Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0017377, Sun, 23 Nov 2008 02:15:53 +0300

Subject
words are the light
Date
Body
>To Borges, who had blood infection in 1938, resulting in eventual loss of sight, - words were the light.

From Ursus' Spanish verses sung by blind Dea ("The Man Who Laughs," Part Two, Book Three, IX):

De palabra
Nace razón
De luz el son.

("The word gives birth to reason, the singing gives birth to light," I translate from a Russian translation provided by a foot-note, not sure if this translation is correct; anyway, Ursus' Spanish is not perfect either.)

By the way, the action in Borges' "South" (the story that can also be compared to Nabokov's Terra Incognita, 1931) takes place in 1939, therefore 1938 as a year of publication seems wrong.

To tackle a different subject: if I were an Anglophone VN fan with no Russian, I would have asked Dmitriy Vladimirovich, if he plans to translate Zud (it had appeared in 1940 in Novoe Russkoe Slovo and was reprinted in Volume V of the Symposium edition of VN's works, in the Notes section) into English?

Alexey Sklyarenko

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