Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0005978, Tue, 22 May 2001 16:12:29 -0700

Subject
[Fwd: [Fwd: Bend Sinister's "Stevenson's engine".
Date
Body
EDITOR's NOTE. MS Duhasek supplies the full citation for _Mr. Wilson;s Cabinet of
Wonders_ (which came up in connection with VN's train motif in BS & elsewhere).

Dasa Duhacek wrote:

> This message was originally submitted by dasaduh@RCI.RUTGERS.EDU to the
> NABOKV-L list at LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU.
>
>
> ----------------- Message requiring your approval (42 lines) ------------------
> Lawrence Weschler, Mr Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder.
> R. Mastilovic
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: D. Barton Johnson <chtodel@gte.net>
> To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
> Sent: Monday, May 21, 2001 19:47
> Subject: [Fwd: Bend Sinister's "Stevenson's engine". Chapter XVII]
>
> > > This message was originally submitted by RAT101@AOL.COM to the NABOKV-L
> list
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> > > ----------------- Message requiring your approval (13
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> > > Regarding those trains...
> > >
> > > VN's fascination with museums and technology can perhaps be further (or
> previously?) noted from Bend Sinister's Stevenson's Engine...in the short
> story, "The Visit To The Museum," in which the hapless narrator most
> certainly suffers a terrible fate in part due to his own lack of humor...
> > >
> > > ..quoting from the story, "I turned and saw, scarcely an inch from me,
> the lofty wheels of a steam locomotive. For a long time I tried to find the
> way back among models of railroad stations. How strangely glowed the violet
> signals in the gloom behind the fan of wet tracks; and what spasms shook my
> poor heart!"
> > >
> > > Indeed! For poor Krug the Younger, as can be gleaned, bears his wound
> from the excesses of the secret police, who only use the Children's Museum
> and Stevenson's Engine as an excuse...whereas our Visitor wanders endlessly
> in the corridors until he ends up in a snowy Soviet night...
> > >
> > > Steven Millhauser has a charming novella on some of these same
> themes...and Lawrence Wenschler (is that how you spell his name?) wrote that
> article and then book (something about a Cabinet of Wonder) of a potentially
> real place of this nature in Hoaxton.
> > >
> > > cheers,
> > >
> > > Alan Chin
> >