I do realize that it is foolish to
depart from transposed verbal shapes in a completely foreign language
to me, and metamorphose them from, say "balagur"
into "balagan" - a word that might be pertinent in relation to Van's
harlequinesque act as Mascodagama.
Dear Jansy,
I mention balagan (low farce) and
Balaganov, a character in Ilf and Petrov's "The Golden Calf" (1931), in my
article THE
NAKED TRUTH, OR THE READER’S SENTIMENTAL EDUCATION IN ADA’S
QUELQUE
CHOSE
UNIVERSITY
(http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/sklyarenko7.doc).
Btw., if I were writing it now, I would have added another epigraph:
Le fruit de l’amour mondain n’est autre chose que
la jouissance. Brantôme
An
anagram that may amuse you: BALAGAN + URSUS + MARINA = BALAGUR + SUSANNA + IRMA
(Ursus, Lat., "bear;" a character in Hugo's L'homme qui rit; a
restaurant in Ada; Marina, Susanna and Irma are female given
names)
As
to Balaganchik, it is a play in verse, interspersed with prose
monologues, by Blok (1906). It was dedicated to Meyerhold who
produced the play's stage version. It shouldn't be confused with
Blok's poem of the same title (1905), or Balagan, another short poem by
Blok (1906).
best,
Alexey