This is my final blog post. Wow! What a class this has been! I can remember signing up for this class thinking "who is this Vlad-a-mere Na-bow-cough guy?"I asked someone if they knew anything he had written and they replied "Yeah. He wrote a book about a pedophile. It's called Lolita." At that point I wondered what in hell kind of class I was signed up to take! But, I decided to give this Russian author a shot and how glad I am that I did!
The only reason I've decided to my last blog post now (except my paper which will be up when it's finished) is that I really wanted to try and get my thoughts out there before any good thing I have to say about this semester gets swallowed up by the mass intelligence drain that is the upcoming week! Also, I haven't posted any images on this post because I don't really think that it is necessary as this is MY last voice, my last utterance that gets to echo around the class before we head off to Christmas and leave this class for memories and recollections. I really just want to get my final reflections for this class out now before I get swamped and a lot of them get lost among all the other stuff I have to do. I'm sure that I will miss including the papers that are going to be presented next week but I can pretty confidently say that they will be good and offer new perspectives about each persons interests in Nabokovian studies.
Thinking back on the plethora of things we learned this semester it makes me wonder how more people don't spend almost all of their time reading this fabulous author! I guess there are a small share of Kinbotian Brian Boyd's who do :). It seems so crazy to think of the ground we have covered from wondering "what the hell are we reading?" to intensive discussions about Zembla! Although we took off at A we have not yet reached Z; in fact, I would be happy to think that I've reached C with Nabokov.
Well, because this is my last blog of the semester, I feel like I should reach some sort of tangible conclusion from the class. I think just for the sake of doing it (it is MY last blog after all) let me rank the order of works that we've read this semester according to my own personal likes/dislikes (don't attack my opinion because of my likes/dislikes! In this scenario, I get to be God and base my valuations on my personal opinion)
4. Transparent Things-- For some reason I just had a harder time getting into this book. It wasn't that I didn't like it, it was just difficult for me to discern it as well as the others. Part of me thinks that at the time maybe I was feeling "done" with Nabokov for a little bit while I regrouped. Anyway, out of all the texts, this is the one that I feel like I owe the most return to- if just to appreciate it more.
3. Speak, Memory- Having read few autobiographies, I must say that this work is the most carefully crafted "self-life-writing" I have ever read. It really offers anyone interested in Nabokov a real portrait of the author as a young man! (cheesy James Joyce joke). Nabokov's ability to speak the truth and stretch it so artfully form the foundations of his beautifully recollected autobiography! Perhaps, this book has my favorite opening in any book I've ever read.
2. Lolita- From what I know this is by far Nabokov's most popular book, and, unlike works by other authors with that notable status, this one doesn't disappoint! I was amazed at Nabokov's ability to compose a complex, dedicated, sincerely artistic text. This work seems like the perfect segway into studying Nabokov. So many of the themes and strategies of composition that lace his works are beautifully depicted here.
1. Pale Fire- Wow. To put it simply, this work is undeniably a masterpiece. I was mesmerized by the way Nabokov experiments with structure and achieves an effect worthy of the masterpiece title. The whole time I read this book I was in awe of how a true author can compose such an intricate and thoughtful text. Not only does the structure of the piece capture the author but also does his mastery of the various subject matters he writes about-- criticism, academia, loss of a child, poetry, etc. With the creation and depiction of the history of Zembla as it were, Nabokov perhaps achieved his most masterful feat.
I hope everyone reading this list at least can feel some of the justifications to why I put what books where I did. Although I know that ranking books is somewhat of a silly practice, I really feel like I need it to help me understand and grasp this semester a little more firmly.
Now here is where I really begin to wrap it up, play the final notes, turn off the lights, read the last line, and all other euphemisms for the end. First off, I'd really like to thank the whole class. I felt like, at some point in the semester, everyone really contributed to the overall direction of the class and added to the class perspective. It was a joy to pursue these studies with all of you. Thank you most of all to Dr. Sexson for teaching the class! It was really fun and, now that it's done, I think my studies of Nabokov must go off on their own directions. Perhaps to new Nabokov works we didn't make it to, literary criticism surrounding Nabokov, or wherever I find myself leaning. God, the closer I get to ending this blog the more I feel the end of the class coming to a close; like Gradus' existance dependent on following the path of the written words of John Shade I feel like my voice in this class is dependent on this blog. When the text ends, I end. Oh well, I guess if I'm going to go out I would like to conclude my blog with what I consider the most important passage of the whole semester. It seems a fitting end for me to fade away with this quote in mind.
Just this: not text, but texture; not the dream
But topsy-turvical coincidence,
Not flimsy nonsense, but a web of sense.
Yes! It sufficed that I in life could find
Some kind of link-and-bobolink, some kind
Of correlated pattern in the game,
Plexed artistry, and something of the same
Pleasure in it as they who played it found.
Adam
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Final Paper-- "Based on a Misprint"
*I was unable to figure out how to attach the notes. I guess you all can try and annotate some of the paper yourselves!-- Adam
Foreword
Based on a Misprint was the title of the email which the writer of this present note received the strange pages it perambulates. Although I am now a retired professor of literature (20 years in the English Department at Wordsmith College) the authors mother, Suzie Schatz-Benson, emailed me this essay asking for my opinion on its worth. I put down the current book I’m working on, a collaboration with a friend named Vivian, and picked up this undergraduate essay to see if it could help guide my study. Let me point out that, at first, I was simply horrified. After reading it again I modified my initial reaction.
Before I continue, I feel that I need to alert the reader of this commentary exactly who I am in this web of sense. In order to do so I will relate my relationship to the Benson family. I became an intimate correspondent to the family shortly after Adam attended, what I am told, was the first day of the class which this essay was composed for. We were first introduced through a mutual acquaintance, Clarence Choate Clark. Also, my “couple minute” proximity to Adam’s Sheridan, Wyoming residence (this lass could get to that male in four) also contributed to our correspondence leading to my current voice in the commentary.
This commentator may be excused for repeating what she has stressed in her own books and lectures, namely that “offensive” is frequently but a synonym for “unusual”; and a great work of art is of course always original, and thus by its very nature should come as a more or less shocking surprise. I have no intention to glorify Adam. No doubt, he is horrible, he is abject, he is a shining example of academic leprosy, a mixture of ferocity and jocularity that betrays supreme misery perhaps, but is not conducive to attractiveness. He is ponderously capricious. Many of his opinions on the people and texture of Nabokov’s works are ludicrous. A desperate honesty that throbs through his essay does not absolve him from sins of diabolical cunning. He is abnormal. He is not a gentleman. But how magically his singing violin can conjure up a tendresse, a compassion for his studies that makes us entranced with the essay while abhorring its author!
As an essay, Based on a Misprint will become, no doubt, a classic in undergraduate circles. As a work of art, it transcends its expiatory aspects; and still more important to us than academic significance and literary criticism worth, is the ethical impact the essay should have on the serious academic. It warns us of dangerous trends; it points out potent evils. Based on a Misprint should make all of us— professors, students, educators— apply ourselves with still greater vigilance and vision to the task of bringing up a better generation in the academic world.
To this essay we now must turn. The notes included should satisfy the most voracious reader. Let me state that without my notes Adam’s text simply has no academic reality. To this statement my dear Adam would probably not have subscribed, but, for better or worse, it is the commentator that has the last word.
Dame Nasbon, Ph.D.
December 6th, 2009
Based on a Misprint
“A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and the portals of discovery.”—James Joyce
I want my learned readers to participate in the scene I am about to replay; I want them to examine its every detail . A muscular, black bull with ivory-knife horns stands in the center of a bullfighting ring. The bull shoots sharp glances left and right looking for his competitor. He puffs smoke rings from his nostrils and paws in the dirt, lifting a small scuff of dust with a cloven gray hoof. Suddenly, from an open pair of green doors on one side of the ring, a ridge of dark brown earth overturns and rapidly approaches our focus. Something is tunneling into the ring. A mole perhaps? A gopher? Punxsutawney Phil? No. A long-eared, buck-toothed, wide-eyed rabbit toting one maroon suitcase and one forest-green suitcase erupts from the hole and gleefully announces, “well, here I am!” He looks around the ring in dismay. The rabbit clenches two fists and says in long drawn out skepticism “hey— just a cotton-picking minute. This don’t look like the Coachella Valley to me.” He reaches back down into his tunnel and pulls out a leaf-green and sea-blue map sliced into a grid on a piece of white paper. The rabbit ruminates over the map and mutters a sardonic “hmmm…” followed by the utterance “I knew I should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque.”
Hey you! You person up there holding this white paper in your hands staring down at these words wondering if I’m writing to you . You wonder how I’m at the end of the first page of an essay of Vladimir Nabokov and all you’ve read this far is a scene about Bugs Bunny? Do you think I possibly printed off the wrong paper and am just now realizing it? (Segno ) Do you think this is a mistake? No, it is far from a mistake and is most definitely intentional (al Coda) . I do understand where you are coming from though; you are undoubtedly feeling slightly perturbed at this point and asking yourself “how in the world does Bugs Bunny have anything at all to do with Vladimir Nabokov?” Well, the admirable reader who trusts in me will understand that this Bugs Bunny scene and the craftsmanship of Vladimir Nabokov have much in common (in addition to their disdain for Freudians) . To get at their comparability our focus should shift to Nabokov’s Pale Fire. In a moment appealing to any black humorist the poet John Shade, a character central to the masterpiece, desperately pens “Life Everlasting— based on a misprint!” (Pale Fire 62). John Shade, who had based his newly adopted spiritual outlook on the accuracy of a statement found in a magazine, found out that because of a misprint, an error, he might be (gulp) wrong! To put Shade’s fear more simply, while he thought he was definitely going to one place it turned out he might be going to another; both Shade and Bugs find they are not at a place they thought they were going, but rather, turned around and thrown off track by an error! What makes these characters situations more comparable is how they react to their errors. Bugs Bunny, upon discovering his mistake, does a remarkable thing in getting out of the hole, entering the ring, and engaging in the world he has mistakenly been led to; likewise, John Shade, who at first feels he has been led astray, engages in the realm the error has led him to and he quickly realizes that in fact he has actually stumbled upon the “real point” (hey you skeptic, did you just feel your spine tingle? ). The action of engagement leads us to the crux of this essay. In his works, (make sure to focus here reader!) Nabokov debunks the traditional perception of errors as bad, wrong, and useless and asserts the ability of so-called errors to act as portals leading the persistent reader to fantastic, new knowledge.
In the interpretation of the “cryptogrammic paper chase” section of Lolita, errors, misinterpretations, mistaken trails, and the like all have a vast import (Lolita 250). After Humbert Humbert strikes out to find the person responsible for the capture of Lolita he eventually loses the obvious trail to Lolita’s captor. H.H. needs to adapt quickly if he hopes to regain the scent. He does not give up when the he seems to run out of evidence but notes how he “discovered at once that he (the captor) had forseen my investigations and had planted insulting pseudonyms for my special benefit” (Lolita 248). Before continuing, it must be noted that Humbert is an unreliable narrator; simply because he believes that there are “clues” planted for him by Lolita’s captor in various hotel registries does not necessarily mean that “Harry, Bumper. Sheridan, Wyo.” is referring to an 18th century play Humbert had recently been trying to interest Lolita in (Lolita 250). Because of his unstable status as an unreliable narrator the reader must consider these supposed clues to be errors in H.H.’s judgment. However, it is crucial to see how H.H. reacts to this mistaken trail. He practically relishes in the chase set up for him (if not by the captor then who?) exclaiming how investigating each registry “challenged my scholarship… what a shiver of triumph and loathing shook my frail frame when… his fiendish conundrum would ejaculate in my face” (Lolita 250). The close, attentive reading that H.H. gives to the Hotel registries he stumbles upon allows him to flex his intellectual muscle. Each new list under his attentive glare becomes swollen with literary references and allusions. H.H.’s toilest engagement in the wasteland of names replaces an ordinary view with an extraordinary one.
Silly, H.H. you say. How does he really think that all these names, while convincingly linked to literary references, have anything to do with his chase? He is simply being toyed with! Well frigid ladies and gentlemen of H.H’s jury , I have something grave to report to you. Ready? Take one or two deep breaths. Ok, H.H. is being toyed with but so are you! You, as a reader of the text Lolita, are more closely intertwined with the hairy-armed ape than you would like to think. In fact “virtually every ‘move’ in the ‘true story’ Lolita seems to be structured with their predictable responses in mind; and the game-element depends on such reflexive action, for it tests the reader” (Appel lvii). Not only are the moves structured for you but “the traps are baited with tempting ‘false scents’” (Appel lviii). Do you recall the song that H.H. recites on page 61, back when the mystery was unsolved? “O my Carmen, my little Carmen!... and the gun I killed you with, O my Carmen,/ The gun I am holding now” (Lolita 61). For those of you cultured enough to be aware of Bizet’s famous opera the final scene in Act IV where Don José kills Carmen should ring a bell. As seems the obvious connection Lolita is intended to be linked to Carmen and Humbert Humbert to Don José. So, knowing what we know about Carmen this is an obvious foreshadowing of Humbert Humbert’s eventual murder of Lolita right? (skip ahead, skip ahead). Wrong! H.H. doesn’t kill Lolita in the end. Like H.H., some unseen force has moved you the reader to make an erroneous assumption about the end of the novel. This is only one of many instances in the book in which you have been fooled by a “false scent” leading you to mistaken conclusions (Vivian is the male author, the gal author is Clare … really?).
As I look out I can see that some of you are fuming at this realization of being misled, fooled, conned, bamboozled, flimflammed, and foxed. Please sir, you sparking the lighter with a shaky thumb, do not ignite the messenger . If you are only patient I can direct you to the real hand moving all the pieces – the man behind the curtain . This treacherous fiend is no other than Vivian Darkbloom! This collaborator of Clare Quilty is responsible for leading you astray reader. Confused? When you take closer look Vivian Darkbloom jumps off the page, crawls off the folds, and mans the pen when you rearrange the anagram; Vivian Darkbloom becomes (jumble jumble ) Vladimir Nabokov.
Before you relegate Nabokov to the eighth circle and tenth ditch of lower hell I will provide the author’s proper defense that should illuminate his genius (D.S. al Coda) . (Coda) Firstly, Nabokov is definitely in control of reader as evident in Speak, Memory when he says “I like to fold my magic carpet, after use, in such a way as to superimpose one part of the pattern upon another. Let visitors trip” (Speak, Memory 139). Nabokov must have purpose in this tactic. That purpose seems to be revealed in a passionate attack on the popular lack of consideration and thought when he says “nervous publishers of popular novels pamper the ‘average reader’— who should not be made to think” (Speak, Memory 124). Reader, Nabokov is only thinking in your best interest by asserting your worth as a human and stating that you deserve literature that is not only entertaining but also thought provoking. He has taken upon himself to provide you with books befitting a reader of your intellect and calling him a cheat is how you repay him? Lucky for you, Nabokov is a forgiving author; he understands that everyone makes errors, and, in fact, he really wants you to reconsider errors too.
In one of Nabokov’s most poetic and emotional passages of Pale Fire he provides his most eloquent defense of the nature of errors. Shade, in his glorious epiphanic response to the destitution caused by an error, says:
“But all at once it dawned on me that this/ Was the real point, the contrapuntal theme;/ Just this: not text, but texture; not the dream/ But topsy-turvical coincidence,/ Not flimsy nonsense, but a web of sense./ Yes! It sufficed that I in life could find/ Some kind of link-and-bobolink, some kind/ Of correlated pattern in the game,/ Plexed artistry, and something of the same/ Pleasure in it as they who played it found” (Pale Fire 62). Not only has Shade escaped depression but he has discovered the point; mistakes are not separate from the path of discovery, rather, they are interlinked in the great “web of sense” that makes up all knowledge. Making a mistake puts the person in a position to learn something new that they did not even set out to discover.
Beware reader, making discoveries is not easy though. The person who learns the most from their mistakes must have one of the most amiable qualities (are those Palanese birds I hear cawing ?)— awareness. It will not suffice to make mistakes without an awareness of the learning opportunities that the mistakes can afford. Through Shade, Nabokov frames mistakes and errors not as things that lead away from discovery but straight into it for an aware and attentive person. Shade exuberantly concludes his revelation with “making ornaments/ Of accidents and possibilities” (Pale Fire 62). According to this doctrine not only are errors and accidents portals to discovery but they should be celebrated as highly useful opportunity to learn something new .
Reader, by this point I think that you must be convinced in Nabokov’s ability to successfully use errors and mistakes. He subjects his characters to them, and, when they discover the mistaken trail you lament their wrong turn. However, you quickly realize that you are also one of his characters following a path laid out before you. The paths not only lead you to false assumptions about his texts but more importantly to allow for you to confront your so-called “errors” and give you an opportunity to learn something new. When Nabokov wants you to be his ideal reader he doesn’t mean never to make errors; he wants you to learn from your errors. While reading his book you can be assured that many of the mistakes you make were set up for you and that he has not lead you away from discovery, but closer to other discoveries that you never even knew to be after. Remember though, to get after the discoveries that Nabokov sets you towards you must be aware of the texture of the path, the web of sense, and how the path you have taken is just another link in the chain. Each error and mistake leads you closer to the end, and when you close the book, you must turn back to the beginning, peruse the first lines and think “And the end of all our exploring/ Will be to arrive where we started/ And know the place for the first time” (Eliot 39). Then, you will read the book again, and again, and again …
Works Cited
Appel Jr., Alfred. Introduction. Lolita. By Vladimir Nabokov. 1955. First Vintage Books
Edition, 1991. ix- lxvii . Print.
Eliot, T.S. Four Quartets. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc. pg. 39.
Nabokov, Vladimir. Lolita. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Print.
--- Pale Fire. New York: Vintage Books, 1989. Print.
--- Speak, Memory. New York: Vintage Books, 1989. Print.
Foreword
Based on a Misprint was the title of the email which the writer of this present note received the strange pages it perambulates. Although I am now a retired professor of literature (20 years in the English Department at Wordsmith College) the authors mother, Suzie Schatz-Benson, emailed me this essay asking for my opinion on its worth. I put down the current book I’m working on, a collaboration with a friend named Vivian, and picked up this undergraduate essay to see if it could help guide my study. Let me point out that, at first, I was simply horrified. After reading it again I modified my initial reaction.
Before I continue, I feel that I need to alert the reader of this commentary exactly who I am in this web of sense. In order to do so I will relate my relationship to the Benson family. I became an intimate correspondent to the family shortly after Adam attended, what I am told, was the first day of the class which this essay was composed for. We were first introduced through a mutual acquaintance, Clarence Choate Clark. Also, my “couple minute” proximity to Adam’s Sheridan, Wyoming residence (this lass could get to that male in four) also contributed to our correspondence leading to my current voice in the commentary.
This commentator may be excused for repeating what she has stressed in her own books and lectures, namely that “offensive” is frequently but a synonym for “unusual”; and a great work of art is of course always original, and thus by its very nature should come as a more or less shocking surprise. I have no intention to glorify Adam. No doubt, he is horrible, he is abject, he is a shining example of academic leprosy, a mixture of ferocity and jocularity that betrays supreme misery perhaps, but is not conducive to attractiveness. He is ponderously capricious. Many of his opinions on the people and texture of Nabokov’s works are ludicrous. A desperate honesty that throbs through his essay does not absolve him from sins of diabolical cunning. He is abnormal. He is not a gentleman. But how magically his singing violin can conjure up a tendresse, a compassion for his studies that makes us entranced with the essay while abhorring its author!
As an essay, Based on a Misprint will become, no doubt, a classic in undergraduate circles. As a work of art, it transcends its expiatory aspects; and still more important to us than academic significance and literary criticism worth, is the ethical impact the essay should have on the serious academic. It warns us of dangerous trends; it points out potent evils. Based on a Misprint should make all of us— professors, students, educators— apply ourselves with still greater vigilance and vision to the task of bringing up a better generation in the academic world.
To this essay we now must turn. The notes included should satisfy the most voracious reader. Let me state that without my notes Adam’s text simply has no academic reality. To this statement my dear Adam would probably not have subscribed, but, for better or worse, it is the commentator that has the last word.
Dame Nasbon, Ph.D.
December 6th, 2009
Based on a Misprint
“A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and the portals of discovery.”—James Joyce
I want my learned readers to participate in the scene I am about to replay; I want them to examine its every detail . A muscular, black bull with ivory-knife horns stands in the center of a bullfighting ring. The bull shoots sharp glances left and right looking for his competitor. He puffs smoke rings from his nostrils and paws in the dirt, lifting a small scuff of dust with a cloven gray hoof. Suddenly, from an open pair of green doors on one side of the ring, a ridge of dark brown earth overturns and rapidly approaches our focus. Something is tunneling into the ring. A mole perhaps? A gopher? Punxsutawney Phil? No. A long-eared, buck-toothed, wide-eyed rabbit toting one maroon suitcase and one forest-green suitcase erupts from the hole and gleefully announces, “well, here I am!” He looks around the ring in dismay. The rabbit clenches two fists and says in long drawn out skepticism “hey— just a cotton-picking minute. This don’t look like the Coachella Valley to me.” He reaches back down into his tunnel and pulls out a leaf-green and sea-blue map sliced into a grid on a piece of white paper. The rabbit ruminates over the map and mutters a sardonic “hmmm…” followed by the utterance “I knew I should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque.”
Hey you! You person up there holding this white paper in your hands staring down at these words wondering if I’m writing to you . You wonder how I’m at the end of the first page of an essay of Vladimir Nabokov and all you’ve read this far is a scene about Bugs Bunny? Do you think I possibly printed off the wrong paper and am just now realizing it? (Segno ) Do you think this is a mistake? No, it is far from a mistake and is most definitely intentional (al Coda) . I do understand where you are coming from though; you are undoubtedly feeling slightly perturbed at this point and asking yourself “how in the world does Bugs Bunny have anything at all to do with Vladimir Nabokov?” Well, the admirable reader who trusts in me will understand that this Bugs Bunny scene and the craftsmanship of Vladimir Nabokov have much in common (in addition to their disdain for Freudians) . To get at their comparability our focus should shift to Nabokov’s Pale Fire. In a moment appealing to any black humorist the poet John Shade, a character central to the masterpiece, desperately pens “Life Everlasting— based on a misprint!” (Pale Fire 62). John Shade, who had based his newly adopted spiritual outlook on the accuracy of a statement found in a magazine, found out that because of a misprint, an error, he might be (gulp) wrong! To put Shade’s fear more simply, while he thought he was definitely going to one place it turned out he might be going to another; both Shade and Bugs find they are not at a place they thought they were going, but rather, turned around and thrown off track by an error! What makes these characters situations more comparable is how they react to their errors. Bugs Bunny, upon discovering his mistake, does a remarkable thing in getting out of the hole, entering the ring, and engaging in the world he has mistakenly been led to; likewise, John Shade, who at first feels he has been led astray, engages in the realm the error has led him to and he quickly realizes that in fact he has actually stumbled upon the “real point” (hey you skeptic, did you just feel your spine tingle? ). The action of engagement leads us to the crux of this essay. In his works, (make sure to focus here reader!) Nabokov debunks the traditional perception of errors as bad, wrong, and useless and asserts the ability of so-called errors to act as portals leading the persistent reader to fantastic, new knowledge.
In the interpretation of the “cryptogrammic paper chase” section of Lolita, errors, misinterpretations, mistaken trails, and the like all have a vast import (Lolita 250). After Humbert Humbert strikes out to find the person responsible for the capture of Lolita he eventually loses the obvious trail to Lolita’s captor. H.H. needs to adapt quickly if he hopes to regain the scent. He does not give up when the he seems to run out of evidence but notes how he “discovered at once that he (the captor) had forseen my investigations and had planted insulting pseudonyms for my special benefit” (Lolita 248). Before continuing, it must be noted that Humbert is an unreliable narrator; simply because he believes that there are “clues” planted for him by Lolita’s captor in various hotel registries does not necessarily mean that “Harry, Bumper. Sheridan, Wyo.” is referring to an 18th century play Humbert had recently been trying to interest Lolita in (Lolita 250). Because of his unstable status as an unreliable narrator the reader must consider these supposed clues to be errors in H.H.’s judgment. However, it is crucial to see how H.H. reacts to this mistaken trail. He practically relishes in the chase set up for him (if not by the captor then who?) exclaiming how investigating each registry “challenged my scholarship… what a shiver of triumph and loathing shook my frail frame when… his fiendish conundrum would ejaculate in my face” (Lolita 250). The close, attentive reading that H.H. gives to the Hotel registries he stumbles upon allows him to flex his intellectual muscle. Each new list under his attentive glare becomes swollen with literary references and allusions. H.H.’s toilest engagement in the wasteland of names replaces an ordinary view with an extraordinary one.
Silly, H.H. you say. How does he really think that all these names, while convincingly linked to literary references, have anything to do with his chase? He is simply being toyed with! Well frigid ladies and gentlemen of H.H’s jury , I have something grave to report to you. Ready? Take one or two deep breaths. Ok, H.H. is being toyed with but so are you! You, as a reader of the text Lolita, are more closely intertwined with the hairy-armed ape than you would like to think. In fact “virtually every ‘move’ in the ‘true story’ Lolita seems to be structured with their predictable responses in mind; and the game-element depends on such reflexive action, for it tests the reader” (Appel lvii). Not only are the moves structured for you but “the traps are baited with tempting ‘false scents’” (Appel lviii). Do you recall the song that H.H. recites on page 61, back when the mystery was unsolved? “O my Carmen, my little Carmen!... and the gun I killed you with, O my Carmen,/ The gun I am holding now” (Lolita 61). For those of you cultured enough to be aware of Bizet’s famous opera the final scene in Act IV where Don José kills Carmen should ring a bell. As seems the obvious connection Lolita is intended to be linked to Carmen and Humbert Humbert to Don José. So, knowing what we know about Carmen this is an obvious foreshadowing of Humbert Humbert’s eventual murder of Lolita right? (skip ahead, skip ahead). Wrong! H.H. doesn’t kill Lolita in the end. Like H.H., some unseen force has moved you the reader to make an erroneous assumption about the end of the novel. This is only one of many instances in the book in which you have been fooled by a “false scent” leading you to mistaken conclusions (Vivian is the male author, the gal author is Clare … really?).
As I look out I can see that some of you are fuming at this realization of being misled, fooled, conned, bamboozled, flimflammed, and foxed. Please sir, you sparking the lighter with a shaky thumb, do not ignite the messenger . If you are only patient I can direct you to the real hand moving all the pieces – the man behind the curtain . This treacherous fiend is no other than Vivian Darkbloom! This collaborator of Clare Quilty is responsible for leading you astray reader. Confused? When you take closer look Vivian Darkbloom jumps off the page, crawls off the folds, and mans the pen when you rearrange the anagram; Vivian Darkbloom becomes (jumble jumble ) Vladimir Nabokov.
Before you relegate Nabokov to the eighth circle and tenth ditch of lower hell I will provide the author’s proper defense that should illuminate his genius (D.S. al Coda) . (Coda) Firstly, Nabokov is definitely in control of reader as evident in Speak, Memory when he says “I like to fold my magic carpet, after use, in such a way as to superimpose one part of the pattern upon another. Let visitors trip” (Speak, Memory 139). Nabokov must have purpose in this tactic. That purpose seems to be revealed in a passionate attack on the popular lack of consideration and thought when he says “nervous publishers of popular novels pamper the ‘average reader’— who should not be made to think” (Speak, Memory 124). Reader, Nabokov is only thinking in your best interest by asserting your worth as a human and stating that you deserve literature that is not only entertaining but also thought provoking. He has taken upon himself to provide you with books befitting a reader of your intellect and calling him a cheat is how you repay him? Lucky for you, Nabokov is a forgiving author; he understands that everyone makes errors, and, in fact, he really wants you to reconsider errors too.
In one of Nabokov’s most poetic and emotional passages of Pale Fire he provides his most eloquent defense of the nature of errors. Shade, in his glorious epiphanic response to the destitution caused by an error, says:
“But all at once it dawned on me that this/ Was the real point, the contrapuntal theme;/ Just this: not text, but texture; not the dream/ But topsy-turvical coincidence,/ Not flimsy nonsense, but a web of sense./ Yes! It sufficed that I in life could find/ Some kind of link-and-bobolink, some kind/ Of correlated pattern in the game,/ Plexed artistry, and something of the same/ Pleasure in it as they who played it found” (Pale Fire 62). Not only has Shade escaped depression but he has discovered the point; mistakes are not separate from the path of discovery, rather, they are interlinked in the great “web of sense” that makes up all knowledge. Making a mistake puts the person in a position to learn something new that they did not even set out to discover.
Beware reader, making discoveries is not easy though. The person who learns the most from their mistakes must have one of the most amiable qualities (are those Palanese birds I hear cawing ?)— awareness. It will not suffice to make mistakes without an awareness of the learning opportunities that the mistakes can afford. Through Shade, Nabokov frames mistakes and errors not as things that lead away from discovery but straight into it for an aware and attentive person. Shade exuberantly concludes his revelation with “making ornaments/ Of accidents and possibilities” (Pale Fire 62). According to this doctrine not only are errors and accidents portals to discovery but they should be celebrated as highly useful opportunity to learn something new .
Reader, by this point I think that you must be convinced in Nabokov’s ability to successfully use errors and mistakes. He subjects his characters to them, and, when they discover the mistaken trail you lament their wrong turn. However, you quickly realize that you are also one of his characters following a path laid out before you. The paths not only lead you to false assumptions about his texts but more importantly to allow for you to confront your so-called “errors” and give you an opportunity to learn something new. When Nabokov wants you to be his ideal reader he doesn’t mean never to make errors; he wants you to learn from your errors. While reading his book you can be assured that many of the mistakes you make were set up for you and that he has not lead you away from discovery, but closer to other discoveries that you never even knew to be after. Remember though, to get after the discoveries that Nabokov sets you towards you must be aware of the texture of the path, the web of sense, and how the path you have taken is just another link in the chain. Each error and mistake leads you closer to the end, and when you close the book, you must turn back to the beginning, peruse the first lines and think “And the end of all our exploring/ Will be to arrive where we started/ And know the place for the first time” (Eliot 39). Then, you will read the book again, and again, and again …
Works Cited
Appel Jr., Alfred. Introduction. Lolita. By Vladimir Nabokov. 1955. First Vintage Books
Edition, 1991. ix- lxvii . Print.
Eliot, T.S. Four Quartets. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc. pg. 39.
Nabokov, Vladimir. Lolita. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Print.
--- Pale Fire. New York: Vintage Books, 1989. Print.
--- Speak, Memory. New York: Vintage Books, 1989. Print.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Cool idea inspired by Christina's paper!
While Christina was reading her paper in class on Thursday I thought of a great project that I would really be intrigued to see if anyone could do the research and do it. I recall the mention she made of Nabokov as artist. I loved this statement and instantly thought about Nabokov writing his words like an artist paints with colors. Then it struck me. Nabokov had synesthesia-- the mixing of the senses. For him, he literally was painting colors with words. I coupled this realization with a recently discovered this page about synesthesia. It would be fascinating to get a collection of various people with synesthesia and have each one "color" the book according to the way they see it, much like the artists creating new book covers for Nabokov. Even more wonderful would be to research Nabokov's individual legend for the coloring of words (I have no idea if this is possible) and color the text of a book, or even a page, with an attempted reproduction of the way that Nabokov himself would have seen it! Perhaps this is the task for Christina, art major as she is, to take on and offer a fresh and new perspective about how to consider Nabokov an artist! I have no idea if this is possible, but if it is, it would be a damn cool project for someone to undertake and complete!
Solus Rex Video-- Group Project #4
Hey everyone--
I really enjoyed all of the group projects that I was able to attend, and, because my group (group #4) made a digital media production, I thought it would be extremely useful to post the movie on my blog. I would love for people to watch it again and really try to get at some of the images that we put forward for interpretation; if you have some time posting a comment or discussing it on your blog would be a cool thing to do!
The quality of the film should be greater since it will be on a smaller screen (not the big projector in class). However, some of the sound that play's throughout the film might be a little inconsistent as I had a limited amount of time to really tweak all of the levels to perfection :)
If any of you guys happen to want a copy of the video just bring a blank DVD and I can burn one for you! Thanks again to all the groups for putting together informative and HIGHLY creative projects that enlightened many of the concepts that our class discussed this semester!
I really enjoyed all of the group projects that I was able to attend, and, because my group (group #4) made a digital media production, I thought it would be extremely useful to post the movie on my blog. I would love for people to watch it again and really try to get at some of the images that we put forward for interpretation; if you have some time posting a comment or discussing it on your blog would be a cool thing to do!
The quality of the film should be greater since it will be on a smaller screen (not the big projector in class). However, some of the sound that play's throughout the film might be a little inconsistent as I had a limited amount of time to really tweak all of the levels to perfection :)
If any of you guys happen to want a copy of the video just bring a blank DVD and I can burn one for you! Thanks again to all the groups for putting together informative and HIGHLY creative projects that enlightened many of the concepts that our class discussed this semester!
Quick Briefing on Paper Topic
This weekend I will be writing my paper for presentation on Thursday Dec. 11th. After hearing some of the other papers I'm even more excited to write this one because I feel that we have been allowed a significant space to "play" with our topics of choice. Really look for mine to be a bit shorter than 10 pages, but with some significant "play" in it's structure, theme, and approach that should only compliment what we have discussed in the course of this class! I'm really looking forward to it!
In my paper I'm going to focus on the passage in John Shade's poem "Pale Fire" where he discusses how the misprint of "fountain" instead of "mountain" in a local press piece, he is lead to believe that someone shares his view of life eternal. The more broad message underneath this scene is how our mistakes don't necessarily lead us to the "wrong" place, but to another place worth exploring and learning new things. Furthermore, I plan on exploring how mistakes operate on Nabokov. I really would like to focus this on how the characters in the works deal with their often mistaken thoughts and also how the reader is supposed to deal with some of the "false scent" trails that Nabokov leaves for us.
In my paper I'm going to focus on the passage in John Shade's poem "Pale Fire" where he discusses how the misprint of "fountain" instead of "mountain" in a local press piece, he is lead to believe that someone shares his view of life eternal. The more broad message underneath this scene is how our mistakes don't necessarily lead us to the "wrong" place, but to another place worth exploring and learning new things. Furthermore, I plan on exploring how mistakes operate on Nabokov. I really would like to focus this on how the characters in the works deal with their often mistaken thoughts and also how the reader is supposed to deal with some of the "false scent" trails that Nabokov leaves for us.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
New Nabokov Website Discovered
Deep in the annals of the internet I have stumbled across yet another website devoted to our author of study, Vladimir Nabokov. The site is entitled waxwing, an obvious reference to the opening lines of John Shade's poem in Pale Fire. The website, although it refers to a lot of the knowledge that we've learned this semester, does provide some interesting new perspectives and new ways to consider the knowledge that we've learned this semester. Due to my interest in the way he composed his works one of my favorite mentions on the website is a Nabokov quote that reads "...Since this entire structure, dimly illumined in one's mind, can be compared to a painting, and since you do not have to work gradually from left to right for its proper perception, I may direct my flashlight at any part or particle of the picture when setting it down in writing. I do not begin my novel at the beginning I do not reach chapter three before I reach chapter four... This is why I like writing my stories and novels on index cards, numbering them later when the whole set is complete. Every card is rewritten many times..."
Here's another great quote about Nabokov's synesthesia "..And also I have this rather freakish gift of seeing letters in colors. it's called color hearing. Perhaps one in a thousand has that. But I'm told by psychologists that most children have it, that later they lose that aptitude when they are are told by stupid parents that it's all nonsense, an A isn't black, a B isn't brown -- don't be absurd." The mention of "stupid parents" and elevation of the child-like mind is a really crucial and important concept for understanding the way that Nabokov could have considered art, literature, and aesthetics. Once again in literature the intimate relationship between classic authors/texts and fairy-tales is evident. Perhaps the sources of stories flow more purely in the child's mind? And for the rest of us, we can only attempt to filter our perspectives to try and regain that purity of the child's mind.
Although not the same quality of forum that the Zembla website is the waxwing site does provide useful notes for study.
In my searches for another website I stumbled across novazembla.com. While this seems like it could really have potential as a Nabokov website, it is actually a furniture store in NYC. Hmmmm... no Nabokov? Wait! In the companies logo, between the words "Nova" & "Zembla" is a picture of a butterfly. Coincidence? No way...
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Solus Rex-- Explanation of Theme's and more for Group 4's movie project
First of all, I would like to say that while considering the possibilities for editing a movie project, I was astounded at all the potential the "visual" aspect allowed. It really seemed important when making a movie that it was important to closely consider various aspects of how we shot the movie, attention to visual themes, and how to provide substantive information balanced with entertainment. The material for the movie came easy, since all semester we've been discussing Nabokov from so many perspectives. It seemed that our group film really took the themes we've discussed in class and ran with them to create a thoughtful, well-planned, creative, and informative movie.
For me personally, much of that work came from the "frame" of Nabokov and Reader that surrounded the quotes and the themes, providing a thread that held the movie together. Specifically in this blog, I would like to alert the reader to a few of the images that ran throughout the movie and their purpose in portraying our message even more.
The first one I would like to address is Nabokov's cigarettes and the Reader's book. These two images, cigarettes and book, run parallel throughout the film; Nabokov carefully selects the cigarettes from a pack while the Reader carefully selects books from the shelves, when Nabokov lights the cigarette and begins the composition the reader opens the book and begins the journey of reading, when Nabokov finishes the cigarette and extinguishes it the shot cuts to the Reader closing the book thus signifying a closure. It can be considered by the viewer that the cigarette and book are both the physical manifestations of the muse that inspires Nabokov to create. The pages of the book end up being read and flipped through like the ashes of a burned-down cigarette.
Another theme that I would like to address is the juxtaposition of Nabokov and the Reader. The careful viewer of the film will notice that the Reader, will independent of Nabokov, relies on Nabokov to pen the first words of his works before the Reader can exist as a reader; the reader can only exist based on the actions of Nabokov. This reliance of the Reader's existence on the actions of Nabokov was meant to explore the theme from Pale Fire that Gradus exists only when John Shade pens the words and condemns Gradus to following the pace of Shade's writing.
Lastly, I would like to explore the chess imagery that laces the frame. Although our project was somewhat simply concerned with chess-problems, we took advantage of the visual element to juxtapose Nabokov and the Reader in a game of chess that was played parallel to their relationship as author and reader. Nabokov moves a pawn forward before he composes Lolita and when the Reader opens the book, the same pawn moves forward signifying the opening of a game. In another of my favorite moments in the frame, Nabokov and the Reader actually come into the same place at the same time playing a game at the same table; Nabokov moves his lone King (solus rex) forward and then fades out leaving the Reader alone. This image somewhat haunts the viewer and leaves them with the impression that perhaps Nabokov himself is the lone king, the solus rex, that we are all attempting to capture through our strategic interpretations of his works; however, until we according to his rules and figure out the patterns he has laid out for us, the lone king will escape our capture.
There are a couple more really fascinating images outside the frame that were played with, but, I will leave those up to the intelligent viewer to discern and interpret for themselves!
For me personally, much of that work came from the "frame" of Nabokov and Reader that surrounded the quotes and the themes, providing a thread that held the movie together. Specifically in this blog, I would like to alert the reader to a few of the images that ran throughout the movie and their purpose in portraying our message even more.
The first one I would like to address is Nabokov's cigarettes and the Reader's book. These two images, cigarettes and book, run parallel throughout the film; Nabokov carefully selects the cigarettes from a pack while the Reader carefully selects books from the shelves, when Nabokov lights the cigarette and begins the composition the reader opens the book and begins the journey of reading, when Nabokov finishes the cigarette and extinguishes it the shot cuts to the Reader closing the book thus signifying a closure. It can be considered by the viewer that the cigarette and book are both the physical manifestations of the muse that inspires Nabokov to create. The pages of the book end up being read and flipped through like the ashes of a burned-down cigarette.
Another theme that I would like to address is the juxtaposition of Nabokov and the Reader. The careful viewer of the film will notice that the Reader, will independent of Nabokov, relies on Nabokov to pen the first words of his works before the Reader can exist as a reader; the reader can only exist based on the actions of Nabokov. This reliance of the Reader's existence on the actions of Nabokov was meant to explore the theme from Pale Fire that Gradus exists only when John Shade pens the words and condemns Gradus to following the pace of Shade's writing.
Lastly, I would like to explore the chess imagery that laces the frame. Although our project was somewhat simply concerned with chess-problems, we took advantage of the visual element to juxtapose Nabokov and the Reader in a game of chess that was played parallel to their relationship as author and reader. Nabokov moves a pawn forward before he composes Lolita and when the Reader opens the book, the same pawn moves forward signifying the opening of a game. In another of my favorite moments in the frame, Nabokov and the Reader actually come into the same place at the same time playing a game at the same table; Nabokov moves his lone King (solus rex) forward and then fades out leaving the Reader alone. This image somewhat haunts the viewer and leaves them with the impression that perhaps Nabokov himself is the lone king, the solus rex, that we are all attempting to capture through our strategic interpretations of his works; however, until we according to his rules and figure out the patterns he has laid out for us, the lone king will escape our capture.
There are a couple more really fascinating images outside the frame that were played with, but, I will leave those up to the intelligent viewer to discern and interpret for themselves!
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