Subject
datura stramonium
From
Date
Body
Durmanova, the family name of Van's, Ada's and Lucette's mother Marina and her twin sister Aqua, comes from durman, Russian for "thorn-apple." The fragrant and attractive but perilous flowers of Datura stramonium (thorn-apple) are mentioned in Turgenev's story "Затишье" ("The Lull," 1854):
- Как датуры... Помнишь, Маша, как хороши были датуры у нас на балконе, при луне, с своими длинными белыми цветами. Помнишь, какой из них лился запах, сладкий, вкрадчивый и коварный.
- Коварный запах! - воскликнул Владимир Сергеич.
- Да, коварный. Чему вы удивляетесь? Он, говорят, опасен, а привлекает. Отчего злое может привлекать? Злое не должно быть красивым!*
Nadezhda Alekseevna (a character in Turgenev's story) compares datura to the upas tree (another poisonous plant), after Vladimir Astakhov (the story's hero) recited Pushkin's poem "Анчар" ("The Upas Tree"). Анчар + о = ранчо + а (ранчо - ranch). When Van meets the Vinelanders (Andrey, his wife Ada and sister Dorothy who calls Van le beau tenebreux - just as in Turgenev's play "Месяц в деревне"** Natalia Petrovna calls her confidant Rakitin), Andrey and Dorothy invite him to visit their Agavia Ranch in Arizona (3.8). The name of the Vinelanders' ranch comes from agave, a tree mentioned in Khodasevich's poem "Соррентинские фотографии" ("The Sorrento Snapshots," 1926):
Я вижу скалы и агавы
а в них, сквозь них и между них...
(I see rocks and agaves
and in them, through them and between them...)
In 1924-25 Khodasevich lived in Sorrento with Gorky and his family. In his essay "Gorky" (incuded in Necropolis, 1939) Khodasevich mentions Gorky's story "О тараканах" ("On Cockroaches," 1926), in which the author made some changes taking Khodasevich's advice. The story's hero cleverly poisoned cockroaches in childhood, but, when he grew up, is poisoned himself. On the other hand, the sailor who kills Gorky's Klim Samgin by trampling him down, calls him tarakan (a cockroach).
Marina remarked once that at Van's age she would have poisoned her governess with anti-roach borax if forbidden to read, for example, Turgenev's Smoke (1.21). Нет дыма без огня (there's no smoke without fire). This saying seems to suggest that Marina, who collected flowers near Aqua's first sanatorium (1.1), is responsible for the deterioration of her sister's health and, in the long run, her death (poor Aqua committed suicide by taking poison: 1.3). Similarly, Ada is responsible for the death of her lovers Percy de Prey (who is killed in a distant war***) and Philip Rack (who is poisoned by his wife), and Van and Ada are both responsible for the death of their half-sister Lucette (who took an overdose of Quietus pills before jumping into the Atlantic from the Tobakoff: 3.5).
Today is the 34th anniversary of VN's death. It's a shame that the city fathers who never heard of Nabokov (and even if they did hear of Lolita, they never read it) made July 2 "the Dostoevsky Day" in St. Petersburg.
*I also quote this dialogue (alas, I failed to find an English translation of Turgenev's story in the Internet) in my Russian article "The Poisonous Family Tree in Nabokov's Ada" (http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/sklyarenko4.doc). I might have quoted it in my more recent article (also available in Zembla) "The Red Flower of Evil in Nabokov's Ada."
**"A Month in the Country" (1850)
***in "The Poisonous Family Tree" I compare Percy's lot to that of Yakov Pasynkov, the eponymous hero of Turgenev's story (1855)
Alexey Sklyarenko
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/
- Как датуры... Помнишь, Маша, как хороши были датуры у нас на балконе, при луне, с своими длинными белыми цветами. Помнишь, какой из них лился запах, сладкий, вкрадчивый и коварный.
- Коварный запах! - воскликнул Владимир Сергеич.
- Да, коварный. Чему вы удивляетесь? Он, говорят, опасен, а привлекает. Отчего злое может привлекать? Злое не должно быть красивым!*
Nadezhda Alekseevna (a character in Turgenev's story) compares datura to the upas tree (another poisonous plant), after Vladimir Astakhov (the story's hero) recited Pushkin's poem "Анчар" ("The Upas Tree"). Анчар + о = ранчо + а (ранчо - ranch). When Van meets the Vinelanders (Andrey, his wife Ada and sister Dorothy who calls Van le beau tenebreux - just as in Turgenev's play "Месяц в деревне"** Natalia Petrovna calls her confidant Rakitin), Andrey and Dorothy invite him to visit their Agavia Ranch in Arizona (3.8). The name of the Vinelanders' ranch comes from agave, a tree mentioned in Khodasevich's poem "Соррентинские фотографии" ("The Sorrento Snapshots," 1926):
Я вижу скалы и агавы
а в них, сквозь них и между них...
(I see rocks and agaves
and in them, through them and between them...)
In 1924-25 Khodasevich lived in Sorrento with Gorky and his family. In his essay "Gorky" (incuded in Necropolis, 1939) Khodasevich mentions Gorky's story "О тараканах" ("On Cockroaches," 1926), in which the author made some changes taking Khodasevich's advice. The story's hero cleverly poisoned cockroaches in childhood, but, when he grew up, is poisoned himself. On the other hand, the sailor who kills Gorky's Klim Samgin by trampling him down, calls him tarakan (a cockroach).
Marina remarked once that at Van's age she would have poisoned her governess with anti-roach borax if forbidden to read, for example, Turgenev's Smoke (1.21). Нет дыма без огня (there's no smoke without fire). This saying seems to suggest that Marina, who collected flowers near Aqua's first sanatorium (1.1), is responsible for the deterioration of her sister's health and, in the long run, her death (poor Aqua committed suicide by taking poison: 1.3). Similarly, Ada is responsible for the death of her lovers Percy de Prey (who is killed in a distant war***) and Philip Rack (who is poisoned by his wife), and Van and Ada are both responsible for the death of their half-sister Lucette (who took an overdose of Quietus pills before jumping into the Atlantic from the Tobakoff: 3.5).
Today is the 34th anniversary of VN's death. It's a shame that the city fathers who never heard of Nabokov (and even if they did hear of Lolita, they never read it) made July 2 "the Dostoevsky Day" in St. Petersburg.
*I also quote this dialogue (alas, I failed to find an English translation of Turgenev's story in the Internet) in my Russian article "The Poisonous Family Tree in Nabokov's Ada" (http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/sklyarenko4.doc). I might have quoted it in my more recent article (also available in Zembla) "The Red Flower of Evil in Nabokov's Ada."
**"A Month in the Country" (1850)
***in "The Poisonous Family Tree" I compare Percy's lot to that of Yakov Pasynkov, the eponymous hero of Turgenev's story (1855)
Alexey Sklyarenko
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/