Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0021838, Thu, 21 Jul 2011 21:47:04 -0300

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Fw: [NABOKV-L] krasnyi
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Alexey Sklyarenko: "The obsolete meaning of krasnyi (red) is krasivyi (fair). Btw., Ada's TORFYaNUYu went through two red squares on the Flavita board (see my Krasnyi tsvetok zla, "The Red Flower of Evil in Nabokov's Ada," available in Zembla)."
[to JM's Alexey Sklyarenko also considers the raspberry theme and speaks "of Mandelshtam, the poet who is important in Ada, in my article 'Flowers into Bloomers: Mistranslation as the Original Sin'. "] as: " I never wrote that article."

JM: You said that you never wrote the article but I suppose you meant that you didn't write it in the end... I got the information from the Nab-L Archives:
Since January 3, OS, corresponds to January 15, NS, today is Mandelshtam's 120th birthday. Like Nabokov, Mandelshtam finished the Tenishev school. Mistranslations from Mandelshtam (who is mentioned by Vivian Darkbloom in his 'Notes to ADA') are important in ADA. I mention OM in several articles on ADA, including "The Red Flower of Evil."... In Ada, Rita is a Crimean cabaret dancer, a pretty red-haired girl who is Van's partner in his Mascodagama stunt...M is the first letter in French mal ("evil;".. there is mal in animal and its Russian anagram, malina, raspberries, mentioned by Mandelshtam in his satire on Stalin; cf. "several merry young gardeners wearing for some reason the garb of Georgian tribesmen were popping raspberries into their mouths:" 1.2; note that only one letter is different in Marina and malina) and English male. Both mal and male are present in malen'kiy. I will speak of Mandelshtam, the poet who is important in Ada, in my article "Flowers into Bloomers: Mistranslation as the Original Sin." alenkiy refers to Alen'kiy tsvetochek ("The Scarlet Flowerlet"), a fairy tale by S. T. Aksakov (Cf. Sat, 15 Jan 2011 13:25:42 +0300 - Mandelshtam's 120th birthday)

AS: "Also, I recently mentioned in Nabokv-L Krasnaya ploshchad' (incorrectly translated as Red Square)"
JM: What an interesting connection you made between the famous muscovite "Red Square" and the Flavita (Van explains that there were a few yellows among the reds and the blacks, to explain the game's designation), particularly clear in your example of Ada's Torfyanuyu which "went through two red squares"

I always thought that jasp was the same stone as jade. I found out that it was something altogether different quite recently so, from Pale Fire, there's another dark x red contrast.
"How to locate in blackness, with a gasp, / Terra the Fair, an orbicle of jasp" And Kinbote finds this the "loveliest couplet in this canto," even if he ignored Ada's Terra and Anti-Terra...



Stan Kelly-Bootle: "English, of course, also plays figuratively exchanging month for moon: Many long moons have passed and gone ..."
JM: ...And I'd always considered that the figurative exchange of month for moon ( "many long moons") had been an invention of a Welsh poet (Dylan Thomas*)

...........................................................................
*- Probably he meant something different (day and night?)
Cf. Fern Hill Part II. :
"And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
Flying with the ricks, and the horses
Flashing into the dark."


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