Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0020578, Tue, 24 Aug 2010 17:39:53 -0300

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RES: [NABOKV-L] Tobak-plus-snob anagram
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Alexey sends: 'Everybody is un peu snob,' said Lucette. 'Your Cordula, who
is also around, cannot forgive Shura Tobak, the violinist, for being her
husband's neighbor in the telephone book.' (3.3) - Tobak + snob = Nabok +
Obst = Sobak + bon mot + kvas - Moskva

.Nabok - Tartar Prince mentioned in Ada: for her sixteenth birthday Greg
Erminin gives Ada "a little camel of yellow ivory carved in Kiev, five
centuries ago, in the days of Timur and Nabok" (1.39)..



JM: Nice to see the link between Nabok and Timur (ie: Timur the Lame, or
Tamerlane). Shade's lines about tyrants roaring in hell, or the apparent
operatic understatement by Haendel in "Tamerlano," demand a similar
attention to stylistic subtleties before we can reach the full horror of
warring conquerors and their ever actual monstrosities.

Shade begins his poem as if under a sweet dreamlike trance ("The dead, the
gentle dead - who knows? - / In tungsten filaments abide,/ And on my bedside
table glows/ Another man's departed bride.") until forked lightning hits a
livid plain. This is the necessary element of "surprise"- which T.S.Eliot
considers fundamental in real poetry, when he distinguishes "emotions
considered to be poetic" and "the result of personal emotion in poetry"
(Essay on Dryden).
Yellow ivory for a yellow camel isn't anything that indicates something
yellowed by age, and here my ignorance astounds me once again: is there a
particular kind of "yellow ivory"? (I always considered ivory as a
substitute for "whiteness.")


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