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Re: QUERY: Aunts and orphans
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Matt: not sure if we can or need to answer why ³exactly² with regard to VN¹s
decision to cast Shade as an orphan. As others have hinted, it seems a
natural narrative choice: Shade is pondering the hereafter and VN gives him
a dead parent and a dead daughter to feed his ruminations.
By coincidence, I¹ve just watched (Sky Arts 2 TV) the Australian Opera
performing the G&S ³The Pirates of Penzance² in which ORPHAN BOYS play a
highly COMICAL role. Then again, the fun side of being orphaned appears in
³The Importance of Being Earnest²: the stern Lady Bracknell warns: ³To lose
one parent may be considered a misfortune. To lose both seems like
carelessness.² Likewise in the old joke about the boy who murders both
parents, then appeals for mercy from the court on the grounds that he¹s a
orphan.
PS^1: British ornithologists report the unusual arrival of WAXWINGS in many
parts of the UK! Apparently, the dearth of red berries has coaxed the birds
here from their normal Siberian habitat at this time of the year! Search the
timesonline.co.uk site for details and a cute photograph. No reports yet of
smashed fan-lights in Bloomsbury.
PS^2: Delayed comment on your ³cedarn² links to Milton. Apologies if I¹m
repeating previously posted notions. Every English schoolboy learns ³... and
spiced dainties every one, From silken Samarcand to cedared Lebanon.² We
tend to alliterate the S¹s by pronouncing it ³Sedared,² but the Greeks
called the tree KEDOS! Note that we have no qualms in saying ³SamarKand² (as
in the modern spelling). So why not alliterate the K¹s: ³SamarKand to
Kedared Lebanon?² Just another reminder to those who might see some innate
³magic² in the sound of ³Sedar!² Blame the quirks of Latin <-> Greek
transliterations which survive in the jungle known as ³English Orthography.²
There¹s a natural but rather archaic link from ³cedared² (populated by
cedars) to ³cedarn² (made from cedar wood); one sees a similarly antiquated
link from ³leather² to ³leathered² and ³leathern.² Why certain wondrous
word-forms fade away, or remain tagged in dictionaries as poetic is beyond
fathomage.
PS^3: Jansy: yes, killing off a parent by lightning (not to be confused with
³lightening!²) is quite a dramatic ³deus ex machina² type of trick. It would
hardly have ³worked² as a device for getting rid of Lolita¹s poor Mum! The
latter¹s TIMELY DEMISE was more realistically engineered via a more mundane
³machina ex dei?²
Stan Kelly-Bootle
On 08/11/2008 04:19, "jansymello" <jansy@AETERN.US> wrote:
> MR: It might be interesting to think about why exactly VN chose to make JS an
> orphan, and whether or not this fits with the way orphans have traditionally
> functioned in literary narratives.
> JM: Unlike aunts, evil stepmothers are fairly common in " real fairy-tales".
> In VN's fiction we find both: stepfathers and aunts. Didn't elves switch human
> babies as a prank?
> Van was raised by an aunt, Aqua, under the ilusion that she was his real
> mother, something rather uncommon before DNA testing. Most of the time this is
> actually the case with betrayed fathers, such as Sebastian's, in TRLSK, and it
> seems to have taken place quite often in ADA. ( geneaologies are not to be
> trusted, even when marked by a "sinister bend")
>
> btw & concerning orphaned kids: what other character's mother besides HH's,
> has been killed by lightining?
>
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decision to cast Shade as an orphan. As others have hinted, it seems a
natural narrative choice: Shade is pondering the hereafter and VN gives him
a dead parent and a dead daughter to feed his ruminations.
By coincidence, I¹ve just watched (Sky Arts 2 TV) the Australian Opera
performing the G&S ³The Pirates of Penzance² in which ORPHAN BOYS play a
highly COMICAL role. Then again, the fun side of being orphaned appears in
³The Importance of Being Earnest²: the stern Lady Bracknell warns: ³To lose
one parent may be considered a misfortune. To lose both seems like
carelessness.² Likewise in the old joke about the boy who murders both
parents, then appeals for mercy from the court on the grounds that he¹s a
orphan.
PS^1: British ornithologists report the unusual arrival of WAXWINGS in many
parts of the UK! Apparently, the dearth of red berries has coaxed the birds
here from their normal Siberian habitat at this time of the year! Search the
timesonline.co.uk site for details and a cute photograph. No reports yet of
smashed fan-lights in Bloomsbury.
PS^2: Delayed comment on your ³cedarn² links to Milton. Apologies if I¹m
repeating previously posted notions. Every English schoolboy learns ³... and
spiced dainties every one, From silken Samarcand to cedared Lebanon.² We
tend to alliterate the S¹s by pronouncing it ³Sedared,² but the Greeks
called the tree KEDOS! Note that we have no qualms in saying ³SamarKand² (as
in the modern spelling). So why not alliterate the K¹s: ³SamarKand to
Kedared Lebanon?² Just another reminder to those who might see some innate
³magic² in the sound of ³Sedar!² Blame the quirks of Latin <-> Greek
transliterations which survive in the jungle known as ³English Orthography.²
There¹s a natural but rather archaic link from ³cedared² (populated by
cedars) to ³cedarn² (made from cedar wood); one sees a similarly antiquated
link from ³leather² to ³leathered² and ³leathern.² Why certain wondrous
word-forms fade away, or remain tagged in dictionaries as poetic is beyond
fathomage.
PS^3: Jansy: yes, killing off a parent by lightning (not to be confused with
³lightening!²) is quite a dramatic ³deus ex machina² type of trick. It would
hardly have ³worked² as a device for getting rid of Lolita¹s poor Mum! The
latter¹s TIMELY DEMISE was more realistically engineered via a more mundane
³machina ex dei?²
Stan Kelly-Bootle
On 08/11/2008 04:19, "jansymello" <jansy@AETERN.US> wrote:
> MR: It might be interesting to think about why exactly VN chose to make JS an
> orphan, and whether or not this fits with the way orphans have traditionally
> functioned in literary narratives.
> JM: Unlike aunts, evil stepmothers are fairly common in " real fairy-tales".
> In VN's fiction we find both: stepfathers and aunts. Didn't elves switch human
> babies as a prank?
> Van was raised by an aunt, Aqua, under the ilusion that she was his real
> mother, something rather uncommon before DNA testing. Most of the time this is
> actually the case with betrayed fathers, such as Sebastian's, in TRLSK, and it
> seems to have taken place quite often in ADA. ( geneaologies are not to be
> trusted, even when marked by a "sinister bend")
>
> btw & concerning orphaned kids: what other character's mother besides HH's,
> has been killed by lightining?
>
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/