NPPF Canto 1 Incest Motif

[Michael Joseph]

On Tue, 29 Jul 2003, s~Z wrote:
>
> My reading has nothing to do with Freud,

I thought you were pointing through your quotation at VN's use of the term
"uncanny," and it made sense that as you were analyzing the poem with the
thought that it possessed a central secret and that secret was incest, you
would be drawing on Freud, one way or the other, either to explain
Nabokov's incest gambit or to rat out the meanings of incest.

Although I'm persuaded against the incest argument, I'm not persuaded
there aren't clues pointing toward it. I agree that, since Kinbote is
apparently a pedophile, it would be interesting to see Shade as an abused
child - which is different from incest, of course. Kinbote <> Shade would
constitute the binary: literary admirer/abuser of innocence ..> admired
poet/abused innocent, and Kinbote's various pursuits would take on an
additional quality of menace.


> and I read the quote
> through my hypothesis that ADA has clues for interpreting PF.
> I.e., seeing ADA as the dot-arrow pointing back to PF.
>

I see the mysterious backward foot-print as Shade's symbol of the present,
which moves into the future but points back to the past, and the parallel
operations of the poem. (Of course, it could be other things, too. We know
it's a pheasant, so at least it can't be a wild goose.)


> "Learn to distinguish banality. Remember that mediocrity thrives on 'ideas.'
> Beware of the modish message. Ask yourself if the symbol you have detected
> is not your own footprint. Ignore allegories. By all means place the 'how'
> above the 'what' but do not let it be confused with the 'so what.' Rely on
> the sudden erection of your small dorsal hairs. Do not drag in Freud at this
> point. All the rest depends on personal talent." - Vladimir Nabokov
>

Devilish advice!

Michael