I might be reading into things too much...

Those were the passages that jumped out at me on first glace. Deeper consideration and study will need to be put into this to fully comprehend (or to comprehend to my greatest ability) what this means, and why, out of all the passages, I chose these. I have given them surface thought, of the bottom rung variety, but much more will need to be done to help me move up to those ever-present top rungs.

Tuesday, November 17

'In my beginning, is my end'

• most author's later works are considered weaker, like Shakespeare's later works: The Tempest and The Winter's Tale
• Zach's Blog: 'I think Nabokov is probably smiling'
• "This is about as good as it gets" ~Dr S on TT
• Circle back to where we started, Return to what is both familiar and unfamiliar
• "what we call the beginning, is also the end" ~Toilet
• Proust's 'The Cookie'
• VN is obsessed with trying to recapture the past

TRANSPARENT THINGS:

• The past is connected to the present
• Lolita + Humbert = EAP + Annabelle Lee
• we call into the history of objects, and are trapped there

Important themes:

1. supernatural
2. commentary on his own writing
3. metafiction in a sense, because he addresses the audience
4. "within the small compass of transparent things" ~Brian Boyd

Happy Original of Laura day!

relationship between reader and writer:

• Ada
• Look at the Hs!
• Laura
• not as extraordinary as Lolita and PF, but other largely enjoyable things going on

Dmitri Nabokov: who is this man?!?!

Everyman

Freezer Burn: in this movie the main character falls in love with a 14 year old girl, but instead of not caring about age, like HH, he cryogenically freezes himself until she is 30, so they can be 30 together. Although it doesn't turn out like he planned, it is an interesting alternative to HH's nastiness.

dreams (saves his wife) VS reality (strangles his wife)

Death is a clue: no one is ever really gone in this story

Mr. R: starts the novel "hullo person" (pg 508)~ dies and the becomes a ghost

Underline all of these:

• fire
• ghost/ spector/ phantasm/ spirit
• strangle
• gravity

Boston Strangler

Dueling narrators:

• Mr. R.
• 'we' in italics = narrator
• Vladimir Nabokov

Hugh= you: pronouns and narrators throw you off all the time

All these people are dead at the end:

• Armonde
• Hugh
• father
• Mr R

TEST REVIEW

1. How does Jana think that Shade predicted his own death? ~'And through the flowing Shade and Ebbing light/ A man, unheedful of the butterfly-/ Some neighbor's gardener, I guess- goes by/ Trundling an empty barrow up the land.'
2. What is the last line of the poem according to K? ~I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
3. When does Gradus first come into the story? ~ when Shade wrote the first line of the poem
4. Who does K say the main characters are? ~ Kinbote, Shade and Gradus
5. What did the Zemblan royal family and Goldsmith's daughters have in common? ~they were all in alphabetical order
6. Beauty + _____ = art? ~pity
7. What was the type of butterfly that lands on Shade right before his death? ~Vanessa Atalanta
8. According to K, what gives S's poem reality? ~K's commentary
9. What two Shakespearean plays do the title possibly come from? ~Timon of Athens and Hamlet
10. In Zemblan, what does Kinbote mean? ~ King killer
11. What is the password? ~pity
12. When in the poem does Hazel commit suicide? ~the exact middle
13. Who, according to K, gave Gradus a ride to Dulwich lane? ~Gerald Emerald
14. What does Ultima Thule mean? ~ the ultimate land
15. What was K's name for JS's poem? ~ Solus Rex (Sun King)
16. Who badly translated Timon of Athens into Zemblan? ~ K's uncle Conmal (name means with malice)
17. What word game does Shade love? ~word golf
18. According to the index, what is Zembla? ~ A distant, northern land
19. Who is the Toilest? ~ T. S. Eliot
20. What is the misprint of life everlasting? ~The white fountain/ mountain
21. Kinbote can forgive everything but...? ~treason
22. "Just this. Not text, but ______"? ~texture
23. What 2 books does Sam say are in Goldsmith's wife's library? ~Forever Amber and The Prisoner of Zenda
24. Who does K say he is like? Why? ~ Hazel, because they both reverse words ie- spider= redips
25. What does bretwit mean in Zemblan? ~chess intelligence
26. Zembla = ?? ~resemblance
27. IPH? ~institution for the preparation of the afterlife
28. How many days does it take to write each canto? pg 13 ~ 3,7,7,3
29. What is K's supposed wife's full name? ~Paradisa, the Duchess of Pain and Moan
30. What does an ampersand look like? "rubber band dropped" ~ &

Thursday, November 5

"Life everlasting based on a misprint"

Pale Fire:

• 'The Magician's Doubts' by Michael Woods
• 'The magic of artistic discovery' by brian boyd
• authentic and artistic discoveries can be made, whether right, wrong or crazy. The important part is in the discovering and failing
• Jessica's Blog: A 'whiter shade of pale' pg 57

coincidences:

• 1 in 3
• emily dickenson and kinbote's situation
• george steiners
• 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle maintence' by Robert M. Pirsig

1. 'about a father and his child... tear at the boys sould... the motorcycle engines'
2. Erlkonig
3. poem
4. pg 239, line 662 "Who rides so late in the night and the wind"
5. polymaths
6. Erl King=> Posiden=> Kinbote
7. yew tree symbolizes immortality

Sunday Morning by Wallace Stevens

mobius strip

"within cells interlinked..."

Kubla Khan~ Xanadu

Milton's Paradise Lost part 1

'making ornaments and accident and possibilities' pg 63

"art is our only way to paradise"

2 imaginations:

1. Shade: empathy
2. Kinbote: Narcissistic

GRADUS pages:

• 74
• 78
• 135
• 149
• 150-4
• 277-80
• 284

Tuesday, November 3

"Welcome to Kinboteland"

psycho pompous: Hermes- the guide of souls pg 126

Nabokov= Hermes

intro to Lolita: PF and VN pg 27

SAMPLE PAPER TOPICS:

• parody
• coincidence
• expand blogs (pg 63)
• patterning (chess, lepodoptra)
• illusion/allusion
• work with in work- frames
• staging of the novel
• authorial voice (p 63) ~who is the author
• doppelgangers

grade: shade, degree (gradus, degree)

'The Ugly Duckling' is Pale Fire, but a reversed displacement

"not a cryptographic paper chase, but the guide of our souls" ~Dr S

Major theme: communication with the dead

the 4 quartets by TS Eliot

• time
• memory
• communication with the dead

Who is dead at the end?

• Hazel
• Aunt Maud
• J. Shade

Kinbote knows nothing on the outside, but he is "perfectly manipulated by the dead"

Pale Fire: a parody of literary criticism- relationship between interpreter and text

John Shade= Emily Dickenson: both had people steal and edit their poems

Everyone knows a Kinbote, and I hate to admit that I'm a Sybil, not a John...

PITY: compassion for the insane= The Phantom of the Opera

Assistant Prof who he is talking about on pg 24? -Gerald Emerald

Kinbote= Hazel, they are VERY similar!

Netochka pg 25

Wizard of Oz: Dorothy projects all of her friends from Kansas into Oz, with their cowardly, brainless and heartless ways (this clip isn't exactly what I wanted, but I couldn't find the entire first scene, I am horrible at using youtube...)

Gradus: McFate

Arabian Nights= 'Destroyer of Delights' DEATH

pg 255~ Because Jack Grey kills himself with a safety razor, so K offers Gradus one whenever he speaks of him

Pale Fire trumps Lolita!!!!!

Malenkov

Tuesday, October 27

'Help Me Will!'

William Butler Yeats:

• 'help me will'
• a poet to his beloved

azure- blue

Amber to Zen: Sam's Blog:

• Forever Amber
• gave the name Amber currency

How was Kinbote able to take people from New Wye and turn them into Zemblians?

Gerald Emerald: A Shadow?

Argus:

• pg 83
• a giant with 100- eyes
• transformed into a peacock
• son of Arestor

Thursday, October 22

Today Gretchen Minton was here to discuss Timon of Athens and Pale Fire

Here is a link to the play

Tuesday, October 20

'The Ugly Hazel'

Because I had the swine during the next three blog entries, these notes were kindly donated to me by Amanda Springer. Thanks friend!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sibyl:

• cumaean sibyl
• sibyl (general)
• sibyl film
• Oracle- super hero
• Sibyl book

Clithonic: relating to the underworld

people who die are knows as Shades in the Greek underworld

"pada ata lane pad not ogo old wart alan ther tale feur far rant lant tal told" pg 188

Arrant: 'and her pale fire she snatches from the sun'

#11111

Kubla Khan by STC poem

Vanessa Atalanta: Metamorphosis- Red Admiral/ Red Admirable

Kinbote's family:

• Dad: Alphin the Vague
• Mom: Blinda
• son: Charles
• wife: Disa

Hazel: The Ugly Duckling

T.S. Eliot's 4 Quartets is where one can experience religious transcendence

FYI

"The starving chemist in his golden views Supremely blest."

~Alexander Pope on alchemy, from Essay on Man (ep. II, l. 269)

I'm not going to lie and tell you this is one of my favorite quotes by Pope, but this mention in the commentary is interesting. All Kinbote tells you is that it is a 'Popian line' that the reader can look up in any college library. He really doesn't tell you any more than that. Thanks again Kinbote, you are ever so helpful.

Cicadas

so you will be one of 3 out of 300:

My paper topic:

While rereading Pale Fire, I was struck with an interesting and funny paper topic. I would like to take the first canto of Shade's poem, and write my own commentary! I will do exactly as Kinbote does, taking his beautiful poem and destroying it by connecting it to my own life! I will tell stories that I am reminded of by each line, and use Kinbote's commentary whenever necessary. I'm not sure if this topic is Sexson-approved, I will have to ask, but I think it'd be something fun and interesting to write about in my very last Sexson class in college.

Windows

I find it so funny that Kinbote thinks that he is using windows in the same way as other literature does. He says "windows, as well known, have been the solace of first-person literature throughout the ages..." saying that windows are a vastly used literary tool to help understand and show what a character is thinking and believing (pg 87). After he says this, the reader is led to believe that he will be using windows in the same way, but he doesn't! He goes on to greatly detail his 'peeping tomness'. From his hedge, he watches John and Sybil and tells the readers exactly what they do, from playing cards, to weeping over their child's death. He is a creeper, in every sense that that word can be used and is applied to men like Kinbote. My favorite line(although I'm really sure why...) is "it was a hot, black, blustery night. I stole through the shrubbery to the rear of their house. At first I thought that this fourth side was also dark, thus clinching the matter, and had time to experience a queer sense of relief before noticing a faint square of light under the window of a little back parlor where I had never been" (90). Of course, you go on to read that John had just completed and read the saddest part of the poem to Sybil, the part where Hazel dies, but I think it hilarious (hilarious in the sense that Death At A Funeral is hilarious, when something is both tragic and funny) that while the two distraught, grieving parents are mourning their child's death, Kinbote is sneaking through their lawn to spy on them! All I have to say is: Well done Kinbote, you have both entertained and freaked me out.

Neverwas

The entire time I was reading Pale Fire I couldn't help thinking about this movie called Neverwas. It is the story of a young boy, who ran from his troubled past, and is finally returning to his childhood town to deal with his demons. When he was a child, Zach's father wrote a children's story staring him called Neverwas, it was about this magical land and all of the magical things that Zach could do there. When he returns as a psychologist to this small town, he meets Gabriel in a mental institution, the same institution where his father spent some time years before his suicidal death. As Zach and Gabriel spend more time together, Zach discovers that Gabriel believes that he has come to take them back to the land of Neverwas, where Gabriel is the King. Gabriel is positive that Zach is the key to his freedom from both the institution and this world.

*I am going to spoil the ending now, because it is necessary for my connection, and for that, I am sorry.*

Eventually, Gabriel convinces Zach to help him to find the magical portal in the woods, which is the door to Neverwas and to Zach understanding his father and his past. He discovers that his father stole Gabriel's fictional land for the story Neverwas, and exploited the crazy old man. Because of this, the journey that the two men take, is the same that the fictional child Zach did in the book, which serves as their guide to finding the castle where Gabriel lives. When he arrives he sees that it truly is a magical land, if only in Gabriel's mind. The movie serves as a real-life fairytale, making the viewer believe in the magic of reality and child-like belief, even if it stems from a mental illness.

While reading about Kinbote, I couldn't help but connect him and Gabriel. Both believe completely in a magical land where they are the king, and both make that a reality to themselves. Both men are so completely submerged in this dream that they cannot see why others wouldn't believe, so assume that outside people believe exactly what they do. This is both a magical and dangerous thing, especially for John Shade.

Thursday, October 29

"We all are, in a sense, poets, madam"

PALE FIRE DISCOVERIES:

?:

• "help me Will" ~Shakespeare, William Butler Yeats, William Carlos William

Jana:

• last lines of poem are setting up his death~ "and through the flowing... up the lane"

Chris:

• Ulalume by EAP- lumination- 'on electricity' by shade
• in the movie version of Lolita, he is reading her this poem!

Robert:

• The Quest for the Crown Jewels
• Tanyk: a place in Russia
• the method is more important then where you really are

Helena:

• Hamlet and Pale Fire

Jennie Lynn:

• Shade-> Hades

Emily:

• 'et in arcadia ego': latin for 'even in eden am I'
• death is even in eden or 'arcadia'
• arcadia= Zembla?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cosmic -> Comic: only one s is the difference

Kobold: a goblin

Robert Frost poem 'A Winter Eden'

Art is the antidote of mortality

"He waited... their game" pg 132

Ultima Thule: The far north, Zembla?

'The Dark Materials' has a far northern place where Lord Asriel split the worlds in two

gradus ad Parnassus: where the muses live

Shade looks like:

• Hogarthian
• p297 descriptions:

1. Samuel Johnson
2. neanderthal
3. cafeteria hag
4. Judge Goldworth: a 'Medusa locked hag'

James Boswell

_______________________________

PF 2nd Reading:

• Kinbote loves J. Shade
• Zembla vs reality
• Shadows took over so they had to flee
• Shade shot before finishing poem
• Gradus= terminator
• The Prisoner of Zembla
• real killer is Jack Grey: Jacob Gradus: glass maker from Zembla
• Degree: Shade
• contrapuntal
• Does Kinbote know it's not true like Don Q?
• Nabokov's quartet: all ghost stories
• "The Vane Sisters"

acrostics: "I could isolate, consciously, little. Everything seemed blurred, yellow-clouded, yielding nothing tangible. Her inept acrostics, maudlin evasions, theopathies - every recollection formed ripples of mysterious meaning. Everything seemed yellowly blurred, illusive, lost." ~Vlad from 'Tyrants Destroyed and Other Short Stories'

The ACROSTIC IS: ICICLES BY CYNTHIA METER FROM ME, SYBIL

Sam's Blog: Haroun and the Sea of Stories