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Quelques Fleurs - cherchez le VN-L archives
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C. Kunin [ to AS's "The name of Aqua's talc powder, Quelques Fleurs (1.3), blends, as it were, the stock phrase quelque chose with Baudelaire's Fleurs du mal ("Flowers of Evil")"]
But, Alexey! I even posted photos of Aqua's talc, Quelques Fleurs! Have you forgotten? Houbigant? souvenez-vous!
A. Sklyarenko: "Having completed his prep-school education in America , Van Veen goes up to Chose University in England. (Ada, 1.27) A.S: Chose is French for "thing" and quelque chose means "something". According to Pushkin (Eugene Onegin, One: V: 1-2), ..."All of us had a bit of schooling/in something and somehow." This is rendered by Turgenev and Viardot in their accurate prose translation of EO as "Nous avons tous, par petites bribes, appris fort peu de choses et fort mal."
Jansy Mello: When I first read "Pale Fire" what enthralled me, in the first place, were Kinbote's non sequitur commentaries to PF, his enthussing over the various meanings of a simple "and," for example. "Quelque" falls into the same category of fun when it's isolated from a sentence or from the name of Aqua's talcum powder. It seems to me that Boyd has already called attention to this in 2002* because A.Sklyarenko had already written about Chose and "Quelquer Fleurs" in the past.
Aqua, of course, indicates the "eau de cologne" (or a beverage, if we remember the Scandinavian aquavit, the Italian Grappa, the Brazilian aguardente, aso) and there's a companion "aqua" to the talc and perfume **..
The VN-List archives deserve a rereading and quelques quick dips into it now and then.
.
Addendum:
Houbigant QUELQUES FLEURS Cologne - Eau de Parfum Spray 1.7 oz for ...Today Only: Save an additional 15%. See site for details
Cologne by Houbigant Eau de Parfum Spray 1.7 oz for Women with scents of Many Soft, Sensual Florals, The Original, Popular Fragrance. more
:
.
Another addendum: It's just a silly observation but it's one that I'd missed, until now. The name "Ada" in "Canada," although I seem to remember past discussions about similar occurrences.
......................................................
* In 2002, VN-L archives, we read Brian Boyd: " Chose" is a puzzling name, and didn't come up in association with Cambridge in my searches for annotating ADA or for the Nabokov biography (which included scouring through, e.g., old issues of Granta, now a famous literary journal but in Nabokov's time just a local student magazine--named, of course, after the local term for the Cam, and supplying the river “Ranta” associated in ADA with Chose).I'm afraid Alexey's conjecture about "chose" and Les Fleurs du Mal seems most unlikely; “chose” is as common in French as “thing” in English or “veshch'” in Russian and could be found in other texts in more or less close proximity to Aqua (such as A la Recherche du temps perdu). .. (Cf. also his Ada notes to "18-24")
A.Sklyarenko wrote, in the past: " Like Le Crepuscle du Soir that mentions whores and cardsharps, Le Crepuscle du Matin is included in Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal. The title of Baudelaire's book reminds one of Aqua's and Marina's talc powder Quelques Fleurs (1.3) that brings to mind the French stock phrase quelque chose (something). So we are back at Chose. Btw., "Dawn en robe rose et verte" (2.9) alludes not only to Baudelaire but also to Chekhov's play "The Three Sisters." As I pointed out before, a character in Chekhov's P'yesa bez nazvaniya (Play without a Title) says that his tenant's daughter is kelk shoz ("a pretty little thing," quelque chose in Russian spelling). He then calls Platonov's late father shtukar' (trickster). Shtukar' comes from shtuka, "thing" (French chose). Shtuka = shutka (joke)."
https://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv.../wa?...r...
**Cf. VN-l 2003, Marie Bouchet writest:"Indeed "Quelques Fleurs" is a French perfume by Houbigant (one of the oldest perfume "maisons" in France), and this perfume can still be purchased. I may add to your comments that this flowery reference may not only be part of the thematic network linking French literature to flowers in the novel (see the translation of the "souci d'eau" in Rimbaud's poem, or the references to Proust and the "jeune filles en fleurs") but may more directly hint at the flower herbium Marina made in her youth...Indeed these "quelques fleurs" glued in Marina's notebook told the entwining destinies of the two sisters, and this herbium can be considered a flowery narrative of Van's birth, mis-en-abyme within the novel telling his life."
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But, Alexey! I even posted photos of Aqua's talc, Quelques Fleurs! Have you forgotten? Houbigant? souvenez-vous!
A. Sklyarenko: "Having completed his prep-school education in America , Van Veen goes up to Chose University in England. (Ada, 1.27) A.S: Chose is French for "thing" and quelque chose means "something". According to Pushkin (Eugene Onegin, One: V: 1-2), ..."All of us had a bit of schooling/in something and somehow." This is rendered by Turgenev and Viardot in their accurate prose translation of EO as "Nous avons tous, par petites bribes, appris fort peu de choses et fort mal."
Jansy Mello: When I first read "Pale Fire" what enthralled me, in the first place, were Kinbote's non sequitur commentaries to PF, his enthussing over the various meanings of a simple "and," for example. "Quelque" falls into the same category of fun when it's isolated from a sentence or from the name of Aqua's talcum powder. It seems to me that Boyd has already called attention to this in 2002* because A.Sklyarenko had already written about Chose and "Quelquer Fleurs" in the past.
Aqua, of course, indicates the "eau de cologne" (or a beverage, if we remember the Scandinavian aquavit, the Italian Grappa, the Brazilian aguardente, aso) and there's a companion "aqua" to the talc and perfume **..
The VN-List archives deserve a rereading and quelques quick dips into it now and then.
.
Addendum:
Houbigant QUELQUES FLEURS Cologne - Eau de Parfum Spray 1.7 oz for ...Today Only: Save an additional 15%. See site for details
Cologne by Houbigant Eau de Parfum Spray 1.7 oz for Women with scents of Many Soft, Sensual Florals, The Original, Popular Fragrance. more
:
.
Another addendum: It's just a silly observation but it's one that I'd missed, until now. The name "Ada" in "Canada," although I seem to remember past discussions about similar occurrences.
......................................................
* In 2002, VN-L archives, we read Brian Boyd: " Chose" is a puzzling name, and didn't come up in association with Cambridge in my searches for annotating ADA or for the Nabokov biography (which included scouring through, e.g., old issues of Granta, now a famous literary journal but in Nabokov's time just a local student magazine--named, of course, after the local term for the Cam, and supplying the river “Ranta” associated in ADA with Chose).I'm afraid Alexey's conjecture about "chose" and Les Fleurs du Mal seems most unlikely; “chose” is as common in French as “thing” in English or “veshch'” in Russian and could be found in other texts in more or less close proximity to Aqua (such as A la Recherche du temps perdu). .. (Cf. also his Ada notes to "18-24")
A.Sklyarenko wrote, in the past: " Like Le Crepuscle du Soir that mentions whores and cardsharps, Le Crepuscle du Matin is included in Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal. The title of Baudelaire's book reminds one of Aqua's and Marina's talc powder Quelques Fleurs (1.3) that brings to mind the French stock phrase quelque chose (something). So we are back at Chose. Btw., "Dawn en robe rose et verte" (2.9) alludes not only to Baudelaire but also to Chekhov's play "The Three Sisters." As I pointed out before, a character in Chekhov's P'yesa bez nazvaniya (Play without a Title) says that his tenant's daughter is kelk shoz ("a pretty little thing," quelque chose in Russian spelling). He then calls Platonov's late father shtukar' (trickster). Shtukar' comes from shtuka, "thing" (French chose). Shtuka = shutka (joke)."
https://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv.../wa?...r...
**Cf. VN-l 2003, Marie Bouchet writest:"Indeed "Quelques Fleurs" is a French perfume by Houbigant (one of the oldest perfume "maisons" in France), and this perfume can still be purchased. I may add to your comments that this flowery reference may not only be part of the thematic network linking French literature to flowers in the novel (see the translation of the "souci d'eau" in Rimbaud's poem, or the references to Proust and the "jeune filles en fleurs") but may more directly hint at the flower herbium Marina made in her youth...Indeed these "quelques fleurs" glued in Marina's notebook told the entwining destinies of the two sisters, and this herbium can be considered a flowery narrative of Van's birth, mis-en-abyme within the novel telling his life."
https://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A2=nabokv-l;
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/