NABOKV-L discussion

There are a few bits of Pale Fire which I haven’t seen mentioned in the forums, and I’m never sure whether this is because they’re so obvious as to not need comment, or because they’ve not been broadly understood (or maybe we completely disagree). At the risk of stating the obvious, here are a few brief notes.

The confounding of space and time is a recurring theme in Nabokov’s work, starting at least as early as Mary, where consecutive rooms are identified with consecutive dates:

The Dream of Mademoiselle as Jezebel

Getting to the Root of the Scene in Drugie berega / Other Shores

An Examination of Vladimir Nabokov's Russian semi-autobiography regarding his governess, Mademoiselle, in Chapter 5. Correlating the Dream of Mlle as Jezebel, the Bible, Racine's "Athalie" and the Potemkin Stairs into Nabokov's possible deep psychological cause to his deep distaste to the writing of Jean Racine.

Attached: 15 pages = Title Page + 12 Pages of Text + 1 page of Pics (3) + Endnotes Page (15)

Another cursory thing came up while doing other things. There are more than enough allusions in the rich tapestry of Ada for me to add one more, but something in the following passage just clicks instantly. Brian Boyd annotates it as follows:

Although I have been intrigued by this entry ever since Brian Boyd's mention of it under Nabokov's Reading (in the forthcoming Think, Write, Speak) only now do I look up Nabokov's Eugene Onegin and see that his epistolary novel Obermann has been quoted approvingly several times in the course of the commentary. One of them goes like this:

I was just browsing through Ada and (Ada Online) when I came across three points in need of further elucidation. (http://www.ada.auckland.ac.nz)

Pt. 1 Ch 3 - 27.08: in distant France, at a much less radiant and easygoing "home": the principal allusion seems to be to the suicide of Emma Bovary, in a distorted Antiterran version. In Flaubert's novel she does not die in an institutional "home."

and from the same chapter,

The forum hasn't exactly been a bastion of healthy conversation lately, but I keep checking in every so often, hoping to find the situation changed.

Is anyone else thinking and doing the same?

(Poor impersonations of Nabokov strongly discouraged.)

Meet Miss Phalen in Lolita

A Convoluted Conversation

And you think you know, Miss Phalen?

[1 Name with 10 Pics in 10 Pages]

Attached is but a two-paragraph sampler of Drugie berega / Other Shores.

Wishing all as much enjoyment in reading as I have in translating.

Best,

Jim Buckingham

The trilogy of Nabokov's semi-autobiographies (fictional elements are within the autobiographies) starts with Conclusive Evidence (1951), continues with Drugie berega / Other Shores (1954) and concludes with Speak, Memory (the US version in 1966).

Nabokov's tip of the hat towards Irving is found as being one of the first names in Lolita's class list: Flashman, Irving (Part I, Ch. 11). More telling though is what Vladimir would take as a last name should he ever return to Mother Russia under a false passport.