"Of the many ancestors along the wall, she pointed
out her favorite, old Prince Vseslav Zemski (1699-1797), friend of Linnaeus and
author of Flora Ladorica, who was portrayed in rich oil holding his barely
pubescent bride and her blond doll in his satin lap."
After following "poor Salisburian" adventures, it occurred to
me to click on "Nabokov Taxonomy" to investigate a bit more about him
and Linnaeus via VN. Well..."Taxonomy and Nabokov
are conjoined."
fossilsandotherlivingthings.blogspot.com/.../beginni...
I equally learned why a "red label" is mentioned in VN's poem
"On Discovering a Butterfly".
Also that "
The butterfly in question,
incidentally, was a pug moth named 'Eupithecia nabokovi' ... Be that as it may,
on solving a couple more Nabokov charades, one is tempted to ask the
otherworldly VN whether he himself has noticed that hiding in the scholarly name
of his Eupithecia Nabokovi is a 'good monkey'." and "
Of course poets
have long espoused the conceit that words are the surest form of immortality -
"Not marble, nor the gilded monuments / Of princes, shall outlive this powerful
rhyme" quoth the Bard - but Nabokov trumps even that with his "thus became [...]
its first describer -- and I want no other fame." And although he says "it will
transcend its dust", the temptation is irresistible to read, uperposed on the
"it", a triumphant 'I'.".
wonderingminstrels.blogspot.com/.../on-discovering...
--
http://www.usc.edu/dept/las/sll/eng/ess/nabpuzzl.htm
and one related to Jakobson and a Salisbury steak eaten on
a Friday: "When Roman Jakobson—great linguist, Harvard
professor—was approached some years ago with the suggestion that Vladimir
Nabokov might be appointed professor of Slavic, Jakobson was skeptical; he had
nothing against elephants, he said, but he would not appoint one professor of
zoology...The analogy compares the elegant and stylish Nabokov—novelist in
various languages, lepidopterist, lecturer, and critic—to the great, gray,
hulking pachyderm, intellectually noted only for memory. . . . By jokes and
analogies we reveal ourselves. Jakobson condescends to Nabokov—just as Plato
patted little Ion on his head, just as Sartre makes charitable exception for
poets in What Is
Literature?..." Classics |
Narrative Magazine www.narrativemagazine.com/taxonomy/term/19/0?...
and... a lot more!