NPPF Comm 2: My bedroom, part 2

[Jasper Fidget]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On
> Behalf Of Don Corathers
> Sent: Monday, September 01, 2003 9:41 PM
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Subject: NPPF Comm 2: My bedroom, part 2

> viola d'amore. [It., viol of love, ca. 1700] : a tenor viol having usually
> seven gut and seven wire strings. (MW10)
> 

This must be why Fleur de Fyler reminded me of Joyce -- "Sir Tristram,
violer d'amores" (FW:3).  Embedded in the Zemblan couplet on p. 108 is the
word "tristan," and also -- expanding 3 letters -- "kin-tristan," casting
Kinbote into the unlikely role of Tristan (but note again Balthasar the
gardener -- if Charles can be a reversed Hamlet, then Kinbote can be a
reversed Tristan/Romeo).

> Whoever made the mirror invested it with magical power that not only
> directs
> light but bends time: "a secret device of reflection gathered an infinite
> number of nudes in its depths, garlands of girls in graceful and sorrowful
> groups, diminishing in the limpid distance, or breaking into individual
> nymphs, some of whom, she murmured, must resemble her ancestors when they
> were young--little peasant garlien combing their hair in shallow water as
> far as the eye could reach, and then the wistful mermaid from an old tale,
> and then nothing." Quite a mirror. Quite a paragraph.
> 

More references to Hamlet -- Fleur as Ophelia: "in its depths, garlands of
girls in graceful and sorrowful groups, diminishing in the limpid distance
[...] combing their hair in shallow water" (see _Hamlet_ 4.5).  "Sudarg of
Bokay", in addition to being a mirror of Gradus, marks the origin of the
mirror in flowers.  

Like the Balthasar in _Much Ado About Nothing_, Ophelia sings a "hey nonny"
song.  I don't know whether to try to make anything of that.

The phrases "little peasant /garlien/" and "the wistful mermaid from an old
tale" suggest the fairy tales that will pop up later.  See also "The Merman"
(p. 129) and "mermaid azure."  

See also p. 183 for a mirror of this mirror and "an endless sequence of
green-shorted Kinbotes."

Sudarg signs his name with a diamond while Kinbote signs his name with a
King.  Both playing card suits.  Just saying is all.

The mirror here acts out in miniature a process that much of the novel's
mirroring serves: transformations in time into art and eternity.  Female
linked to time, mortality, death, also reminds me of Joyce and Faulkner.
What's that Joyce quote that has people linked by umbilical cords flying
through eternity?

Tempus Fugit