Subject
: Fw: response from Alexey Sklyareno's note on the name Durmanov
and Chekhov in ADA
and Chekhov in ADA
From
Date
Body
response to Alexey's Durmanov
----- Original Message -----
From: alex
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Monday, July 28, 2003 7:39 AM
Subject: Re: Fw: response to Alexey Sklyareno's note on the name Durmanov in ADA
Dear Carolyn,
I'm afraid that the title of Chekhov's (or Tchechoff's, as he is said to have spelled his name abroad, 2.9) play, Chaika, doesn't really lurk in "Tshchaikow" (a nice bunch of consonants), the author of the well-known opera Onegin and Olga (1.25). But "Veen" can indeed lurk, as you have pointed out to me, in vinovaty in the quoted passage from Chaika that contains the word durman. In fact, I didn't mention it in the hope that you would say it in your response.
I would like to expand a little on my previous comment and say that there are direct reminiscences of four most famous plays by Chekhov in Ada: The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters and Cherry Orchard (in the chronological order). The one concerning The Seagull is in Part One, chapter 39 (Ada's birthday picknick in Ardis the Second):
"Van!" called Ada shrilly. "I want to say something to you, Van, come here."
Dorn (flipping through a literary review, to Trigorin): "Here, a couple of months ago, a certain article was printed... a Letter from America, and I wanted to ask you, incidentally" (taking Trigorin by the waist and leading him to the front of the stage), "because I'm very much interested in that question..."
Those are Dorn's penultimate words in the play, with which he addresses the belletrist Trigorin, before telling him, "sub rosa," that Treplev has shot himself. After which the curtain falls.
I won't broach the question why this interpolation from The Seagull is here and what does the allusion mean. Surely, it's not merely the author's fad. Actually, it serves many purposes here. I shall confine myself to saying that Nabokov wants us to reread the play; in fact, all four plays by Chekhov that are referred to in Ada. If we do, among other things we would discover in the very beginning of The Seagull what was the source of Marina Durmanov's last name. And what's more, we discover the true "literary context" of that character. If Ada is associated with many a Turgenevian miss, Marina is a "Chekhovian lady," half-Arkadina, half-Ranevskaia. And I think, it is because she is plunged back into her initial context, so to say, that she shines in Four Sisters (even playing a doubly fictitious character, i. e. a character that is absent from the original play). I hope, I have formulated my argument a little more clearerly this time.
In conclusion, I would like to make a remark about the allusions in Ada in general. They can sometimes mislead a reader, but they are never "leading to nowhere" (at least, I know not of a single example of such allusion in Ada, unless it is not "read into the book" by us, the inveterate TV watchers). On the contrary, they all serve the purpose to set Antiterra, and its ghost sibling-planet Terra (that shouldn't be confused with our Earth), spinning and revolving round its own sun.
best regards,
Alexey
----- Original Message -----
From: D. Barton Johnson
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Monday, July 28, 2003 4:12 AM
Subject: Fw: response to Alexey Sklyareno's note on the name Durmanov in ADA
----- Original Message -----
From: Carolyn Kunin
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Sunday, July 27, 2003 2:11 PM
Subject: response to Alexey's Durmanov
Dear Alexey,
I hope you will not mind if I share some information with the List regarding the Russian word
"durman" since you are yourself were the most generous source of that information.
Alexey & Brian Boyd are correct to note that "durman" means an intoxicating, possibly habit-forming drug, as in the apropos quote from Chekhov's Chaika ( which I also detected lurking in the odd spelling of Tschaikovsky somewhere in Ada). But "durman" is also a particularly nasty plant, "datura stramonium," which has been implicated as "zombie poson" in Haiti, and I believe has implications in Ada (as the primary of "yady Ady" [Ada's poisons]) as well.
Carolyn
p.s. Marina is not the only failed actress in Ada. Her daughter isn't very
successful either. And come to think of it, Van turns out to be something of
a mediocrity on the world stage as well.
---------------------------------------------------------
EDNOTE. I would add that the Russian root "dur'" also supplies the common word for "Fool" (durak)--certainly an apt characterization for Marina.
----- Original Message -----
From: alex
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Monday, July 28, 2003 7:39 AM
Subject: Re: Fw: response to Alexey Sklyareno's note on the name Durmanov in ADA
Dear Carolyn,
I'm afraid that the title of Chekhov's (or Tchechoff's, as he is said to have spelled his name abroad, 2.9) play, Chaika, doesn't really lurk in "Tshchaikow" (a nice bunch of consonants), the author of the well-known opera Onegin and Olga (1.25). But "Veen" can indeed lurk, as you have pointed out to me, in vinovaty in the quoted passage from Chaika that contains the word durman. In fact, I didn't mention it in the hope that you would say it in your response.
I would like to expand a little on my previous comment and say that there are direct reminiscences of four most famous plays by Chekhov in Ada: The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters and Cherry Orchard (in the chronological order). The one concerning The Seagull is in Part One, chapter 39 (Ada's birthday picknick in Ardis the Second):
"Van!" called Ada shrilly. "I want to say something to you, Van, come here."
Dorn (flipping through a literary review, to Trigorin): "Here, a couple of months ago, a certain article was printed... a Letter from America, and I wanted to ask you, incidentally" (taking Trigorin by the waist and leading him to the front of the stage), "because I'm very much interested in that question..."
Those are Dorn's penultimate words in the play, with which he addresses the belletrist Trigorin, before telling him, "sub rosa," that Treplev has shot himself. After which the curtain falls.
I won't broach the question why this interpolation from The Seagull is here and what does the allusion mean. Surely, it's not merely the author's fad. Actually, it serves many purposes here. I shall confine myself to saying that Nabokov wants us to reread the play; in fact, all four plays by Chekhov that are referred to in Ada. If we do, among other things we would discover in the very beginning of The Seagull what was the source of Marina Durmanov's last name. And what's more, we discover the true "literary context" of that character. If Ada is associated with many a Turgenevian miss, Marina is a "Chekhovian lady," half-Arkadina, half-Ranevskaia. And I think, it is because she is plunged back into her initial context, so to say, that she shines in Four Sisters (even playing a doubly fictitious character, i. e. a character that is absent from the original play). I hope, I have formulated my argument a little more clearerly this time.
In conclusion, I would like to make a remark about the allusions in Ada in general. They can sometimes mislead a reader, but they are never "leading to nowhere" (at least, I know not of a single example of such allusion in Ada, unless it is not "read into the book" by us, the inveterate TV watchers). On the contrary, they all serve the purpose to set Antiterra, and its ghost sibling-planet Terra (that shouldn't be confused with our Earth), spinning and revolving round its own sun.
best regards,
Alexey
----- Original Message -----
From: D. Barton Johnson
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Monday, July 28, 2003 4:12 AM
Subject: Fw: response to Alexey Sklyareno's note on the name Durmanov in ADA
----- Original Message -----
From: Carolyn Kunin
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Sunday, July 27, 2003 2:11 PM
Subject: response to Alexey's Durmanov
Dear Alexey,
I hope you will not mind if I share some information with the List regarding the Russian word
"durman" since you are yourself were the most generous source of that information.
Alexey & Brian Boyd are correct to note that "durman" means an intoxicating, possibly habit-forming drug, as in the apropos quote from Chekhov's Chaika ( which I also detected lurking in the odd spelling of Tschaikovsky somewhere in Ada). But "durman" is also a particularly nasty plant, "datura stramonium," which has been implicated as "zombie poson" in Haiti, and I believe has implications in Ada (as the primary of "yady Ady" [Ada's poisons]) as well.
Carolyn
p.s. Marina is not the only failed actress in Ada. Her daughter isn't very
successful either. And come to think of it, Van turns out to be something of
a mediocrity on the world stage as well.
---------------------------------------------------------
EDNOTE. I would add that the Russian root "dur'" also supplies the common word for "Fool" (durak)--certainly an apt characterization for Marina.