Subject
Annotations to ADA (1.30)
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Date
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Boyd: "the celebrated film Brononosets Potyomkin (The Battleship Potyomkin or Potemkin, 1925)"
The correct spelling is bronenosets (which means "battleship" and "armadillo"). Even if VN disliked the movie, he would not have misspelled its title.
P. O. Tyomkin is mentioned in Russian Lolita (2.23): едва ли следовало быть знатоком кинематографа, чтобы раскусить пошлую подковырку в адресе: "П. О. Тёмкин, Одесса, Техас". If I were annotating Ada, I would have mentioned the thirty sons of Lieutenant Schmidt, innumerable grandchildren of Karl Marx (known on Antiterra as Marx pere) and Chernomorsk in Ilf & Petrov's "The Golden Calf," Chernomor and thirty three knights (all of whom live in the sea) in Pushkin's "Fairy Tale about Czar Saltan."
Boyd: "The first line Van cites echoes the alternative Russian title of the tango, but the second line is Nabokov’s invention."
Not quite so. Pod znoynym nebom Argentiny is the tango Ostap Bender dances solo in Ilf & Petrov's "The Golden Calf." In the same novel, pod sladkiy lepet mandoliny ("to the sweet murmer of mandolina") the Roman Catholic priests Moroshek and Kushakovski охмуряют (try to seduce) their compatriot Adam Kozlevich, the driver of the Antelope Gnu car. The line was invented by Ilf & Petrov and slightly changed by Nabokov (who kept the rhyme).
a green world rotating in space and spiraling in time
Earth's twin planet reached by the hero of Dostoevsky's story "Сон смешного человека" ("The Dream of a Ridiculous Man," 1877) after he had committed suicide in his dream is also green. In my "Ada as a Triple Dream" I suggest that Antiterra (aka Demonia) is this green planet (the history of its inhabitants lags behind but, after the ridiculous man's arrival, accelerates and almost catches up with the history of our world). In another article I argue that Antiterran L disaster in the beau milieu of the 19th century corresponds to the mock execution of Dostoevsky on January 3, 1850 (NS). January 3 is Lucette's birthday.
Brian Boyd (I hope he will pardon me saying this) is a brilliant biographer and good commentator, but he failed to notice the three main things about Ada:
that it is a dream;
that it is a fairy tale;
that it is a charade-like puzzle (шарадовидная загадка).
Alexey Sklyarenko
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Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
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The correct spelling is bronenosets (which means "battleship" and "armadillo"). Even if VN disliked the movie, he would not have misspelled its title.
P. O. Tyomkin is mentioned in Russian Lolita (2.23): едва ли следовало быть знатоком кинематографа, чтобы раскусить пошлую подковырку в адресе: "П. О. Тёмкин, Одесса, Техас". If I were annotating Ada, I would have mentioned the thirty sons of Lieutenant Schmidt, innumerable grandchildren of Karl Marx (known on Antiterra as Marx pere) and Chernomorsk in Ilf & Petrov's "The Golden Calf," Chernomor and thirty three knights (all of whom live in the sea) in Pushkin's "Fairy Tale about Czar Saltan."
Boyd: "The first line Van cites echoes the alternative Russian title of the tango, but the second line is Nabokov’s invention."
Not quite so. Pod znoynym nebom Argentiny is the tango Ostap Bender dances solo in Ilf & Petrov's "The Golden Calf." In the same novel, pod sladkiy lepet mandoliny ("to the sweet murmer of mandolina") the Roman Catholic priests Moroshek and Kushakovski охмуряют (try to seduce) their compatriot Adam Kozlevich, the driver of the Antelope Gnu car. The line was invented by Ilf & Petrov and slightly changed by Nabokov (who kept the rhyme).
a green world rotating in space and spiraling in time
Earth's twin planet reached by the hero of Dostoevsky's story "Сон смешного человека" ("The Dream of a Ridiculous Man," 1877) after he had committed suicide in his dream is also green. In my "Ada as a Triple Dream" I suggest that Antiterra (aka Demonia) is this green planet (the history of its inhabitants lags behind but, after the ridiculous man's arrival, accelerates and almost catches up with the history of our world). In another article I argue that Antiterran L disaster in the beau milieu of the 19th century corresponds to the mock execution of Dostoevsky on January 3, 1850 (NS). January 3 is Lucette's birthday.
Brian Boyd (I hope he will pardon me saying this) is a brilliant biographer and good commentator, but he failed to notice the three main things about Ada:
that it is a dream;
that it is a fairy tale;
that it is a charade-like puzzle (шарадовидная загадка).
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/