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Re: help with translation!
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Inspired by Lluba Tarvi's " Translation Quotient", I decided to grade Alexey Sklyarenko "100% positive" for his Gentleman's response at our List [ "I don't claim that I have kept in my translation 100% of the original (even the author would have failed it)..." ]
After Andrew Brown noted that there is a link between "mawkish" and Middle English "mawke/ maggot"! - I wondered next if 'maggots and botfly larvae apply to the same kind of "worm". The first, as in "Hamlet", prove the continuity of the life force in general; the second, as an analogy, seem to be more specifically inclined?' Once again we have serendipitous amusement by the close emergence of "mawkish Shade", "maggots", "sacorphagus" and "botflies" following Victor Fet's clarification:
"Flesh-eating flies (blowflies) have genus Sarcophaga and family Sarcophagidae...these are maggots, of course, not flies that eat dead flesh, and those are of course also the classical "worms" (that dine on Polonius etc.)...Well, at least they are NOT parasites. And while we are on the subject, here are parasitic BOTFLIES (Oestridae)..."
with another tantalizing question qua Kinbote:"Another doctor, Evgeny Botkin ...was family physician to Nicholas II family, murdered with the latter. This could be a shortcut to regicide theme so central to Pale Fire?" In my opinion, the regicide theme is not "so central to Pale Fire", since it appears only through Kinbote -unless Shadeans finally convince me that, besides their language and cultural differences, Shade and Kinbote also shared the same kind of lunatic discourse ( it is impossible for Shade to write like Kinbote - and vv - not if one, or both, were psychotics) .
Jansy
PS: What a pity that Appel's annotations to "Lolita" are not followed by an Index ( no irony intended). I wanted to check the psychiatrist he quoted while mentioning fountainism and undinism since the only name that came to my mind was Kraft-Ebbing (Psycopathia Sexualis) and I know this is incorrect. Anyway, I think that the best way to proceed to understand "lunacy" in Nabokov's works would be to check, like SB did, psychiatric journals. I would also add standard texts like ...( now I remembered it) Havelock Ellis' and VN's collection of newspaper clippings on the subject of madness and perversion.
Wikipedia informs: "According to Ellis in My Life, his friends were much amused at his being considered an expert on sex considering the fact that he suffered from impotence until the age of 60, when he discovered that was able to become aroused by the sight of a woman urinating. His Sexual Inversion, the first English medical text book on homosexuality, co-authored with John Addington Symonds, described the sexual relations of homosexual men, something that Ellis did not consider to be a disease, immoral, or a crime; a bookseller was prosecuted in 1897 for stocking it. Other psychologically important concepts developed by Ellis include autoerotism and narcissism, both of which were later taken on by Sigmund Freud."
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After Andrew Brown noted that there is a link between "mawkish" and Middle English "mawke/ maggot"! - I wondered next if 'maggots and botfly larvae apply to the same kind of "worm". The first, as in "Hamlet", prove the continuity of the life force in general; the second, as an analogy, seem to be more specifically inclined?' Once again we have serendipitous amusement by the close emergence of "mawkish Shade", "maggots", "sacorphagus" and "botflies" following Victor Fet's clarification:
"Flesh-eating flies (blowflies) have genus Sarcophaga and family Sarcophagidae...these are maggots, of course, not flies that eat dead flesh, and those are of course also the classical "worms" (that dine on Polonius etc.)...Well, at least they are NOT parasites. And while we are on the subject, here are parasitic BOTFLIES (Oestridae)..."
with another tantalizing question qua Kinbote:"Another doctor, Evgeny Botkin ...was family physician to Nicholas II family, murdered with the latter. This could be a shortcut to regicide theme so central to Pale Fire?" In my opinion, the regicide theme is not "so central to Pale Fire", since it appears only through Kinbote -unless Shadeans finally convince me that, besides their language and cultural differences, Shade and Kinbote also shared the same kind of lunatic discourse ( it is impossible for Shade to write like Kinbote - and vv - not if one, or both, were psychotics) .
Jansy
PS: What a pity that Appel's annotations to "Lolita" are not followed by an Index ( no irony intended). I wanted to check the psychiatrist he quoted while mentioning fountainism and undinism since the only name that came to my mind was Kraft-Ebbing (Psycopathia Sexualis) and I know this is incorrect. Anyway, I think that the best way to proceed to understand "lunacy" in Nabokov's works would be to check, like SB did, psychiatric journals. I would also add standard texts like ...( now I remembered it) Havelock Ellis' and VN's collection of newspaper clippings on the subject of madness and perversion.
Wikipedia informs: "According to Ellis in My Life, his friends were much amused at his being considered an expert on sex considering the fact that he suffered from impotence until the age of 60, when he discovered that was able to become aroused by the sight of a woman urinating. His Sexual Inversion, the first English medical text book on homosexuality, co-authored with John Addington Symonds, described the sexual relations of homosexual men, something that Ellis did not consider to be a disease, immoral, or a crime; a bookseller was prosecuted in 1897 for stocking it. Other psychologically important concepts developed by Ellis include autoerotism and narcissism, both of which were later taken on by Sigmund Freud."
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm