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Re: QUERY: Red Wop Explained
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On Feb 19, 2010, at 1:05 PM, Carolyn Kunin wrote:
> Dear Matt,
>
> You asked one of those great Nabokovian questions when you asked the
> red wop question. But I fail to see what is the link between the
> apparently explosive powder/red wop and Hazel? Or did I miss
> something (not unlikely)? Or is VN making a non-sequitur kind of
> joke? Something seems to be missing ... Of course Hazel could be
> said to be amiss.
> Carolyn
... She twisted words: pot, top,
Spider, redips. And “powder” was “red wop.”
She called you a didactic katydid.
I agree that VN's vigorous anti-communism seems a little misplaced on
Hazel,
(whose character after all isn't really all that developed);
but let me suggest that metrical verse, much more than prose,
is nearly always a compromise among constraints.
He's enumerated four such invertible pairings in the space of three
rhymed iambic lines,
which pretty well establishes that Hazel enjoyed word games.
I think that there probably exist no other semantic reason for "red wop"
other than that, and VN's frequent need to display his contempt for
communism.
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