NPPF - preliminary

[David Morris]

--- Mondegreen <gwf at greenworldcenter.org> wrote:
> 
> In the case of Hazel, her father --who is also uncommonly homely-- is heavy
with the consciousness of her physical limitations.

Yes, and he sees her defects as a reflection of himself, not without a little
guilt.  But maybe his projections are her real problem.

> John Shade's closeup focus on his daughter's physical defects, her "swollen
feet" and "psoriatic fingernails," (355) and his readiness to share these
minutae with the world, inform the reader that for Shade this unattractiveness
is integrally and inevitably linked to unhappiness, Hazel's and his own. Does
he ever inquire or --like David Morris-- wonder if Hazel's misery might derive
from any cause or causes other than her bodily appearance? "She'd criticize
Ferociously our projects" (352), but I don't think Shade ever took the hint.

Yes.  I think you've got it.  I made a complete list of her miseries (which
I'll post at the reading of Canto 2) as described by Shade, and most of them
are about her homely appearance, and the tragedy that she'd never get a date. 
And the part about her switching words around is not a speach impediment, it's
her playing with words, much like her father the poet.  I think VN wants us to
question Shade's assessment of his daughter's woes.

> Re what David Morris was missing in Ada: There is at least the tragedy of
Ada's half-sister who suffers the karmic consequences of Van's and Ada's
passion.

I'm convinced the part I'm missing has more to do with Van's mother's madness
in glimpsing through the false world of Anti-terra into the "terrors of Terra,"
our world.  I think the whole novel is the construct of a schizophrenic.

David Morris

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