EDNOTE. ANy thoughts on this anybody? I would point
out that Scandinavian mythology is an important motif in PALE FIRE. Priscilla
Meyer has written a book on PF with special attention to Icelandic myths
and other other bits of Scando-lore.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2003 1:13 PM
Subject: Re: Nabokov & double dactyls
Hello
Although Iīm way out from my own
field of work, I keep trying to follow the List and VN. I have a special puzzle
in Ada which I think could now be broached upon. If you think it
has any bearing to or means anything of interest please forward it to
the list. Otherwise, delete it...
Iīve been enjoying J.L.Borges
classes in English Literature in Buenos Aires where he tries to
teach the misteries of a "secret chamber" in English,
their "the subterranean gold that mythical serpents keep". This
is how Borges refers to the antique gold found in the poetry of the
anglo-saxons before he concludes with: "man sings before he speaks"
....
Borges observed that the Germans didnīt use rhymes or
isossylabic verses and had to resort to "kennnings" to
demarcate their sentences.
While reading Borges and also
"Ada" I began to entertain the idea that we might
discover a use of metaphors in VN that would be similar to the
scandinavian Kenningar!.
An example is already
present in the alliterative epic poem " Beowulf" where the
title stands as a metaphor for " the wolf of the bees" which, in turn,
points to "bear".
Having in mind that
German and Scandinavian people had to enter a special state of mind to
fight a war ( berserk ) since their leaders wore a bearskin, VNīs
reference to "bears" and furs ( F/ Urs ? ) gains a special meaning
for me, but which I cannot follow since I know no Russian.
Here are some examples
Ada, 1969 Penguin
Edition:
page 304: Letīs have dinner at Ursus next
weekend.
page 322: " Van took them Saaturday night to
'Ursus' the best Franco-Estonian restaurant in Manhattan Major"
pag.288: " I am ill at these numbers, but
eīen rhymery is easier ' than confuting the past in mute prose'
(...)
A black bear with bright russet locks ( the sun had
reached its first parlor window ) (...)
"deep, dark coat, side-thinking ( he liked
furs): sea bear ( kotik)? No, desman ( vihuhol).
page 307/308 " a deep brown, hoar-glossed coat
of sea-otter fur, the famous kamchatstkiy bobr of ancient Estotian
traders, also known as lutromarina on the Lyaska coast: 'my natural fur, ' as
Marina used to say pleasantly of her own cape, inherited from a Zemski grandam,
when, at the dispersal of a winter ball, some lady wearing vison or coypu or a
lowly manteau de castor ( beaver, nemetskiy bobr) would comment with a
rapturous moan on the bobrovaya shuba (...)
" Neither sibling ever could reconstruct (
and all this, including the sea-otter, must not be regarded as a
narratorīs evasion - we have done, in our time, much more difficult
things) what they said, how they kissed..."
Before this:
page 227: " one must not berne you"
pag.277/79 & 297 variations on Likrot, Rotikl, Krolik, Viktor, Krestik.
If the "sea bear" is kotik, would those anagrams point to
it and not only to victor, crest, Krolig..? How?
Thank you,
Jansy