Subject
Uddevalla, chess, cinematic surealism
From
Date
Body
To follow up my last post, I was surprised to discover that Uddevalla in
Sweden is home to a particularly flourishing chess society, the USS, founded
1911. See here:
_http://www.uddevallaschack.com/_ (http://www.uddevallaschack.com/)
The USS was host to several great chess names, including E. Lasker;
Bogoljubov; and the great Latvian master, Aaron Nimzowitch (“Denmark’s Chess Teacher
”) in the 1920s and ‘30s. I suspect VN might have been aware of this. I
couldn’t find a club member called Bretwit, sad to say.
Although my post linking VN with cinematic surrealism met with a deafening
response, I thought I’d pursue the thought a little further. Truffaut’s film
of Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, 1966, makes a pointed and sustained
reference to Lolita as one the books being burnt by the political “firemen”. The
film is also remarkable for featuring Julie Christie in dual roles. Truffaut’s
Jules et Jim, 1962, another film on the theme of dual personality, has a clip
of the Nazi book burnings of 1933, as well as pointedly and repeatedly
referencing Goethe’s Elective Affinities. I was unaware of this when it occurred to
me that there might be a chain of influence back from Ada, via Pierre, to
Goethe’s book. Is there not some nexus here?
Charles
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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