Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0010289, Wed, 18 Aug 2004 11:36:58 -0700

Subject
Fwd: TT-13 Introductory Notes
Date
Body
EDNOTE.

----- Forwarded message from a-nakata@courante.plala.or.jp -----
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 13:31:19 +0900
From: Akiko Nakata <a-nakata@courante.plala.or.jp>
Reply-To: Akiko Nakata <a-nakata@courante.plala.or.jp>
Subject: TT-13 Introductory Notes
To: chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu


----------------------
44.01-06: Now we have to bring into focus the main street of Witt . . . .
It
teems with transparent people and processes, into which and through which we
might sink
with an angel's or author's delight, but we have to single out for this
report only one Person: The narrator(s), who has(have) been discreet
for the
previous two chapters, boastingly talk of their superhuman ability to look
through spacetime and to sink into
the objects freely as experts.

44.04-05: an angel's or author's delight: A guardian angel motif. Cf. "his
main 'umbral companion'" (Ch. 25).
"Angel's Delight" is the name of a cocktail. There
are several recipes but Triple Sec, Grenadine and cream seem necessary.
Triple
Sec--could be associated with *Three Tenses*--is strong, clear
orange-flavored liqueur. Armande (and Jimmy Major too if he likes such
cocktails) who likes oranges would
be there with the cocktail in her hand.
According to the recipe below, the cocktail is layered--suitable for this
novel.

a recipe for Angel's Delight
ounce Grenadine
ounce Triple Sec
ounce Creme Yvette
ounce Light Cream
*Use a bar spoon to pour each layer in to the serving glass, exactly in the
order listed. One layer should float upon another.

EDNOTE. i THINK i'LL STICK TO sCOTCH

44.19-20: a nice gray turtleneck sweater: prefigures the association with
strangling which is to be made by silly questions of the psychiatrist: "Did
he ever buy her a turtleneck sweater? . . . Was he annoyed when she found it
too tight at the throat?" (Ch. 16).

44.21-22: "Made in Turkey," whispered its label: The label whispers to us
like Iago that there is an Othello motif and the strangling theme. Cf.
Othello's death speech: "And say besides that in
Aleppo once, / Where a malignant and a turbaned Turk / Beat a Venetian and
traduced
the state, / I took by th' throat the circumcised dog / And smote him --
thus."

45.01-02: You swerved toward her: It seems that suddenly the narrator slides
into the
second person narrative, like in Butor's *La
Modification*, but together with "l'Erald Tribune" on the next page, it
suggests the existence of Armande, either she begins to narrate as Barbara
Wyllie discusses (*Nabokov at the Movies*, 220) or the other narrator is
teasing her imitating her dropping h's.

45.05-07: said in that lovely New York voice, with that harlot dash he would
have
recognized even in heaven: "The john is a joke": John, another J name.
"[E]ven in heaven" is a heaven motif
following an angel's delight. "[H]arlot"
alludes to the connection between Julia and
Giulia, and probably the narrator's (Mr. R's?) spiteful allusion to her
colorful love life.
I thought "the john" was usually used for the men's restroom.
Does Julia
refers to the men's room or the women's?

45.08-09: the mask of an affable grin: Cf. "That monumental man with his
clayey makeup
and false grin" (Ch. 10).

45.10-11: comically resembling Person's late Aunt Melissa whom we like very
much: suggests the ghosts's social life. Cf. "(the dead are good mixers,
tha's quite certain, at
least)" (Ch. 24).

45.16-18: She was a dear soul, with five cats, living in a toy house, at the
end of
the birch avenue, in the quietest part of: is from a nursery rhyme? I have
no idea about her origin except a butterfly VN classified. Cf. VN wrote to
the editor of NYT, "By a nice coincidence, the so-called 'Karner Blue'
illustrating Bayard Webster's note on insects needing protection is a
butterfly I classified myself. It is known as *Lycaeides melissa samuelis*
Nabokov." But VN
later he decides it is *Lycaeides samuelis* Nabokov more properly." (I
considered it at first to be a race of the western *melissa* Edwards, but
have concluded recently that it is a distinct species)" (*Nabokov's Blues,*
240).

45.16: a dear soul: Cf. 48.2-3: "he [HP] was merely a rather dear one."

45.21-22: splitting into many small quick gestures peculiar to that woman: A
filmic description--suspended-motion photographs or stop motion.

45.21-23: an impassive waitress, . . . her face impassive: reminds us of an
automaton or the figures in silent movies.

45.29: "My former stepfather, thank Heavens": A Heaven motif. VN left the
"thank Heavens" in typescript regardless of an editor's suggestion that it
should be "thank Heaven" that "the lovely harlot--dashed NY voice would be
more likely to say." I wonder if the editor was right and if he was, why VN
adhered to "Heavens."
I am curious to know: Is "Thank Heaven(s)" still used or getting an
old-fashioned expression?

45.31-32: some people in Moscow: Cf. "Faust in Moscow" (Ch. 6). Who is
considered to be the famous
young poet?

EDNOTE, EVTUSHENKO, I WOULD ASSUME.

46.01: what a big snow drift: An avalanche motif.

46.22: *Three Tenses*: The tense theme.

46.31: Alice, Beata, Claire: Cf. Ascot, Blur, Chur (Ch. 2).

47.10-11: Now you know what 'hot chocolate' has come to in Switzerland: Is
hot
chocolate really so distasteful in Switzerland, the birthplace of milk
chocolate? I regret I forgot to try it when I went to Switzerland.

48.06: "Fascination" (a waltz): is the theme music of the film *Love in the
Afternoon* (1957). I
cannot find any connection with the film. The waltz is used just as a cliche
of a Romantic scene?

Akiko Nakata

----- End forwarded message -----