5 ms·

i had a second reading, and i am convinced it is the greatest work of Art. a lot of people, myself included, bit the ruse that Kinbote was some parody of a mad

i had a second reading, and i am convinced it is the greatest work of Art. a lot of people, myself included, bit the ruse that Kinbote was some parody of a mad man and ignored everything but the poem. but the notes have the most beautiful verses in the history of literature, even more beautiful, far more beautiful than the poem. spoiler: it is just one mind (solipsism). it deals with all kinds of dysphoria, especially gender and temporal (age). Nabokov misdirects away from psychoanalysis with the Freudian hate, but the Jung anima/animus and shadow are obvious. for historiographical background, Nabokov's brother died in the Holocaust where he was taken for being homosexual, and dealt at the time with both the Red and Lavender Scare of McCarthyism. there is a full stanza in the poem about Shade shaving his/her leg. and the, depending on context, hilarious or melancholic references to the loss of "crown jewels". references to "complications of an operation" as well. it is plausible that all of this is a product of Aunt Maud's dementia, where we see Maud's "handsome" lover (older woman) and patron welcomed by Shade in his birthday. the "dual" in dual blue is in the context of chess puzzles where there are two solutions when one is ideal. indeed the novel was set up to show a most brilliant set up of stealing the "Pale Fire" of the poem into the "Pale Fire" of the novel with notes, and this still holds regardless whether it is all Professor Botkin and Kinbote his mind's reflection in the "mirrorland" of Zembla (which is the pre-Soviet Russia in Nabokov's head that no longer exist). to me, of all Pale Fire derivatives such as Infinite Jest (a nod to lifting a title from Shakespeare) by Wallace, Gravity's Rainbow by Nabokov's student at Cornell who in a previous work "borrowed" Nabokov's Sebastian Knight, and Danielewski's House of Leaves, Danielewski succeeds in emulating Nabokov's most delicate romanticism above a semiotician's sensibilities, especially in exploring the archetypal in the architectural through Bachelard and Derrida. but after my second reading, none of its echoes could compare to the original arrant thief. if you are open to other forms, as someone who is a disciple of Godard and Kubrick, who organized viewing and discussion of 2001 with students and faculty, i can say that the animated work Sonny Boy is a direct adaptation of Pale Fire (i.e. a solipsist dysphoria) and surpasses the masters of cinema and animation (Shingo Natsume's mentor is the peerless genius Masaaki Yuasa) with his cinematic "grammar". i am on my phone and will update this with references from the book once i get my laptop (i only use hn with my phone). i wish i could quote Kinbote's diss on those who read the poem and stopped at that. after my second read i felt completely bamboozled and could hear Nabokov's prerecorded snorts echoing through time just to ridicule my myopic mind.

uxp100 4mo ago
Interesting to make the connection to Sonny Boy. That’s one to think on.
- mrsvanwinkle 4mo ago
  i have more to write on this, but it is also auto-biographical. the fact is it was thanks to sleuthing over the Sonny Boy settei materials (https://github.com/sonnyboysettei/official https://github.com/sonnyboysettei/official), ultimately making the connection to Pale Fire, which led me to look for the Japanese version of Pale Fire, which explains so much about Sonny Boy. especially the concept of "rendaku" (muddied voice, or mediated "rendered (renda) reality") where, interestingly, waxwing is "renjaku", which led me to the solipsist Jungian interpretation of Mizuho's Grandma Nozomi with dementia (see the Go-Old glasses image of Nozomi) cradling her most treasured images of herself, as Aunt Maud it has to do with Thrice of Evangelion, of Hideaki Anno and staff saying "Goodbye, All of Evangelion", and Shingo Natsume directing the music video for the song that says "DON'T SAY GOODBYE" Thrice, except at the end where the line was repeated another time. this is rather mindblowing to me personally. and i also found freaky references to my published works, even my "name" on the Sonny Boy credits, that while i rationally establish as pure "Stand Alone Complex" coincidence (unrelated individuals that never interacted with each other ending up the same due to syncing with the "Culture Industry"/consuming the same media) i'll notify you if you're interested/also a fan of Sonny Boy/Pale Fire. it makes sense, because Sonny Boy is also the "masc" version of Revolutionary Girl Utena, who borrowed many images from Pale Fire, especially of a bird crashing into the reflected sky of a windowpane, and you can see this as a main motif in Sonny Boy of birds. i'm not sure if i'm the first to make the connection with Pale Fire, but it is something that i arrived on my own, as someone who has a personal history with Pale Fire (quoting "smudge of ashen fluff" in my ... juvenile last words some time ago) and as someone who was influenced by Evangelion to the same apocalyptic degree as Shingo Natsume. one can say it was Sonny Boy is an arrant thief whose Pale Fire he stole from the sun of Utena, who stole from Pale Fire. but Sonny Boy has 4-fold (well imagine a a picture folded in half, twice, which divides the picture into quadrants) the cinematic grammar complexity of Kubrick's 2001, which i held viewings and discussions with students and faculty who wrote a book about it.
4mo ago

uxp100 4mo ago

Interesting to make the connection to Sonny Boy. That’s one to think on.

mrsvanwinkle 4mo ago
i have more to write on this, but it is also auto-biographical. the fact is it was thanks to sleuthing over the Sonny Boy settei materials (https://github.com/sonnyboysettei/official https://github.com/sonnyboysettei/official), ultimately making the connection to Pale Fire, which led me to look for the Japanese version of Pale Fire, which explains so much about Sonny Boy. especially the concept of "rendaku" (muddied voice, or mediated "rendered (renda) reality") where, interestingly, waxwing is "renjaku", which led me to the solipsist Jungian interpretation of Mizuho's Grandma Nozomi with dementia (see the Go-Old glasses image of Nozomi) cradling her most treasured images of herself, as Aunt Maud it has to do with Thrice of Evangelion, of Hideaki Anno and staff saying "Goodbye, All of Evangelion", and Shingo Natsume directing the music video for the song that says "DON'T SAY GOODBYE" Thrice, except at the end where the line was repeated another time. this is rather mindblowing to me personally. and i also found freaky references to my published works, even my "name" on the Sonny Boy credits, that while i rationally establish as pure "Stand Alone Complex" coincidence (unrelated individuals that never interacted with each other ending up the same due to syncing with the "Culture Industry"/consuming the same media) i'll notify you if you're interested/also a fan of Sonny Boy/Pale Fire. it makes sense, because Sonny Boy is also the "masc" version of Revolutionary Girl Utena, who borrowed many images from Pale Fire, especially of a bird crashing into the reflected sky of a windowpane, and you can see this as a main motif in Sonny Boy of birds. i'm not sure if i'm the first to make the connection with Pale Fire, but it is something that i arrived on my own, as someone who has a personal history with Pale Fire (quoting "smudge of ashen fluff" in my ... juvenile last words some time ago) and as someone who was influenced by Evangelion to the same apocalyptic degree as Shingo Natsume. one can say it was Sonny Boy is an arrant thief whose Pale Fire he stole from the sun of Utena, who stole from Pale Fire. but Sonny Boy has 4-fold (well imagine a a picture folded in half, twice, which divides the picture into quadrants) the cinematic grammar complexity of Kubrick's 2001, which i held viewings and discussions with students and faculty who wrote a book about it.

4mo ago