Subject
[NABOKOV-L] [SIGHTING] October 2010: French edition of
"Mademoiselle"
"Mademoiselle"
From
Date
Body
a.. Due to the recent success of the movie "Black Swan"*, and a series of "youtube" ballet presentations of a dying swan relayed to me, I decided to check for items related to Nabokov's own version of a dying old swan. I noticed, today, that Nabokov is unsure if he "had not kept utterly missing something in her that was far more she than her chins...something perhaps akin to that last glimpse of her..., or to that swan whose agony was so much closer to artistic truth than a drooping dancer's pale arms..."** and his feelings seemed incongruously to echo those he's described about lithe graceful young Nina, in Spring in Fialta: "I grew apprehensive because something lovely, delicate, and unrepeatable was being wasted: something which I abused by snapping off poor bright bits in gross haste while neglecting the modest but true core which perhaps it kept offering me in a pitiful whisper."
During this process I came across a belated sighting ( October, 2010), related to a new edition of Nabokov's "Mademoiselle O" in France. It was translated from the English and not published in Nabokov's French original (or so I understood from the captions).
Vladimir Nabokov : Mademoiselle O
3 min - 3 out. 2010
dailymotion.com
.................................................................................
* Wiki on Black Swan, a 2010 American psychological thriller film directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Natalie Portman, Vincent Cassel, and Mila Kunis. Its plot revolves around a production of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake ballet...the production requires a ballerina to play both the innocent White Swan and the sensual Black Swan. One dancer, Nina (Portman), is a perfect fit for the White Swan, while Lily (Kunis) has a personality that matches the Black Swan. When the two compete for the parts, Nina finds a dark side to herself. Aronofsky conceived the premise by connecting his viewings of a production of Swan Lake with an unrealized screenplay about understudies and the notion of being haunted by a double, similar to the folklore surrounding doppelgängers....
** -
Vladimir Nabokov, Mademoiselle O (excerpts):
"Before leaving for Basle and Berlin, I happened to be walking along the lake in the cold, misty night..."Il plut toujours en Suisse" was one of those casual comments which, formerly, had made Mademoiselle weep. Below, a wide ripple, almost a wave, and something vaguely white attracted my eye. As I came quite close to the lapping water, I saw what it was-an aged swan, a large, uncouth, dodolike creature, making ridiculous efforts to hoist himself into a moored boat. He could not do it. The heavy, impotent flapping of his wings, their slippery sound against the rocking and plashing boat, the gluey glistening of the dark swell where it caught the light-all seemed for a moment laden with that strange significance which sometimes in dreams is attached to a finger pressed to mute lips and then pointed at something the dreamer has no time to distinguish before waking with a start. But although I soon forgot that dismal night, it was, oddly enough, that night, that compound image-shudder and swan and swell-which first came to my mind when a couple of years later I learned that Mademoiselle had died.
She had spent all her life in feeling miserable...What bothers me is that a sense of misery, and nothing else, is not enough to make a permanent soul. My enormous and morose Mademoiselle is all right on earth but impossible in eternity. Have I really salvaged her from fiction?...wondering if...I had not kept utterly missing something in her that was far more she than her chins...something perhaps akin to that last glimpse of her..., or to that swan whose agony was so much closer to artistic truth than a drooping dancer's pale arms; something, in short, that I could appreciate only after the things and beings that I had most loved in the security of my childhood had been turned to ashes or shot through the heart."
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During this process I came across a belated sighting ( October, 2010), related to a new edition of Nabokov's "Mademoiselle O" in France. It was translated from the English and not published in Nabokov's French original (or so I understood from the captions).
Vladimir Nabokov : Mademoiselle O
3 min - 3 out. 2010
dailymotion.com
.................................................................................
* Wiki on Black Swan, a 2010 American psychological thriller film directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Natalie Portman, Vincent Cassel, and Mila Kunis. Its plot revolves around a production of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake ballet...the production requires a ballerina to play both the innocent White Swan and the sensual Black Swan. One dancer, Nina (Portman), is a perfect fit for the White Swan, while Lily (Kunis) has a personality that matches the Black Swan. When the two compete for the parts, Nina finds a dark side to herself. Aronofsky conceived the premise by connecting his viewings of a production of Swan Lake with an unrealized screenplay about understudies and the notion of being haunted by a double, similar to the folklore surrounding doppelgängers....
** -
Vladimir Nabokov, Mademoiselle O (excerpts):
"Before leaving for Basle and Berlin, I happened to be walking along the lake in the cold, misty night..."Il plut toujours en Suisse" was one of those casual comments which, formerly, had made Mademoiselle weep. Below, a wide ripple, almost a wave, and something vaguely white attracted my eye. As I came quite close to the lapping water, I saw what it was-an aged swan, a large, uncouth, dodolike creature, making ridiculous efforts to hoist himself into a moored boat. He could not do it. The heavy, impotent flapping of his wings, their slippery sound against the rocking and plashing boat, the gluey glistening of the dark swell where it caught the light-all seemed for a moment laden with that strange significance which sometimes in dreams is attached to a finger pressed to mute lips and then pointed at something the dreamer has no time to distinguish before waking with a start. But although I soon forgot that dismal night, it was, oddly enough, that night, that compound image-shudder and swan and swell-which first came to my mind when a couple of years later I learned that Mademoiselle had died.
She had spent all her life in feeling miserable...What bothers me is that a sense of misery, and nothing else, is not enough to make a permanent soul. My enormous and morose Mademoiselle is all right on earth but impossible in eternity. Have I really salvaged her from fiction?...wondering if...I had not kept utterly missing something in her that was far more she than her chins...something perhaps akin to that last glimpse of her..., or to that swan whose agony was so much closer to artistic truth than a drooping dancer's pale arms; something, in short, that I could appreciate only after the things and beings that I had most loved in the security of my childhood had been turned to ashes or shot through the heart."
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/
