NPPF Canto 1 Incest Motif

[Michael Joseph]

Oh sure - though the progress of the discussion prods us forward; and
thanks for reading through my typos. In any case, I'd be pleased to read
whatever you cared to write.

On the quotation below, let me just briefly note that VN seems to be
talking about dreams of a prophetic nature rather than psychological
revelations.  His view seems to be that one can transcend material
actuality within the space of one's dreams. (Robert Graves had similar
ideas, and his statements about proleptic vision would be illuminating in
this context.) I don't think his uncanny is Freud's - in fact, quickly
googling about suggests he may actually have been famous for loathing
Freud, for reasons that further conflict with the argument you are making.
I wonder if the following quotation is relevant ...

Best,
Michael

+*+*+*+*

Mr. Nabokov, would you tell us why it is that you detest Dr. Freud?

I think he's crude, I think he's medieval, and I don't want an
elderly gentleman from Vienna with an umbrella inflicting his dreams upon
me. I don't have the dreams that he discusses in his books. I don't see
umbrellas in my dreams. Or balloons.

I think that the creative artist is an exile in his study, in his bedroom,
in the circle of his lamplight. He's quite alone there; he's the lone
wolf. As soon as he's together with somebody else he shares his secret, he
shares his mystery, he shares his God with somebody else.

(http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/02/lifetimes/nab-v-freud.html)

+*+*+*++*


On Mon, 28 Jul 2003, s~Z wrote:

> >>>I found your insights stimulating. I loved them. I just didn't agree.<<<
>
> I may not agree with myself as the text rolls on, but in response to your
> 'coincidence' I repeat:
>
> "Allied to the professional and vocational dreams are "dim-doom" visions:
> fatidic-sign nightmares, thalamic calamities, menacing riddles. Not
> infrequently the menace is well concealed, and the innocent incident will
> turn out to possess, if jotted down and looked up later, the kind of
> precognitive flavor that Dunne has explained by the action of "reverse
> memory"; but for the moment I am not going to enlarge upon the uncanny
> element particular to dreams---beyond observing that some law of logic
> should fix a number of coincidences, in a given domain, after which they
> cease to be coincidences, and form, instead, the living organism of a new
> truth" (ADA, p.361)
>

> I'm going to read ADA a third time as I go through PF. The novels seem
> intricately related to me.
>
> I'll respond in detail to your post as time permits. Thanks for interacting
> and offering other interpretations.
>
>