Complete and Utter Nonsense

Today, Sunday, as we are all reading Pale Fire (and/or writing the two page paper) check out these websites to aide or supplement or distract you from your reading.
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Here is an article introduced to me by Dr. Sexson, "How Nonsense Sharpens the Intellect" by Benedict Carey in The New York Times, online is an interesting article that discussed research about how when we read or see something nonsensical we look for a pattern or something that makes sense. The article gives some examples of research and some interesting ideas, that we can notice and enjoy in our literary adventures saying,

"Still, the new research supports what many experimental artists, habitual
travelers and other novel seekers have always insisted: at least some of the
time, disorientation begets creative thinking."

What is it that a good reader must have? imagination and creative thinking. And what better way to stimulate creativity that to be bewildered (by an author perhaps) and then find patterns of meaning in a text we wouldn't have otherwise found. Pretty cool!

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Also, another website for you folks interested in Pale Fire and it's many connections, including Zembla, Shakespeare and more, check out this blog called A Kiadic Pilgrimage. (Particulary exciting for me because I never caught the connection with The Golden Compass books by Phillip Pullman, which happens to be a favorite of mine.) See what this person has done collecting quotes from different places, most all referenceing Zembla, the distant northern land. Just thinking back to Lolita, Where is Humbert's Zembla? He does travel to the arctic early on in the novel before he met Lolita. Food for thought.
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Back to the pages of Pale Fire......