Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0000325, Sat, 20 Aug 1994 17:14:53 -0700

Subject
RJ:Chance (fwd)
Date
Body
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 1994 15:35:07 -0400 (EDT)
From: Jeff Edmunds <JHE@psulias.psu.edu>

Lest subscribers who missed my original posting be misled by Roy
Johnson's response, I wanted to clarify one point. In using the phrase
"belabored and over-obvious exposition" I was not referring to the story
as a whole (as the first line of Dr. Johnson's response has it) but to the
scene between Lena and the Princess, which I still maintain is, Nabokovianly
speaking, unsubtle.

As to Luzhin's planning his death, the original Russian does include the
chess reference: "V sotnyi raz voobrazhal on, kak ustroit svoiu smert'.
Rasschityval kazhduiu meloch', slovno reshal shakhmatnuiu zadachu."
["For the hundredth time he imagined how he would arrangehis own death.
He calculated evry trifle as if he were solving a chess
problem".....Translation supplied by editor].
Jeff Edmunds