Subject
Re: THOUGHTS re: Botkin, V.
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SA/JM: could ³left² here also have an echo of the Latin ³sinister?² This
meaning persists in derog. Brit. Slang: ³left-hander² (and ³left-footer²)
applied (rather irrationally?) to both Roman Catholics AND Homosexuals.
For what it¹s worth, in the Gay context, ³Turning [over] a new leaf² is an
idiom that immediately recalls the Oscar Wilde anecdote, certainly familiar
to VN and all Cantabrigiens. Wilde¹s mother asks her son ³O Oscar, when will
you ever turn over a new leaf?² To which he replies (so they say) ³Soon,
dear Mama, soon. Only this morning I licked the bottom of a new page.²
I¹ve always taken Khayyam/Fitzgerald¹s ³dawn¹s left hand² to mean the ³false
dawn² that played an important prayer-timing role in Islam, at least before
clocks & watches were commonplace.
The Prophet Muhammed is known to have described zodiacal light in reference
to the timing of the five daily prayers, calling it the "false dawn," or "al
Fajr al Khaadib." Muslim oral tradition preserves numerous sayings, or
hadith, in which Muhammed describes the difference between the light of
false dawn, appearing in the sky long after sunset, and the light of the
first band of horizontal light at sunrise, the true dawn. Practitioners of
Islam use the Prophet's descriptions of zodiacal light to avoid errors in
determining the timing of daily prayers. (wiki)
Waking up pre-dawnish with a parched gob, ³spittin¹ feathers,² craving a
drink (this, recall, was Tim Finnegan¹s [apostrophic] downfall ³a drop of
the craythur every morn!² ) and heading for the tavern rather than heeding
the muezzin call to prayer, represents precisely where Omar dangerously
deviates from TWO very basic Koranic precepts. Some say that Fitzgerald was
no respecter of Persians [sic] but I¹ve heard otherwise from competent
scholars, as far as faithfully capturing Khayyam¹s hedonistic fatalism. I
can¹t see that either Borges or Nabokov have the linguistic/cultural
CREDENTIALS to judge the merits of Fitzgerald¹s ³Englishing.² Open to debate
is why the English versions were so popular among ³stuffy² Victorians.
(Somewhere I have a parallel Uzbek Rubaiyyat bought in Samarkand in 1995,
but my plans to compare this translation with Fitzgerald¹s have suffered
numerous attacks of sloth.)
If VN was upset with Fitzgerald, he would be screaming mad at my Scouse
Rubaiyyat translation. My narrator wakes up hung-over desperate for nicotine
Alf dreamin¹, alf parlatic on me back;
O Jeez, anudder day before yiz, Jack;
And gropin¹ for de ciggies by de bed
I sought de drag dat frees me from de rack.
(Scouse friCKatives are uniquely scary, like.)
We also have a Scouse parody relying on the fact that Dawn is a gerl¹s
[phonetic spelling] name:
³Dreaming when Dawn¹s left hand was on me thigh ...²
Stan Kelly-Bootle
On 12/02/2009 01:50, "jansymello" <jansy@AETERN.US> wrote:
> 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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meaning persists in derog. Brit. Slang: ³left-hander² (and ³left-footer²)
applied (rather irrationally?) to both Roman Catholics AND Homosexuals.
For what it¹s worth, in the Gay context, ³Turning [over] a new leaf² is an
idiom that immediately recalls the Oscar Wilde anecdote, certainly familiar
to VN and all Cantabrigiens. Wilde¹s mother asks her son ³O Oscar, when will
you ever turn over a new leaf?² To which he replies (so they say) ³Soon,
dear Mama, soon. Only this morning I licked the bottom of a new page.²
I¹ve always taken Khayyam/Fitzgerald¹s ³dawn¹s left hand² to mean the ³false
dawn² that played an important prayer-timing role in Islam, at least before
clocks & watches were commonplace.
The Prophet Muhammed is known to have described zodiacal light in reference
to the timing of the five daily prayers, calling it the "false dawn," or "al
Fajr al Khaadib." Muslim oral tradition preserves numerous sayings, or
hadith, in which Muhammed describes the difference between the light of
false dawn, appearing in the sky long after sunset, and the light of the
first band of horizontal light at sunrise, the true dawn. Practitioners of
Islam use the Prophet's descriptions of zodiacal light to avoid errors in
determining the timing of daily prayers. (wiki)
Waking up pre-dawnish with a parched gob, ³spittin¹ feathers,² craving a
drink (this, recall, was Tim Finnegan¹s [apostrophic] downfall ³a drop of
the craythur every morn!² ) and heading for the tavern rather than heeding
the muezzin call to prayer, represents precisely where Omar dangerously
deviates from TWO very basic Koranic precepts. Some say that Fitzgerald was
no respecter of Persians [sic] but I¹ve heard otherwise from competent
scholars, as far as faithfully capturing Khayyam¹s hedonistic fatalism. I
can¹t see that either Borges or Nabokov have the linguistic/cultural
CREDENTIALS to judge the merits of Fitzgerald¹s ³Englishing.² Open to debate
is why the English versions were so popular among ³stuffy² Victorians.
(Somewhere I have a parallel Uzbek Rubaiyyat bought in Samarkand in 1995,
but my plans to compare this translation with Fitzgerald¹s have suffered
numerous attacks of sloth.)
If VN was upset with Fitzgerald, he would be screaming mad at my Scouse
Rubaiyyat translation. My narrator wakes up hung-over desperate for nicotine
Alf dreamin¹, alf parlatic on me back;
O Jeez, anudder day before yiz, Jack;
And gropin¹ for de ciggies by de bed
I sought de drag dat frees me from de rack.
(Scouse friCKatives are uniquely scary, like.)
We also have a Scouse parody relying on the fact that Dawn is a gerl¹s
[phonetic spelling] name:
³Dreaming when Dawn¹s left hand was on me thigh ...²
Stan Kelly-Bootle
On 12/02/2009 01:50, "jansymello" <jansy@AETERN.US> wrote:
> 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.
>
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/