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Re: [NABOKOV-L] Shura Tobak: a web of...sense?
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Alexey Sklyarenko:A form of both Aleksandr and Aleksandra, Shura can be male or female first name...The sex of Shura Tobak's remains ambiguous. Presumably, Shura is a man, like his namesake and colleague Sashka skripatch (Sashka the fiddler), the Jewish hero of Kuprin's story "Gambrinus". In Ada, Mr Alexander Screepatch is the new President of the United Americas, a plethoric Russian (3.4)...Traveling in Soviet Central Asia with Aleksandr Ivanovich Koreyko (having missed the plane, they have to ride camels), Ostap Bender (who just squeezed from Koreyko one million rubles) suggests that they declare Jihad to Denmark, because the Danes have murdered their Prince Hamlet.True, the Kievan Prince Vladimir famously said, rejecting Islam: "Veselie Rusi est' piti" (the mirth of Rus is drinking). Btw., a feast of Vladimir the Fair Sun (Vladimir Krasnoe Solnyshko, as he was dubbed by his contemporaries) is described in Pushkin's "Ruslan and Lyudmila". In fact, Pushkin's Lyudmila is Vladimir's daughter.
JM: Thanks for the addenda, Alexey! Truly amazing to follow the connections with mermaids and mermen, fiddlers and cabbages, butlers and kings ( which demand an extensive knowledge of English and Russian) Perhaps "Ada" became a little Swiss.
See, in his childhood Nabokov grew up as a trilingual child in a trilingual environment (Russian, French, English) and then, in England, he studies French and Russian. But, in Germany, he is encapsulated by a Russian community until he can move to France (when he starts to write in English). At last, in America, reversing the overall trend, he leaves his coccoon to become a fully fledged American, immersed in the landscape, culture, language, people.
However next he settles in multiple (and neutral) Switzerland, surrounded by French, German, Italian... "Ada" must be a concoction resulting results from this new cultural and linguistic melting pot?
Not only Elsinore & not simply Christian Andersen's mermaid, there is also a transformed Danish city moving from Copen ( commerce?) onto God in this sentence:"They came in at the beginning of an introductory picture, featuring a cruise to Greenland, with heavy seas in gaudy technicolor. It was a rather irrelevant trip since their Tobakoff did not contemplate calling at Godhavn; moreover, the cinema theater was swaying in counterrhythm to the cobalt-and-emerald swell on the screen. No wonder the place was emptovato, as Lucette observed..., and she went on to say that the Robinsons had saved her life by giving her on the eve a tubeful of Quietus Pills. 'Want one? One a day keeps "no shah" away. Pun. You can chew it, it's sweet.' "
The axis or the purpose of thousands of allusions and puns (so cleverly woven, but drifting) eludes me. The terrible reference to Toulouse Lautrec, for example..."Van answered he was leaving next day for England, and then on June 3 (this was May 31) would be taking the Admiral Tobakoff back to the States. She would sail with him, she cried, it was a marvelous idea, she didn't mind whither to drift, really, West, East, Toulouse, Los Teques..."
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JM: Thanks for the addenda, Alexey! Truly amazing to follow the connections with mermaids and mermen, fiddlers and cabbages, butlers and kings ( which demand an extensive knowledge of English and Russian) Perhaps "Ada" became a little Swiss.
See, in his childhood Nabokov grew up as a trilingual child in a trilingual environment (Russian, French, English) and then, in England, he studies French and Russian. But, in Germany, he is encapsulated by a Russian community until he can move to France (when he starts to write in English). At last, in America, reversing the overall trend, he leaves his coccoon to become a fully fledged American, immersed in the landscape, culture, language, people.
However next he settles in multiple (and neutral) Switzerland, surrounded by French, German, Italian... "Ada" must be a concoction resulting results from this new cultural and linguistic melting pot?
Not only Elsinore & not simply Christian Andersen's mermaid, there is also a transformed Danish city moving from Copen ( commerce?) onto God in this sentence:"They came in at the beginning of an introductory picture, featuring a cruise to Greenland, with heavy seas in gaudy technicolor. It was a rather irrelevant trip since their Tobakoff did not contemplate calling at Godhavn; moreover, the cinema theater was swaying in counterrhythm to the cobalt-and-emerald swell on the screen. No wonder the place was emptovato, as Lucette observed..., and she went on to say that the Robinsons had saved her life by giving her on the eve a tubeful of Quietus Pills. 'Want one? One a day keeps "no shah" away. Pun. You can chew it, it's sweet.' "
The axis or the purpose of thousands of allusions and puns (so cleverly woven, but drifting) eludes me. The terrible reference to Toulouse Lautrec, for example..."Van answered he was leaving next day for England, and then on June 3 (this was May 31) would be taking the Admiral Tobakoff back to the States. She would sail with him, she cried, it was a marvelous idea, she didn't mind whither to drift, really, West, East, Toulouse, Los Teques..."
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/