NPPF: Open The Multiple Levels Of Perception

[Otto]

----- Original Message -----
From: "pynchonoid" <pynchonoid at yahoo.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Monday, June 30, 2003 8:43 PM
Subject: NPPF: Open The Multiple Levels Of
Perception

> --- s~Z <keithsz at concentric.net> wrote:
> > From the Nabokv-L. Further evidence of valuable
> > crossover in discussing VN
> > on the P-list:
>
>Doug:
> Wht evidence?  This guy doesn't mention Pynchon at
> all. I guess at some point the Pale Fire discussion
> folks will start connecting up the dots to Pynchon?
>

Can't you wait until it's started? I'm still in the process of reading and
re-reading _Pale Fire_ but what that guy James Veitch writes about Nabokov's
style tells me this kind of writing has a lot to do with Pynchon's, on a
level of structure and composition that may escape you when you're looking
for obvious and simple clues like name-dropping. I think I have understood
why Keith has posted it and I agree to what is said:

"A reading of Nabokov's fiction both inspires and requires the suspension of
the reader's desire to discern from the text a singular definitive 'meaning.
(...) Nabokov's fiction thwarts any fixed interpretation; 'true' meaning is,
like 'reality,' 'unquenchable, unattainable,' and the clever critic wastes
no time on what always proves a fruitless task. A full appreciation of
Nabokov's fiction relies upon a delicate and simultaneous suspension of all
these worlds, disallowing one to take precedence over another and allowing
for and inspiring multiple (and concurrent) levels of perception in the mind
of the reader. "

It's the kind of a writing that oscillates, that made me an addict of
Pynchon, Gaddis, McElroy, Barth etc.

"One of the greatest achievements as a writer was to invent a way to entice
his readers to discover little by little the increasing complexity of the
world of one of his novels, as he felt lured by the mystery of the world
around him, into trying to advance along that infinite succession of steps."
(Brian Boyd: _Nabokov's Pale Fire. The Magic of Artistic Discovery," p. 5)

Otto