Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0018245, Sat, 25 Apr 2009 15:20:26 -0300

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[NABOKOV-L] Pushkin's Cat in Chains, fugue and counterpoint.
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A little checking and, voilá, Boyd explains it all:
(The Library of America, page 802 on Ada,II, page 319)
Quercus ruslan Chât.
Nabokov wrote to Bobbie Ann Mason: "The specific name of this invented tree alludes to the beginning of Pushkin's long poem Ruslan and Lyudmilla (1820) where there is a cat (chat in French) walking on a golden chain around a fairytale oaktree. The oak in Ada is supposed to have been described by a botanist named Châtel (or Châtelet or Château-Lafite) abbreviated to Chât. after the specific ruslan. The distorted shadow of Chateaubriand should not interfere with the flash of the Ruslan-oak-cat recognition."

No reference to grottesque subliminar effects with grotto, fountain and papapissing and Lol's browninan pipapassing, which also happens in the proximity of the lines about the Quercus ruslan Chât.
Actually, in Lolita, following A. Appel Jr., there is an explanation about bladders and pissing, under "fountainism" or "undinism" (undine: mermaid).

In SM we learn that Mademoiselle's room carried a faint smell of urine, and, in Ada, Mlle la Rivière is once described while she is urinating in a river during a picnic.
The passing-pisser in Pale Fire, connected to barn (not burn), papa and King, is a gardener.
Apparently gardeners are more important than I surmised at first (with frequent cameo appearances and left over beer cans)

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