This entire chapter carries a lot of VN´s precious
indications about what he thought about the "real" in literature and
in life - perhaps also in "afterlife". It was
also in this chapter that I noticed VN write, for the
first time, that " one should bear in mind, however, that there is no
mirage without a vanishing point, just as there is no lake without a closed
circle of reliable land" .
Here (ch24) he wrote: " Human life can be compared to a person
dancing in a variety of forms around his own self; thus the vegetables of our
first picture book encircled a boy ( Don has discussed this "boy" in the chapter
of his article in Zembla that he posted yesterday) in his dream - green
cucumber, blue eggplant, red beet (...) their spinning ronde going
faster and faster"... and he ends his book using this same "dream".
On
Ch.26 : "Rings of blurred colors circled around him, remindind him
briefly of a childhood picture in a frigthening book about triumphant
vegetables...(...) Easy, you know, does it, son " .
What are the life and death choices we can make? seems to be the
insistent question proposed in these chapters.
Last year I watched Spielberg´s movie " Minority Report" ( based on
Phillip Dick´s Sci-Fi short-story). Choice and the possibility of a rupture
from the "cause-and-effect" circles that bind our freedom in "rings of
blurred colors" is poignantly illustrated there, in this "minority report"....
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2004 8:51
PM
Subject: Fwd: TT-25 Akiko's Notes
----- Forwarded message from a-nakata@courante.plala.or.jp
-----
Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2004 22:34:55
+0900
From: Akiko Nakata <a-nakata@courante.plala.or.jp>
Reply-To:
Akiko Nakata <a-nakata@courante.plala.or.jp>
Subject:
TT-25 Introductory Notes
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU, chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu
94.03-06: A
search for lost time . . . *je suis ne": "The French translates
the opening
of Thomas Hood's 'I remember, I remember' (1827). Goodgrief
combines Hood
('Good' in the Russian transliteration) and the surname of C.
K. Scot
Moncrieff, the translator of Proust who changed the title of *A
la
recherche du temps perdu* (*In Search of Lost Time*) to *Remembrance
of
Things Past* in order to keep to Proust's R-T-P- pattern and to
echo
Shakespeare's sonnet 30: 'When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
/ I
summon up remembrance of things past . . . '" (Brian Boyd's note to the
LoA
edition).
You can read the poem by Thomas Hood
at:
http://www.photoaspects.com/chesil/hood/; Shakespeare's sonnet 30
at:
http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/30.html .
94.06:
Proust's quest: As Alyssa Pelish pointed out the resemblance between
a
passage from "The Fugitive" and Ch.1 of TT some months ago, Proust plays
an
important role in the novella. A passage from VN's lecture on Proust
almost
sounds to describe TT (except for "enormous"): "The whole is a
treasure
hunt where the treasure is time and the hiding place the past [. .
.
] The transmutation of sensation into sentiment, the ebb and tide
of
memory, waves of emotions such as desire, jealousy, and
artistic
euphoria--this is the material of the enormous and yet singularly
light and
translucid work."
Another Proust connection: "Now Lady X,"
repeated in this chapter, alludes
to some characters in Proust who move up
to a higher position as Odette de
Crecy finally becomes Comtess de
Forcheville.
94.12-13: Jacques lay buried under six feet of snow in
Chute, Colorado: One
of the characters who have died backstage. As Don and
John has mentioned,
"Chute" suggests that the ex-bobsled champion died by
falling. As I wrote on
Ch. 7, in "The Vane Sisters," the spirit of Oscar
Wilde tells that he and
his brother, John and Bill Moore, coal miners in
Colorado, died in an
avalanche. In this chapter just before we see M. Wilde
we hear about Jacque.
94.13: a club hut: Have we seen the hut? Is it
the shallet where three J
boys had a party?
94.15-16: "Draconite," a
stimulant no longer in production: is of course
from Draconita as well as
Dragon + knight/night. Cf. "The *dragon drag* had
worn off: its
aftereffects are not pleasant, combining as they do physical
fatigue with a
certain starkness of thought as if all color were drained
from the mind"
(ADA II. 11, my italics).
95.23: A dog yapped on the inner side of the
door: It reminds me of the
"dog" that Kern of "Wingstroke" believes to be
with Isabel in her room
(later he knows it was not a dog). Unlike it, the
dog whose yapping HP hears
actually accompanies the woman who stays in the
room. HP has no chance to
see the dog, though. The dog was foreshadowed by
the door's winning
following HP "like a stupid pet" (Ch. 2). As a dog (a
setter) causes
Charlotte's death in *Lolita*, a dog (a spitz) indirectly
leads HP to the
death in the room where he and Armande stayed eight years
ago. See also the
note to "the lady with the dog" below.
95.31:
"Beau Romeo": The exact name of the Stresa hotel is The Grand Hotel
des
Isles Borromees, facing Lago Maggiore. Answering my question, Brian
Boyd
revised the note to the LoA edition that the hotel was
"Borromeo"--there
seems to be no hotel by the name in Stresa. He also
brought my attention to
the Maggiore-Major-More-Moore connections. You can
see the hotel at
http://www.borromees.it/index2.html.
96.07:
*Transatlantic*: Another "trans-." HP returned trans-Atlantically to
the
magazine (obviously a pun on *The Atlantic*) he left there eight
years
ago. Could it be possible that VN was thinking of Witold
Gombrowicz's
novel, *Trans-Atlantyk*?
96.10-11: Monsieur Wilde's
English . . . intonation: "Nabokov commented that
George Steiner 'absurdly
overestimates Oscar Wilde's mastery of French'
(*Strong Opinions*, Article
7, 'Anniversary Notes'--'George Steiner')"
(Brian Boyd's note to
LoA).
In "The Vane Sisters," Wilde speaks "rapid garbled French, with the
usual
anglicisms."
96.17-18: One talks here of a man who murdered
his spouse eight years ago:
As the issue was left by HP himself, it cannot
have the article about HP's
own murder, but several paralles are found
between HP and the murderer.
96.26-27: the woman who had enveloped the
fat that remained of her ham in a
paper napkin: "The lady with the dog" is
going to give it to her dog. We
will see a shred of the paper napkin and a
smudge of grease in the
wastepaper basket in the following
chapter.
96.33-97.he had been an exemplary prisoner and had even taught
his
cell-mates such things as chess, Esperanto, the best way to make
pumpkin
pie, the signs of the zodiac, gin rummy, et cetera, et cetera: Is
there any
well-known criminal to whom all these things apply
to?
98.02-06: I faked violence . . . appering subnormal: A Hamlet
motif.
98.19: *l'aiguillon rouge*: I am grateful to Brian Boyd for
telling me that
*l'aiguillon rouge* comes from a hawkmoth, the sphinx du
liseron, which has
an "aiguillon rouge," and it "may come from Ronsard,
whom Nabokov knew well,
and there is an 'aiguillon' (as Cupid's arrow,
though), in the sonnet 'Qui
voudra voyr comme un Dieu me surmonte.' But
it's not red." I am also
grateful to Jansy for sending me a photo of
the hawkmoth (I am forwarding it
to the list). Ronsard's "Poemes des
Amours" (1552) can be read
at:
http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~lavoicy/labe/pleiade/ronsard-amours1.htm .
The
fourth stanza has "D'avoir au flanc l'aiguillon
amoureux."
98.24-25: three famous theologians and two minor poets: Who
are they? I only
remember Socrates and his Daimonion, a kind of guardian
spirit, which warned
the philosopher against various prospective
events.
98.26-27: a larger, incredibly wiser, calmer and stronger
stranger, morally
better than he: Cf. "A demon, I felt, was frocingme to
impersonate that
other man, that other writer who was and would always be
incomparably
greater, healthier, and crueler than your obedient servant"
(*LATH* II. 3).
98.35-99.01: Verona, Florence, Rome, Taormina: In March
1970 VN went to Rome
with the index cards for TT. Then in April and May he
visited Taormina
(Brian Boyd, *VNAY* 576). In Florence the Nabokovs visited
museums in 1966
(*Ibid* 512). How about Verona?
99.08-09: The lady
with the little dog: "Title of Anton Chekhov's story of
an adulterous
affair, 'Dama s sobachkoi' (1899) (Brian Boyd's note to LoA).
In Chekhov's
story, the little dog is a spitz. In "Spring in Fialta," VN's
"The Lady
with the Little Dog," dogs are intentionally spared. However,
Nina's scarf
"already on the move like those dogs that recognize you before
their owners
do" makes her see Victor as a spitz gives Gulov a chance to
talk to Anna in
Chekhov's story.
Thank you for reading!
Akiko
----- End
forwarded message -----
94.03-06: A search for lost time . . . *je
suis né": "The French translates the opening of Thomas Hood's 'I remember, I
remember' (1827). Goodgrief combines Hood ('Good' in the Russian
transliteration) and the surname of C. K. Scot Moncrieff, the translator of
Proust who changed the title of *A la recherche du temps perdu* (*In Search of
Lost Time*) to *Remembrance of Things Past* in order to keep to Proust's
R-T-P- pattern and to echo Shakespeare's sonnet 30: 'When to the sessions of
sweet silent thought / I summon up remembrance of things past . . . '"
(Brian Boyd's note to the LoA edition).
94.06: Proust's quest: As Alyssa
Pelish pointed out the resemblance between a passage from "The
Fugitive" and Ch.1 of TT some months ago, Proust plays an
important role in the novella. A passage from VN's lecture on Proust
almost sounds to describe TT (except for "enormous"): "The whole is a
treasure hunt where the treasure is time and the hiding place the past [. . .
] The transmutation of sensation into sentiment, the ebb and tide of
memory, waves of emotions such as desire, jealousy, and artistic
euphoria--this is the material of the enormous and yet singularly light and
translucid work."
Another Proust connection: "Now Lady X,"
repeated in this chapter, alludes to some characters in Proust
who move up to a higher position as Odette de Crécy finally becomes Comtess de
Forcheville.
94.12-13: Jacques lay buried under six feet of snow in
Chute, Colorado: One of the characters who have died backstage. As
Don and John has mentioned, "Chute" suggests that the ex-bobsled
champion died by falling. As I wrote on Ch. 7, in "The Vane
Sisters," the spirit of Oscar Wilde tells that he and his brother, John
and Bill Moore, coal miners in Colorado, died in an avalanche. In this chapter
just before we see M. Wilde we hear about Jacque.
94.13: a club hut: Have
we seen the hut? Is it the shallet where three J boys had a
party?
94.15-16: "Draconite," a stimulant no longer
in production: is of course from Draconita as well as Dragon +
knight/night. Cf. "The *dragon drag* had worn off: its aftereffects are not
pleasant, combining as they do physical fatigue with a certain starkness of
thought as if all color were drained from the mind" (ADA II. 11, my italics).
95.23: A dog yapped on the inner side of the
door: It reminds me of the "dog" that Kern of "Wingstroke" believes to be
with Isabel in her room (later he knows it was not a
dog). Unlike it, the dog whose yapping HP hears actually
accompanies the woman who stays in the room. HP has no chance to see
the dog, though. The dog was foreshadowed by the door's winning
following HP "like a stupid pet" (Ch. 2). As a dog (a setter) causes
Charlotte's death in *Lolita*, a dog (a spitz) indirectly leads
HP to the death in the room where he and Armande stayed eight years ago.
See also the note to "the lady with the
dog" below.
95.31: "Beau Romeo": The exact
name of the Stresa hotel is The Grand Hòtel des Isles Borromées, facing
Lago Maggiore. Answering my question, Brian Boyd revised the note
to the LoA edition that the hotel was "Borromeo"--there
seems to be no hotel by the name in Stresa. He also brought my
attention to the Maggiore-Major-More-Moore connections. You can see the
hotel at http://www.borromees.it/index2.html.
96.07: *Transatlantic*: Another
"trans-." HP returned trans-Atlantically to the magazine (obviously
a pun on *The Atlantic*) he left there eight years
ago. Could it be possible that VN was thinking of Witold
Gombrowicz's novel, *Trans-Atlantyk*?
96.10-11: Monsieur Wilde's English . . .
intonation: "Nabokov commented that George Steiner 'absurdly
overestimates Oscar Wilde's mastery of French' (*Strong Opinions*,
Article 7, 'Anniversary Notes'--'George Steiner')" (Brian Boyd's note to LoA).
In "The Vane
Sisters," Wilde speaks "rapid garbled French, with the usual
anglicisms."
96.17-18: One talks here of a man who
murdered his spouse eight years ago: As the issue was left by HP
himself, it cannot have the article about HP's own murder,
but several paralles are found between HP and the
murderer.
96.26-27: the woman who had enveloped the
fat that remained of her ham in a paper napkin: "The lady with the
dog" is going to give it to her dog. We will see a shred
of the paper napkin and a smudge of grease in the wastepaper basket
in the following chapter.
96.33-97.he had been an exemplary prisoner
and had even taught his cell-mates such things as chess, Esperanto, the best
way to make pumpkin pie, the signs of the zodiac, gin rummy, et cetera, et
cetera: Is there any well-known criminal to whom all these things apply
to?
98.02-06: I faked violence . . . appering
subnormal: A Hamlet motif.
98.19: *l'aiguillon rouge*: I am grateful to
Brian Boyd for telling me that *l'aiguillon rouge* comes from a hawkmoth,
the sphinx du liseron, which has an "aiguillon rouge," and it "may come
from Ronsard, whom Nabokov knew well, and there is an 'aiguillon' (as
Cupid's arrow, though), in the sonnet 'Qui voudra voyr comme un Dieu me
surmonte.' But it's not red." I am also grateful to Jansy for
sending me a photo of the hawkmoth (I am forwarding it to the
list). Ronsard's "Poèmes des Amours" (1552) can be read
at:
98.24-25: three famous theologians and two
minor poets: Who are they? I only remember Socrates and his Daimonion, a
kind of guardian spirit, which warned the philosopher against various
prospective events.
98.26-27: a larger, incredibly wiser, calmer
and stronger stranger, morally better than he: Cf. "A demon, I felt, was
frocingme to impersonate that other man, that other writer who was and would
always be incomparably greater, healthier, and crueler than your obedient
servant" (*LATH* II. 3).
98.35-99.01: Verona, Florence, Rome,
Taormina: In March 1970 VN went to Rome with the index cards for TT.
Then in April and May he visited Taormina (Brian Boyd, *VNAY*
576). In Florence the Nabokovs visited museums in 1966 (*Ibid*
512). How about Verona?
99.08-09: The lady with the little dog:
"Title of Anton Chekhov's story of an adulterous affair, 'Dama s sobachkoi'
(1899) (Brian Boyd's note to LoA). In Chekhov's story, the little dog is
a spitz. In "Spring in Fialta," VN's "The Lady with the Little Dog," dogs
are intentionally spared. However, Nina's scarf "already on the
move like those dogs that recognize you before their owners
do" makes her see Victor as a spitz gives Gulov a
chance to talk to Anna in Chekhov's story.
Thank you for reading!
Akiko