Khirgiz Light (was Re: Gravity's Rainbow)

[JOHN M. KRAFFT]

X-News: miavx1 rec.arts.books:112658
From: andrew at cee.hw.ac.uk (Andrew Dinn)
Subject:Khirgiz Light (was Re: Gravity's Rainbow)
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 1995 14:14:10 GMT
Message-ID:<D2novM.5tv at cee.hw.ac.uk>

SubGenius (subg at atheist.tamu.edu) wrote:

... how there are no pucker mysteries in `Gravity's Rainbow' ...

: Apart from
: the Kirghiz
: Light,
: Yours etc.,

I have been wondering about this wrt the Khirgiz Tale in Nabokov's
`The Gift'. This is the story of a prince who offers to marry some
woman and she agrees if he will fill a small bag with riches. He pours
in half a kingdom or two of gold and jewels only to find the bag still
empty. Finally, an adjacent crone (or somesuch) advises him to throw
in a handful of dirt and lo, the bag closes. She explains that the bag
is an eye which wants to encompass the whole world. Perhaps the
Khirgiz Light is the light which reveals the whole world rather than
that which merely illuminates our own small portion of it. Various
bits of Buddhism could serve to pad out this image.

I am quite intrigued by the idea that TP used Nabokov's novel as a
springboard into Khirgizia - Nabokov's description of the trek into
the Khirgiz mountains is the sort of window dressing which could lead
to further research and later scene setting for Tchitcherine's sortie.


Andrew Dinn
-----------
there is no map / and a compass / wouldn't help at all
-- 
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John M. Krafft, English                 | Miami University--Hamilton
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