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Fw: Nabokov & double dactyls
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EDNOTE. ANy thoughts on this anybody? I would point out that Scandinavian mythology is an important motif in PALE FIRE. Priscilla Meyer has written a book on PF with special attention to Icelandic myths and other other bits of Scando-lore.
----- Original Message -----
From: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2003 1:13 PM
Subject: Re: Nabokov & double dactyls
Hello
Although I´m way out from my own field of work, I keep trying to follow the List and VN. I have a special puzzle in Ada which I think could now be broached upon. If you think it has any bearing to or means anything of interest please forward it to the list. Otherwise, delete it...
I´ve been enjoying J.L.Borges classes in English Literature in Buenos Aires where he tries to teach the misteries of a "secret chamber" in English, their "the subterranean gold that mythical serpents keep". This is how Borges refers to the antique gold found in the poetry of the anglo-saxons before he concludes with: "man sings before he speaks" ....
Borges observed that the Germans didn´t use rhymes or isossylabic verses and had to resort to "kennnings" to demarcate their sentences.
While reading Borges and also "Ada" I began to entertain the idea that we might discover a use of metaphors in VN that would be similar to the scandinavian Kenningar!.
An example is already present in the alliterative epic poem " Beowulf" where the title stands as a metaphor for " the wolf of the bees" which, in turn, points to "bear".
Having in mind that German and Scandinavian people had to enter a special state of mind to fight a war ( berserk ) since their leaders wore a bearskin, VN´s reference to "bears" and furs ( F/ Urs ? ) gains a special meaning for me, but which I cannot follow since I know no Russian.
Here are some examples
Ada, 1969 Penguin Edition:
page 304: Let´s have dinner at Ursus next weekend.
page 322: " Van took them Saaturday night to 'Ursus' the best Franco-Estonian restaurant in Manhattan Major"
pag.288: " I am ill at these numbers, but e´en rhymery is easier ' than confuting the past in mute prose' (...)
A black bear with bright russet locks ( the sun had reached its first parlor window ) (...)
"deep, dark coat, side-thinking ( he liked furs): sea bear ( kotik)? No, desman ( vihuhol).
page 307/308 " a deep brown, hoar-glossed coat of sea-otter fur, the famous kamchatstkiy bobr of ancient Estotian traders, also known as lutromarina on the Lyaska coast: 'my natural fur, ' as Marina used to say pleasantly of her own cape, inherited from a Zemski grandam, when, at the dispersal of a winter ball, some lady wearing vison or coypu or a lowly manteau de castor ( beaver, nemetskiy bobr) would comment with a rapturous moan on the bobrovaya shuba (...)
" Neither sibling ever could reconstruct ( and all this, including the sea-otter, must not be regarded as a narrator´s evasion - we have done, in our time, much more difficult things) what they said, how they kissed..."
Before this:
page 227: " one must not berne you"
pag.277/79 & 297 variations on Likrot, Rotikl, Krolik, Viktor, Krestik. If the "sea bear" is kotik, would those anagrams point to it and not only to victor, crest, Krolig..? How?
Thank you,
Jansy
----- Original Message -----
From: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2003 1:13 PM
Subject: Re: Nabokov & double dactyls
Hello
Although I´m way out from my own field of work, I keep trying to follow the List and VN. I have a special puzzle in Ada which I think could now be broached upon. If you think it has any bearing to or means anything of interest please forward it to the list. Otherwise, delete it...
I´ve been enjoying J.L.Borges classes in English Literature in Buenos Aires where he tries to teach the misteries of a "secret chamber" in English, their "the subterranean gold that mythical serpents keep". This is how Borges refers to the antique gold found in the poetry of the anglo-saxons before he concludes with: "man sings before he speaks" ....
Borges observed that the Germans didn´t use rhymes or isossylabic verses and had to resort to "kennnings" to demarcate their sentences.
While reading Borges and also "Ada" I began to entertain the idea that we might discover a use of metaphors in VN that would be similar to the scandinavian Kenningar!.
An example is already present in the alliterative epic poem " Beowulf" where the title stands as a metaphor for " the wolf of the bees" which, in turn, points to "bear".
Having in mind that German and Scandinavian people had to enter a special state of mind to fight a war ( berserk ) since their leaders wore a bearskin, VN´s reference to "bears" and furs ( F/ Urs ? ) gains a special meaning for me, but which I cannot follow since I know no Russian.
Here are some examples
Ada, 1969 Penguin Edition:
page 304: Let´s have dinner at Ursus next weekend.
page 322: " Van took them Saaturday night to 'Ursus' the best Franco-Estonian restaurant in Manhattan Major"
pag.288: " I am ill at these numbers, but e´en rhymery is easier ' than confuting the past in mute prose' (...)
A black bear with bright russet locks ( the sun had reached its first parlor window ) (...)
"deep, dark coat, side-thinking ( he liked furs): sea bear ( kotik)? No, desman ( vihuhol).
page 307/308 " a deep brown, hoar-glossed coat of sea-otter fur, the famous kamchatstkiy bobr of ancient Estotian traders, also known as lutromarina on the Lyaska coast: 'my natural fur, ' as Marina used to say pleasantly of her own cape, inherited from a Zemski grandam, when, at the dispersal of a winter ball, some lady wearing vison or coypu or a lowly manteau de castor ( beaver, nemetskiy bobr) would comment with a rapturous moan on the bobrovaya shuba (...)
" Neither sibling ever could reconstruct ( and all this, including the sea-otter, must not be regarded as a narrator´s evasion - we have done, in our time, much more difficult things) what they said, how they kissed..."
Before this:
page 227: " one must not berne you"
pag.277/79 & 297 variations on Likrot, Rotikl, Krolik, Viktor, Krestik. If the "sea bear" is kotik, would those anagrams point to it and not only to victor, crest, Krolig..? How?
Thank you,
Jansy