Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0027342, Fri, 31 Mar 2017 22:20:07 +0300

Subject
Odon,
Netochka & Starover Blue in Pale Fire; nonnons in Invitation to a
Beheading
Date
Body
The characters of VN’s novel Pale Fire (1962) include Odon (pseudonym of Donald O'Donnell, b. 1915, world-famous actor and Zemblan patriot). According to Kinbote, Odon has a half-brother Nodo (b. 1916, son of Leopold O'Donnell and of a Zemblan boy impersonator; a cardsharp and despicable traitor; Index to PF). Odon = Nodo = odno (neut. of odin, “one”). At the beginning of his article Istoriya glagola stushevat’sya (“The History of the Verb Stushevat’sya”) in Dnevnik pisatelya (“A Writer’s Diary,” November, 1877) Dostoevski uses the phrase odno slovo (one word):



Кстати, по поводу происхождения и употребления новых слов. В литературе нашей есть одно слово: "стушеваться", всеми употребляемое, хоть и не вчера родившееся, но и довольно недавнее, не более трёх десятков лет существующее; при Пушкине оно совсем не было известно и не употреблялось никем.



According to Dostoevski, the word stushevat’sya (“to retire to the background, efface oneself”) was invented by his classmates at the Main Military Engineering school and for the first time used by him in Dvoynik (“The Double,” 1846):



Теперь же его можно найти не только у литераторов, у беллетристов, во всех смыслах, с самого шутливого и до серьезнейшего, но можно найти и в научных трактатах, в диссертациях, в философских книгах; мало того, можно найти в деловых департаментских, бумагах, в рапортах, в отчётах, в приказах даже: всем оно известно, все его понимают, все употребляют. И однако, во всей России есть один только человек, который знает точное происхождение этого слова, время его изобретения и появления в литературе. Этот человек - я, потому что ввел и употребил это слово в литературе в первый раз - я. Появилось это слово в печати, в первый раз, 1-го января 1846 года, в "Отечественных записках", в повести моей "Двойник, приключения господина Голядкина".



Explaining the word’s meaning, Dostoevski uses the phrase soyti na net (come to naught) and mentions ten’ (shade):



Слово "стушеваться" значит исчезнуть, уничтожиться, сойти, так сказать, на нет. Но уничтожиться не вдруг, не провалившись сквозь землю, с громом и треском, а, так сказать, деликатно, плавно, неприметно погрузившись в ничтожество. Похоже на то, как сбывает тень на затушёванной тушью полосе в рисунке, с чёрного постепенно на более светлое и наконец совсем на белое, на нет.



Net (no; not) brings to mind Netochka (Dr Oscar Nattochdag, head of the department to which Kinbote is attached):



There was also the morning when Dr. Nattochdag, head of the department to which I was attached, begged me in a formal voice to be seated, then closed the door, and having regained, with a downcast frown, his swivel chair, urged me "to be more careful." In what sense, careful? A boy had complained to his adviser. Complained of what, good Lord? That I had criticized a literature course he attended ("a ridiculous survey of ridiculous works, conducted by a ridiculous mediocrity"). Laughing in sheer relief, I embraced my good Netochka, telling him I would never be naughty again. I take this opportunity to salute him. He always behaved with such exquisite courtesy toward me that I sometimes wondered if he did not suspect what Shade suspected, and what only three people (two trustees and the president of the college) definitely knew. (Foreword)



In Swedish natt och dag means “night and day.” Dostoevski is the author of Belye nochi (“The White Nights,” 1848) and Netochka Nezvanov (1849), a novel that remained unfinished because the writer was arrested and exiled to Siberia.



At the end of his article Dostoevski confesses that what pleased him most during his entire literary work was introducing a new word in language and meeting that word in press:



Если же хотите, то, для ясности, покаюсь вполне: мне, в продолжение всей моей литературной деятельности, всего более нравилось в ней то, что и мне удалось ввести совсем новое словечко в русскую речь, и когда я встречал это словцо в печати, то всегда ощущал самое приятное впечатление; ну, теперь, стало быть, вы поймёте, почему я нашел возможным описать такие пустяки даже в особой статейке.



VN, who invented the Russian word krestoslovitsa (crossword puzzle) and the English word “nymphet” (for the first time used in Lolita), must have felt a double pleasure every time he saw the word “nymphet” in a crossword puzzle.



In a letter of October 31, 1838, to his brother Mikhail, in which he twice uses the word gradus (degree), Dostoevski says that he failed his examination because in the course of the year he had been somewhat cheeky to the Professor of Algebra:



Я потерял, убил столько дней до экзамена, заболел, похудел, выдержал экзамен отлично в полной силе и объёме этого слова и остался... Так хотел один преподающий (алгебры), которому я нагрубил в продолженье года и который нынче имел подлость напомнить мне это, объясняя причину, отчего остался я...



In VN’s novel Lolita (1955) Humbert Humbert is afraid that Charlotte will bundle off Lolita to St. Algebra. At Beardsley College the teachers complain that Dolly is rude to them. The name of the College seems to hint at Aubrey Beardsley (1872-98), the author of illustrations for Oscar Wilde’s play Salome (1891). In Wilde’s play Salome requests the head of Jokanaan (John the Baptist) on a silver platter as a reward for dancing the Dance of the Seven Veils. In VN’s novel Priglashenie na kazn’ (“Invitation to a Beheading,” 1935) Cincinnatus’ mother mentions netki (nonnons), a toy that was once popular:



- А вы не шутите, - сказала Цецилия Ц., - бывают, знаете, удивительные уловки. Вот я помню: когда была ребёнком, в моде были, - ах, не только у ребят, но и у взрослых, - такие штуки, назывались "нетки", - и к ним полагалось, значит, особое зеркало, мало что кривое - абсолютно искажённое, ничего нельзя понять, провалы, путаница, всё скользит в глазах, но его кривизна была неспроста, а как раз так пригнана... Или, скорее, к его кривизне были так подобраны... Нет, постойте, я плохо объясняю. Одним словом, у вас было такое вот дикое зеркало и целая коллекция разных неток, то есть абсолютно нелепых предметов: всякие такие бесформенные, пёстрые, в дырках, в пятнах, рябые, шишковатые штуки, вроде каких-то ископаемых, - но зеркало, которое обыкновенные предметы абсолютно искажало, теперь, значит, получало настоящую пищу, то есть, когда вы такой непонятный и уродливый предмет ставили так, что он отражался в непонятном и уродливом зеркале, получалось замечательно; нет на нет давало да, все восстанавливалось, все было хорошо, - и вот из бесформенной пестряди получался в зеркале чудный стройный образ: цветы, корабль, фигура, какой-нибудь пейзаж. Можно было - на заказ - даже собственный портрет, то есть вам давали какую-то кошмарную кашу, а это и были вы, но ключ от вас был у зеркала. Ах, я помню, как было весело и немного жутко - вдруг ничего не получится! - брать в руку вот такую новую непонятную нетку и приближать к зеркалу, и видеть в нем, как твоя рука совершенно разлагается, но зато как бессмысленная нетка складывается в прелестную картину, ясную, ясную...



“You oughtn’t joke like that,” said Cecilia C. “There are, you know, all sorts of marvelous gimmicks. I remember, for instance when I was a child, there were objects called ‘nonnons’ that were popular, and not only among children, but among adults too, and, you see, a special mirror came with them, not just crooked, but completely distorted. You couldn’t make out anything of it, it was all gaps and jumble, and made no sense to the eye—yet the crookedness was no ordinary one, but calculated in just such a way as to… Or rather, to match its crookedness they had made … No, wait a minute, I am explaining badly. Well, you would have a crazy mirror like that and a whole collection of different ‘nonnons,’ absolutely absurd objects, shapeless, mottled, pockmarked, knobby things, like some kind of fossils—but the mirror, which completely distorted ordinary objects, now, you see, got real food, that is, when you placed one of these incomprehensible, monstrous objects so that it was reflected in the incomprehensible, monstrous mirror, a marvelous thing happened; minus by minus equaled plus, everything was restored, everything was fine, and the shapeless speckledness became in the mirror a wonderful, sensible image; flowers, a ship, a person, a landscape. You could have your own portrait custom made, that is, you received some nightmarish jumble, and this thing was you, only the key to you was held by the mirror. Oh, I remember what fun it was, and how it was a little frightening—what if suddenly nothing should come out?—to pick up a new, incomprehensible ‘nonnon’ and bring it near the mirror, and see your hand get all scrambled, and and at the same time see the meaningless ‘nonnon’ turn into a charming picture, so very, very clear …” (chapter XII)



At the beginning of VN’s novel the jailer Rodion enters Cincinnatus' cell and offers him tur val'sa (to dance a waltz with him):



Спустя некоторое время тюремщик Родион вошёл и ему предложил тур вальса. Цинциннат согласился. Они закружились. Бренчали у Родиона ключи на кожаном поясе, от него пахло мужиком, табаком, чесноком, и он напевал, пыхтя в рыжую бороду, и скрипели ржавые суставы (не те годы, увы, опух, одышка). Их вынесло в коридор. Цинциннат был гораздо меньше своего кавалера. Цинциннат был лёгок как лист. Ветер вальса пушил светлые концы его длинных, но жидких усов, а большие, прозрачные глаза косили, как у всех пугливых танцоров.



Sometime later Rodion the jailer came in and offered to dance a waltz with him. Cincinnatus agreed. They began to whirl. The keys on Rodion's leather belt jangled; he smelled of sweat, tobacco and garlic; he hummed puffing into his red beard; and his rusty joints creaked (he was not what he used to be, alas - now he was fat and short of breath). The dance carried them into the corridor. Cincinnatus was much smaller than his partner. Cincinnatus was light as a leaf. The wind of the waltz made the tips of his long but thin mustache flutter, and his big limpid eyes looked askance, as is always the case with timorous dancers. (chapter I)



The characters of “Invitation to a Beheading” include the lawyer Roman. In Dostoevski’s novel Prestuplenie i nakazanie (“Crime and Punishment,” 1866) the name of the main character is Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov. In Russian, raskol’nik means “schismatic, dissenter” and is a synonym of starover (Old Believer). In his poem Shade mentions the great Starover Blue who teaches at Wordsmith University:



The great Starover Blue reviewed the role
Planets had played as landfalls of the soul. (ll. 627-628)



In his note to Line 627 Kinbote mentions Oscar Nattochdag:



Presumably, permission from Prof. Blue was obtained but even so the plunging of a real person, no matter how sportive and willing, into an invented milieu where he is made to perform in accordance with the invention, strikes one as a singularly tasteless device, especially since other real-life characters, except members of the family, of course, are pseudonymized in the poem.

This name, no doubt, is most tempting. The star over the blue eminently suits an astronomer though actually neither his first nor second name bears any relation to the celestial vault: the first was given him in memory of his grandfather, a Russian starover (accented, incidentally, on the ultima), that is, Old Believer (member of a schismatic sect), named Sinyavin, from siniy, Russ. "blue." This Sinyavin migrated from Saratov to Seattle and begot a son who eventually changed his name to Blue and married Stella Lazurchik, an Americanized Kashube. So it goes. Honest Starover Blue will probably be surprised by the epithet bestowed upon him by a jesting Shade. The writer feels moved to pay here a small tribute to the amiable old freak, adored by everybody on the campus and nicknamed by the students Colonel Starbottle, evidently because of his exceptionally convivial habits. After all, there were other great men in our poet's entourage--for example, that distinguished Zemblan scholar Oscar Nattochdag.



In the Elphinstone chapter of Lolita Humbert Humbert mentions Dr. Blue and a heterosexual Erlkönig in pursuit:



Mrs. Hays in the meantime had alerted the local doctor. “You are lucky it happened here,” she said; for not only was Blue the best man in the district, but the Elphinstone hospital was as modern as modern could be, despite its limited capacity. With a hetero­sexual Erlkönig in pursuit, thither I drove, half-blinded by a royal sunset on the low­land side and guided by a little old woman, a portable witch, perhaps his daughter, whom Mrs. Hays had lent me, and whom I was never to see again. (2.22)



One of the leitmotifs in Shade’s poem is the beginning of Goethe’s Erlkönig (1782):



Wer reitet so spät durch Nacht und Wind?

Es ist der Vater mit seinem Kind.



Who rides so late through the windy night?
The father holding his young son so tight.



Netki rhymes with detki (children) and bedki (troubles). According to a Russian saying, bol’shie detki – bol’shie bedki (“big children, big troubles”). After the suicide of his daughter Nadezhda, Professor Vsevolod Botkin went mad and became Shade, Kinbote and Gradus. There is a hope (nadezhda) that, when Kinbote completes his work on Shade’s poem and commits suicide (on October 19, 1959, the anniversary of Pushkin’s Lyceum), Botkin will be full again.



Alexey Sklyarenko


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