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Re: THOUGHTS re: Botkin, V.
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Steve Arons: `"That is the wrong word,'' [Shade] said. ``One should not apply it to a person who deliberately peels off a drab and unhappy past and replaces it with a brilliant invention. That's merely turning a new leaf with the left hand.'' We have here a question of identity together with the front and back of a leaf. I'd also note the peculiarity of the gesture described by Shade, which implies hiding the page being turned from others' eyes [..]This suggests to me that the recto/verso hypothesis in the ``Botkin, V'' index entry is not without an anchor in the text.
JM: The theme of werewolves involves an "inversion" ( of the skin, of man into wolf), probably a sexual inversion.
Kinbote and Botkin, "turning a new leaf with the left hand", the image of the front and back of a leaf, perhaps even "verses and versions" express the same transformation.
Nevertheless, Nabokov's choice of allusions is never simple. I was also reminded of a line of Khayyam's Rubayyat (in Fitzgerald's translation, the detail is not present in the original): Dreaming when Dawn's Left Hand was in the Sky/ I heard a voice within the Tavern cry,/ "Awake, my Little ones, and fill the Cup/Before Life's Liquor in its Cup be dry." We know VN was disappointed after he realized Fitzgerald's was not true to the original poems.
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JM: The theme of werewolves involves an "inversion" ( of the skin, of man into wolf), probably a sexual inversion.
Kinbote and Botkin, "turning a new leaf with the left hand", the image of the front and back of a leaf, perhaps even "verses and versions" express the same transformation.
Nevertheless, Nabokov's choice of allusions is never simple. I was also reminded of a line of Khayyam's Rubayyat (in Fitzgerald's translation, the detail is not present in the original): Dreaming when Dawn's Left Hand was in the Sky/ I heard a voice within the Tavern cry,/ "Awake, my Little ones, and fill the Cup/Before Life's Liquor in its Cup be dry." We know VN was disappointed after he realized Fitzgerald's was not true to the original poems.
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/