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Re: larvae & instars or Krolik: breeding or feeding?
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CK: Although as Jansy well knows, Ada is my least favorite VN novel, now that my name has come up, I may as well follow it by sticking my own nose in and ask the as yet unasked question: why does Ada put those larvae (which larvae, by the way - - do we know?) in with Krolik's body? Any theories (I have one of my own, of course).
Dear Carolyn,
First of all, not "larvae," but pupae (a different stage in the metamorphosis of insects):
"after Dr Krolik died (in 1886) of a heart attack in his garden, she [Ada] had placed all her live pupae in his open coffin where he lay, she said, as plump and pink as in vivo." (1.35).
I wouldn't build a theory on this, because elsewhere Ada gives a different version of the end of her childhood passion for "everything that crawls:"
"What had she actually done with the poor worms, after Krolik's untimely end?
'Oh, set them free' (big vague gesture), 'turned them out, put them back onto suitable plants, buried them in the pupal state, told them to run along, while the birds are not looking - or, alas, feigning not to be looking..." (1.31).
While we are here, IN VIVO + STARINE = IN VINO VERITAS (starine is prepositional case of starina, Russian for "old days, ancientry." Cf. Tatiana's words to her nurse in Pushkin's Eugene Onegin, chapter three, XVII, 3-4: ??? ??????, / ????????? ? ???????, "I'm dull. / Let's talk about old days", or the author's declaration a little later in the same chapter, XXVIII, 14: ? ????? ???? ???????, "I shall be true to ancientry." In vino veritas is a Latin proverb, "in vine is truth")
In Blok's Incognita (the poem directly alluded to in Ada: 3.3) there are lines:
? ??????? ? ??????? ????????
In vino veritas ??????.
And drunks with the eyes of rabbits
cry out: "In vino veritas!"
Alexey Sklyarenko
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Dear Carolyn,
First of all, not "larvae," but pupae (a different stage in the metamorphosis of insects):
"after Dr Krolik died (in 1886) of a heart attack in his garden, she [Ada] had placed all her live pupae in his open coffin where he lay, she said, as plump and pink as in vivo." (1.35).
I wouldn't build a theory on this, because elsewhere Ada gives a different version of the end of her childhood passion for "everything that crawls:"
"What had she actually done with the poor worms, after Krolik's untimely end?
'Oh, set them free' (big vague gesture), 'turned them out, put them back onto suitable plants, buried them in the pupal state, told them to run along, while the birds are not looking - or, alas, feigning not to be looking..." (1.31).
While we are here, IN VIVO + STARINE = IN VINO VERITAS (starine is prepositional case of starina, Russian for "old days, ancientry." Cf. Tatiana's words to her nurse in Pushkin's Eugene Onegin, chapter three, XVII, 3-4: ??? ??????, / ????????? ? ???????, "I'm dull. / Let's talk about old days", or the author's declaration a little later in the same chapter, XXVIII, 14: ? ????? ???? ???????, "I shall be true to ancientry." In vino veritas is a Latin proverb, "in vine is truth")
In Blok's Incognita (the poem directly alluded to in Ada: 3.3) there are lines:
? ??????? ? ??????? ????????
In vino veritas ??????.
And drunks with the eyes of rabbits
cry out: "In vino veritas!"
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/