Subject
A Nabokovian moment (fwd)
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Date
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From: Kiran Krishna <kiran@Physics.usyd.edu.au>
Dear all,
Having bought "The World of Parmenides" by Brian Boyd's other subject, I
was surprised to find the editor relating this strangely Nabokovian
story:
..nothing might have happenjed to the Parmenides papers had nature, or
chance, not intervened in the shape of - a squirrel. I heard about the
incident in the autumn of 1977 when I visited the Poppers in Penn for the
first time since my leaving the LSE in 1971. Lady Popper laughingly told
me that one day in spring a squirrel had entered their house unnoticed and
had started to carry away various papers, among others the Parmenides
folder, apparently with the aim of using these rarities as nesting
material. However, the squirrel had dropped the yellow folder, which was
too heavy for him, at the foot of the tree, where it was later found. When
Popper joined the conversation I reminded him of our longstanding project
of collecting the essays and alluding to the squirrel's competing interest
in the Parmenides papers, I had no great difficulty in persuading him that
the project had now become urgent....
Kiran
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kiran Krishna
3rd yr physics
(Falkiner High Energy Physics)
University of Sydney
NSW 2006
--------------------------------------------
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest
political end.
- Lord Acton
Both liberty abd property are precarious, unless the posessors have sense
and spirit enough to defend them.
- Junius (Philip Francis Jr)
http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/hienergy
http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~kiran
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear all,
Having bought "The World of Parmenides" by Brian Boyd's other subject, I
was surprised to find the editor relating this strangely Nabokovian
story:
..nothing might have happenjed to the Parmenides papers had nature, or
chance, not intervened in the shape of - a squirrel. I heard about the
incident in the autumn of 1977 when I visited the Poppers in Penn for the
first time since my leaving the LSE in 1971. Lady Popper laughingly told
me that one day in spring a squirrel had entered their house unnoticed and
had started to carry away various papers, among others the Parmenides
folder, apparently with the aim of using these rarities as nesting
material. However, the squirrel had dropped the yellow folder, which was
too heavy for him, at the foot of the tree, where it was later found. When
Popper joined the conversation I reminded him of our longstanding project
of collecting the essays and alluding to the squirrel's competing interest
in the Parmenides papers, I had no great difficulty in persuading him that
the project had now become urgent....
Kiran
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kiran Krishna
3rd yr physics
(Falkiner High Energy Physics)
University of Sydney
NSW 2006
--------------------------------------------
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest
political end.
- Lord Acton
Both liberty abd property are precarious, unless the posessors have sense
and spirit enough to defend them.
- Junius (Philip Francis Jr)
http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/hienergy
http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~kiran
--------------------------------------------------------------------------