Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0018239, Fri, 24 Apr 2009 23:23:10 EDT

Subject
Re: Russian novelist Vladimir Nabokov ...
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Elementary, My Dear Jansy.

Nabokov said (in fact he told me personally in 1959) that he named
the Karner Blue subspecies (which now may turn out to be a species in its
own right) samuelis in honor Samuel Scudder, one of the great American
entomologists of the 19th century and one of the two leading authorities on the
Lepidoptera of North America. (The other was William H. Edwards, born in the
Catskills, who inspired Henry Walter Bates & Alfred Russsel Wallace to
explore & collect in the Amazon Basin. Bates was the father of Batesian
mimicry --- ponder that you students of VN's magical imagery ---while Wallace
gave Darwin a run for the roses.)

For all the blizzard of emails that I receive every time I turn on
my computer about VN lit'ry matters, allusions, this & that small point,
etc. his deeply rich entomological side gets short shrift. There must be, God
knows, doctoral theses in this vein to mine. Hey, C. P. Snow was right.

Meanwhile, Happy Birthday to All, including Shirley Temple, .

Robert H. Boyle.
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