Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0003144, Tue, 26 May 1998 13:56:50 -0700

Subject
VN in works of others (fwd)
Date
Body
From: Andrew Shaindlin <shain@umich.edu>

I believe that someone recently volunteered here to keep a list of
references to VN/his work in others' literature. Here's an item.

In "The Discovery of Heaven" by Harry Mulisch (transl. --> English by Paul
Vincent, ISBN 0-670-85668) the following appears on the bottom of p. 458:

"He himself, he had said, could prove in a trice that Bacon had written
Genesis or the novels of Nabokov: all you had to do was to look at the
first five letters of his name and you could see that it was an anagram of
"Bacon," and you had to remember that the c in Cyrillic alphabet was the
ka; and the ending ov, of course, stood for "of Verulam" - that was
obvious."

All this is by way of a sarcastic response to an eccentric character who
suggests that Bacon was responsible for suggesting to Vondel the theme for
'Lucifer' in 1647, though it is generally accepted that Bacon died in 1626.

Andy Shaindlin
shain@umich.edu

"And if you e-mail me, do I not reply?"