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[Nabokov-L] [Sighting] Sebald, Walser, Golliwogg and Nabokov
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In the n. 5 issue of the Magazine "Serrote" (July,2010) there's an article by W.G.Sebald, written in memory of Robert Walser. While I was leafing through it today I came across another reference to Nabokov by Sebald and this one came with a long quote, but there was no footnote nor any elucidative reference in sight.
Sebald informs that Nabokov, as a child, was extremely fond of reading the adventures of Golliwogg and his friends. He remembers that Nabokov once described a scene in which an aircraft is built out of strands of yellow silk with a small independent balloon attached to it for his thumb-sized friend. "In the immense altitude that was reached by the aircraft to get warmer the aeronauts bundled themselves against each other, while the small lonely "Thumbs", whom I envied inspite of the dire straits he found hiumself in, was lost in an abyss of stars and ice." (I re-translated it from the translation in Portugese, sorry!). Sebald's article ends with this quote.
I cannot remember reading about Nabokov's fondness of the Golliwogg's adventures. There's such a richness of compacted information in any Nabokov text that I'm always surprised, when I re-read any work of his, by the amount of references, names, or puzzles that I missed...
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Sebald informs that Nabokov, as a child, was extremely fond of reading the adventures of Golliwogg and his friends. He remembers that Nabokov once described a scene in which an aircraft is built out of strands of yellow silk with a small independent balloon attached to it for his thumb-sized friend. "In the immense altitude that was reached by the aircraft to get warmer the aeronauts bundled themselves against each other, while the small lonely "Thumbs", whom I envied inspite of the dire straits he found hiumself in, was lost in an abyss of stars and ice." (I re-translated it from the translation in Portugese, sorry!). Sebald's article ends with this quote.
I cannot remember reading about Nabokov's fondness of the Golliwogg's adventures. There's such a richness of compacted information in any Nabokov text that I'm always surprised, when I re-read any work of his, by the amount of references, names, or puzzles that I missed...
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/