Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0023582, Sun, 13 Jan 2013 12:52:41 -0200

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sanastoria, Aqua's nusshaus
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Re: [NABOKV-L] sanastoria, Aqua's nusshausStan K-Bootle: " Just in case some readers shared my brief confusion with the quoted mix of scripts in
Nuss heisst deutsch орех [ ]The last word is Cyrillic (the Russian for “nut” [botanical]), “which the Germans call [die] Nuss.”
The English words “nut/nuts/nutty” have many informal flavours, but “nut case” and “nuthouse” point unambiguously to “madness,” as explained in BB’s canonical annotations:7.15: nusshaus: Aqua's jocular German for "nuthouse." This is Aqua's "first bout with insanity" (20.11). MOTIF: insanity.http://www.ada.auckland.ac.nz/ada11ann.htm

Jansy Mello: Indeed, "Gott gibt die Nusse aber er bei?t sie nicht auf" (God gives us the nuts but He doesn't bite them open for us) and we are either invited to keep on cracking VN's knackle of puzzles (PF) or to wonder why madness is associated to nuttyness in English*.

Curious quotations, those A.S selected related to " 'sanastoria' at Centaur, Arizona... The astorium in St Taurus, or whatever it was called..." According to A. Sklyarenko "Astoria is a luxurious hotel in St. Petersburg, in the Bolshaya Morskaya street." I find that Astoria is also associated to cigars and tobacco, whereas homophonous Centaur/Saint Taurus marks a certain insistent wordplay in "ADA": I supose it indicates a hidden personal meaning related to Astor.
Thanks to internet I learned that Astor, in Greek, means star and bright. Its variantes are Asta. Astira, Astra, Astrea, Esther, Hester. Also that Centaur appears in the novel by John Updike (The Centaur, 1963), in which the "author depicts a rural Pennsylvanian town as seen through the optics of the myth of Centaur. An unknown and marginalized local school teacher, just like the mythological Chiron did for Prometheus, gave up his life for the future of his son who had chosen to be an independent artist in New York."

From Wikipedia, I searched for Astraea Redux, which I remembered in association to John Dryden (the free encyclopedia) and Celadon (while I worked on RLSK's mysterious "cat with celadon eyes" and the theme of English restoration). Here it is:
"Astraea Redux," "written by John Dryden in 1660, is a full-blown royalist panegyric in which Dryden welcomes the new regime of King Charles II. It is a vivid emotional display that overshadows the cautious Heroique Stanzas that Dryden composed for Oliver Cromwell’s death. In the former, Dryden apologizes for his allegiance with the Cromwellian government, and Dryden was later excused by Samuel Johnson for his change in allegiance when he wrote, ‘if he changed, he changed with the nation.’ The period between Cromwell and the Restoration is illustrated as a time of chaos in Astraea, and Charles is greeted as a restorer of peace. In the traditional form of the panegyric, Charles is praised for qualities which it is hoped he will attain as much as for those he already possesses, and Dryden recommends that Charles adopt a policy of toleration.As well as hinting that Dryden was looking for a royal patron, this poem is one which best demonstrates Dryden’s lifelong commitment to peace and political stability. Read the poem at : http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/27359/
The Nuttall Encyclopaedia defines Astraea Redux as 'the name given to an era which piques itself on the return of the reign of justice to the earth.' This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Wood, James, ed. (1907)." I enjoyed the coincidence related to the "Nuttall Encyclopaedia" but, on the whole (and in part!) I found nothing relevant in relation to the significant "Astor".

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*- Stan, the first time I heard about "nuts/nutty," was in America, in the early sixties, when a friend sent me a card with an image of a Brazil-nut cum squirrel, with the accompanying words: "You are my favorite kind of nut."

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