Subject
Re: Westminster dog show may not love them,
but Nabokov did: Dachshunds ...
but Nabokov did: Dachshunds ...
Date
Body
If I may be allowed a completely frivolous comment, I took time off from
working on Nabokov to attend the Westminster Dog Show this year. Audience
sentiment for best in show was clearly for the dachshund. The judges,
however, saw fit to give best in show to a silly-looking Pekinese. VN would
have been appalledas were we!
From: Vladimir Nabokov Forum [mailto:NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU] On Behalf
Of Nabokv-L
Sent: Wednesday, February 15, 2012 5:16 PM
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Subject: [NABOKV-L] Westminster dog show may not love them, but Nabokov did:
Dachshunds ...
Subject:
Re: [NABOKV-L] Westminster dog show may not love them, but Nabokov did:
Dachshunds ...
From:
Jansy <mailto:jansy@aetern.us> <jansy@aetern.us>
Date:
Wed, 15 Feb 2012 18:24:55 -0200
To:
<mailto:NABOKV-L@listserv.ucsb.edu> <NABOKV-L@listserv.ucsb.edu>
Sandy Klein sends:
<http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/pageviews/2012/02/westminster-dog-show-may
-not-love-them-but-nabokov-did-dachshunds-adored-companion>
http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/pageviews/2012/02/westminster-dog-show-may-
not-love-them-but-nabokov-did-dachshunds-adored-companion with the title:
"Westminster dog show may not love them, but Nabokov did: Dachshunds, adored
companions to writers and artists" by Alexander Nazaryan.
JM: In the article about the Westminster dog show there's a quote from
"Speak, Memory," in which Vlladimir Nabokov describes, among other issues,
his mother's dachs, Box[...] and observes that he "...is so old and thickly
padded with dreams (about chewable slippers and a few last smells) that he
does not stir when faint bells jingle outside. Soon afterwards Anton
Chekhov's dachshunds, Quinine and Bromine., are mentioned but there's no
reference to the blood-connection between Box and one of Chekhov's dogs (I
think this story is told in Nabokov's memoirs).
Alexander Nazaryan observes that "perhaps because of their distinctive
personalities, dachshunds often appear in fiction: from the dropsical
dackel of a neighbor spotted by Humbert Humbert in 'Lolita' to Sherman
McCoys Marshall, with whom he famously struggles in the opening of 'The
Bonfire of the Vanities.' It must be said, unfortunately, that the titular
character in Chekhovs 'Lady with Lapdog' owns a Pomeranian."
French writer Victor Hugo's grandson once tried to "wed" his dackel, named
"Lolita," to Pablo Picasso's guest-dog, "Lump".* Although I'd forgotten all
about "Lolita" and a neighbor's "dropsical dackel," I decided to investigate
more the abundant references I remembered from "Ada."
I hadn't noticed before that a dachshund is closely associated to Lucette.**
nor that there was a reference to Chekhov in the same paragraph in which
Marina's restless dackel makes one of his appearances*** - and the context
of Van's confession of his "dackelophobia."# among other unexpected
connections...
............................................................................
............................................................................
.....................
* - "Lolita" and "Lump" must have met in 1957. Cf. David Douglas Duncan's
"Lump the Dog who ate a Picasso" Ed.Thames and Hudson,2006.
(quote p.62-63: "Silversmith François Hugo, grandson of Victor, arrived with
two massive Picasso-designed platters, his wife and a friend - and his
svelte lady dachshund, Lolita. Asked by Picasso whether Lump had ever been
married, I replied "No!" Hugo responded to the same query about Lolita -
"No!". The next platter delivery was delayed to coincide with their
marriage. She returned jewel-eyed, with dish-doily wedding necklace around
her throat, Picasso their helpful godfather. To no avail. Lum and Lolita
remained childless." .
** "Lucette was rocking the glum dackel, or looking up at an imaginary
woodpecker, or with various pretty contortions unhurriedly mounting the
gray-looped board and swinging gently and gingerly as if never having done
it yet, while idiot Dack barked at the locked pavilion door. She increased
her momentum..."
" She did not see her whole life flash before her as we all were afraid she
might have done; the red rubber of a favorite doll remained safely
decomposed among the myosotes of an unanalyzable brook; but she did see a
few odds and ends as she swam like a dilettante Tobakoff in a circle of
brief panic and merciful torpor. She saw a pair of new vair-furred bedroom
slippers, which Brigitte had forgotten to pack; she saw Van wiping his mouth
before answering, and then, still withholding the answer, throwing his
napkin on the table as they both got up; and she saw a girl with long black
hair quickly bend in passing to clap her hands over a dackel in a half-tom
wreath."
Strangely it's doomed Greg who mentions Ada's film, marriage, Lucette's
dackel and a death by drowning:" Oh, that would be terrible, I declare to
switch on the dorotelly, and suddenly see her. Like a drowning man seeing
his whole past, and the trees, and the flowers, and the wreathed dachshund.
She must have been terribly affected by her mothers terrible death. "
*** - "The corridor was dark, somewhere the dachshund was barking
ecstatically...the so-called baronial barn, ...was on fire. Fifty cows
would have been without hay and Larivière without her midday coffee cream
had it happened later in the season. Van felt slighted. Theyve all gone and
left me behind, as old Fierce mumbles at the end of the Cherry Orchard
(Marina was an adequate Mme Ranevski)...Uncle Dan, a cigar in his teeth, and
kerchiefed Marina with Dack in her clutch deriding the watchdogs, were in
the process of setting out between raised arms and swinging lanterns in the
runabout "
# - "The dog came in, turned up a brimming brown eye Vanward, toddled up to
the window, looked at the rain like a little person, and returned to his
filthy cushion in the next room.
I could never stand that breed, remarked Van. Dackelophobia. But girls
do you like girls, Van, do you have many girls? You are not a pederast,
like your poor uncle, are you?"
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working on Nabokov to attend the Westminster Dog Show this year. Audience
sentiment for best in show was clearly for the dachshund. The judges,
however, saw fit to give best in show to a silly-looking Pekinese. VN would
have been appalledas were we!
From: Vladimir Nabokov Forum [mailto:NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU] On Behalf
Of Nabokv-L
Sent: Wednesday, February 15, 2012 5:16 PM
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Subject: [NABOKV-L] Westminster dog show may not love them, but Nabokov did:
Dachshunds ...
Subject:
Re: [NABOKV-L] Westminster dog show may not love them, but Nabokov did:
Dachshunds ...
From:
Jansy <mailto:jansy@aetern.us> <jansy@aetern.us>
Date:
Wed, 15 Feb 2012 18:24:55 -0200
To:
<mailto:NABOKV-L@listserv.ucsb.edu> <NABOKV-L@listserv.ucsb.edu>
Sandy Klein sends:
<http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/pageviews/2012/02/westminster-dog-show-may
-not-love-them-but-nabokov-did-dachshunds-adored-companion>
http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/pageviews/2012/02/westminster-dog-show-may-
not-love-them-but-nabokov-did-dachshunds-adored-companion with the title:
"Westminster dog show may not love them, but Nabokov did: Dachshunds, adored
companions to writers and artists" by Alexander Nazaryan.
JM: In the article about the Westminster dog show there's a quote from
"Speak, Memory," in which Vlladimir Nabokov describes, among other issues,
his mother's dachs, Box[...] and observes that he "...is so old and thickly
padded with dreams (about chewable slippers and a few last smells) that he
does not stir when faint bells jingle outside. Soon afterwards Anton
Chekhov's dachshunds, Quinine and Bromine., are mentioned but there's no
reference to the blood-connection between Box and one of Chekhov's dogs (I
think this story is told in Nabokov's memoirs).
Alexander Nazaryan observes that "perhaps because of their distinctive
personalities, dachshunds often appear in fiction: from the dropsical
dackel of a neighbor spotted by Humbert Humbert in 'Lolita' to Sherman
McCoys Marshall, with whom he famously struggles in the opening of 'The
Bonfire of the Vanities.' It must be said, unfortunately, that the titular
character in Chekhovs 'Lady with Lapdog' owns a Pomeranian."
French writer Victor Hugo's grandson once tried to "wed" his dackel, named
"Lolita," to Pablo Picasso's guest-dog, "Lump".* Although I'd forgotten all
about "Lolita" and a neighbor's "dropsical dackel," I decided to investigate
more the abundant references I remembered from "Ada."
I hadn't noticed before that a dachshund is closely associated to Lucette.**
nor that there was a reference to Chekhov in the same paragraph in which
Marina's restless dackel makes one of his appearances*** - and the context
of Van's confession of his "dackelophobia."# among other unexpected
connections...
............................................................................
............................................................................
.....................
* - "Lolita" and "Lump" must have met in 1957. Cf. David Douglas Duncan's
"Lump the Dog who ate a Picasso" Ed.Thames and Hudson,2006.
(quote p.62-63: "Silversmith François Hugo, grandson of Victor, arrived with
two massive Picasso-designed platters, his wife and a friend - and his
svelte lady dachshund, Lolita. Asked by Picasso whether Lump had ever been
married, I replied "No!" Hugo responded to the same query about Lolita -
"No!". The next platter delivery was delayed to coincide with their
marriage. She returned jewel-eyed, with dish-doily wedding necklace around
her throat, Picasso their helpful godfather. To no avail. Lum and Lolita
remained childless." .
** "Lucette was rocking the glum dackel, or looking up at an imaginary
woodpecker, or with various pretty contortions unhurriedly mounting the
gray-looped board and swinging gently and gingerly as if never having done
it yet, while idiot Dack barked at the locked pavilion door. She increased
her momentum..."
" She did not see her whole life flash before her as we all were afraid she
might have done; the red rubber of a favorite doll remained safely
decomposed among the myosotes of an unanalyzable brook; but she did see a
few odds and ends as she swam like a dilettante Tobakoff in a circle of
brief panic and merciful torpor. She saw a pair of new vair-furred bedroom
slippers, which Brigitte had forgotten to pack; she saw Van wiping his mouth
before answering, and then, still withholding the answer, throwing his
napkin on the table as they both got up; and she saw a girl with long black
hair quickly bend in passing to clap her hands over a dackel in a half-tom
wreath."
Strangely it's doomed Greg who mentions Ada's film, marriage, Lucette's
dackel and a death by drowning:" Oh, that would be terrible, I declare to
switch on the dorotelly, and suddenly see her. Like a drowning man seeing
his whole past, and the trees, and the flowers, and the wreathed dachshund.
She must have been terribly affected by her mothers terrible death. "
*** - "The corridor was dark, somewhere the dachshund was barking
ecstatically...the so-called baronial barn, ...was on fire. Fifty cows
would have been without hay and Larivière without her midday coffee cream
had it happened later in the season. Van felt slighted. Theyve all gone and
left me behind, as old Fierce mumbles at the end of the Cherry Orchard
(Marina was an adequate Mme Ranevski)...Uncle Dan, a cigar in his teeth, and
kerchiefed Marina with Dack in her clutch deriding the watchdogs, were in
the process of setting out between raised arms and swinging lanterns in the
runabout "
# - "The dog came in, turned up a brimming brown eye Vanward, toddled up to
the window, looked at the rain like a little person, and returned to his
filthy cushion in the next room.
I could never stand that breed, remarked Van. Dackelophobia. But girls
do you like girls, Van, do you have many girls? You are not a pederast,
like your poor uncle, are you?"
Google Search the archive
<http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en%0d%0a>
Contact the Editors <mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu>
Visit <http://www.nabokovonline.com> "Nabokov Online Journal"
Visit Zembla <http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm>
View Nabokv-L Policies <http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm>
Manage subscription options <http://listserv.ucsb.edu/>
Visit AdaOnline <http://www.ada.auckland.ac.nz/>
View NSJ Ada Annotations <http://vnjapan.org/main/ada/index.html>
Temporary L-Soft Search the archive
<https://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A0=NABOKV-L&X=58B9943B29972AFF64&Y
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All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.
Search archive with Google:
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Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
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Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/