January 6th, 2010 / 6:06 pm
Craft Notes

A tail of two books, are there others?

aims to celebrate and mimic the cyclical continuum of both Finnegan’s Wake, its first line being riverrun, past Eve and Adams, from swerve of shore to bend of bay and last line A way a lone a last a loved along the (duh — “along the riverrun,” pay attention) and the first and last lines of Pale Fire, Nabokov’s novel named after a “fictional” poem by John Shade: (first) I was the shadow of the waxwing slain/ By the false azure in the windowpane and (last) Some neighbor’s gardener, I guess — goes by/ Trundling an empty barrow up the lane wherein the lines are composed to predetermine the first in a never ending fateful loop like this post

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28 Comments

  1. alec niedenthal

      Isn’t the ending of Gravity’s Rainbow cyclical or something? I don’t remember.

  2. alec niedenthal

      Isn’t the ending of Gravity’s Rainbow cyclical or something? I don’t remember.

  3. Schylur Prinz

      I just did that.

  4. Schylur Prinz

      I just did that.

  5. Adam Robinson

      Mind boggling, Jimmy, just great.

      Do you include the preface and notes as part of the novel which is Pale Fire? Obviously here you don’t, but in general how do we read that? I read it straight through at first, then just the poem, making constant reference to the notes.

  6. Adam Robinson

      Mind boggling, Jimmy, just great.

      Do you include the preface and notes as part of the novel which is Pale Fire? Obviously here you don’t, but in general how do we read that? I read it straight through at first, then just the poem, making constant reference to the notes.

  7. Jimmy Chen

      Thanks Adam. I read (present tense) Pale Fire (the novel) as the entity with all its self-induced disparate parts: the “fake” forward, poem, commentary, and index. This book was mind-blowing, because of Nabokov’s use of facetious authority.

  8. Jimmy Chen

      mmm…don’t recall, but i was pretty confused by the end…

  9. Jimmy Chen

      Thanks Adam. I read (present tense) Pale Fire (the novel) as the entity with all its self-induced disparate parts: the “fake” forward, poem, commentary, and index. This book was mind-blowing, because of Nabokov’s use of facetious authority.

  10. Jimmy Chen

      mmm…don’t recall, but i was pretty confused by the end…

  11. Tim Jones-Yelvington

      Dhalgren.

      begins “to wound the autumnal city”

      ends “I have come”

  12. Tim Jones-Yelvington

      Dhalgren.

      begins “to wound the autumnal city”

      ends “I have come”

  13. Dreezer

      Yep. Dhalgren. Which Delany has pointed out outsold Gravity’s Rainbow’s Bantam mass market paperback edition back in the ’70s.

  14. Dreezer

      Yep. Dhalgren. Which Delany has pointed out outsold Gravity’s Rainbow’s Bantam mass market paperback edition back in the ’70s.

  15. jh

      You’d think he’d be smarter than that.

  16. jh

      You’d think he’d be smarter than that.

  17. Blake Butler

      what about ones that are less apparently circular? i think a lot of books feel like they could repeat over and over.

  18. Blake Butler

      what about ones that are less apparently circular? i think a lot of books feel like they could repeat over and over.

  19. davidpeak

      baby leg

  20. davidpeak

      baby leg

  21. Lee
  22. Lee
  23. Tim Jones-Yelvington

      I think it ends with the naked blond slave-ish boy inside the firing rocket.

  24. Tim Jones-Yelvington

      I think it ends with the naked blond slave-ish boy inside the firing rocket.

  25. Rt Travaloni

      There’s the opening story in Barth’s Lost in The Fun House. Super explicit, that one.

  26. Rt Travaloni

      There’s the opening story in Barth’s Lost in The Fun House. Super explicit, that one.

  27. reynard

      totes

  28. reynard

      totes