Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0005974, Mon, 21 May 2001 16:44:30 -0700

Subject
[Fwd: Query - pregnancy in Ada]
Date
Body
EDITOR's NOTE. Jeff Edmunds (in the unlikely event you don't know) is the editor
of ZEMBLA , <http://www.libraries.psu.edu/iasweb/nabokov/nsintro.htm>, the
Internet site of the VN SOCIETY.
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> This message was originally submitted by jhe@PSULIAS.PSU.EDU t-----------------
> Message requiring your approval (23 lines) ------------------
> Jeff Edmunds <jhe@psulias.psu.edu>:
>
> I always thought the "he" was correct, VN's play on the last line of Part I
> (Chapter 9) of Flaubert's Madame Bovary. The gender inversion mirrors the
> reference that opens the book, to another famous heroine, Anna Karenina,
> whose name is garbled to include a masculine patronymic ("Arkadievitch").
>
> At 11:49 AM 5/21/01 -0700, you wrote:
> >EDITOR's NOTE. The Library of America edition of ADA, which is
> >supposedly definitive, has "HE." I have always assumed the sentence
> >meant Van was pregnant with his first book. Cordulla does mention
> >somewhere, I think, that she gets pregnant at the drop of hat.
> >
> >
> >Franзoise JONATHAN wrote:
> >
> > > Could anybody tell me if there is a misprint at the very end of Part
> > > One in the Penguin edition of Ada: Should we read "she was pregnant"
> > > or rather "he was pregnant", as several studies as well as the French
> > > translation suggest? Thanks for your answer Franзoise RICHARD-
> > > JONATHAN