Joyce, Nabokov, Sexson: notes to note

The top picture is of Nabokov's notes on Ulysses by J. Joyce found in the book Lectures on Literature. Note, I will get a better scanned picture for everyone this weekend, I had some issues.

Dr. Sexson's notes (above) on the first page in Ulysses by James Joyce. Click on the photograph to get an enlarged view. When I look at all this my first thought is, What does it all mean?

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In class today we talked about good readers, and the four good reader attributes from John Updike's quiz include:
-artistic sense
-imagination
-memory
-a dictionary

Nabokov understood the importance of a reader to the text and that a text is not fully itself until it is divulged into by a creative and intelligent reader. This is evident in his readings of Ulysses, a text as you may know that cannot be fully enjoyed by any reader who is less than incredibly creative and intelligent. Nabokov read Ulysses with attention to detail and creativity. CH. 4 of Ulysses, or rather, Calypso introduces the reader to Mr. Leopold Bloom for the first time and the first paragraph goes like this (**read out loud, hold your chin high, let your tongue flap and give the words the credit they deserve**) :

"Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked
thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liverslices fried with
crustcrumbs, fired hencods' roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys
which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine."

Now compare this with our first introduction to Humbert Humbert in Lolita. (again read aloud, enunciate):

"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip
of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on
the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta."

Both passages are not only oral, but ingestible. When reading these passages out loud we chew our words like a piece of meat, feeling the weight and texture of the words in our mouth as we say them. Like Joyce and Nabokov pay special attention to the way your tongue moves when you read out loud.



*special thanks to Sutter who helped me with his insight on the subject matter