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Re: bloody
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Dear Jansy,
You are quite right in supposing that politics & poetry are more important in Ada than may seem. I discuss them at length in three essays: "Russian poets and potentates as Scots and Scandinavians in Ada..." (see the latest and the forthcoming issues of The Nabokovian), "Ada as VN's antiutopia set on Antiterra" (to be published soon), "Ada as a mystical novel" (the work in progress). I mention Peter I, and some other tsars, in the fisrt of the three articles.
If you still have doubts that Russian tsars are of any significance in Ada, please remember that, in Aqua's last hospital, one of the nurses' name is Joan the Terrible (an obvious allusion to tsar Ivan the Terrible).
To your observation about the chopped finger I, or rather Van, can add: "using a temporary expedient less far-fetched than that hit upon by Father Sergius (who chops off the wrong member in Count Tolstoy's famous anecdote)..." (3.5). As you may know, Father Sergius chops off (with an axe) the forefinger on his left hand, in his struggle to withstand the temptation to go over to the female visitor to his small secluded monastery.
I'm not an expert in liquors and their names, so I thank everybody who replied to my "alcoholic" comment. Mind you, I was sober.
best,
Alexey
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You are quite right in supposing that politics & poetry are more important in Ada than may seem. I discuss them at length in three essays: "Russian poets and potentates as Scots and Scandinavians in Ada..." (see the latest and the forthcoming issues of The Nabokovian), "Ada as VN's antiutopia set on Antiterra" (to be published soon), "Ada as a mystical novel" (the work in progress). I mention Peter I, and some other tsars, in the fisrt of the three articles.
If you still have doubts that Russian tsars are of any significance in Ada, please remember that, in Aqua's last hospital, one of the nurses' name is Joan the Terrible (an obvious allusion to tsar Ivan the Terrible).
To your observation about the chopped finger I, or rather Van, can add: "using a temporary expedient less far-fetched than that hit upon by Father Sergius (who chops off the wrong member in Count Tolstoy's famous anecdote)..." (3.5). As you may know, Father Sergius chops off (with an axe) the forefinger on his left hand, in his struggle to withstand the temptation to go over to the female visitor to his small secluded monastery.
I'm not an expert in liquors and their names, so I thank everybody who replied to my "alcoholic" comment. Mind you, I was sober.
best,
Alexey
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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