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[NABOKOV-L] SIGHTING for Nabokovian "Divastigators"
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a.. Nabokov's Infernos: Apropos of Laura's Original (I)
nabokovsinfernos.blogspot.com/.../apropos-of-lauras-original.html -
excerpts:
§ 0 Synoptic spicilège of Laura's Original
The original of Laura, Flora Lind, is the offspring of the promiscuous ballerina Lanskaya and, legally at least, the fashionable New York photographer Adam Lind, himself the offspring of Russian emigré painter Lev Linde and his wife Eva. After Adam Lind shoots himself in a Montecarlo hotel, the widow Lanskaya takes Flora to Paris, Florence, London, and back to Paris, all the while enjoying a succession of glamorous lovers, the final not-so-glamorous one of which, perhaps, is the elderly English charmeur and fondler of child Flora, Hubert H. Hubert, whose daughter Daisy had been backed over and killed by a truck in his obscure preterite youth. Upon graduating from Sutton College, Flora, her mother newly dead, opens a boutique d'eventails with fellow student and Polish artist Rawitch; soon marries the brilliant neurologist, renowned lecturer, and gentleman of independent means, Dr Philip Wild; and cultivates her habitual wanton wont for, her inherited prurient penchant with, various lovers including, it seems, a certain A. Nigel Delling (AND), who, once dropped by Flora, authors the roman à clef My Laura from which Flora, naturally, gazes out through the mask of Laura, her mother transforms into the fabricated film actress Maya Umanskaya, and Dr Philip Wild sympathetically translates as Philidor Sauvage. Also involved are: Flora's friends Winnie and Anthony Carr and the latter's Aunt Emily; Flora's mulatto chambermaid Cora; Wild's scientific rivals Curson and Croydon (both demolished in a recent paper by Mr West); Flora's deflowerer Jules; a fun-loving Japanese girl with a Gallo-Slavic stepfather; literary critic and reviewer of My Laura, Ivan Vaughn; Wild's typist Sue Ure; and AND's urologist, Dr. Aupert.
§ 1.3 Plagiary by anticipation
Although Raymond Roussel was not a photographer, his suicide by overdose of barbiturates in a hotel in Palermo (Caradec 1997: 401-413) constitutes a plagiary by anticipation of the suicide by bullet in a hotel in Montecarlo of Flora's fashionable father Adam Lind (Nabokov 2009: 49), a plagiary made all the more apparent by its visual resonance-through the proxy of two of the 59 illustrations Roussel commissioned Henri A. Zo to provide for the last book he published during his lifetime, Nouvelles Impressions d'Afrique (pp. 195 and 203)-with the "automatic pictures of [Lind's] final moments" taken by a camera Lind had "geared and focussed [...] in a corner of the drawing room so as to record the event from different angles" (Nabokov 2009: 49). In Ian Monk's translation of Roussel's instructions to Zo, the two illustrations may be captioned, respectively, as follows: "An elegant man dressed in evening hat and coat going down the steps of a luxurious hallway; his open coat reveals that he is dressed in black (Roussel 2004: 210) and "An elegantly dressed man placing the barrel of a revolver against his temple, his finger on the trigger" (Roussel 2004: 218). Roussel furthermore anticipated Lind by masking his fondness for boys (Caradec 1997: 120-126; Nabokov 2009: 47-49) with what Anglo-Appalachians refer to as a beard and Gallo-Flouzianians as un paravent, though, in contrast with Lind's legal and possibly coital union with the ballerina Lanskaya, Roussel did not extend his contract with Charlotte Dufrène beyond the confines of companionable amitié (Caradec 1997: 126-129). Moreover, as the clitalyses in our ludicts of 26 February 2009, 9 February 2009, and 18 January 2009 have divastigated, the entire ouvre of Roussel, including his various procédés, constitutes a vast body of plagiaries by anticipation of not just Nabokov's methods of composition, but the very thematic quanta which generate the infratextual texture of his texts.
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nabokovsinfernos.blogspot.com/.../apropos-of-lauras-original.html -
excerpts:
§ 0 Synoptic spicilège of Laura's Original
The original of Laura, Flora Lind, is the offspring of the promiscuous ballerina Lanskaya and, legally at least, the fashionable New York photographer Adam Lind, himself the offspring of Russian emigré painter Lev Linde and his wife Eva. After Adam Lind shoots himself in a Montecarlo hotel, the widow Lanskaya takes Flora to Paris, Florence, London, and back to Paris, all the while enjoying a succession of glamorous lovers, the final not-so-glamorous one of which, perhaps, is the elderly English charmeur and fondler of child Flora, Hubert H. Hubert, whose daughter Daisy had been backed over and killed by a truck in his obscure preterite youth. Upon graduating from Sutton College, Flora, her mother newly dead, opens a boutique d'eventails with fellow student and Polish artist Rawitch; soon marries the brilliant neurologist, renowned lecturer, and gentleman of independent means, Dr Philip Wild; and cultivates her habitual wanton wont for, her inherited prurient penchant with, various lovers including, it seems, a certain A. Nigel Delling (AND), who, once dropped by Flora, authors the roman à clef My Laura from which Flora, naturally, gazes out through the mask of Laura, her mother transforms into the fabricated film actress Maya Umanskaya, and Dr Philip Wild sympathetically translates as Philidor Sauvage. Also involved are: Flora's friends Winnie and Anthony Carr and the latter's Aunt Emily; Flora's mulatto chambermaid Cora; Wild's scientific rivals Curson and Croydon (both demolished in a recent paper by Mr West); Flora's deflowerer Jules; a fun-loving Japanese girl with a Gallo-Slavic stepfather; literary critic and reviewer of My Laura, Ivan Vaughn; Wild's typist Sue Ure; and AND's urologist, Dr. Aupert.
§ 1.3 Plagiary by anticipation
Although Raymond Roussel was not a photographer, his suicide by overdose of barbiturates in a hotel in Palermo (Caradec 1997: 401-413) constitutes a plagiary by anticipation of the suicide by bullet in a hotel in Montecarlo of Flora's fashionable father Adam Lind (Nabokov 2009: 49), a plagiary made all the more apparent by its visual resonance-through the proxy of two of the 59 illustrations Roussel commissioned Henri A. Zo to provide for the last book he published during his lifetime, Nouvelles Impressions d'Afrique (pp. 195 and 203)-with the "automatic pictures of [Lind's] final moments" taken by a camera Lind had "geared and focussed [...] in a corner of the drawing room so as to record the event from different angles" (Nabokov 2009: 49). In Ian Monk's translation of Roussel's instructions to Zo, the two illustrations may be captioned, respectively, as follows: "An elegant man dressed in evening hat and coat going down the steps of a luxurious hallway; his open coat reveals that he is dressed in black (Roussel 2004: 210) and "An elegantly dressed man placing the barrel of a revolver against his temple, his finger on the trigger" (Roussel 2004: 218). Roussel furthermore anticipated Lind by masking his fondness for boys (Caradec 1997: 120-126; Nabokov 2009: 47-49) with what Anglo-Appalachians refer to as a beard and Gallo-Flouzianians as un paravent, though, in contrast with Lind's legal and possibly coital union with the ballerina Lanskaya, Roussel did not extend his contract with Charlotte Dufrène beyond the confines of companionable amitié (Caradec 1997: 126-129). Moreover, as the clitalyses in our ludicts of 26 February 2009, 9 February 2009, and 18 January 2009 have divastigated, the entire ouvre of Roussel, including his various procédés, constitutes a vast body of plagiaries by anticipation of not just Nabokov's methods of composition, but the very thematic quanta which generate the infratextual texture of his texts.
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/
