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Fwd: Re: B.Boyd´s "Nabokov´s ADA" /Morio and Moore
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----- Forwarded message from a-nakata@courante.plala.or.jp -----
Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 08:02:18 +0900
From: Akiko Nakata <a-nakata@courante.plala.or.jp>
Dear Jansy and List,
Thank you, Jansy, for raising such a grave issue that could be comparable
to the one concerning the reality/fiction of *Lolita* II. 27 (or II. 22) to
the end.
If HP does not strangle Armande and nearly a half of the work (except Chs.
4-19) is his or someone else's dreams, the meaning of the novella must be
completely different. So far, I simply believe HP unintentionally but
actually kills Armande and at the end he is experiencing the pangs necessary
to go into the world after death so that the end of the last chapter leads
to the beginning of the first chapter. If HP should be awakening from his
last nightmare (or someone else's dream) into the "real" world, I could not
understand the first chapter as well as the structure of the novella. I
think TT is full of fragmental memories and dreams, about most of which we
are not certain who remembers or dreams, but all are not dreams.
On the other hand, I have some questions still unanswered and your
interpretation would solve some of them. For example, the unreasonable facts
about HP's imprisonment and treatment in a mental hospital about which Mr.
R. asks in his last letter. And if all is his dreams, that parallels "the
supposition that 'reality' might be only a 'dream'" (Ch. 24), i. e., the
mysterious chapter could be the clue to the whole TT.
And I would like to ask--
>4. While still a student, Hugh would already have been suffering from a
jealous rage, such as Napoleon´s might have been because..
did not Bonaparte´s second wife Marie Louise betray him and bear two
children from Count Neipperg? ( please correct me, Historians!)
Who was Hugh jealous about then?
Would HP suffer from a jealous rage before he met Armande? As far as we
know, his nightmares are erotic and sadistic, but could not be called
"jealous" even after he marries Armande -- of course, you could interpret
them (as an expert!) as his suppressed raging jealousy. And in Ch. 7, I
think the spirit of Napoleon gets furious because he remembers enduring
humiliation in St. Helena. I might be too short-sighted.
If we include in the Moore discussion Brian Boyd's recently published
article "*ADA*, the Bog and the Garden," (NS #8) it would be more
complicated. Is "Moore" also connected with "peat bog," Brian? (I am sorry
if I missed something when I read the article).
Best,
Akiko
----- Original Message -----
From: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Tuesday, December 21, 2004 3:03 AM
Subject: B.Boyd´s "Nabokov´s ADA" /Morio and Moore
Dear Akiko and List,
B. Boyd writes in his introduction to "Nabokov´s Ada - The Place of
Consciousness" ( I only managed to secure a copy of it today!):
"After working out the reason for the sudden appearance of horse and groom
(...) we would next seek to explain the names Van has given his invented
horse and groom". ( Moiro/ Moore).
"There is a simple, immediately-offered solution for the Morio-Moore sound
play (...) your Moore is in fact an anagram of Romeo, and with this
Shakespearean hint black Morio points towards Othello, the blackamoor Iago
calls " a Barbary horse" (...)
Van (...) leaves the young Romeo behind and charges off on a black steed
reminiscent of Othello: "Ardis the First" is comparable in freshness and
lyric radiance of its young love only to Romeo and Juliet, while the
chapters between "Ardis the First" and "Ardis the Second" (...) are marked
by the ever-deepening shadow of potentially violent jealousy..."
After all our conjectures about Borromeo/Moore in TT, I thought it worth
to bring up (again?) B.Boyd´s observations about this "Moore" in Ada as
illustrating a transition from "romantic love" to " violent jealousy"
created by VN.
Is it possible to trace a similar kind of pattern in TT?
The first mention to a Moore seems to be on Ch. 7:
" As a penultimate echo came the strange case of his struggle with a
bedside table. This was when Hugh attended college and lodged with a fellow
student, Jack Moore ( no relation), in two rooms of the newly built Snyder
Hall" (...)
when he " was executing a furious war dance all by itself, as he had
seen a similar article do at a séance when asked if the visiting spirit (
Napoleon) missed the springtime sunsets of St. Helena".
1. Jack Moore has "no relation" to any of the various Swiss Jacks, to
sculptor Henry Moore, to Julia Moore.
2. Jack rescues Hugh from his "penultimate" instance ( or more precisely,
" penultimate echo") of somnambulism.
3.The "ultimate" episode would be the one in which Hugh strangled Armande
while still dreaming that he was rescuing her from dropping from a NY
balcony while Hugh´s veggie nightmares and his dream with air hostess
Armande ( that anexed the external fire as part of the dream), before he
could reach the " mysterious mental maneuver to pass from one state of being
to another", represented not another somnambulic attack in a "person and the
shadows of related matter" on the brink of a "new being" but maintained the
transparent quality of dream and awakening.
4. While still a student, Hugh would already have been suffering from a
jealous rage, such as Napoleon´s might have been because..
did not Bonaparte´s second wife Marie Louise betray him and bear two
children from Count Neipperg? ( please correct me, Historians!)
Who was Hugh jealous about then?
5. If the circumstances of Hugh´s death were taken as a kind of
somnambulic attack , then this would mean that he could not have strangled
Armande in the first place - as all the elements in the novel ( plus our
good-sense ) indicate. And yet, the mixture between reality and dream ( for
Hugh and in the eyes of the reader as well) seem to be present in all these
episodes.
Sorry to return to the same issues we´ve been discussing but I still feel
in the clasp of someone else´s dream.
Jansy
----- End forwarded message -----