[This post is from Carolyn Kunin, whose connection to the Forum interface is for some reason malfunctioning; I'm posting on her behalf. -SB]
To the Forum,
I just recently read the famous Henry James tale the Aspern Papers, and at some point recognized an uncanny resemblance to Pushkin's Pikovaia Dama. It turns out I was not the first to see it––a certain Briggs published in 1972, and since then the relationship has been fodder for Slavists (see Neil Cornwell's Pushkin's 'Queen of Spades'). Our VN knew Pikovaia well of course and in a footnote in his magnum opus EO translation, he claims to have discovered a Swedish ur-Pikovaia (actually it was Véra Nabokov who found this tidbit and along with Gennady Barabtarlo published a short article on her trouvaille in Russian Literary Triquarterly, 24). We do know that VN read Aspern because he wrote Edmund Wilson about his displeasure with James's description of the shape of the tip of a cigar glowing in the dark in the story (I kid you not) but I could not find any evidence that he saw the resemblance between Aspern and Pikovaia. Is it possible he didn't see it? and if he did see it, why not mention it to Wilson, who would have relished such a tasty literary morsel?
Any ideas?
Carolyn Kunin
When a cigar is not a cigar
Looking further into the anatomy of a cigar I found that VN was technically correct.* However it should also be noted that he was missing James's rather obvious phallic point.
*the lit end of a cigar is properly called the "foot" or informally "the cherry" or "ember."
Turgenev, cryptology, and the name of the poet
While I'm at it, does anyone know anything about Turgenev's interest in cryptology? I have come to believe that Turgenev had James plant a number of "easter eggs" pointing to his, Turgenev's, collaboration in the conception of "the Aspern Papers."
I know Henry James himself had no interest in that sort of thing and yet "the Aspern Papers" has a number of clues that only Turgenev could have come up with––the most obvious of these is the name of the poet referred to in the title. Any guesses why?
First to answer correctly may choose a prize from the following:
"Pale Fire," (1st Putnam edition, 1962 with protected dustjacket)
Vladimir Markov's "Commentary on Bal'mont's Poetry 1890––1909" (Böhlau Verlag,1988, in Russian)
A Selection of Essays on "Slovo o polku Igoreve," edited by R Jakobson & E Simmons (American Folklore Society, 1949)
Michael Maar "The Two Lolitas" (Verso, 2005)
Turgenev & cryptology
While I'm at it, does anyone know anything about Turgenev's interest in cryptology? I have come to believe that Turgenev had James, who had no such interest, plant a number of "easter eggs" in the story pointing to Pushkin and Pikovaia Dama––the most obvious of these is the name of the poet referred to in the title. Any guesses why? First to answer correctly may choose a prize from the following:
Pale Fire, (1st Putnam edition, 1962 with protected dustjacket)
Vladimir Markov's Commentary on Bal'mont's Poetry 1890––1909 (Böhlau Verlag, 1988––in Russian)
A Selection of Essays on Slovo o polku Igoreve, edited by R Jakobson & E Simmons (American Folklore Society, 1949)
Michael Maar The Two Lolitas (Verso, 2005)
Irina Osinin?
Do you mean Irina Osinin, the heroine's maiden name in Turgenev's novel Dym ("Smoke," 1867)? The surname Osinin comes from osina (aspen in Russian). Btw., do you know Turgenev's good-natured epigram on Ketscher (Shakespeare's Russian translator, 1809-1886):
Вот еще светило мира!
Кетчер, друг шипучих вин;
Перепер он нам Шекспира
На язык родных осин.
Thank you, Carolyn, for drawing my attention to Henry James. It helped me to solve the mystery of Percy Elphinstone (the author of Venice Revisited and A Vagabond in Italy). In Lolita, Turgenev's story Three Meetings is alluded to when HH revisits Ramsdale on Sept, 24, 1952.
Unpublished paper on Aspern/QoS
Hello Carolyn,
I actually have an unpublished paper on the subject of Aspern/QoS. I submitted it to the last "Notes." My thesis was that there seems to be a literary line of connection between these two works and Pale Fire. Eric Naiman found it interesting, but didn't think I made a strong enough case for Pale Fire. I found a history of papers that had previously dealt with Aspern and Qos over the years, though. I can send it to you, if you like. It seems I am not able to upload the file here. I have copied and pasted the first page below:
The Suitor, The Crone, and the Maiden: PALE FIRE’s Gothic Mystery Games:
Pushkin and Henry James dual allusions in Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire.
This essay concerns a Nabokovian trouvaille, a find amongst Pale Fire’s pastiche of literary allusions. Reading Henry James’ The Aspern Papers, it occurred to me that the plot of an artful critic’s passion to purloin the papers of a dead poet, now jealously held by the poet’s aged former paramour appears to have been “borrowed” by Nabokov. The critic/narrator’s florid speech and rather dandy-ish demeanor sounds quite Kinbotian. There are hints, as well, that he is homosexual, through subtle coding, though, not so gloriously open as Kinbote. Further, it occurred to me that the tale of artistic obsession, literary appropriation, intrusion, transgressive access to a treasure guarded by a once beautiful, now decrepit old crone and her pathetic “old maid” ward, the ancient “chateau,” the ambiguous occult atmosphere, the death of the old “witch” accidentally occasioned by the protagonists’ transgression into her boudoir, the turn-around of the crone tricking the trickster, and the irony of the old maid’s triumph – all this reads exactly like Pushkin’s famous gothic tale, Queen of Spades. To my chagrin I found that I was not original in finding this correlation of Aspern to QoS. Brian Keith Henry (Henry) is the only critic I have found to compare Pale Fire to Aspern. On the other hand, Thomas Karshan notes that “A number of Nabokovians have lent their support to the view that ‘nearly all of Nabokov’s Russian prose comes out of “The Queen of Spades” […]” (Karshan, p. 84)
Mary Ross