Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0021500, Mon, 4 Apr 2011 11:53:06 -0300

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Re: Subject:,travail graphique sur Nabokov
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Hafid Bouazza suggests that the road-map from Axel Roy's portrait of Nabokov is "the painting is inspired by the description of the suburban map in Despair, chapter three," letting us a glimpse into a metaphysical graph from "the city of Berlin, which is outside the picture, maybe imagined somewhere in the vicinity of my left elbow.[...] My wristwatch is the small town of Koenigsdorf,[...]where there is another circle (the lower button of my waistcoat)"

JM: One can trust a Bouazza for the most recondite and apposite finds! This particular one, by Hafid, differs from the oft dismembered Shade and, even, from Nabokov's dispersal over the planet in "Strong Opinions." The words "in the vicinity of my left elbow" might have become a prophetic crooked "Bend Sinister".

Although there's no Axel Rex in this Berlin novel, there's Ardalion, also a painter who, like Axel, is a third element in the novel's love-triangle (the curious thing is that he's unable to draw Hermann's face, particularly his shifty poisson d'avril** eyes.)



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* - In Pale Fire (lines 148/156) Shade writes that he "felt distributed through space and time:/One foot upon a mountaintop, one hand/Under the pebbles of a panting strand,/One ear in Italy, one eye in Spain,/In caves, my blood, and in the stars, my brain./There were dull throbs in my Triassic; green/ Optical spots in Upper Pleistocene,/An icy shiver down my Age of Stone,/ And all tomorrows in my funnybone."

** - SES writes: "The April Fool's joke that deposited a foot of snow on the promising green spikes in my yard last Friday was repeated, a few hours later, by the death of my router, so there was a slight interruption in service. All posts have now been posted, however." Welcome back, Beth and I hope that this snowy foot has disappeared by now and that your yard begins to flourish again!
-----Mensagem Original-----
De: Hafid Bouazza
Para: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Enviada em: sábado, 2 de abril de 2011 17:29
Assunto: Re: [NABOKV-L] Subject:,travail graphique sur Nabokov


It seems to me that the painting is inspired by the description of the suburban map in Despair, chapter three:


Let us suppose I am holding that map before me; then the city of Berlin, which is outside the picture, maybe imagined somewhere in the vicinity of my left elbow.[...]the railway line, which, metaphysically at least, runs along my sleeve cuffward from Berlin. My wristwatch is the small town of Koenigsdorf,[...]where there is another circle (the lower button of my waistcoat): Eichenberg.[...]the main road, leaves it and continues nirth alone, straight to the village of Waldau (the nail of my left thumb).


Best,


Hafid Bouazza

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