Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0024903, Wed, 18 Dec 2013 09:10:59 -0200

Subject
Re: Dr Mertvago & Dr Swissair
Date
Body
Carolyn Kunin [ to Alexey*] "...:You should be ashamed - when I was growing up there was no one more highly respected.[ ] p.s. As a physician working in "Lumbago" he was - well - a saint. But who cares? Not the shameless of this world, that's for sure.

Jansy Mello: Good for you, Carolyn. Although Albert Schweitzer doesn't really need that we take up arms to defend him, as a Nabokov admirer I resent his often silly and biased "Strong Opinions" and appreciate it when some of our verbal genius's expostulations are brought up for discussion.
Lumbago must refer to the lumbar pains VN often complained of or to his bile**, but it may suggest also Caribean Tobago (there are diverse references to Trinidad and the Trinity student days in VN's works, or to the Caribean, the place of Demon Veen's fall) and Doctor Mertvago refers, indirectly, to Pasternak's ("you man "parsnip"*) successful novel and, perhaps, even to another doctor writer, Tchekhov.



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* - Why not just call a turnip a turnip? /You mean "parsnip" (pasternak)?
Do you also despise that other nabokovian bete noir, Albert Schweitzer? Never heard of him (unless he is "Dr Swissair of Lumbago" mentioned in Ada by Dorothy Vinelander).
"There was once Doctor Mertvago
who lived in a place called Lumbago..."
** - In the sense of the "Four Humours" (Hippocrates)



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