NPPF (Commentary) vino-gardener

[Jasper Fidget]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On
> Behalf Of s~Z
> Subject: Re: NPPF (Commentary) garden Aves
> 
> garden Aves?

Birds - http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/birds/birdintro.html

> The poem ends with gardener, and the Commentary refers to him almost
> immediately.


The gardener has linguistic links to Gradus.  See Note to 17 (p. 77) "he
contended the real origin of the name should be sought in the Russian word
for grape, /vinograd/, to which a Latin suffix had adhered, making it
Vinogradus."  

There's very much an East->West movement to the etymology of this word that
becomes "vineyard", stapled by Kinbote to a Russian origin.  The word "yard"
is believed to derive from the Proto-Indo-European "gharto-", the
Proto-Germanic "garda", and the Old English "geard" (enclosure, garden,
court, house, yard), while "vine" is from the Latin "vinea" through the Old
French "vigne".  "Vineyard" is from the Old English "wingeard". 

It is also found in the Scandinavian/Icelandic garđr (that's a crossed d, or
"eth", equivalent to an English "th") meaning a fenced or walled enclosure,
a house, or a castle; together with "vin", a vin-garđr is a grape enclosure.
The plural is "garđar" meaning "Russia" due to numerous Viking strongholds
there, linking Russia to the Vikings.

In his _Eugene Onegin_ translation, VN connects "gorod" to "garđ":
"Novgorod, ancient Holmgard, was founded by the Vikings at the grey dawn of
our era."  Sailors from the city of Novgorod (New Town), north of St.
Petersburg, found Novaya Zemlya in the 11th or 12th century, and Kinbote
says in his note to line 681 that Charles derives from two "Novgorod
princesses."

The Anglo-Saxon "građa" means "a step" or "degree", evolving into gradual --
Gradus again.

The East->West movement is made by both Gradus and Kinbote (as well as
Nabokov).  The Icelandic stop between Russia/Zembla and America/Vineland
hints at the journey of the Vikings to Vineland.  Gradus arrives in Vineland
and is knocked unconscious by a garđr: he flies right into a mirror.  

I'm not sure what all to make of the Gray->Black (or Black->Gray) impact
between the "Negro gardener" and Gradus, other than black is associated in
PF with death and endings, one end of two poles that turn up a lot in the
novel, and so it's fitting that the poem ends with the gardener.  Or almost
ends there -- note that the last line has him going past, "Trundling an
empty barrow up the lane", therefore going on *beyond* that ending (into the
sunset as it were), and the Commentary too *almost* ends with a scene
involving the gardener.

http://www.etymonline.com/y1etym.htm
http://www.etymonline.com/v2etym.htm

Jasper Fidget