Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0008793, Thu, 23 Oct 2003 16:36:06 -0700

Subject
Re: Gordon Krummholz... (fwd)
Date
Body
---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Date: Friday, October 24, 2003 9:32 AM +1300
From: "Brian Boyd (FOA ENG)" <b.boyd@auckland.ac.nz>
To: "'Donald B. Johnson '" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
Subject: RE: Gordon Krummholz...

Dear Don and Tom (who I presume, unless there is a ventriloquist of genius
out there, is Tom Bolt--in which case, a special hi--although Don doesn't
allow us to know),In answer to Tom's query, VN caught butterflies below,
above and at the timberline in the Rockies and the Alps.

In answer to Don's about why Gordon gets his surname, may I refer the eager
reader to my "Azure Afterimages: Reflections on Nabokov's Pale Fire,"
Nabokov Studies 6 (2000/2001), 165-99, on the opening page of which I note:
"if someone had asked me, after I had finished my book [N's PF], 'Who is
Elvina Krummholz, and what part does she play in Pale Fire?' I would have
been able to answer only 'Who?' Now, I can offer an answer to this
question--a question, admittedly, that has been on no one's lips."

See pp. 183-86 for Elvina's first name and then Gordon's last.

Brian Boyd

-----Original Message-----
From: Donald B. Johnson
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: 10/24/2003 5:40 AM
Subject: Fwd: Gordon Krummholz...

Dear Don and List,

An idle thought, with reference to Gordon Krummholz, the ephebe with the
metamorphic (and finally absent) cache-sexe. Krummholz is the stunted
dwarf
vegetation found above the treeline; does anyone know if this is a
butterfly habitat in the vicinity of Telluride -- or even Cedarn?

Regards,

Tom

----- End forwarded message -----

EDRESPONSE:
Dear Tom,
Not idle at all. "Krummholz" means "twisted wood" referring to the
dwarfed
trees of the subalpine zone where it is very cold & dry and the wind
twists
the dwarfed vegetation. Google pulls up the item below:

Nature Close to Home: Signs, Seasons, and Stories
...... tiger swallowtail and monarch butterflies come and ... twisted
jetblack
outlines of Krummholtz bristlecone pine ... to the Rocky Bluegrass
festival in
Lyons, Colorado. ...
www.naturalist.org/pages/970804.php3
--------------------------------
The question now is why does Gordon get this name? Ideas?

---------- End Forwarded Message ----------



D. Barton Johnson
NABOKV-L