NPPF: Keith's Shocking Theory (was Preliminary: The Epigraph)

[Jasper Fidget]

On
> Behalf Of Paul Mackin
> Sent: Wednesday, July 16, 2003 10:54 AM
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Subject: RE: NPPF: Keith's Shocking Theory (was Preliminary: The Epigraph)
> 
> >
> > Andrew Field thought Zembla was a "homosexual fantasy" for Kinbote
> (whatever
> > that is exactly), but that it had "no connection with the John Shade we
> know
> > from the poem." (_The Life and Art of Vladimir Nabokov_, p. 343).
> Certainly
> > for Kinbote there's a whole lotta loving going on in Onhava (he's even
> got
> > the palace set up as some kind of sexual circus at one point), and
> refers
> > often to "our manly Zemblan customs".  Given all the homosexual detail
> and
> > escapades in the Commentary (not all of which is indicated to be
> pederasty),
> > it's difficult to believe Zembla created by Shade.  There's no
> indication of
> > homosexuality in the poem (that I'm aware of anyway), although I suppose
> > Zembla as the land of negatives and reflections might be Shade's adamant
> > insistence on what he determinedly is *not*....
> >
> > I find it interesting that Kinbote's Zemblan sexual adventures seem to
> meet
> > with less resistance and fewer difficulties than those in New Wye.  For
> > instance, Bob breaking K's heart by cheating on him, Emerald apparently
> > resisting K's advances and subsequently mocking him, his discovery of
> the
> > gardener's impotency, even the trees getting in the way of his spying on
> > Shade (itself a kind of predatory sexual act).  Perhaps this goes to
> Field's
> > idea: that in Zembla the sex is abundant, free, and easy, and nobody
> gets
> > hurt...?
> >
> > ajaKasper
> >
> 
> 
> Fleur must be hurt or at least discouraged by her lack of success in
> seducing young Charles. And Disa who's truly got it bad for her husband
> suffers greatly from his rebuffs. Females suffer in predominantly
> homosexual Zembla at least in some part like Hazel suffers in New Wye..
> 
> 
> 

Good point, and I would add Garh the farmer's daughter.  If Zembla is K's
invention it's almost as if he *wants* women to suffer there, or at least
for their desires to be thwarted (mainly by Charles himself).  I wonder to
what extent Zembla is therefore a *negation* of the New Wye world K finds
himself in.  (And what happens when matter and anti-matter meet?)

akaJasper