I realized, looking at my previous post, that a mistake was made. The list of themes within N.'s work wasn't compiled by Brian Boyd, but by Alfred Appell. Double-A instead of double-B. My bad. But of course, as we learned the other day, mistakes and errors are portals to the truth. John Shade comes to understand this because of a misprint; because of "fountain" instead of "mountain", he has the vague intimations of hope in regard to spirituality for the first time.

Really Shade is much like his creator N. and Wallace Stevens, neither of whom really want Paradise, because nothing dies there(ie. changes). And death is, somehow or other, the only thing that can produce finer things; we love people because we are all going to die, we like ripe fruit because it is on the way toward rotting. There can't be anything beautiful in permanent stasis, which N. and Stevens concieve of Paradise being.


In regards to a paper topic, Kari is still oscillating: Pale Fire screenplay, Lolita as displacement of Greek myth, or the motif of the mythical kingdom. Oh decisons decisons!!