Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0001422, Mon, 11 Nov 1996 09:25:46 -0800

Subject
Re: Query: Madelon II (fwd)
Date
Body
EDITOR'S NOTE. While I suspect Bernard Kreise's explanation is right, VN
was fond of double (and triple) layer allusions, so the Celine suggestion
below may be relevant. Does anyone have the words to the song within easy
reach?

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 10 Nov 1996 20:07:35 -0800
From: dub@oz.net

There's a Madelon in Celine's _Journey to the End of Night_. A possessive
young woman. But Madelon *II*?

-Jamie

<< start of forwarded material >>

In SPEAK, MEMORY (Chptr 14, section 1; [p. 278 in the Putnam hardback]),
VN complains that HE has never encountered any of those fabled, cultured
Germans one reads about. He ends his list of "example" Germans with "or
simply the so-called wholesome and kindly folks that during the last war
homesick soldiers from the Middle West seem to have preferred so much to
the cagey French farmer and to brisk Madelon II."

QUESTION: Madelon II???

D. Barton Johnson
Department of Germanic, Slavic and Semitic Studies
Phelps Hall
University of California at Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
Phone and Fax: (805) 687-1825
Home Phone: (805) 682-4618

<< end of forwarded material >>

dub@oz.net
Contraria sunt complementa (Opposites are complementary) --Niels Bohr