NPPF Canto 1 Incest Motif

[cfalbert]

Does anyone have access to Nab's lectures on Quixote?

If so, please check what he has to say about Lady Belerma and get back to
us...


thanks,

love,
cfa
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Joseph" <mjoseph at rci.rutgers.edu>
To: "s~Z" <keithsz at concentric.net>
Cc: "Pynchon-L" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Tuesday, July 29, 2003 3:01 PM
Subject: Re: NPPF Canto 1 Incest Motif


>
> 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
>
>