CANTO ONE: "slain/By"

[Jasper Fidget]

> From: Michael Joseph [mailto:mjoseph at rci.rutgers.edu]
> 
> Jasper, this is wonderful. May I echo you and suggest that 1881 might
> represent one's perception of the infinite perceived in the mirror/glass
> 18 = 81, which may suggest the illusion of infinity (since the 1 projects
> the 8) or might suggest through the illusion an actual perception of
> pattern, where the palindrome symbolizes an overarching symmetry.
> 
> One could also speculate that in experience, the self proceeds a sense of
> something beyond oneself -18-, but upon mature reflection, realizes that
> which is greater than oneself is actually antecedent -81-, a realization
> that would constitute a eureka moment that for Nabokov occurs as the
> experience of art as pattern -1881. (And also, might suggest a divine
> precedence, if we think of this as a reading moment that we can articulate
> as a succession (in reverse)  Kinbote, Shade, Nabokov, Something beyond
> Nabokov, "potustoronnost'."
> 
> One could also speculate, following Boyd's ghost-story hypothesis, that 18
> relates to a transcendent self, that is the self situated outside of
> spacetime interacting with another self, i.e. Shade and Kinbote whereby
> Kinbote influences Shade influencing Kinbote .... The pattern formulated
> by 1881 is endless (1881881881881...) although elegantly limned as 1881,
> and thus the transcendent correspondence occurs within the historical
> moment as it does within the historical cipher, 1881.
> 
> 
> Michael
> 

Excellent!  I'm going to hold off on most of this for when it comes up, but
note also that Tsar Alexander II was born 1818, and died 1881.