Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0018069, Thu, 26 Mar 2009 11:37:12 -0300

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[NABOKOV-L] Pale Fire and BardSpeak
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Pale fire: Aunt Maud's book was kept open in the letter "M", but it was a book of poems ( which one?) and Shade mentioned the Index ( as you pointed out). Hardly a natural place for a book to fall open.
Shade's dictionary, found in the garden, might probably be another invention by Kinbote, or his elaborations upon an unexplained, but simple, occurrence.
Were CK's observational powers as keen as Nabokov's? Shouldn't we consider that the author, at this point, is making an intromission by choosing a mirroring "M" in his novel?

Stan, I'm still stunned by the subtle variations in BardSpeak for "You and Thou." There's a problem with "tutoyages", perhaps in other languages besides French. In Brazil its use comes close to chaos.
In English it is easy to say I LOVE YOU and it's even possible to signal it with I - A RED HEART- YOU. Not so in Portuguese.
You may write, and it must come out differently from when you speak:
Eu amo você, amo você, eu te amo, te amo, amo-te, lhe amo(argh), eu a amo, amo-a ...and so on. People who would never employ the "tu" (in Rio everyone is democratically "você") often prefer to say:: Eu te amo, even when the entire sentence uses a third person singular. Probably loving is not enough.

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