Subject
[Fwd: Re: LATH query response.]
From
Date
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__ Cassel's French-English Dictionary__ gives 'enema' as a translation
for
'clystere'. Surely the association of that word with anal penetration
would be another suggestion of 'the nature of the relationship' between
the two spies.
-----------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: D. Barton Johnson <chtodel@gte.net>
To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Sent: Friday, March 29, 2002 8:05 PM
Subject: LATH query response.
> 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.
>
__ Cassel's French-English Dictionary__ gives 'enema' as a translation
for
'clystere'. Surely the association of that word with anal penetration
would be another suggestion of 'the nature of the relationship' between
the two spies.
-----------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: D. Barton Johnson <chtodel@gte.net>
To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Sent: Friday, March 29, 2002 8:05 PM
Subject: LATH query response.
> 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.
>