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Re: Walnuts, kernels and strokes
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Walnuts, kernels and strokesDear Carolyn,
My questions were not rhetorical. I think an author may know that, even after he shall long be dead, certain tricks played by him on the reader will continue to puzzle them ( Nabokov blended tricks and serious comments in a tricky way). It is my opinion, too, that sometimes we fail to attribute to one character the attributes of another, like "Gradus and Kinbote" perhaps, a failure of "discernment" ( here I made a word play with "kernel" ).
I was surprised at the "knackt" in German for "craking" a nut being so similar to Kinbote's "knackle of walnuts": probably a play with overdetermined knots of words we sometimes lack the knack to discover?
Jansy
----- Original Message -----
From: Carolyn Kunin
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Wednesday, August 23, 2006 2:17 PM
Subject: [NABOKV-L] Walnuts, kernels and strokes
In the end, what do we get besides learning that the dead like to play tricks on the living? Or that sometimes we discern one kernel where two should have been found?
Jansy
Dear Jansy,
I'm afraid I don't understand your question. But it seems a rhetorical one.
At any rate, I don't wish to comment on the "Vane Sisters" story (I dislike it) except to say that the original Sybil Vane bears a great resemblance to Iris Acht. She is to be found in The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, which along with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (the only story I know that actually begins with a kinbote) is well worth reading in conjunction with Pale Fire.
Carolyn
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My questions were not rhetorical. I think an author may know that, even after he shall long be dead, certain tricks played by him on the reader will continue to puzzle them ( Nabokov blended tricks and serious comments in a tricky way). It is my opinion, too, that sometimes we fail to attribute to one character the attributes of another, like "Gradus and Kinbote" perhaps, a failure of "discernment" ( here I made a word play with "kernel" ).
I was surprised at the "knackt" in German for "craking" a nut being so similar to Kinbote's "knackle of walnuts": probably a play with overdetermined knots of words we sometimes lack the knack to discover?
Jansy
----- Original Message -----
From: Carolyn Kunin
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Wednesday, August 23, 2006 2:17 PM
Subject: [NABOKV-L] Walnuts, kernels and strokes
In the end, what do we get besides learning that the dead like to play tricks on the living? Or that sometimes we discern one kernel where two should have been found?
Jansy
Dear Jansy,
I'm afraid I don't understand your question. But it seems a rhetorical one.
At any rate, I don't wish to comment on the "Vane Sisters" story (I dislike it) except to say that the original Sybil Vane bears a great resemblance to Iris Acht. She is to be found in The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, which along with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (the only story I know that actually begins with a kinbote) is well worth reading in conjunction with Pale Fire.
Carolyn
Search the Nabokv-L archive at UCSB
Contact the Editors
All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both co-editors.
Visit Zembla
View Nabokv-L Policies
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm