Friends,

I am working on a research project and would like to know what VN (or someone) has written in the margin on the first notecard of the manuscript of the PF poem. A picture of the card is included in Boyd's VNAY, if you want to see for yourself, but I have attached a blown up image. The second word is clearly "canto" but the rest I can't read. Is it Russian? Any help you can give me would be much appreciated.

Matt Roth

Hello, I was wondering whether anyone could help me in finding bibliography or anything related to Nabokov as a language learner. I am specially interested in his learning of German and to what extend he knew Spanish.

Marta

“Thus goes the Hegelian syllogism of humor. Thesis: Uncle made himself up as a burglar (a laugh for the children): Antithesis: it was a burglar (a laugh for the reader); synthesis: it still was Uncle (fooling the reader). (LITD, 143)

 

Here is how I see the thetic arcs working in PALE FIRE:

     Nabokov’s Pale Fire is replete with allusions to literary greats (and some not-so-greats), as is well known. One allusion that I believe has not been mentioned suggests J. D. Salinger. Salinger was actually one of the few of his contemporaries that Nabokov approved of. They each had a story in The New Yorker’s anthology of the 55 best short stories published from 1940-1950.

     Nabokov’s Pale Fire is replete with allusions to literary greats (and some not-so-greats), as is well known. One allusion that I believe has not been mentioned suggests J. D. Salinger. Salinger was actually one of the few of his contemporaries that Nabokov approved of. They each had a story in The New Yorker’s anthology of the 55 best short stories published from 1940-1950.

Hello, I was wondering if anyone had access to, or could let me know where to find, Nabokov's 'Angels' poetry sequence (a set of 9 poems written in 1918 (?). I can't easily find a reference to them anywhere (including Boyd's the Russian Years) so would appreciate any guidance. I worry they are tucked away in an archive somewhere!  I am looking at Nabokov's use of biblical language (and specifically the Wandering Jew) as influenced by Symbolists such as Maximilian Voloshin. 

Thanks :)
Anoushka

(you can email me directly at a.alexander-rose@soton.ac.uk) 

I'm aware of Nabokov's Russian translation of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, and I've come across many references to the role of chess in Pale Fire and Through the Looking-Glass (1871). 

I haven't seen any mention of Pale Fire's structural and thematic similarities with Carroll's later novel(s) Sylvie and Bruno (1889) and Sylvie and Bruno Concluded (1893). I realise I may be looking in all the wrong places . . . 

Here's a quick overview of the novels' structure:

Sylvie and Bruno

As has already been mentioned, in Ada, Part One, Chapter 12, the mention of a hammock begets both these parentheticals:

"(where a former summer guest, with an opera cloak over his clammy nightshirt, had awoken once because a stink bomb had burst among the instruments in the horsecart, and striking a match, Uncle Van had seen the bright blood blotching his pillow)."

"(where that other poor youth had cursed his blood cough and sunk back into dreams of prowling black spumas and a crash of symbols in an orchal orchestra—as suggested to him by career physicians)"

I happened to come across a reference to “Svengali and Trilby” the other day. I had long been aware of “Svengali” as a sort of mastermind mesmerist, but was not aware that he was fictional – from an 1894 novel by George du Maurier, Trilby. I had never heard the word “trilby” until reading Pale Fire, where I found out it referred to a type of hat  – worn in PF by “the man in brown,” Gradus (in Britain it is called a “brown trilby”).

It occurs to me that the image of Hazel as “Mother Time” is an allusion to the character “Kate” the old charwoman in Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. Kate appears with slop pail and broom, and like Time, is always cleaning up the mess after disasters, picking out various detritus which she has been throwing on her garbage heap since the beginning of time. The word “time” is frequently found somewhere near her.