Tangled Tenses

I was just reading Transparent things for the ninety-ninth time and I noticed that the fire scene is played out three times: Once when Armande wants to simulate an escape from the fire by crawling out the window, once in his dream when he kills Armande, and then, of course, at the end of the book when he perishes. The only question is, what tense is represented for the three respective fires? Hugh dies while being reminded of a memory from childhood, a memory of a story from a book. He dies not only in the past, but thinking of a fictional story--he dies in art. When Armande demands they rehearse an acrobatic escape, she is foretelling the future--Hugh fails the escape, just as he will fail it at his death. She ends up peacefully wrapped in a blanket of the third floor, which can be seen as the future. She is living most comfortably in the future. We are left with the Present. How does the fire in Hugh's dream represent the present? That would be saying that the most tangible reality of the fire is brought to life in a dream, which would be saying, it turn, that the most real perception of our lives takes part in our dreams. Interesting.

Proteus - The Old Man of the Sea

This is Proteus. Those fortunate students who attended class Tuesday before Thanksgiving and witnessed the miracle of the second group's presentation will know that I am reffering to Quilty when I speak of Proteus, and I speak of Jared (whom, with imagination, the above picture can be seen to represent) when I speak of Quilty. Proteus was, in Greek mythology, the herdsman of Posiedon's seals. He can foretell the future to someone who can catch him (the sly, elusive type) but will shape-shift into many different forms to avoid being captured. The challenge is in "pinning him down," to steal Dr. Sexson's words (we are all theives in the laquered night).
Quote Humbert: A veritable Proteus of the highway, with bewildering ease he switched from one vehicle to another. This technique implied the existnce of garages specializing in "stage-automoblie" operations, but I could never discover the remises he used. He seemed to patronize at first the Chevorlet genus, beginning with a Campus Cream convertible, then going on to a small Horizon Blue sedan, and thenceforth fading into Surf Grey and Driftwood Grey. Then he turned to other makes and passed through a pale dull rainbow of paint shades, and one day I found myself attempting to cope with the subtle distinction between our own Dream Blue Melmoth and the Crest Blue Oldsmobile he had rented; greys, however, remained his favorite cryptochromism, and, in agonizing nightmares, I tried in van to sort out properly such ghosts as Chrysler's Shell Gray, Chevrolet's Thistle Gray, Dodge's French Gray..

Humbert is bumbling, trying to catch the elusive Proteus as he slips from one disguise to the other. So this is a warning: watch Jared, he is a shifty one. Catch him and he may be able to tell you how you will do in this class.

Charles the Second

Yes, I am still pondering Pale Fire. I am thinking about that competent King with supple lips and manly eyebrows. I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigskins. He reigned with wisdom, and with consideration of all the young, handsome lads grazing the feilds of the palace grounds. Like a loving father he was to the boys, and in tights he paraded proudly about his kingdom like a pillar of fetching royalty. I'd see him sometimes walking the spring hills of Zembla, and he'd beckon me over with the flowery wave of a hand. We would hold hands and run through the tall grass, or skip along together and laugh like boys. Sometimes I would please him by pointing out a Red Admiral bobbing by, or by blowing the fertile fluff of a dandelion into his painful beard. He would lean down with mighty implication and pluck a weedy flower and brush it beneath his nose, and then reach tenderly to tuck it behind my ear. Alas! Now my Zemblan King gone, vanished, and I must move on to experience other Persons. I will never be happy, until I see once again the face of my dear King.