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Fw: Fw: Proposal & query: Bagration Island: solution and riddle
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----- Original Message -----
From: "John A. Rea" <j.rea2@insightbb.com>
> ---------------- Message requiring your approval (169
lines) ------------------
> On this topic, my copy of the Shorter OED on p 206 col 2 s.v. 'beggar'
> points out that "beggar" now also a euphem. for 'bugger'. Also
> under 'bugger' on p 295 col 2 they cross refer to "beggar". I find
> that in some of the uses they cite under each, the other term would
> be possible. Further, their entry for -ation on p 139 col 1 concluldes
> "the suffix was thence applied to words of various origin, as
> 'botheration' etc..."
>
> I had cited these in my personal notes as follows:
>
> 135.18 Begouri Islands] we add that this is probably also to be seen
> as a word play on
> 'buggery', (as 'beggar' is a euphemism for 'bugger') the ultimate
> procedure of Van's 'doggy
> style' position, or "fashion of the bull" which he prefers to the
> 'missionary style'. See note
> to 121.12-13 and the reference to Boyd's Ada's Garden there. See also
> my notes at
> 136.6-7 and 150.19.
>
> **151.1 Grandpa Bagrov] in addition to the Aksakov allusion, Bagrov
> sounds like British
> English slang "bugger off" and recalls Begoury Islands at 135.18 (and
> see 302.13), and we
> remember Bagration Islands in Lolita 449.
>
> I seem to recall that there is also a "Bagram" cite in ADA, which
> elicits on the one hand "bugger 'em" and on the other the place
> name in Afghanistan , a nice near eastern allusion.
>
> John
> =John A. Rea
>
>
> D. Barton Johnson wrote:
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Mark Bennett <mailto:mab@straussandasher.com>
> > To: 'Vladimir Nabokov Forum' <mailto:NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
> > Sent: Thursday, April 10, 2003 4:16 PM
> > Subject: RE: Proposal & query: Bagration Island: solution and riddle
> >
> > The "Bugger" and "Beggar" bit does refer to Herzen. In one of the early
> > Nabokov-Wilson letters VN discusses a book review that he has submitted
> > to Bunny for placement in the New Republic, whose literary editor he was
> > at the time. As I recall, in the review VN twits Herzen for confusing
> > the use "beggar" with "bugger" in the British idiom, and using this
> > confusion as evidence for incorrigible British class consciousness
> > (something about the mercenary nature of British culture being revealed
> > by the fact that the most common epithet used by Britons was "beggar"
> > ["bugger"].) VN tells Bunny in the letter that he can omit the "bugger,
> > beggar bit" if Bunny thinks it appropriate. I believe in his response,
> > Bunny takes the opportunity to sternly inform VN that puns are not a
> > device used by serious American literary critics. So early were the
> > seeds of discord sown!
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: D. Barton Johnson [mailto:chtodel@cox.net]
> > Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2003 9:14 PM
> > To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
> > Subject: Proposal & query: Bagration Island: solution and riddle
> >
> > EDNOTE: See EDNOTE at end. Can anyone locate my recollection re
> > Herzen in VN's oeuvre?
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Brian Boyd (FOA ENG) <mailto:b.boyd@auckland.ac.nz>
> > To: 'Vladimir Nabokov Forum' <mailto:NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
> > Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2003 10:48 PM
> > Subject: RE: Bagration Island: solution and riddle
> >
> > From Brian Boyd:
> >
> >
> > A solution and a new riddle in search of a solution.
> >
> >
> >
> > In Lolita's murder scene, Quilty tries to tempt or distract
> > Chum-toting Humbert with an almost random spray of often perverse
> > delights:
> >
> >
> >
> > I have an absolutely unique collection of erotica upstairs. Just to
> > mention one item: the in folio de-luxe Bagration Island by the
> > explorer and psychoanalyst Melanie Weiss, a remarkable lady, a
> > remarkable work-drop that gun-with photographs of eight hundred and
> > something male organs she examined and measured in 1932 on
> > Bagration, in the Barda Sea, very illuminating graphs, plotted with
> > love under pleasant skies-drop that gun.
> >
> >
> >
> > As Appel notes, this invented Bagration Island plays on the name of
> > Prince Peter Bagration, the general felled at the battle of
> > Borodino. It is also a play on the names of islands in the Arctic,
> > Atlantic and Pacific Oceans named after Russian military figures. In
> > the Pacific, for instance, in Alaska, near Juneau (which features in
> > Lolita under the name of Gray Star) lie Baranof Island, Kruzof
> > Island, Kupreanof Island, near a Petersburg and a Wrangell (and near
> > Sitka, which features in Ada), and many more. In the South Atlantic,
> > the South Sandwich Islands include Zavodovzki and Leskov Islands;
> > South Georgia includes an Annenkov Island.
> >
> >
> >
> > My doctoral student, Matthew Brillinger, has noted that Bagration
> > Potage is a kind of soup, cream of veal with asparagus tips. (See
> > http://www.londonfoodfilmfiesta.co.uk/Filmma~1/slavic%20food.htm).
> >
> > Asparagus spears are, as it were, natural mimics of the "male
> > organs" in Quilty's folio volume, especially in Europe where the fat
> > purplish or whitish varieties predominate; Ada Veen makes the most
> > of this in her voluptuous way of swallowing asparagus at the dinner
> > scene in Ardis the Second (ADA I.38).
> >
> >
> >
> > I would now like to propose that in this context Bagration must be a
> > play on "buggeration," a long-time playful elaboration of "bugger,"
> > presumably formed on the model of "damnation" as used to dilate and
> > dilute the expletive "damn."
> >
> >
> >
> > Nabokov complains about not having a native speaker's English. He
> > does brilliant things with words gleaned from dictionaries, from
> > "botkin" to "borborygmic," but he shows here he can also do rather
> > well with words he has never found in any lexicon: buggeration isn't
> > in even the latest and least prudish OED.
> >
> >
> >
> > I suspect there is more to it, all the same. For some reason,
> > Nabokov associates "buggary" and islands and ethnography and
> > sexology again in ADA I.21:
> >
> >
> >
> > Another hearty laugh shook Van when he unearthed for
> > entomologically-minded Ada the following passage in a reliable
> > History of Mating Habits. "Some of the perils and ridicule which
> > attend the missionary position adopted for mating purposes by our
> > puritanical intelligentsia and so justly derided by the 'primitive'
> > but healthy-minded natives of the Begouri Islands are pointed out by
> > a prominent French orientalist [thick footnote, skipped here] who
> > describes the mating habits of the fly Serromyia amorata Poupart.
> > Copulation takes place with both ventral surfaces pressed together
> > and the mouths touching. . . . "
> >
> >
> >
> > Why on Earth or Antiterra do these things link up in Nabokov's mind?
> >
> > -----------------------------------
> >
> > EDNOTE. To add to the potpourri, I have a very hazy recollection
> > (not handily verifiable) that somewhere in Nabokland there is a
> > posited pseudo-correlation between "buggery" and "beggary." The
> > context had something to do with some Russian with minimal English
> > and a bad ear who heard the two as identical and inferred that the
> > English mind equated poverty and sodomy. At first I thought it must
> > be Kornei Chukovsky in Drugie berega but that didn't check out. I
> > now suspect it was an andecdote about Alexander Herzen (who once
> > twitted one of his Moscow U. professors for failing to discriminate
> > between "foutre"and "foudre".
> >
>
>
From: "John A. Rea" <j.rea2@insightbb.com>
> ---------------- Message requiring your approval (169
lines) ------------------
> On this topic, my copy of the Shorter OED on p 206 col 2 s.v. 'beggar'
> points out that "beggar" now also a euphem. for 'bugger'. Also
> under 'bugger' on p 295 col 2 they cross refer to "beggar". I find
> that in some of the uses they cite under each, the other term would
> be possible. Further, their entry for -ation on p 139 col 1 concluldes
> "the suffix was thence applied to words of various origin, as
> 'botheration' etc..."
>
> I had cited these in my personal notes as follows:
>
> 135.18 Begouri Islands] we add that this is probably also to be seen
> as a word play on
> 'buggery', (as 'beggar' is a euphemism for 'bugger') the ultimate
> procedure of Van's 'doggy
> style' position, or "fashion of the bull" which he prefers to the
> 'missionary style'. See note
> to 121.12-13 and the reference to Boyd's Ada's Garden there. See also
> my notes at
> 136.6-7 and 150.19.
>
> **151.1 Grandpa Bagrov] in addition to the Aksakov allusion, Bagrov
> sounds like British
> English slang "bugger off" and recalls Begoury Islands at 135.18 (and
> see 302.13), and we
> remember Bagration Islands in Lolita 449.
>
> I seem to recall that there is also a "Bagram" cite in ADA, which
> elicits on the one hand "bugger 'em" and on the other the place
> name in Afghanistan , a nice near eastern allusion.
>
> John
> =John A. Rea
>
>
> D. Barton Johnson wrote:
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Mark Bennett <mailto:mab@straussandasher.com>
> > To: 'Vladimir Nabokov Forum' <mailto:NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
> > Sent: Thursday, April 10, 2003 4:16 PM
> > Subject: RE: Proposal & query: Bagration Island: solution and riddle
> >
> > The "Bugger" and "Beggar" bit does refer to Herzen. In one of the early
> > Nabokov-Wilson letters VN discusses a book review that he has submitted
> > to Bunny for placement in the New Republic, whose literary editor he was
> > at the time. As I recall, in the review VN twits Herzen for confusing
> > the use "beggar" with "bugger" in the British idiom, and using this
> > confusion as evidence for incorrigible British class consciousness
> > (something about the mercenary nature of British culture being revealed
> > by the fact that the most common epithet used by Britons was "beggar"
> > ["bugger"].) VN tells Bunny in the letter that he can omit the "bugger,
> > beggar bit" if Bunny thinks it appropriate. I believe in his response,
> > Bunny takes the opportunity to sternly inform VN that puns are not a
> > device used by serious American literary critics. So early were the
> > seeds of discord sown!
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: D. Barton Johnson [mailto:chtodel@cox.net]
> > Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2003 9:14 PM
> > To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
> > Subject: Proposal & query: Bagration Island: solution and riddle
> >
> > EDNOTE: See EDNOTE at end. Can anyone locate my recollection re
> > Herzen in VN's oeuvre?
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Brian Boyd (FOA ENG) <mailto:b.boyd@auckland.ac.nz>
> > To: 'Vladimir Nabokov Forum' <mailto:NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
> > Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2003 10:48 PM
> > Subject: RE: Bagration Island: solution and riddle
> >
> > From Brian Boyd:
> >
> >
> > A solution and a new riddle in search of a solution.
> >
> >
> >
> > In Lolita's murder scene, Quilty tries to tempt or distract
> > Chum-toting Humbert with an almost random spray of often perverse
> > delights:
> >
> >
> >
> > I have an absolutely unique collection of erotica upstairs. Just to
> > mention one item: the in folio de-luxe Bagration Island by the
> > explorer and psychoanalyst Melanie Weiss, a remarkable lady, a
> > remarkable work-drop that gun-with photographs of eight hundred and
> > something male organs she examined and measured in 1932 on
> > Bagration, in the Barda Sea, very illuminating graphs, plotted with
> > love under pleasant skies-drop that gun.
> >
> >
> >
> > As Appel notes, this invented Bagration Island plays on the name of
> > Prince Peter Bagration, the general felled at the battle of
> > Borodino. It is also a play on the names of islands in the Arctic,
> > Atlantic and Pacific Oceans named after Russian military figures. In
> > the Pacific, for instance, in Alaska, near Juneau (which features in
> > Lolita under the name of Gray Star) lie Baranof Island, Kruzof
> > Island, Kupreanof Island, near a Petersburg and a Wrangell (and near
> > Sitka, which features in Ada), and many more. In the South Atlantic,
> > the South Sandwich Islands include Zavodovzki and Leskov Islands;
> > South Georgia includes an Annenkov Island.
> >
> >
> >
> > My doctoral student, Matthew Brillinger, has noted that Bagration
> > Potage is a kind of soup, cream of veal with asparagus tips. (See
> > http://www.londonfoodfilmfiesta.co.uk/Filmma~1/slavic%20food.htm).
> >
> > Asparagus spears are, as it were, natural mimics of the "male
> > organs" in Quilty's folio volume, especially in Europe where the fat
> > purplish or whitish varieties predominate; Ada Veen makes the most
> > of this in her voluptuous way of swallowing asparagus at the dinner
> > scene in Ardis the Second (ADA I.38).
> >
> >
> >
> > I would now like to propose that in this context Bagration must be a
> > play on "buggeration," a long-time playful elaboration of "bugger,"
> > presumably formed on the model of "damnation" as used to dilate and
> > dilute the expletive "damn."
> >
> >
> >
> > Nabokov complains about not having a native speaker's English. He
> > does brilliant things with words gleaned from dictionaries, from
> > "botkin" to "borborygmic," but he shows here he can also do rather
> > well with words he has never found in any lexicon: buggeration isn't
> > in even the latest and least prudish OED.
> >
> >
> >
> > I suspect there is more to it, all the same. For some reason,
> > Nabokov associates "buggary" and islands and ethnography and
> > sexology again in ADA I.21:
> >
> >
> >
> > Another hearty laugh shook Van when he unearthed for
> > entomologically-minded Ada the following passage in a reliable
> > History of Mating Habits. "Some of the perils and ridicule which
> > attend the missionary position adopted for mating purposes by our
> > puritanical intelligentsia and so justly derided by the 'primitive'
> > but healthy-minded natives of the Begouri Islands are pointed out by
> > a prominent French orientalist [thick footnote, skipped here] who
> > describes the mating habits of the fly Serromyia amorata Poupart.
> > Copulation takes place with both ventral surfaces pressed together
> > and the mouths touching. . . . "
> >
> >
> >
> > Why on Earth or Antiterra do these things link up in Nabokov's mind?
> >
> > -----------------------------------
> >
> > EDNOTE. To add to the potpourri, I have a very hazy recollection
> > (not handily verifiable) that somewhere in Nabokland there is a
> > posited pseudo-correlation between "buggery" and "beggary." The
> > context had something to do with some Russian with minimal English
> > and a bad ear who heard the two as identical and inferred that the
> > English mind equated poverty and sodomy. At first I thought it must
> > be Kornei Chukovsky in Drugie berega but that didn't check out. I
> > now suspect it was an andecdote about Alexander Herzen (who once
> > twitted one of his Moscow U. professors for failing to discriminate
> > between "foutre"and "foudre".
> >
>
>