Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0014213, Wed, 29 Nov 2006 02:02:39 -0200

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Re: "C" "K" "S" in PF solution;sound shortcuts to character sounds
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If I'm not mistaken, this conversation began with the theme of "cunning stunts" which, in former postings ( for example, Eric Naiman's in August 12, 2004) shuttle between this title and "Oh, Calcutta". It has now been distilled, perhaps, through glassy digestive "coils and crucibles" until refined into a heady substance.

Victor Fet expanded "Carolyn's Cabbalistic Equation" into "C = K = S = Z (Z for Zembla)...Adding Cyrillic 3, we get also Pythagorean triad, the number of main characters in PF.C = K = S = 3 = Z . And then C = K = S = 3 = Z = C since Germanic Z is pronounced 'ts', so one goes a full zirkle."
Next, he crowned it all: "... therefeore, K=C=Ch [via Italian] = Sh [sound of French "ch" in English transcription] -- a shortcut from Kinbote via Charles to Shade.This is Lewis Carroll's (=Carolus Ludovicus) word golf expanded to characters/sounds.
So in Russian (and Zemblan??), surname Kinbote and "Charles the Beloved" (but not Charles Kinbote!) start with the same sound/letter K.

But I'm lost again. From C=K=S to C=K=S=Z we arrive full circle at... C=C and K=K?

Anthony Stadlen quoted Kunin's " By coincidence (so far as I know) the disparate sounds /k/ and /s/ are represented in the Greek and Roman alphabets as "c", saying that he did not understand: 'In Greek k is kappa and s is sigma. There is no "c".'

Myself, I miss how "G" was refined into "C" after following Carolyn Kunin's initial arguments: "The index title page tells us that the three main characters of the book are G, K, & S. After staring at those three letters for quite some time I began to see the G as a modified C and then the solution came to me: C = K = S."

Nabokov's "Speak, Memory" (1966 edition) also carries an Index, with proper names set off by quotation marks.
VN tells us that "Its main purpose is to list for my convenience some of the people and themes connected with my past years. Its presence will annoy the vulgar but may please the discerning, if only because
Through the window of that index
Climbs a rose
And sometimes a gentle wind ex
Ponto blows."

Isn't that what VN had planned all along: inviting readers to extend his work on and on, so that it may rise like Venus impelled on a nacreous shell with Boreas' help?
Jansy

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