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Re: [NABOKV-L] malinaStan Kelly-Bootle: It's strange to hear from CK that the Cabot/Lodge (aliter Lowell) aphorism is 'an admittedly obscure bit of doggerel.' I've heard both Lodge and Lowell in the hierarchy, and no doubt other families and locations will appear as the wealthy dynasties shift with time... VN's amusing variant rings an instant bell to moi...Assigning degrees of arcanity is clearly a subjective matter, supported by anecdotal rather than statistical evidence...Dictionaries rarely reflect the native speaker's intuition for linguistic register...It's a moot point whether Nabokov deliberately used the rarer bits of Webster II as a full- or semi-tease, or whether he lacked that deeply 'in-wired' native awareness. Some of each, no doubt. The last place for dogma is in matters sociolinguistical! In Jonathan Dimbleby's Russia, A Tour ..., he meets an itinerant Russian labourer on an overnight train journey, en route to Yasnaya Polyana. Dimbleby holds up the copy of Anna Karenina he happens to be reading. Repeating the title and author's name in reasonable Russian fails to invoke any recognition. Anna the Obscure, nay, Tolstoy the Unknown? Pointless anecdote? Only if misused!
JM: There's a joke about people quoting lines from famous writers during another overnight train journey, when sentences by Baudelaire, Wilde and Tolstoy fly around: "The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in the stars! William Shakespeare!" or "All happy families are more or less dissimilar; all unhappy ones are more or less alike! Vladimir Nabokov!". Suddenly, a silent Brazilian pours out a string of profanity and adds: "Jorge Amado..."
I suppose this anedocte may also be effective while quoting various other writers, in a similar process to what happens with the Cabot/Tobak doggerel. Therefore, as Peanuts/Linus once concluded: "there must be a lesson to be learned from this but I don't know what it is."
Resuscitating an old posting (qua Malina, instead of Melona), to recover my ancient faith:
Sandy Klein sends http://wunderkammermag.com/book-reviews/review-original-laura-vladimir-nabokov by Luke Hodina | 09 Mar 2010 ... "Nabokov died in the process of examining the relationship between artistic creation and death, and through this incomplete assembly of notes, we have a more complete image of his method to ordering the chaos of life's trifles."
JM: ...To describe Nabokov's method as "ordering chaos of life's trifles" deserves a literary Raspberry Trifletart prize ...The VN 1960 repartee to Wilson [ "( Isn't all art whimsical, from Shakespeare to Joyce?)" ] capriciously brings in the word "whimsical" (with its trail of trifles), but I see in it the enchanter, the great conjurer, juggling with human illusion and truth.
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JM: There's a joke about people quoting lines from famous writers during another overnight train journey, when sentences by Baudelaire, Wilde and Tolstoy fly around: "The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in the stars! William Shakespeare!" or "All happy families are more or less dissimilar; all unhappy ones are more or less alike! Vladimir Nabokov!". Suddenly, a silent Brazilian pours out a string of profanity and adds: "Jorge Amado..."
I suppose this anedocte may also be effective while quoting various other writers, in a similar process to what happens with the Cabot/Tobak doggerel. Therefore, as Peanuts/Linus once concluded: "there must be a lesson to be learned from this but I don't know what it is."
Resuscitating an old posting (qua Malina, instead of Melona), to recover my ancient faith:
Sandy Klein sends http://wunderkammermag.com/book-reviews/review-original-laura-vladimir-nabokov by Luke Hodina | 09 Mar 2010 ... "Nabokov died in the process of examining the relationship between artistic creation and death, and through this incomplete assembly of notes, we have a more complete image of his method to ordering the chaos of life's trifles."
JM: ...To describe Nabokov's method as "ordering chaos of life's trifles" deserves a literary Raspberry Trifletart prize ...The VN 1960 repartee to Wilson [ "( Isn't all art whimsical, from Shakespeare to Joyce?)" ] capriciously brings in the word "whimsical" (with its trail of trifles), but I see in it the enchanter, the great conjurer, juggling with human illusion and truth.
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/