NABOKV-L post 0009717, Thu, 29 Apr 2004 17:31:18 -0700

----- Original Message -----
From: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2004 9:35 AM
Subject: Re: ADA's Mascodagama and Dostoevsky's "The Possessed" (Besy)


Hi, Alexey

You wrote about .... " the Antiterran Logos being not only the first impulse in the universe's creation, but also a live organism that enables this planet to exist in the readers' minds" .. Also, according to you ..." Logos is but a powerful tool in Nabokov's hands that he uses to create Antiterra".
You didn´t mention antipodal (?) Terra, though.
While reading "Ada", I sometimes entertained the hypothesis of this nightmare/dreamworld Terra representing something like Freud´s first topological "unconscious", one which well-ordained minds would reject" as a fad or a fantom" and whose misteries and cryptic turths Van researched as a "terrapist" ( is there a very faint echo of "Lolita" when Humbert presents himself as a "therapist", although laying stress on the ending "rapist" ? ).

Thank you for the precise data on "ploughing". Until last week, with the addition of B. Boyd´s notes on "Ada" forthwith on-line in Zembla, I had not been able to read his complete text, which I shall now quickly examine.

Best,
Jansy
----- Original Message -----
From: D. Barton Johnson
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2004 12:13 PM
Subject: ADA's Mascodagama and Dostoevsky's "The Possessed" (Besy)



----- Original Message -----
From: alex
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2004 5:57 AM
Subject: Re: Fw: Fw:ADA's Mascodagama and Dostoevsky's "The Possessed" (Besy)


Dear Jansy,

In the first place, I don't think Log has a mind. He, or, rather, It, is not to be confused with Nabokov. Logos is but a powerful tool in Nabokov's hands that he uses to create Antiterra. Just like in the beginning of our world some say was the Word. But the difference between our World (if it was created by a God) and Antiterra lies in the Antiterran Logos being not only the first impulse in the universe's creation, but also a live organism that enables this planet to exist in the readers' minds.

There is an obvious link between the episode you mention ("ploughing") and Van's appearance as Mascodagama, especially in the London theater where he is given a partner: fragile, red-haired 'Rita', "who bore an odd resemblance to Lucette as she was to look ten years later" (actually, thirteen years later, when Van meets her for the last time in Paris and then on board Tobakoff). If we look carefully, we shall see that both the ploughing scene (with Van as a "ploughboy") and Mascodagama's performance prefigure Lucette's suicide by jumping into the Atlantic. I'm sure Brian Boyd tells all about it in his book on ADA.

Alexey
----- Original Message -----
From: D. Barton Johnson
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2004 6:02 AM
Subject: Fw: Fw:ADA's Mascodagama and Dostoevsky's "The Possessed" (Besy)



----- Original Message -----
From: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Wednesday, April 28, 2004 1:38 PM
Subject: Re: Fw:ADA's Mascodagama and Dostoevsky's "The Possessed" (Besy)


Dear Alexey
I cannot coherently argue back when I know that you don´t accept, being a faithful Nabokovian, the mobile and surprising "unconscious" described by Freud plus what has been added to its understanding from Saussure´s linguistic theory of "the significant".
I agree that Nabokov is undisputedly his fictional characters´ God but still, he has not entirely invented the language he used to build his novels or to endow his people with warm, pulsating lives.
For me the workings of language remain a compelling mystery that is quite independent of an author´s mastery of it.
But assuming one can understand our Log´s mind: do you in any way link the episode in which Van propels Lucette like a cart - by holding her feet in his hands, without upturning her, while she nibbles a daisy - to his somersaulting caprioles?
Jansy


----- Original Message -----