Test # 2

read a bolt from the blue!

when does gradus enter the story?

who are the three main characters , according to kinbote....

the daughters.... the alphabetical daughters...

Beauty + Pity = Art

the Vanessa Atalanta

what gives Shades poem reality??

shakespeare and his plays....

kinbote means... what in ZEMBLAN?

the password.... pity

shade predicts his own death.. how?

hazel commits suicude when?

who drives gradus?

ultima thule!

solus rex... sun king....

timon of athens in zemblan was translated by who??

what is zembla?

word golf, and how it works...

the TOILEST??....

the Fountain and the Mountain...

last line of poem..

treason.... kinbote...

not text but....

mrs. goldsworths books

who does kinbote resemble in his eyes?

BretWit

zembla = resemblance

I P H

3, 7, 7, 3

kinbotes wives full name

Ampersand

Now is the time to start really thinking about what to write my term paper on... with so many things that have been discovered and so many things that are waiting to be discovered in Nabokov.... i just dont know what to do! i have thought that maybe i could write about just the index of PF like sexson has suggested... but i again dont think that i have the paitence OR the time to give it any kind of credit it deserves! the fact that emily dickenson's work had been messed around with by her family and how kinbote messes with shades could be a good contrast paper... but i feel like i really want to focus on just Nabokov.... i just dont know where to start!
this entire semester i feel like i have been a scatter brain when it comes to writing about and reading about Nabokov i just dont know if i could really get on a topic that could really make a great paper.... i just have to keep thinking along!

in class today i dont know who said it, or when it was said but the comment that was made really stuck out to me... Mistakes you make are more important than the plans that are followed through.... i really liked this and it made me start thinking about Nabokov and how he wrote kinbotes character. kinbote is so focused on himself... that he doesnt pick up on a lot that is really truly going on around him. maybe he is focused on his plans that went not so well... maybe that is why he has made up a distant northern land in his mind to get away from what he has done in his life. he doesnt look at what mistakes have brought him. and really maybe not enough people really look at what a mistake has broughten into ones life... again i feel like i am all over the place... this is what Nabokov does to me! makes me think all over the place... am i even making sense!? haha

I was really curious about Brian Boyd after Sexson has mentioned so many times in class about his work on Nabokov. i cant imagine having the patience to study and study this author for so long.... although i have enjoyed it this semester... i wouldnt have if i didnt have the help from sexson and all of the people in class.... all theirs thoughts and discoveries have helped drastically in how i have come to find just a little understanding of a man so complicated it seems.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Boyd

http://www.randomhouse.com/features/nabokov/speak.html

http://www.bombsite.com/issues/71/articles/2309


these are just a few sites that caught my attention while googling away on my computer.... there is much more about boyd and he just baffles my mind! how one man can concentrate so hard on one author, find so many discoveries and then turn around and say that he has it all wrong... crazy, crazy i say.... i wouldnt be able to keep up with this man if i had to!

SHADE

well i cant figure out how to get a depiction of shade on my blog so i am just going to get pictures from online like we did in class to try and find at least a small resemblance of what shade could look like.... here goes...

in class there was a lot of talk about how generous Shade was..... and i think i have somewhat touched on that subject a little bit, but not to the point where our conversation went today in class. i think that Kinbote can see the generostiy in shade and at times uses it against him.... he tries to get all that he can from shade and doesnt seem to care if shade wants it that way or not.... and really kinbote just takes from shade any time he can, even after shades death.... right away after his death..

another point made in class was that through pictures of shade, Kinbote can see shades soul... if he could see shades soul, wouldnt he know that really the poem has nothing at all to do with kinbote... but again he is the type of person that thinks all things revolve around him.... he really truly amazes me as a character and as a person.... there is no generosity in Kinbote... maybe he latches on to shade because he can see that good in shade and wants to have that same good.... hmm

The color Blue

Well i started to get slightly obsessed with the color RED in Lolita and i am finding myself getting yet again slightly obsessed with another color in PF, BLUE. durring my, oh i dont know, fourth or fifth time starting the commentary over again i started to realize that the word blue, and azure, are all over thenovel. is it a way to express the sadness that follows John Shade around? Blue seems to be a color of sadness or at least for me it does. and throughout reading PF i find myself feeling somewhat sad for shade.... he seems to be a man that just goes along with the flow... and doesnt want to hurt anyones feelings. and not that that is sad, but to have an existance where all one does is try to make people happy and feel that they are so wonderful, like Kinbote thinks he is, is sad to me. again i feel like my thoughts are confusing, but i am getting used to it since i feel pretty much confused everytime i read nabokov, especially PF!

anyway back to the color BLUE. Sexson even in class today, said that it is all over the place.... i have decided i am going to try to count how many times the color in any shape or form comes up in the text to see how many times its there.... for some reason i feel that if i can get myself to count there might be 999 times that it shows up.... but thats just a guess... everything with Nabokov has some sort of twist and weird connection so who knows..... maybe he was particular in how many times he used that color..... ill keep you posted if i can make myself get that crazy about blue while reading...

Minton

Today in class we had the honor of having Gretchen Minton come and speak to our class about Pale Fire and Timon of Athens. then shakespeare play that seems to pop up all over the novel.

It was a real treat to have Minton come and give some great ideas on how Nabokov shaped the characters in Pale Fire.

For me like i have said before in the blog, Nabokov writes about a lot of people and is able to write about people who a reader can connect to. I think one of thegreatest things about Shakespeare is that he to wrote about things and happenings that all people can really relate to... so after having such a concentrated lecture in calss today about two great writers, that at the begininng i would have never found similarities i have!

a minor discovery for myself i suppose but one that i think wil open my eyes a little bit more into the world of Nabokov.

In the handout Minton had printed out for our class she had a quote from Timon of Athens, and when she talked about the quote she had said that in nature, everything steals from everything else. so maybe Nabkov took shakespeares way of writing and turned it into a way for him to writesuch dynamic and interesting characters.... just a thought

The Ladder of Pale Fire

Sexson has been talking about the Ladder of knowledge that as a class we are climbing to get to a full understanding of the work Pale Fire. i feel that i will never get to the top... is there anyway of reaching a point of ful understanding when it comes to Nabokov? i cant imagine. but at the same time, as a reader we are all able to get into the deep thoughts of this illusive writer that seems to pop up everywhere. i dont know if all of what i see and hear throughout any given day is just coincidence .... but i feel that everywhere i look and every time i have a conversation with someone i am taken back to a part in one of Nabokovs crazy , wonderful stories. maybe i am just reading into things far to much but i feel like there is so much about what i read on his pages that are things that happen daily. there is always that one person who makes all things about them, like Kinbote. i mean really does anyone NOT have friend like that? or maybe i just have a couple weird friends... haha but really when i look around a see all that is around me i feel likei can pick out people in a crowd that could essentially be a Nabokov character.

Maybe that is what is so wonderful about reading Nabokov..... his characters have so much realism to them, even HUmbert, they all have something that a reader can connect to , or at least connect to another person.