Subject
At the brink of a brook... being on the verge...
From
Date
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Dear List,
After considering the sonorous repetitions in "Pnin" ( "tears and stars", instead of "stars and cars" as they arise in "Lolita") I began to puzzle about a special kind that I encountered in Nabokov's "Ada", now departing from the expression: " being on the brink of", where it was insistently applied in relation to "brooks" and almost devoid of the meaning that suggests some impending presentification.
We find it at least four times:
1.Lucette had abandoned her skipping rope to squat on the brink of the brook and float a fetus-sized rubber doll;
2.Van found himself standing on the brink of the brook
3.as they grappled on the brink of the brook;
4. as they crouched on the brink of one of the brook's crystal shelves... ( adding here a play with "book shelves")
Today, re-reading two short stories by E.A.Poe I came across a description of the narrator's difficulty to render the expression of his beloved's eyes, of feeling "on the verge of".( "Ligeia, page 3)
The narrator observed that "when L's beauty passed into my spirit, there dwelling as in a shrine" (.) "we often find ourselves upon the very verge of remembrance" (.)Yet not the more could I define that sentiment, or analyze, or even steadily view it. I recognized it, let me repeat, sometimes in the survey of a rapidly-growing vine - in the contemplation of a moth, a butterfly, a chrysalis, a stream of running water."
Poe also wrote about "being on the brink", but there the suspension included a watery medium, like in VN, a stinking tarn and in "The Fall of the House of Usher" he wrote:
" I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled luster by the dwelling, and gazed down." This situation is brought back at the very end of the story:
" and the deep dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the "HOUSE OF USHER"
( 1991,Dover Thrift Editions, page 15 &29).
There might be something "dangerous" when one stops at the brink of something unremembered or before an abyss. And yet, this "impending danger" that sounds so innocent in English, gains a special sexual meaning when heard in French. "Verge" applies to the penis, to the male sexual organ, that is, to a positive presence that lies in contrast to any forgetfulness, tarns, or "absences".
VN uses the word "verge" only once where he clearly suggests its sexual meaning although in its context it still means "being on the brink of". When Ada writes to Van she uses a French expression from Blanche, with rich allusions - because he also places the woman "sur la verge" (onto the "verge").
( Cf.Penguin ed. page 263) ".because there exists a simple cure for all my maux and throes and that is an extract of scarlet aril, the flesh of yew, just only yew. Je realize, as your sweet Cinderella de Torf (now Madame Trofim Fartukov) used to say, that I'm being coy and obscene. But it all leads up to an important, important suggestion! Van, je suis sur la verge ( Blanche again) of a revolting amorous adventure. I could be instantly saved by you (.)"
There might have been more plays with "verge" when he describes a certain Miss Vertograd, "his father's librarian, a completely servile and infinitely accommodative spinster of Verger's format and presumable date of publication". All the same, I wonder if the lulling sound of being on the "brink of a brook" had been so often repeated because the narrator wanted to conjure away, then, the other (hidden) French meaning.
Jansy
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After considering the sonorous repetitions in "Pnin" ( "tears and stars", instead of "stars and cars" as they arise in "Lolita") I began to puzzle about a special kind that I encountered in Nabokov's "Ada", now departing from the expression: " being on the brink of", where it was insistently applied in relation to "brooks" and almost devoid of the meaning that suggests some impending presentification.
We find it at least four times:
1.Lucette had abandoned her skipping rope to squat on the brink of the brook and float a fetus-sized rubber doll;
2.Van found himself standing on the brink of the brook
3.as they grappled on the brink of the brook;
4. as they crouched on the brink of one of the brook's crystal shelves... ( adding here a play with "book shelves")
Today, re-reading two short stories by E.A.Poe I came across a description of the narrator's difficulty to render the expression of his beloved's eyes, of feeling "on the verge of".( "Ligeia, page 3)
The narrator observed that "when L's beauty passed into my spirit, there dwelling as in a shrine" (.) "we often find ourselves upon the very verge of remembrance" (.)Yet not the more could I define that sentiment, or analyze, or even steadily view it. I recognized it, let me repeat, sometimes in the survey of a rapidly-growing vine - in the contemplation of a moth, a butterfly, a chrysalis, a stream of running water."
Poe also wrote about "being on the brink", but there the suspension included a watery medium, like in VN, a stinking tarn and in "The Fall of the House of Usher" he wrote:
" I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled luster by the dwelling, and gazed down." This situation is brought back at the very end of the story:
" and the deep dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the "HOUSE OF USHER"
( 1991,Dover Thrift Editions, page 15 &29).
There might be something "dangerous" when one stops at the brink of something unremembered or before an abyss. And yet, this "impending danger" that sounds so innocent in English, gains a special sexual meaning when heard in French. "Verge" applies to the penis, to the male sexual organ, that is, to a positive presence that lies in contrast to any forgetfulness, tarns, or "absences".
VN uses the word "verge" only once where he clearly suggests its sexual meaning although in its context it still means "being on the brink of". When Ada writes to Van she uses a French expression from Blanche, with rich allusions - because he also places the woman "sur la verge" (onto the "verge").
( Cf.Penguin ed. page 263) ".because there exists a simple cure for all my maux and throes and that is an extract of scarlet aril, the flesh of yew, just only yew. Je realize, as your sweet Cinderella de Torf (now Madame Trofim Fartukov) used to say, that I'm being coy and obscene. But it all leads up to an important, important suggestion! Van, je suis sur la verge ( Blanche again) of a revolting amorous adventure. I could be instantly saved by you (.)"
There might have been more plays with "verge" when he describes a certain Miss Vertograd, "his father's librarian, a completely servile and infinitely accommodative spinster of Verger's format and presumable date of publication". All the same, I wonder if the lulling sound of being on the "brink of a brook" had been so often repeated because the narrator wanted to conjure away, then, the other (hidden) French meaning.
Jansy
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu,chtodel@cox.net
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm