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Fw: Fw: ADA's Mascodagama and Dostoevsky's "The Possessed"
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----- Original Message -----
From: alex
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Friday, April 30, 2004 4:04 AM
Subject: Re: Fw: ADA's Mascodagama and Dostoevsky's "The Possessed" (Besy)
Hello, Jansy
Unlike many other Nabokovians, I think that not only is Terra not real, but she is, in my opinion, a "doubly imaginary planet," so to speak, that has nothing to do with our Earth. Neither do I believe she has anything to do with Freud. In my opinion, Terra's true origins can be traced back to Dostoevsky's short story "Son smeshnogo cheloveka" (The Dream of a Ridiculous Man), 1877. (See my note "The Truth about Terra and Antiterra: Dostoevsky and Ada's Twin Planets" in The Nabokovian #51.) True, Freud worshipped our national "prophet" and has made much of the patricide in Dostoevsky's last novel The Brothers Karamazov, 1880.
I also discuss some interesting parallels that I think do exist between the mysterious Terra and Zola's novel La Terre, 1887, in my note "A Window onto Terra" - to appear soon in the forthcoming spring issue of The Nabokovian (#52).
I know of at least one more (Russo-Latin) source of the planet name Terra, but you will excuse me my not telling anything about it now. It is a long and sad story that will require another full Nabokovian note.
I thought that terrapists (or were they "therapists"?) was an ancient (Christian?) sect. Various sects certainly do play some role in Ada, so this one could also be of some importance. I still have to think about it.
best,
Alexey
----- 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