NPPF: Commentary 3 (notes) Line 408

[bekah]

Gradus? Who is Gradus?

GR "add us?" meaning story additions after the fact of Shade's death? Kinbote has ostensibly met with Jack Gray in prison (and had a friendly chat with him I'm
sure!).

"Grade us?" The cry of Botkin looking at the student papers still awaiting attention?

Who knows? I'll skip it and let Kinbote's version that Gradus is the tool of the revolutionaries, out to kill Charles hold.


** Lex? Lex means "law" but it is also the name of Lex Luthor who happened to have a little pet Butterfly of Doom  (181) <http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0307&msg=83922&keywords=Butterfly%20of%20Doom>). Lex Luthor was introduced to the fans of Superman in 1940 so if VN was familiar with pop culture it might have seemed a good name. (g)

Could this add "synchronicity" be a dimension to the duality inherent in the structure of a butterfly? (Did someone say that already and I missed it?) Could the structure of the book itself be like a butterfly, two complete and separate circles connected at the middle? Maybe even some small circles on top of the big ones (forward and index).


** Ödön is an Hungarian  name  which means "keeper of the fief" or "wealthy protector."  But with his father being an O'Donnell the name may be obvious. So he is Odon O'Donnell, a "fox-browed, burly Irishman, with a pink head," stage and motion picture actor engaged in revolutionary Zemblan politics. Except that he changed his name somewhere along the line, probably for professional reasons, to Don Odon. Odonata  are dragonflies or damselflies. But we are getting awfully close to Don Ho too who was popular at the time.

** Meanwhile Lavender "(the name hails from the laundry, not the laund)."

Roman's used lavender oils for bathing, cooking, and scenting the air, and they most likely gave it the Latin root name (either lavare-to wash or livendula- livid or bluish) from which we derive the modern name.B

From: <http://machaut.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/WEBSTER.page.sh?PAGE=834>

>Laund
>Laund (l&add;nd), n. [See Lawn of grass.] A plain sprinkled with trees or underbrush; a glade. [Obs.]
>
>In a laund upon an hill of flowers. Chaucer.
>
>Through this laund anon the deer will come. Shak.
>
>Launder
>Laun"der (?), n. [Contracted fr. OE. lavender, F. lavandi\'8are, LL. lavandena, from L. lavare to wash. See Lave.]
>
>1. A washerwoman. [Obs.]



** Ombrioles:

A French word for lampshade with landscape? I can't find a thing with that name but my best guess is that it's similar to a Tiffany lampshade with a landscape on it. see: <http://www.sendlamps.com/tiffanylamps.asp> or go to the Google Images and put "Tiffany Lamps" for a bunch of image links. (there are no  nudes, although Tiffany may have created some with nudes.)

Lampshades are interesting things. They shade and filter the light to change the effect, soften it. No one wants a bare bulb.

**  Crystal giraffe: Crystal glass plays games with light due to refraction or deflection from a straight path. It's not just flat window glass but many faceted glass.

**  "...three index fingers of three masons... red roofs:"   Common European terraced housing with sloping red-tiled roofs for snow. The red roof is a status symbol in Israel.  There is something stirring in me about the Knights Templars and their red roofs and masonry and those three helpers, Yan, Yon and Angeling, (index: Shadows) but...   Probably just three very steep, red-tiled parapets and it reminds Gradus of three masons. ???   (some from the Nabokov list: <http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0108&L=nabokv-l&D=0&P=3844>)
 

** Libitina.

** the  Roman goddess of the Underworld who watched over  funerals and the custodian of corpses. Whenever someone died a coin had to be brought to her temple which contained all the mortuary records and death registers.. Undertakers where called Libitinarii. Sometimes known as "little Libi," she apparently derived her name from the semitic root "L'B" which meant "fat" or "whitish" in color.  The name relates to Lilith's association with the PALE LIGHT OF THE MOON.  Also related to Lilith and Libra. http://members.tripod.com/~PetraGrail/lilith2.html


** Trilby  (a hat for our man, Gradus)
http://www.mikethehatter.com/christy.htm


**  the jet-glittering Mademoiselle Belle / Mademoiselle Baud
I suppose that this woman in extreme and shiny black would rather be called Belle than Baud, as the latter sounds a bit like ""bod" (short for body) or "bawd."

Gordon,
**  the English or Scottish name means "From The Cornered Hill" or "Triangular Hill" (or similar) see any "baby names" site, ie: <http://www.babynameworld.com/g-boy.asp>


We have another dichotomy going between Gradus, ("a cross between a crab and a bat" line 171, pg 151)  the seedy, sweaty, overdressed, dull, unlucky, would-be murderer and Gordon, the graceful, gifted, naked, nature boy.

"Music is the only sensual pleasure without vice," said  Samuel Johnson. But Gordon seems to play his vices as well as the piano (or are they vices to Kinbote?) and Gordon's attitude,  "You have not seen anything, yet" is disconcerting.  To what is this boy referring? The gardens? His body? The outhouse?  (Is this a male Lolita? Is this entrapment? who is this sweet young thing?)

**  Cote D'Azur:  (put that one in the "Google images" search and peek at delightful)

**  woodwose:  "a sort of cousin of the Green Man, is the legendary European 'wild man of the woods'. Oddly, given his wildness, he is associated with nobility of spirit and also the aristocracy - he his frequently found on coats of arms. There are quite often female woodwoses and couples! The woodwose usually carries a stick or bough as a weapon, as does this fellow on a misericord in Faversham's parish church - the only woodwose I know of depicted in Kent."  <http://www.canterburygreenman.fsnet.co.uk/GreenManKent.htm>


** black butterfly:   Vanessa of Doom again,  "A dark Vanessa" -- Nabokov's beloved Red Admirable butterfly.    See Jasper's comments at:
<http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0307&msg=83922&keywords=Vanessa>

And photos at: <http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/distr/lepid/bflyusa/usa/224.htm>


Bekah