Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0023996, Tue, 23 Apr 2013 12:02:19 -0300

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Re: The lands of cocaine and Cockaigne
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Carolyn Kunin: "...'e o antegozo de encontrar a menina sozinha derreteu-se como cocaína em suas entranhas.' " Strange how unpoetic this is, sounds very unpleasant really [ ] How warming is cocaine? There's the land of Cockaigne, no relation that I'm aware of. But I can imagine a warm rush, drug induced perhaps, sent straight to the loins, so Nabokov's metaphor is satisfactory.
Jansy Mello: It doesn't sound as strange in Portuguese as it does to your anglophone ears because of the rythm, you know. These poetic effects in prose, at times without the coloring of sounds (if I may say so) are a direct echo of what often happens in Nabokov's writing (although he believed, indeed, that he thought in images instead of words). Freud was one of the first to experiment with cocaine (and local anaesthetics) and he recommended it warmly to Martha, then his fiancée, to enhance the rosiness of her cheeks. Mysterious drugs, sex and literature are imtertwined in various Nabokov sentences (perhaps rock and roll, too).
There's a Nabokovian touch in this "land of Cockaigne" (Ardis, Paradise, Utopia?).Your message reminded me of another terrible land where roasted pigs wandered about with forks and knives stuck on them, or flying geese, while striped candies had faces. It was rather cannibalistic and there are dim reflections of this nightmarish Brueghelish land of delights in VN, not only when he makes a direct reference to "Flemish hells" Before I ever saw a soda fountain, I saw images of this legendary place in which medieval waterfountains sprouted all sorts of yellow, green and rosy liquids.

Carolyn Kunin: I was intrigued by the reference below to a barmen/Carmen ditty, so googled up said ditty. Very odd - had never heard of it.
Jansy Mello: All through the davenport scene Nabokov suggestes the barmen/Carmen ditty but altering the images during his mounting excitement, gasping Carmen, ahmen, ahahamen charmin' parkling carsi*, an effect that is exploited more explicitly and extensively in "The Enchanter" ( for example, when "Arthur" sees a "black salad devouring a green rabbit" and his ecstatic vision is blurred)

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* - "O my Carmen, my little Carmen, something, something, those something nights, and the stars, and the cars, and the bars, and the barmen; I kept repeating this automatic stuff and holding her under its special spell (spell because of the garbling) .... The stars that sparkled, and the cars that parkled, and the bars, and the barmen, were presently taken over by her; her voice stole and corrected the tune I had been mutilating. She was musical and apple-sweet.... Suspended on the brink of that voluptuous abyss (a nicety of physiological equipoise comparable to certain techniques in the arts) I kept repeating the chance words after her — barmen, alarmin', my charmin', my carmen, ahmen, ahahamen — as one talking and laughing in his sleep while my happy hand crept up her sunny leg as far as the shadow of decency allowed" and " At this point I may as well give the words of that song hit in full — to the best of my recollection at least — I don't think I ever had it right. Here goes:
O my Carmen, my little Carmen!

Something, something those something nights,

And the stars, and the cars, and the bars and the barmen —

And, O my charmin', our dreadful fights.

And the something town where so gaily, arm in

Arm, we went, and our final row,

And the gun I killed you with, O my Carmen,

The gun I am holding now.



(Drew his .32 automatic, I guess, and put a bullet through his moll's eye.)" And much later: " I believe the poor fierce-eyed child had figured out that with a mere fifty dollars in her purse she might somehow reach Broadway or Hollywood — or the foul kitchen of a diner (Help Wanted) in a dismal ex-prairie state, with the wind blowing, and the stars blinking, and the cars, and the bars, and the barmen, and everything soiled, torn, dead."

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