Subject
LATH query response.
From
Date
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EDITOR's NOTE. Below is the note I wrote to Sergey Il'in in response to
his LATH speculation. Comments anyone?
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: LATH
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 16:00:56 -0800
From: "D. Barton Johnson" <chtodel@gte.net>
Organization: International Nabokov Society
To: "Sergey B. Il'in" <sbil@online.ru>
References: <3.0.5.32.20020322144805.0079a5a0@pop.online.ru>
Dear Sergey,
I have been pondering your note. You may well be right in your
"literary"
explication but the more I look at the passage, the stranger it seems.
Incidentally, is that "clystere de Tchekhov" a set phrase in Russian or
VN's "translation of the French "violin d'Ingres"? i.e., a secondary
skill that is itself of great brilliance? And why is the "spy" motif
introduced here? It thematically echoes, I suppose, the (real) life
behind the imagined one as in Sogliadatai and in LATH itself. The
introduction of the ash tree is bizarre--very weakly motivated by the
spy reference. As well as the Pushkinian love letter "drop," holes in
trees for secret messages are still used in spycraft.
I don't find any references (via the WWW) to such events occuring around
San Bernadino. Nor do the two names appear real or obvious anagrams. But
recall -- VN does have a couple of cases of dunderhead Soviet agents (PF
for one). The "blueflowering ash" is the Olea europaea (common olive)
but I can't see that that leads anywhere--apart from the tree names of
the two agents.
his LATH speculation. Comments anyone?
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: LATH
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 16:00:56 -0800
From: "D. Barton Johnson" <chtodel@gte.net>
Organization: International Nabokov Society
To: "Sergey B. Il'in" <sbil@online.ru>
References: <3.0.5.32.20020322144805.0079a5a0@pop.online.ru>
Dear Sergey,
I have been pondering your note. You may well be right in your
"literary"
explication but the more I look at the passage, the stranger it seems.
Incidentally, is that "clystere de Tchekhov" a set phrase in Russian or
VN's "translation of the French "violin d'Ingres"? i.e., a secondary
skill that is itself of great brilliance? And why is the "spy" motif
introduced here? It thematically echoes, I suppose, the (real) life
behind the imagined one as in Sogliadatai and in LATH itself. The
introduction of the ash tree is bizarre--very weakly motivated by the
spy reference. As well as the Pushkinian love letter "drop," holes in
trees for secret messages are still used in spycraft.
I don't find any references (via the WWW) to such events occuring around
San Bernadino. Nor do the two names appear real or obvious anagrams. But
recall -- VN does have a couple of cases of dunderhead Soviet agents (PF
for one). The "blueflowering ash" is the Olea europaea (common olive)
but I can't see that that leads anywhere--apart from the tree names of
the two agents.