Subject: Re: Pale Fire in the Inverted Forest
From: Louise Z. Brooks (invertedforest@angelfire.com)
Date: Sun Feb 27 2000 - 18:50:04 EST
Hmmm. I would not feel qualified to answer, being a considered semi-expert on Eliot but a mere dillentante on Rilke (an amateur reader if you will). To answer one question you would really have to answer the other - the reason I said that Salinger's approach to writing paralleled Eliot's is the way spirituality, life and art were so intimately linked (with the more superficial rider that Eliot also had a war-prompted nervous breakdown and an early, hazily influential first marriage). This is something I would definitely say of Rilke. However, it seems to me that where Salinger's mind withdraws, Rilke's expands. His vision is so inclusionary where Salinger's is exclusionary; every line is not a mere recording of experience but an experience in itself. If there was a major difference between Salinger and Rilke I would say it is that Salinger is a microcosmical writer and Rilke is a macrocosmical one.
--- Louise Z. Brooks "Invention my dear friends is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation and 2% butterscotch ripple." - Willy WonkaOn Fri, 25 Feb 2000 09:22:18 citycabn wrote: >Louise, > >Many thanks for taking the trouble to reply. I confess I have never read >_Pale Fire_; I confess I have read very little in the past two decades. >Nonetheless, I dutifully have placed the title on my endless "To Read" list, >which easily surpasses Seymour's in _Hapworth_. > >In rereading some of your enjoyable posts, I stopped at an insight in Re: >Too Stern Eliot. There you write, "... the fact that his [Eliot's] approach >to literature and life parallels Salinger's in more ways than I can list." > >As you know from _The Inverted Forest_, Ray Ford (though he usually listened >to Corinne talk her life away), on a couple of rare evenings, talked entire >essays: one on Rilke, one on Eliot. My question is, Do you think it would >be fair to substitute Rilke for Eliot in your quote above? And if the >answer is Yes, would you care to amplify? > >Thanks for giving this your consideration. > >--Bruce > > >-----Original Message----- >From: Louise Z. Brooks <invertedforest@angelfire.com> >To: bananafish@roughdraft.org <bananafish@roughdraft.org> >Date: Thursday, February 24, 2000 4:34 PM >Subject: Re: " and debate 'Louise' " > > >>The quote is from the poem `Pale Fire' within the book of the same name. If >you haven't read it, the book is a pastiche of a scholarly text, in which >the poem `Pale Fire' - the last work of the recently deceased poet John >Shade - is accompanied with a lengthy gloss by a scholar and friend, who >gradually reveals his true nature throughout the footnotes. (a note: I >recommend reading the poem and then the gloss. The narrator recommends quite >the opposite, which says it all really). The first two lines are the ones I >quoted, of the first stanza: >> >>`I was the shadow of the waxwing slain >>By the false azure of the windowpane. >>I was the smudge of ashen fluff -- and I >>Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky.' >> >>The poem is 999 lines long, with the final line intended (according to the >editor)to be the first line over again, bringing the poem up to 1000 words >and linking it in a chain. >> >>For anyone interested in literary criticism it's a fascinating book in its >own right, bringing a whole new meaning to the phrase `unreliable narrator'. >> >>--- >>Louise Z. Brooks >>"Invention my dear friends is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% >evaporation and 2% butterscotch ripple." - Willy Wonka >>>Until then, I think I'll try to track down that Nabokov quote Louise used >in >>>her 2/17/00 post Re: Consummations (something tells me I should start with >>>that old favorite of Camille's, _Pale Fire_): >>> >>>"Like Nabokov's `waxwing slain through the false azure of the window >pane' - >>>slamming into the window in our world but passing imperceptibly into the >>>next in spirit - Buddy is the one who hit the window, while Seymour is the >>>one who kept going." >>> >>>--Bruce >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>>- >>>* Unsubscribing? Mail majordomo@roughdraft.org with the message >>>* UNSUBSCRIBE BANANAFISH >>> >> >> >>Angelfire for your free web-based e-mail. http://www.angelfire.com >>- >>* Unsubscribing? Mail majordomo@roughdraft.org with the message >>* UNSUBSCRIBE BANANAFISH >> > >- >* Unsubscribing? Mail majordomo@roughdraft.org with the message >* UNSUBSCRIBE BANANAFISH >
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