Subject
Fw: query re ADA and Kant
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Oleg Dorman" <dorman@land.ru>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Dana L. Dragunoiu" <ddraguno@Princeton.EDU>
> To: "Vladimir Nabokov Forum" <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
> >
> > ----------------- Message requiring your approval (34
> lines) ------------------
> > Dear List:
> >
> > I write to ask if anyone can help me make sense of
> > two lines in *Ada* that have puzzled me for some time.
> >
> > The reference takes place during Lucette's visit to
> > Van at Kingston. When Lucette mentions the closet
> > in which she claims that Van and Ada used to lock
> > her up at least ten times, Van replies: "Nu uzh i
> > desyat' (exaggeration). Once--and never more. It
> > had a keyless hole as big as Kant's eye. Kant was
> > famous for his cucumicolor iris" (298 [in the Lib of
> > America edition]).
> >
> > I'd like to know what his reference to Kant's eye is
> > about. One page earlier, Van distorts a few lines
> > from Kant's *Prolegomena,* as identified in the
> > Notes to Ada by Brian Boyd. "Cucumicolor" is a
> > reference to "green [as the color of cucumbers, the
> > root of 'cucu']," and Lucette's eyes, of course, are
> > green. Professor Boyd has also suggested that this
> > might have to do with Kant's categories, insofar as
> > color was not a category of understanding that Kant
> > included in his critical philosophy. It has also
> > been suggested to me that it might have to do with
> > green as the color of envy, which fits the context,
> > but somehow isn't satisfactory as an interpretation.
> >
> > If anyone could shed light upon the matter, I would
> > greatly appreciate it.
> >
> > Sincerely yours,
> > Dana Dragunoiu
> >
> ------------------------------------------------
> EDNOTE. "Van's conversation contains at least two other highly suspect,
if
> inconclusive, bilingual allusions to the chapter's thematic motif. Lucette
> has just referred to the divan in the library. She recalls that at its
heel
> end there was a closet in which Van and Ada locked her while engaged in
> their ebats on the divan (N19). Van remarks that the closet had "a keyless
> hole as big as Kant's eye" and adds parenthetically, that Kant was famous
> for his cucumicolor iris" (373). This rather odd statement refers to
> Lucette's green eye peering through the closet keyhole. Lurking in the
> phonetic background, however, is the vagrant thought that the French
> pronunciation of Kant ... is a near homophone of "con" and that the
> peculiar locution "cucumicolor iris" has, with the exception of the "t"
> supplied by the earlier "Kant," all of the letters of the omnipresent
> "clitoris."
> -----------
> Note 19. In a later conversation with Van, Ada says of Lucette "... we
> shan'te afraid of her witnessing our ebats (pronouncing on purpose,
> with triumphant hooliganism, for which my prose,too,is praised, the first
> vowel is a la Russe" (395). The recommended pronunciation yields the
> fundamental Russian obscenity "yebat'."
> ------------------------------
> ------------------------------
> This bit of profound scholarship may be found in article called "The
> Scrabble Game in ADA, or Taking Nabokov clitorally." It is reprinted in D.
> Barton Johnson, _Worlds in Regression: Some Novels of Vladimir Nabokov._
>
>
From: "Oleg Dorman" <dorman@land.ru>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Dana L. Dragunoiu" <ddraguno@Princeton.EDU>
> To: "Vladimir Nabokov Forum" <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
> >
> > ----------------- Message requiring your approval (34
> lines) ------------------
> > Dear List:
> >
> > I write to ask if anyone can help me make sense of
> > two lines in *Ada* that have puzzled me for some time.
> >
> > The reference takes place during Lucette's visit to
> > Van at Kingston. When Lucette mentions the closet
> > in which she claims that Van and Ada used to lock
> > her up at least ten times, Van replies: "Nu uzh i
> > desyat' (exaggeration). Once--and never more. It
> > had a keyless hole as big as Kant's eye. Kant was
> > famous for his cucumicolor iris" (298 [in the Lib of
> > America edition]).
> >
> > I'd like to know what his reference to Kant's eye is
> > about. One page earlier, Van distorts a few lines
> > from Kant's *Prolegomena,* as identified in the
> > Notes to Ada by Brian Boyd. "Cucumicolor" is a
> > reference to "green [as the color of cucumbers, the
> > root of 'cucu']," and Lucette's eyes, of course, are
> > green. Professor Boyd has also suggested that this
> > might have to do with Kant's categories, insofar as
> > color was not a category of understanding that Kant
> > included in his critical philosophy. It has also
> > been suggested to me that it might have to do with
> > green as the color of envy, which fits the context,
> > but somehow isn't satisfactory as an interpretation.
> >
> > If anyone could shed light upon the matter, I would
> > greatly appreciate it.
> >
> > Sincerely yours,
> > Dana Dragunoiu
> >
> ------------------------------------------------
> EDNOTE. "Van's conversation contains at least two other highly suspect,
if
> inconclusive, bilingual allusions to the chapter's thematic motif. Lucette
> has just referred to the divan in the library. She recalls that at its
heel
> end there was a closet in which Van and Ada locked her while engaged in
> their ebats on the divan (N19). Van remarks that the closet had "a keyless
> hole as big as Kant's eye" and adds parenthetically, that Kant was famous
> for his cucumicolor iris" (373). This rather odd statement refers to
> Lucette's green eye peering through the closet keyhole. Lurking in the
> phonetic background, however, is the vagrant thought that the French
> pronunciation of Kant ... is a near homophone of "con" and that the
> peculiar locution "cucumicolor iris" has, with the exception of the "t"
> supplied by the earlier "Kant," all of the letters of the omnipresent
> "clitoris."
> -----------
> Note 19. In a later conversation with Van, Ada says of Lucette "... we
> shan'te afraid of her witnessing our ebats (pronouncing on purpose,
> with triumphant hooliganism, for which my prose,too,is praised, the first
> vowel is a la Russe" (395). The recommended pronunciation yields the
> fundamental Russian obscenity "yebat'."
> ------------------------------
> ------------------------------
> This bit of profound scholarship may be found in article called "The
> Scrabble Game in ADA, or Taking Nabokov clitorally." It is reprinted in D.
> Barton Johnson, _Worlds in Regression: Some Novels of Vladimir Nabokov._
>
>