Vladimir Nabokov

[StillILearn]

Mary, Queen of Scots, loved her invisible ink too

pontalba=I've just about finished my second reading of Pnin. What about you guys?
SIL Did you ever finish Mary Queen of Scotland.....? Your very interesting "currently reading" title led me to believe you were reading concurrently?

Steffee? I thought you said you'd received Pnin. And I think you, Madeline were going to purchase it as well. That leaves Breaca. I believe you'll be getting it soon?
I'm pretty sure Peder has finished reading it.......again (he was in the midst of it a few days ago)! LOL We will have a time catching up with him!

Just trying to see where we are in the stream of time....

Hi, pontalba, I am reading Pnin along with all of you, and I'm loving it. I agree that it appears to be deceptively simple.

I'm sticking with Mary, and I decided to mix in The Virgin's Lover just to lighten things up a bit. I have dropped Never Let Me Go for the nonce, so that should help out a lot.
I have added in The Mosh Pit, so that may actually hurt some. (Pun intended.) I have even dragged VN over there for a small vacation away from home.
I'm happily anticipating the time when Peder is back up and running! We can all imagine his vexation at being unable to post here right now with three VN threads all existing concurrently! We should expect a regular spate of posts when he does get back online. We may just have to sit down, shut up and hold on for a while there!

 

[steffee]

Still, your currently reading is fantastic. Very clever!!

Yes, Peder must be climbing the walls

 

[StillILearn]

Still, your currently reading is fantastic. Very clever!!

Yes, Peder must be climbing the walls

I'm laughing because I did a Pnin!

I got The Constant Princess and The Virgin's Lover all mixed in together.

 

[StillILearn]

steffee[/B]
Yes, Peder must be climbing the walls

We could do a thread on

How to find out if you are addicted to TBF!

I wonder if Peder's beginning to break out in hives yet?

 

[pontalba]

We could do a thread on

How to find out if you are addicted to TBF!

I wonder if Peder's beginning to break out in hives yet?

LOL
I'd lay odds on it.

As far as the puzzle firstly, just who is the narrator?

In the Annotated Lolita introduction on p.xxi--

The author and the reader are the "players", and when in Speak Memory Nabokov describes the composition of chess problems he is also telescoping his fictional practices. If one responds to the author's "False scents" and "specious lines of play," best effected by parody, and believes, say, that Humbert's confession is "sincere" and that he exorcises his guilt, or that the narrator of Pnin is really perplexed by Pnin's animosity toward him, or that a Nabokov book is an illusion of a reality proceeding under the natural laws of our world--then one not only has lost the game to the author but most likely is not faring too well in the "game of worlds", one's own unscrambling of pictures.
Speak Memory rehearses the major themes of Nabokov's fiction: the confrontation of death; the withstanding of exile; the nature of the creative process; the search for complete consciousness and the "free world of timelessness."

Now then, I suppose I lost the game regarding Humbert, cause, I thought and still think the recanting is sincere. BUT, I agree and understand the Pnin reference and agree. Why? ...................you'll see.

 

[pontalba]

Madeline And thanks for posting the link to that article. It was a good one! Its so interesting to get many different views of VN's work. And I believe everyone sees it a bit differently too!

Whilst the man himself is going....... !

LOL!

 

[pontalba]

I have dropped Never Let Me Go for the nonce, so that should help out a lot.
I have added in The Mosh Pit, so that may actually hurt some. (Pun intended.) I have even dragged VN over there for a small vacation away from home.
I'm happily anticipating the time when Peder is back up and running! We can all imagine his vexation at being unable to post here right now with three VN threads all existing concurrently! We should expect a regular spate of posts when he does get back online. We may just have to sit down, shut up and hold on for a while there!

IMO, and excellent one to drop.

I visited Mosh Pit to take a look see, and probably will again, but now I'll really have to as you've brought our fella over there!

I am sure Peder is bursting at the seams with comments and posts and as Steffee I think said, breaking out in hives, and gnawing the fingernails! LOL

 

[steffee]

Didn't you like Never Let Me Go, Pontalba?

 

[Madeline]

made a mistake and it got away from me

 

[pontalba]

Didn't you like Never Let Me Go, Pontalba?

That was one that I saw what was coming, and could not even get half way thru it. Too Depressing. You know, in the '70's there were movies galore on that subject. More lurid, but the same difference. NLMG was so understated that it was even creepier IMO. The very ordinaryiness of it was unsettling to me. Thats the second book by that author that I could not finish. I think the other one was something about.....When We Were Orphans..does that sound right? I just don't care for his style. I know a lot, lot, lot of people do, but I'll pass.

sorry, that was probably more than you wanted to know, but he happens to really rub me the wrong way...

 

[pontalba]

made a mistake and it got away from me

Oh fiddle faddle, don't worry its happened to all of us! Try remembering to "copy and paste", that way you won't lose a post.

 

[StillILearn]

Edited Extract from David Lodge's Introduction to Pnin

When I read something that I've understood, I'll surely post it

Thank you so much for this link, Madeline! It was incredibly timely.

... This sentence, for example, wonderfully defies comprehension by sheer overload of disparate information, so that by the time you get to the end of it you have forgotten how it began:

"Should one trace Victor's passion for pigments back to Hans Andersen (no relation to the bedside Dane), who had been a stained-glass artist in Lübeck before losing his mind (and believing himself to be a cathedral) soon after his beloved daughter married a gray-haired Hamburg jeweller, author of a monograph on sapphires and Eric's maternal grandfather?"

 

[steffee]

Oh no Madeline!

 

[pontalba]

Finished Pnin 2nd time around......heh, heh, heh! Yes!
btw, there was a Poirot on this afternoon, and all David Suchet would have to to is shave/pluck most of his eyebrows, and there he is......ta daaa.....Pnin! And of course the "leettlllee mustacheo".....'as to go!

 

[Breaca]

I don't understand "solve the Puzzle". What will I be looking for?

Hah, I see Ms Pontalba is teasing us all again Puzzle - what puzzle. Darn it, and I don't have a copy of Pnin yet Did you notice how she quietly slipped in the 'puzzle' to the discussion without giving anything away

 

[StillILearn]

Hah, I see Ms Pontalba is teasing us all again Puzzle - what puzzle. Darn it, and I don't have a copy of Pnin yet Did you notice how she quietly slipped in the 'puzzle' to the discussion without giving anything away

.

Well, I'm up to his 'party', and I don't have any idea as to who "I" is yet.

On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that Mary is going to get her head chopped off, and damned if I know if Elizabeth remained a virgin or not.

 

[steffee]

I am about halfway through now, and still haven't come across him buying a football. So either I've missed it (hehe, now wouldn't that be a surprise) or I'm not there yet, but it's making me worry, just a little.

 

[pontalba]

Hah, I see Ms Pontalba is teasing us all again Puzzle - what puzzle. Darn it, and I don't have a copy of Pnin yet Did you notice how she quietly slipped in the 'puzzle' to the discussion without giving anything away

I'm a woman that really enjoys her work! LOL
I'm just turning the ground a bit in waiting period for the Master Gardner to return.

 

[pontalba]

.

Well, I'm up to his 'party', and I don't have any idea as to who "I" is yet.

On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that Mary is going to get her head chopped off, and damned if I know if Elizabeth remained a virgin or not.

ROTFALOL!! SIL, I read somewhere that Elizabeth actually had children! Who knows what is true or not though. Poor woman!
Who is "I"? That my dear is the ultimate question......

 

[pontalba]

I am about halfway through now, and still haven't come across him buying a football. So either I've missed it (hehe, now wouldn't that be a surprise) or I'm not there yet, but it's making me worry, just a little.

Has Victor arrived yet? If he has, yes you missed it. But I can hardly imagine that..