Subject
Yady Ady & golden arms
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On Mar 22, 2009, at 7:31 PM, Nabokv-L wrote: If we extend to ADA
Carolyn K's Pale Fire links to 1950s movies, Bras
d'Or would point to Otto Preminger's 1955 classic "The Man with the
Golden Arm." ... [which] offers Alexey the wider field of narcotics ....
Dear Scouse,
Surely you are jesting, but all seriousness aside, there actually is a
heavy, very heavy theme of drugs, narcotics and poisonings in Ada. In
fact both Marina and her daughter are serial poisoners. The family
name provides one clue to this interpretation [see below].
Carolyn
Sent: Sunday, July 27, 2003 2:11 PM Subject: response to Alexey's
Durmanov
Dear Alexey, I hope you will not mind if I share some
information with the List regarding the Russian word "durman" since
you are yourself were the most generous source of that information.
Alexey & Brian Boyd are correct to note that "durman" means an
intoxicating, possibly habit-forming drug, as in the apropos quote
from Chekhov's Chaika ( which I also detected lurking in the odd
spelling of Tschaikovsky somewhere in Ada). But "durman" is also a
particularly nasty plant, "datura stramonium,"* which has been
implicated as "zombie poison" in Haiti, and I believe has implications
in Ada (as the primary of "yady Ady" [Ada's poisons]) as well.
Carolyn ---------------------------------------------------------
EDNOTE. I would add that the Russian root "dur'" also supplies the
common word for "Fool" (durak)--certainly an apt characterization for
Marina.
*Wikipedia has an excellent article on this particular halucinogenic/
poison.
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