Interpretation problems

[VivianDarkbloom]

Every now and then I find myself faced with passages in the books I read that I can't fully comprehend. Sometimes a look-up in a dictionary will solve the problem. Sometimes it just won't, and I'll be left only with the possibility of racking my brains out for a clearer understanding. The purpose of this thread is precisely the sharing of such passages, naturally in the hope that other people might clarify them.

I start with an excerpt from the foreword to Nabokov's Strong Opinions, written by Nabokov himself.

On the two opening paragraphs of his foreword, Nabokov talks about his poor abilities as a speaker in relation to his far superior talents as a writer. He says:

"I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author and I speak like a child. Throughout my academic ascent in America, from lean lecturer to Full Professor, I have never delivered to my audience one scrap of information not prepared in typescript beforehand and not held under my eyes on the bright-lit lectern. My hemmings and hawings over the telephone cause long-distance callers to switch from their native English to pathetic French. At parties, if I attempt to entertain people with a good story, I have to go back to every other sentence for oral erasures and inserts. Even the dream I describe to my wife across the breakfast table is only a first draft.

In these circumstances nobody should ask me to submit to an interview if by 'interview' a chat between two normal human beings is implied. It has been tried at least twice in the old days, and once a recording machine was present, and when the tape was rerun and I had finished laughing, I knew that never in my life would I repeat that sort of performance. Nowadays I take every precaution to ensure a dignified beat of the mandarin's fan. The interviewer's questions have to be sent to me in writing, answered by me in writing, and reproduced verbatim. Such are the three absolute conditions."

I don't really get what he means by "dignified beat of the mandarin's fan". Actually I don't understand it at all. Is it an idiom? His own craft? What exactly does he mean by "beat"?

Can anybody help me with this?

Cheers.
Viv

[billl]

Hi Vivian,

I'll take a stab at it (but maybe someone else will come along with something more certain to say).

"Mandarin" is of course a language, but it also refers to certain classes of Chinese bureaucrat in Imperial China, and from there (I assume) came to be a term used to describe some certain type of bureaucrat in general. I think it is rarely used in this way today, but it is just the sort of word that Nabokov might have been drawn to back when he was writing, I guess.

Anyhow, I cannot say whether or not there is some famous book, painting, or historical anecdote that Nabokov would've expected his readers to have in mind when he used this phrase. Maybe someone else on LitNet can provide some background on this. (My research of the word Mandarin being used in this context comes from online dictionaries, and Wikipedia--but I somehow was familiar with it previously.)

Lacking detail on Nabokov's cultural source for this image of "the Mandarin with his fan" here, I can only suggest that the dignified beating of the fan would probably be a description of the steady and calm waving of the fan by the 'Mandarin' ('beat' referring to it's regular movement/waving of the fan, just like regular 'beats' in music would be steady).

Something like this:
:smash:
but less whimsical, slightly slower, and using a fan instead of a mallet.

If I'm right about this, Nabokov means to say that he takes every precaution that his words are presented in a steady and well-controlled manner (ie. written, as opposed to his apparently less-than-fluent spoken English).

I'm pretty sure I'm right, but maybe someone can help give (other) examples of how this image of the Mandarin used to appear/get mentioned in decades past.

[Rores28]

after looking up mandarin and finding

man·da·rin
   /ˈmændərɪn/ Show Spelled[man-duh-rin] Show IPA
–noun
1.
(in the Chinese Empire) a member of any of the nine ranks of public officials, each distinguished by a particular kind of button worn on the cap.
2.
( initial capital letter ) the standard Chinese language.
3.
( initial capital letter ) a northern Chinese dialect, esp. as spoken in and around Beijing.
4.
a small, spiny citrus tree, Citrus reticulata, native to China, bearing lance-shaped leaves and flattish, orange-yellow to deep-orange loose-skinned fruit, some varieties of which are called tangerines.
5.
any of several plants belonging to the genus Disporum or Streptopus, of the lily family, as S. roseus (rose mandarin) or D. lanuginosum (yellow mandarin), having drooping flowers and red berries.
6.
an influential or powerful government official or bureaucrat.
7.
a member of an elite or powerful group or class, as in intellectual or cultural milieus: the mandarins of the art world.
–adjective
8.
of or pertaining to a mandarin or mandarins.
9.
elegantly refined, as in language or taste.

I agree with the above poster. Also there is actually a book by the title The Mandarin's Fan.

It's funny because after I read the first paragraph of the OP, and before moving on, my mind immediately jumped to Nabakov. In prose this is one of the few authors with whom this happens very frequently for me

[OrphanPip]

The idiom is drawing on a stereotypical notion of the Chinese aristocrats as keeping themselves aloof, remote, and restrained, and being associated with ornate fans. So, I think what he is saying is that he deliberately attempts to keep aloof and apart from others (or specifically interviewers), to maintain a sort of dignified air.

[Evaril]

Having seen a number of Chinese period dramas and films, I can say this much: Chinese fans were used by both men and women. For women, they tend to give the appearance of shyness, reserve, propriety, and demureness (perhaps also coquetry and fashionability). For men, who would flap and brandish their fans as they recite poetry or when they hit upon an impressive line, intelligence, scholarship, nobility, and stateliness. The way the men "beat" their fans in these circumstances are not at all like how one would use the fan for its ordinary purpose... it's more like how speakers at the rostrum use their hands to augment the effect of their words.

[kelby_lake]

Every now and then I find myself faced with passages in the books I read that I can't fully comprehend. Sometimes a look-up in a dictionary will solve the problem. Sometimes it just won't, and I'll be left only with the possibility of racking my brains out for a clearer understanding. The purpose of this thread is precisely the sharing of such passages, naturally in the hope that other people might clarify them.

I start with an excerpt from the foreword to Nabokov's Strong Opinions, written by Nabokov himself.

On the two opening paragraphs of his foreword, Nabokov talks about his poor abilities as a speaker in relation to his far superior talents as a writer. He says:

"I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author and I speak like a child. Throughout my academic ascent in America, from lean lecturer to Full Professor, I have never delivered to my audience one scrap of information not prepared in typescript beforehand and not held under my eyes on the bright-lit lectern. My hemmings and hawings over the telephone cause long-distance callers to switch from their native English to pathetic French. At parties, if I attempt to entertain people with a good story, I have to go back to every other sentence for oral erasures and inserts. Even the dream I describe to my wife across the breakfast table is only a first draft.

In these circumstances nobody should ask me to submit to an interview if by 'interview' a chat between two normal human beings is implied. It has been tried at least twice in the old days, and once a recording machine was present, and when the tape was rerun and I had finished laughing, I knew that never in my life would I repeat that sort of performance. Nowadays I take every precaution to ensure a dignified beat of the mandarin's fan. The interviewer's questions have to be sent to me in writing, answered by me in writing, and reproduced verbatim. Such are the three absolute conditions."

I don't really get what he means by "dignified beat of the mandarin's fan". Actually I don't understand it at all. Is it an idiom? His own craft? What exactly does he mean by "beat"?

Can anybody help me with this?

Cheers.
Viv


I think he means flapping a fan like they do in Chinese culture- all fluttery and dignifies- he's saying he wants to appeal cool,collected and unruffled in his further interviews.

[VivianDarkbloom]

It's funny because after I read the first paragraph of the OP, and before moving on, my mind immediately jumped to Nabakov. In prose this is one of the few authors with whom this happens very frequently for me

Perhaps I shouldn't take this comment as a compliment, but my self-dignified self can't help seeing the brighter side of it, which happens to be the fact that for a brief paragraph I might've sounded just like the man. But of course your otherwise flattering impression might also have been suggested beforehand by my avatar, something which kind of spoils my fun. But then again you shouldn't rule out entirely my being Nabokov himself back from the dead, the Russian Lazarus who beat a character by Ingmar Bergman in a chess match and now collects butterflies with a digital net.:smilewinkgrin:

Anyway, my thanks all around. Your insights have been most helpful.

[VivianDarkbloom]

«Et mes parents du reste commençaient à lui trouver cette vieillesse anormale, excessive, honteuse et méritée des célibataires, de tous ceux pour qui il semble que le grand jour qui n'a pas de lendemain soit plus long que pour les autres, parce que pour eux il est vide et que les moments s'y additionnent depuis le matin sans se diviser ensuite entre des enfants.»

Translated by Lydia Davis:

"And my family was also beginning to feel that in him this aging was abnormal, excessive, shameful, and more deserved by the unmarried, by all those for whom it seems that the great day that has no tomorrow is longer than for others, because for them it is empty and the moments in it add up from morning on without then being divided among children."

Can anybody tell me what exactly is this "grand jour qui n'a pas de lendemain"? Is it old age, or is it something else?

Actually this entire passage is obscure to me. I mean, what exactly is the narrator talking about when he says that "le moments s'y additionnent depuis le matin sans se diviser ensuite entre des enfants"?

[zhannochka]

Good thread!

[kiki1982]

No, it is not old age, it is what it says: the great day that has no tomorrow. What is Proust referring to with 'célibataires'? The unmarried or bachelors. So, the great day that has no tomorrow... is a metaphor (to me at least) for bachelorhood. The tomorrow is marriage, which is essentially the aim of any man in Proust's days, but to reach tomorrow a man must first go through today, which is his state of bachelor. Also fun... So the great day that keeps on lasting evokes the long wait of parents seeing their son unmarried for so long and not interested in taking a wife.

Quite a nice image, actually...

Tat was quite a free translation by the way...

[Intuition]

kiki1982 is partially correct. Evidently the paragraph itself is a metaphor of bachelorhood, although "the great day that has no tomorrow," could be somewhat of a cultural proverb regarding life itself. Morning being birth and adolescence, which would again prove truthful as Proust subtlety alludes to morning as moments that "add up" towards a greater sum. The clause which states, "because for them it is empty and the moments in it add up from morning on without then being divided among children," claims that the bachelors do not have children to divide their time upon (although note: moments that add up from morning, meaning they're meant to be divided upon come nightfall-- in this case the twilight years of a man's life). Therefore, bachelor's have an overabundance of moments filled with emptiness in their lives-- which again, is why their days happen to be longer.

This would be a sound interpretation as it foreshadows certain elements of the plot which occur.

[Buh4Bee]

It always amazes me to think about how much we have to do to comprehend a good text correctly. I thoroughly enjoy when I hit a road block and need to reread. There are times when it makes me so crazy, that I just need to take a break and come back. Usually the confusion clears, after the break.

[Intuition]

It always amazes me to think about how much we have to do to comprehend a good text correctly. I thoroughly enjoy when I hit a road block and need to reread. There are times when it makes me so crazy, that I just need to take a break and come back. Usually the confusion clears, after the break.

You're absolutely correct, that's the aesthetic beauty that derives from modernism. Although the analytical depth of a text does not automatically raise it to the summit of literature, it certainly does help reinforce its immortality among scholars. A good example are the novels of James Joyce, whom happens to have his novels more often than most read of-- rather than read.

[VivianDarkbloom]

"As the manager of the Performance sits before the curtain on the boards and looks into the Fair, a feeling of profound melancholy comes over him in his survey of the bustling place. There is a great quantity of eating and drinking, making love and jilting, laughing and the contrary, smoking, cheating, fighting, dancing and fiddling; there are bullies pushing about, bucks ogling the women, knaves picking pockets, policemen on the look-out, quacks (other quacks, plague take them!) bawling in front of their booths, and yokels looking up at the tinselled dancers and poor old rouged tumblers, while the light-fingered folk are operating upon their pockets behind. Yes, this is VANITY FAIR; not a moral place certainly; nor a merry one, though very noisy. Look at the faces of the actors and buffoons when they come off from their business; and Tom Fool washing the paint off his cheeks before he sits down to dinner with his wife and the little Jack Puddings behind the canvas. The curtain will be up presently, and he will be turning over head and heels, and crying, 'How are you?'

A man with a reflective turn of mind, walking through an exhibition of this sort, will not be oppressed, I take it, by his own or other people's hilarity. An episode of humour or kindness touches and amuses him here and there - a pretty child looking at a gingerbread stall; a pretty girl blushing whilst her lover talks to her and chooses her fairing; - poor Tom Fool, yonder behind the wagon, mumbling his bone with the honest family which lives by his tumbling; but the general impression is one more melancholy than mirthful. When you come home, you sit down, in a sober, contemplative, not uncharitable frame of mind, and apply yourself to your books or your business.

I have no other moral than this to tag to the present story of Vanity Fair. Some people consider Fairs immoral altogether, and eschew such, with their servants and families: very likely they are right. But persons who think otherwise, and are of a lazy, or a benevolent, or a sarcastic mood, may perhaps like to step in for half an hour, and look at the performances. There are scenes of all sorts; some dreadful combats, some grand and lofty horse-riding, some scenes of high life, and some of very middling indeed; some love-making for the sentimental, and some light comic business; the whole accompanied by appropriate scenery and brilliantly illuminated with the Author's own candles.

What more has the Manager of the Performance to say? - To acknowledge the kindness with which it has been received in all the principal towns of England through which the Show has passed, and where it has been most favourably noticed by the respected conductors of the Public Press, and by the Nobility and Gentry. He is proud to think that his Puppets have given satisfaction to the very best company in this empire. The famous little Becky Puppet has been pronounced to be uncommonly flexible in the joints, and lively on the wire; the Amelia Doll, though it has had a smaller circle of admirers, has yet been carved and dressed with the greatest care by the artist; the Dobbin Figure, though apparently clumsy, yet dances in a very amusing and natural manner; the Little Boys' Dance has been liked by some; and please to remark the richly-dressed figure of the Wicked Nobleman, on which no expense has been spared, and which Old Nick will fetch away at the end of this singular performance.

And with this, and a profound bow to his patrons, the Manager retires, and the curtain rises.

LONDON, June 28, 1848"



(1) sits before the curtain on the boards
The boards are the stage. That one's easy - at least with an OED at hand. But "sits" and "before the curtain" both puzzle me. Does "sitting" mean "waiting" here? Or else, "remaining in a certain position"? What about "before the curtain"? Would it be "before the curtain rises", or rather "in front of the curtain"?

(2) mumbling his bone
Is that an idiom: to mumble one's bone? If not, how would you gloss it, or translate to, say, French or Italian?

(3) honest family
Here "honest" means "real", "genuine", "legitimate", as opposed to "decent", "respectful", right? I mean, when Thackeray qualifies this family as honest, I guess he's pointing out the fact that it's a true family, united by things other than mere blood ties, just the kind of family one won't see much of in this novel, which deals at great length with people's selfishness and pettiness.

(4) and some of very middling indeed
Correct me if I'm wrong: the word "life" is elliptical here, i.e., "some scenes of high life, and some of very middling [life] indeed".

(5) lively on the wire
The Becky Puppet is lively when in action, I take it. What do you think?

(6) which Old Nick will fetch away
OED registers "fetch away" as a variation of "fetch way", a nautical term whose meaning is "move or shift from its proper place; break loose". So, in plain English, the devil will take the figure of the Wicked Nobleman away?


Hope you folks can help me out on this one.

Cheers.
Viv

[OrphanPip]

(1) sits before the curtain on the boards
The boards are the stage. That one's easy - at least with an OED at hand. But "sits" and "before the curtain" both puzzle me. Does "sitting" mean "waiting" here? Or else, "remaining in a certain position"? What about "before the curtain"? Would it be "before the curtain rises", or rather "in front of the curtain"?

A stage would usually have a forestage, that is a part of the stage at the front infront of the curtain, he is sitting on the forestage surveying the crowd.



(2) mumbling his bone
Is that an idiom: to mumble one's bone? If not, how would you gloss it, or translate to, say, French or Italian?

He is chewing on a bone (usually animals mumble not people), it is probably meant to evoke the ravenousness of Tom Fool.



(3) honest family
Here "honest" means "real", "genuine", "legitimate", as opposed to "decent", "respectful", right? I mean, when Thackeray qualifies this family as honest, I guess he's pointing out the fact that it's a true family, united by things other than mere blood ties, just the kind of family one won't see much of in this novel, which deals at great length with people's selfishness and pettiness.

I think it would be the latter, honest is kind of a homely way to describe a respectable family, the implication is that they are not beggars or criminals.



(4) and some of very middling indeed
Correct me if I'm wrong: the word "life" is elliptical here, i.e., "some scenes of high life, and some of very middling [life] indeed".

Correct.



(5) lively on the wire
The Becky Puppet is lively when in action, I take it. What do you think?

The puppet is literally on wires, but you are right, he is saying that the puppet doesn't move awkwardly or stiffly.



(6) which Old Nick will fetch away
OED registers "fetch away" as a variation of "fetch way", a nautical term whose meaning is "move or shift from its proper place; break loose". So, in plain English, the devil will take the figure of the Wicked Nobleman away?

Pretty much, although even more simply the Wicked Nobleman will die.

Keep in mind there's a great deal of irony to Thackeray's descriptions in these passages that arises from the use of high language to describe base things.

[VivianDarkbloom]

A stage would usually have a forestage, that is a part of the stage at the front infront of the curtain, he is sitting on the forestage surveying the crowd.

So, the curtain is sort of a mirror? And the fair in question is not really what will happen onstage, but what already happens on this side of the curtain?

[OrphanPip]

So, the curtain is sort of a mirror? And the fair in question is not really what will happen onstage, but what already happens on this side of the curtain?

No, the fair is occurring around the stage, and the manager is looking at the crowds from up on the forestage in front of the lowered curtain.

[kiki1982]

Hmm, this thread is being of help because I'm reading the novel too.

So, the irony here is that the director of the theatre or whatever, is not looking at his own troup of players, but at the audience, i.e. the reverse of what it is normally. All the world's a stage, indeed. Was that Shakespeare?
That part of the stage is still used, you know. The Royal Variety Performance for example, features comedians or celebrities talking to the audience with the curtains closed behind them while the stage assistants are getting the next act ready. Morcomb and Wise also used the forestage many times for comical purposes (the curtains would close and Ernie or Eric would end up behind them and his partner not, or something like that). Tommy Cooper used to play with that too.
Was that place at some point in history not the privileged place to sit? I seem to remember in Cyrano de Bergerac that at the very start of the play, there is a number of noblemen sitting there as well, watching a play begin (before Cyrano tells the lead actor to get off the stage because he hates him :D).

[edit] Come to think of it, it just as well that a stage has a forestage. Imagine the danger if that wasn't the case... You couldn't see where the orchestral pit was and could potentially fall about 1.5 m into the orchestra. :D

The passage/the title of the novel apparently also refers to Bunyon's Pilgrims Progress and VF is a fair which his Christian (?) encounters on the way through encompassing all the vices (vanities) of man. Is that bit of Bunyon's work long? I might read it, if it's not too bad.

[kasie]

There was also a time, in the days of the old Music Hall, when the Master of Ceremonies sat on a raised seat to the side of the stage and introduced each act and kept general order over what could become quite a rowdy interchange between performers and audience. He was not unlike a Ring Master in a circus.

Pilgrim's Progress is an interesting read, Kiki, sometimes regarded as a prototype novel and certainly more readable than contemporary religious tracts, a sugaring of the pill, if you like.

[osho]

Pilgrim’s progress is one of the masterpieces in literature and I am reading it for inspiration and of course to aggrandize my writing style. Maybe the word aggrandize is an inappropriate word but I have no other better word to express what I really fell about the book

[mona amon]

There was also a time, in the days of the old Music Hall, when the Master of Ceremonies sat on a raised seat to the side of the stage and introduced each act and kept general order over what could become quite a rowdy interchange between performers and audience. He was not unlike a Ring Master in a circus.

I think this must be the correct interpretation, since The Manager (author/narrator) is certainly talking about his fair, his creation, which the audience/reader is going to view once the curtain rises, or once the reader turns the page and begins the book. He is not referring to the audience as the fair. I read this long ago, but doesn't the narrator maintain this illusion of guiding the reader through a fair and showing them the sights throughout the book?