things that are transparent

It now seems sort of redundant to talk about Transparent Things since it has passed, but we really did not seem to have enough, nor any time to discuss the work. The little time we did spend though, was beyond helpful in understanding the story especially when it came to narration/ authorial voice. Reading it after we discussed it, i felt spoiled and privileged because i could see and understand the idea -i suppose- behind it. The narrator(s). I am somewhat saddened by this, I wish I had been on top of it, read it before we talked about it, and discovered what was waiting for me through my own reading. But...as much as I'd like to say I am completely self confident, I am not entirely sure that i would have been capable of fully understanding the story were it not for Sexson/class/the blogs. And i realize how gracious i am of these things. that being said, with the aid of the teacher and fellow classmates: I loved Transparent Things and i got it! I feel i really understood and followed what and who was going on throughout the story. Although i did read the story twice on my own, having the class discussions prefacing the book served almost like pre-reading for me. again i realized how spoiled this made me, but that was simple the way the cards fell, and i appreciated the help.
Therefore, here are some commonplace notes i took while reading. I wrote them down either for my enjoyment of them on an aesthetic level -which most ever line is subject to- as well as their connection to the inevitable conclusion/ acknowledgment of omniscient narrator(s)

"Your ripped open the upper margin of the envelope. You added the beige dust it contained to the ruthlessly homogenized milk in your cup. You took a sip-and hurried to add sugar. But no sugar could improve the insipid, sad, dishonest taste." page 520

"The charm of the past Tense lay in its secrecy. Knowing Julia, he was quite sure she would not have told a chance friend about their affair-one sip among dozens of swallows." 520-521

"In fact at puberty sexual desire arises as a substitute for the desire to kill, which one normally fulfills in one's dreams." 531

"Did he ever by her a turtleneck sweater? No answer. Was he annoyed when she found it too tight at the throat?" 531.

Tha Groupz.

Earlier this evening I found myself amidst a heated argument with my friends. As usual, this flowered seemingly from nothing, more or less for the sake of arguing. We went from debating the practicality and merit of Ayn Rand's philosophy to the question of quality in print media in comparison to other forms. This evolved -as directionless debates often do- into the question of defining quality itself.( i have more to say about this but i digress from my topic).
In discussing the contrast of information mediums and their effectiveness, my mind left the conversation and started to think about the group presentations of last Tuesday and of the effectiveness of those presentations.
While all the groups shared a common interest, and the same subject matter. They all found their own path or direction as a means of conveying information. (The ideas i have about this are somewhat abstract and I fear that my language might sound contrived but bare with me because I don't really know how to put this) but i started to think that the question of quality focusing or categorizing by the medium is improper. It is not the medium that posses varied quality. The quality or type of medium does not determines it's effectiveness. rather the inverse, the effectiveness of said medium determines quality (if that is determinable).
This may seem really pointless to delve into but, at least for me this is significant, I continue: Whether the artist is given, clay, marble, canvas or a pen and paper should not and does not assign any level of quality or effectiveness, it is the thing the artist does with his tools that can be judged (I think everyone can agree with this simplification. this is essentially what my point is just reduced)
But on to the groups:
group 4. The use of Film as a medium. The image, and more importantly the idea of using a chess match speaks endlessly and tirelessly. It was this image of the game, the complexities of the game that make it so profound. The "castling" play that was delved into, is a perfect example of these ever appearing rabbit holes that Nabokov attuned our eyes to. The pun of such a thing is far more than a play on words as we have seen, but rather, another door of perception we have found.
Stylistically group four's film shows how it's chosen medium excels. The passing of time/ the expression of deep thought played out in a simple gesture of smoking cigarettes. the seemingly magical movement of the chess pieces, is an example of cinematic prowess that enunciates this groups quality in their chosen form. Anyways this was unbelievably good (as were they all) but good most importantly in a unique and powerful way-this again applies to all the groups
Group 5.
The medium of poetics. I again was awed at how (for lack of a better word) good this group was and how capable everyone in class is of expressing these crazy levels of quality and mass levels of knowledge representable in a 20 minute presentation. The use of the written word (performed orally) is as we have seen/read/heard incredibly concentrated and purified. The very fact that the group used names as inspiration, and the writings/bloggings of those names for their material, and beyond that as Chelsae (Kinbote) used the writing of Roberts Shade is evidence of this fractal-ed flower that this class has seemed to sprout. The voice it gives to characters or themes that have a limited* voice in their original is just crazy. *I don't mean to say that Nabokov's characters are in anyway limited, but they are limited to what is written, Micheal Wood discusses this and even calls on Humbert to explain. As he puts it best in his novel The Magician's Doubts, "Humbert points for example to what seems to be the rigidity of the textual characters, their hopeless inability to change their tune: 'No matter how many times we reopen 'King Lear', never shall we find the good king banging his tankard in high revelry, all woes forgotten, at a jolly reunion, with all three daughters and their lapdogs. Never will Emma rally, revived by the sympathetic salts in Flaubert's father's timely tear.'"
But the works of Jessica's Lolita and the whole group's character continuation give life out of salted earth.
Group 5. An array of mediums, but for me it was the medium of action. Live theater so to speak. As the old adage sates: actions speak louder than words. (this even had both, and Disney!) But the use of physical action speak so loudly and so poignantly, i feel that some of most significant moments were moments of silence. One of these moments was namely the scene in which the wolf and Humbert stare quietly at the group of children. Creepy needless to say but so much more than that as well, especially when the character of Frankenstein appeared we didn't need an explanation (though it did help) that this was a moment, one of the most shattering in the book, that is Humbert's self realization. The entire production spoke loudly as well, and the incorporation of song/dance is even another endless topic or point of power. The allusion to fairy tale is again a Major and Hugely effective and productive means and medium. On a side note to this groups imagery, I found Zach's dress and presentation of Little Red Riding Hood a shocking and suspicious relation to MT's own Una-bomber see here.

anyway. Hand's down amazing all of them. and all for their own reasons and merits. The idea that one type or form effects quality is clearly out the window. I was amazed and am still trying to get my mind around this idea of fruition through different artistic directions, but the proof is in the pudding.

-back to my side note earlier about the question of Quality. I read (or tried to read) Robert Pirsig'sZen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, meaning I read it but I did not really understand it. But the idea that this book focuses on, is the question of defining quality and whether or not that is even a possible task to accomplish. He started this train of thought hear at MSU and it took him so far into himself that he had to be hospitalized and undergo shock therapy none the less. This just got me thinking about this class and about the focus and attention we all have had on thoughts and ideas stemming from Nabokov's work, And I say this not as though i'm worried anybody will go crazy or that we should cease from exploration rather it is just interesting to me that when a person commits himself to the pursuit of knowledge when he travels inwardly to the point of outward infinity he is deemed crazy. Now i dont know enough to really challange the pyshcological community and i don't really doubt that Pirsig went crazy but it just seems to me that the ventured into a realm of pure conciousness that i suppose was too powerful. And i don't really know if that is a bad thing. as Leary put it"You have to be out of your mind to use your head". I am getting off topic hear, but i guess I'm just trying to say that I'm grateful or this class because we've been shown power of the mind and the capabilities that it has, stemming from simplest of things. It is this notion that we started with, that all the groups employed that we can take a single image, or a single line of prose, a gesture of some kind, a photograph for example* and from this no matter how simple, conjure an entirety

...

reading Transparent Things has been a new challenge, and certainly a change in pace. This comes to me though, in the form of delight. I -and reading other blogs apparently the rest of the class- seem to really dig this new book. It brings to light an whole new voice in Nabokov's catalog. I tried to write about a couple common place moments in my last blog and i found it is almost inexplicable when talking about just why it is i like this style. becuase it doesn't really flow like what we've seen before. I think kyle mentioned that it remined him of Schenectady NY which was a wicked weird movie but still i enjoyed it to. I guess the layering both in the movie but more importantly in the book is really what set it appart. I'm still trying to grasp the reasoning behind a lot of it and maybe it's almost written, or at least some of it in a semi-dream conciousness.
like, as emily (or was it zach?) refered to in her blog, the scene with the pencil, asking: how could they know this history behind the pencil? and i was thinking the same thing,
until it dawned on me -this dawn- when i was in and out of some of the worst sleep i've ever had, that if you can remain semi-concious of your thoughts when you fall into sleep you mind sort of acts out the way that this pencil seen would. you pop into your head an object...desk...skiing...a pirates or whatever, and then your mind starts to create this story and it deepens and widens until you drift off. For me however, i could not drift off, instead once i reached that event horizon, i would snap awake-pissed off, but aware of the maze my mind had wandered, i could trace my steps backward to the initial thought, everything else was fabricated, not false necessarily for i feel the mind acts in determined steps, but i guess i was attune to the transparency of the initial, seeing through it, entering a new place...a realm, maybe its the realm where ghost like to hang out, i dont really know. maybe i'm just still really tired still.
but that's what i was thinking about anyway.

thoughts.

note: i dont what the hell is wrong with the font but its all jumbled around.
I'm sitting at the library (the front desk, should be working) so i have to keep this relatively short.
After finishing Pale Fire, I was relived from self imposed burden i felt that: i should really like this book. And I did, i did while reading it, it was uncountably great, but only after i finished the book did I realize how much i liked Pale Fire. I feel though, that I struggled through because my mind was so caught up in catching up to Nabokov that i lost sight of the material at hand. I don't know that old saying about missing the forest, but i'm sure that it is applicable here. True Pale Fire is a piece of intricacy delicate and complex as a woven shroud, but when focused on the milieu of threads, i didn't see the grandeur they as a whole created.

I enjoyed the detective work required to read Pale Fire, but i felt a longing to discuss the aesthetics. I supposes it’s not something the really needs to be discussed in that it is so obvious, but as much as Nabokov is a clever and complex writer, he is a beautiful one. And this I feel to be, at times, most important.

Anyway, now that we’re getting into Transparent Things, I realize once again the power of poetics that Nabokov presents.

I guess this would be some common place from Transparent Things- not even the best stuff, just some things I found that I’ve enjoyed-

“The receptionist (blond bun, pretty neck) said no, Monsieur Kronig had left to become manager, imagine, of the Fantastic in Blur (or so it sounded). A grassgreen skyblue postcard…… ‘he died last year’ added the girl (who en face did not resemble Armande one bit), abolishing whatever interest a photocrhome of the Majestic in Chur might have presented……what would have been a rugged, horsey, stoop belied every inch of his fantastic majesty.” –even when I try I can’t help but draw my quotes on.

Actually this is posing a serious problem, most of the quotes I want to show don’t really make sense without long lead in, and lead out, and even then they probably don’t fully flower until I have read the whole book. But I continue…

After a long series of descriptions stemming from the description of the pencil he closes, “and the tree in the forest and the forest in the world that Jack built.” A reference to the old mother goose tale (see also My Book and Heart Shall Never Part)

Again on page 517during a phone call, “ ‘You Person?’”… “yes it’s me, I mean ‘you,’ I mean you mispronounced it most enchantingly.’…… you drop your haitches like-like pearls into a blindman’s cup.’/ “Well, the correct pronunciation is ‘cap.’ I win.”

Again I realize how futile it is to express my glee and enjoyment of these lines without simply rewriting the entire thing. I sort of feel like I’m telling one "you had to be there stories", which no one person of your audience enjoys. But hopefully you get it too, because this is awesome.

messy notes that almost lead somewhere

(I learned how to use a scanner so I'm abusing its power)
-this is a copy of my notes to a phrase on page 246 (click the image to get a clearer view)
the name Fra Pandolf got me got me researching (wikiing) and i came up with the painter who painted the portrait discussed in Robert Browning's My Last Duchess. Which was interstingly refferd to on page 240, but Kinbote seems to be mistaken in that Shade's appears nowhere in Browning's Untamed Seahorse My Last Duchess. I started to look deeper into Browing and his wife, stuff about ties to Shelly and his drowning death, Poe. One interesting thing that i couldn't really follow up on but my wiki wandering led me to a point in reference to Elizabeth Brownings Aurora Leigh and how it's Nine books were significant in that Nine is the woman's number in reference to the Nine books of Sybil. And that tied back to the 900 years of family legacy that King Alfonso ( the speaker of Browning's My Last Duchess) gave to his wife- though she cared not for it. I found all sorts of these threads that i thought would go somewhere but ended up not really amounting to much. It was fun, though disappointing, but i thought i would show you guys what it's often been like reading Pale Fire: a lot of these mad ideas that grow from the text but don't always seem to fruit.
you can see it all here on my messy notes (again click the image to see a better view) so some cool stuff, but i don't really think any of it was intended. I think i'm trying to find a zembla that sadly was not meant to be.

john shade?

this is bad,i know. but it took me so long to figure out how to set up a scanner i had no time to draw.

in response to chris...

(I tried to just comment on your last post chris but for some reason it won't show up in the comments), Is Pale Fire a lesser work? I don't really know, im not exactly in the position to say either. As i have yet to finish Pale Fire - i fell very guilty about this fact (bad student) but almost done- But maybe why Lolita is more highly praised is for the very same reasons Nabokov seemed to love Ulysses a didn't like Finnegan's Wake (so he has said) reffering to it as cold pudding. Now i wouldn't say that at all about Pale Fire, but it certainly takes more of a laborious role to read. And i think this is why it is not as highly claimed because the reader is required a more active participation. It's not a bad thing to have this asked of us, but people are flawed, and often dont do what they are asked. More over most people don't have a chance to discuss this in a productive way.
But anyway, I am curious as to why you enjoy Pale Fire more? Right now i enjoyed Lolita more, but again we shall see when i do what i should have already been done with. And i know other people have said they like Pale Fire a lot more too. why is that?