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Ruinen
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As I pointed out earlier, Ruinen (the home town of David van Veen's nephew) is an anagram of Un rien (as Heinrich Heine's French friends mispronounced his name).
On the other hand, "Ruinen" may hint at Rouen, Flaubert's home city. Flaubert was known for his love of brothels. He was a literary guardian of Maupassant (the author of Maison Tellier, Boule de suif, et al.). One of Flaubert's best friends was Turgenev (who recommended Maupassant to Tolstoy, who then translated Maupassant's story Le port into Russian* and wrote an introduction to the Russian edition of Maupassant's ouevre).
"All the hundred floramors [Villa Venus] opened simultaneously on September** 20, 1875" (2.3). On Terra, Turgenev moved on this very day to the new-built chalet at his and Viardot's villa Les frenes ("The Ash Trees") in Bougival (see Turgenev's letter of 7/19 September, 1875, to N. V. Khanykov). Bougival, a village near Paris, is the setting of Dumas-fils's La dame aux camelias and Maupassant's novella Yvette.
Rouen + Rhine + word = Ruinen + whore + rod [odr]
Rhine (Der Rhein) - the river (mentioned in Heine's Der Apollogott) that flows in Duesseldorf, Heine's home city
rod - Russ., family, kin; birth, origin
odr - Russ. obs., bed
*changing the title to "Франсуаза" and adding one sentence: "Она твоя сестра" (She [the whore] is your sister)
**As Van notes, the old Russian word for September, рюень, echoes the name of the ecstatic Neverlander's home town. Probably irrelevant, but рюень = ренью ("renew" as spelled in Russian)
Alexey Sklyarenko
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On the other hand, "Ruinen" may hint at Rouen, Flaubert's home city. Flaubert was known for his love of brothels. He was a literary guardian of Maupassant (the author of Maison Tellier, Boule de suif, et al.). One of Flaubert's best friends was Turgenev (who recommended Maupassant to Tolstoy, who then translated Maupassant's story Le port into Russian* and wrote an introduction to the Russian edition of Maupassant's ouevre).
"All the hundred floramors [Villa Venus] opened simultaneously on September** 20, 1875" (2.3). On Terra, Turgenev moved on this very day to the new-built chalet at his and Viardot's villa Les frenes ("The Ash Trees") in Bougival (see Turgenev's letter of 7/19 September, 1875, to N. V. Khanykov). Bougival, a village near Paris, is the setting of Dumas-fils's La dame aux camelias and Maupassant's novella Yvette.
Rouen + Rhine + word = Ruinen + whore + rod [odr]
Rhine (Der Rhein) - the river (mentioned in Heine's Der Apollogott) that flows in Duesseldorf, Heine's home city
rod - Russ., family, kin; birth, origin
odr - Russ. obs., bed
*changing the title to "Франсуаза" and adding one sentence: "Она твоя сестра" (She [the whore] is your sister)
**As Van notes, the old Russian word for September, рюень, echoes the name of the ecstatic Neverlander's home town. Probably irrelevant, but рюень = ренью ("renew" as spelled in Russian)
Alexey Sklyarenko
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/