Subject: QUERY
From: "stanislaw milkowsky" <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 08 Jan 2002 14:26:47 -0800

Dear list,

I�ve got a couple of questions that require your expertise as well as
condescension to my ignorance.

Both concern VN�s short story called �Christmas� and I�m referring to the
Vintage paperback (The Stories of VN. NY: Vintage International, 1997, which
is paralleled by a Penguin edition in England, if I�m not mistaken). Page
numbers are 131-36 (n646).

# 1:

��on the wall, instead of a little lump of life, instead of a dark mouse,
was great *Attacus* moth like those that fly, birdlike, around lamps in the
Indian dusk� (p. 136)

Could anyone refer me to an accessible illustrated guide that would have a
good depiction of the beast (badly needed) and a little something about its
ways and habits (optional)? I would greatly appreciate if you could point
out a Nabokovian scholarly article (if there is one) that discusses the
moth�s significance and all that.

# 2:

There�s a gaping whole in my knowledge of VN�s work and that�s a very
superfluous idea of how chess work. In a note to the same story VN�s says:
�it oddly resembles the type of chess problem called �selfmate� (n647). I�ve
got a brief explanation of the type all right, but is there any way to find
a chessboard layout with a problem that would fall under the �selmate�
category? And what is the trick again? (�1: checkmate forced by the side
that is checkmated � called also suimate 2: a chess problem in which suimate
is required� � Webster�s Third Unabriged, 1976 � not a particularly helpful
article somehow, at least in my case).

And that is it. I would be exceedingly grateful if you could share with me
your information or refer me to appropiate books/sites.

Cheers,

Stan. Milkowsky,
Nizhny-Novgorod

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