Subject
Re: A Tip of VN's Hat to Cheever? (fwd)
Date
Body
EDITOR'S NOTE. See Charles Nicol's comment at end.
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From: Charles Nicol <EJNICOL@root.indstate.edu>
Date sent: Sat, 25 Jan 1997 10:32:41 -0800
Send reply to: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@UCSBVM.ucsb.edu>
From: Donald Barton Johnson <chtodel@humanitas.ucsb.edu>
Subject: A Tip of VN's Hat to Cheever?
To: Multiple recipients of list NABOKV-L <NABOKV-L@UCSBVM.ucsb.edu>
EDITOR'S NOTE. Rodney Welch offers an interesting thought below. AS an
aside, I might mention that Cheever's more-than-gloomy journals that
appeared in the NEW YORKER a few years back had several passing
reflections on VN.
Any other thoughts on a VN/Cheever connection?
---------------------------------------------
The following may be more flimsy nonsense than web of sense, but
it has been bothering me for years -- and who better to give their
thoughts on it than the assorted Nabokolytes of this fine forum?
What I wonder is whether VN, deep in the text of ADA, planted the
slightest little homage to John Cheever.
Nabokov made no secret of his admiration for Cheever's short
story "The Country Husband," and according to Cheever's biographer,
Nabokov even cited its closing passage as one of his favorites. (I
believe this was in a Saturday Review article reprinted in Strong
Opinions.)
The passage describes the nightly routine of Jupiter, a
neighborhood dog, who "prances through the tomato vines, holding in his
generous mouth the remains of an evening slipper."
I detect a certain echo of this line on page 262 of ADA, which
also describes a dog who has run off with Marina's shoe: "Our old friend,
being quite as excited as the rest of the reunited family, had scampered
in after Marina with a miniver-furred slipper in his merry mouth."
To me, it sounds like one of VN's "wayside murmurs" (to use the
phrase from the intro to BEND SINISTER) -- a very neat, efficient, and
all but unnoticeable little in-joke.
Or am I dreaming?
---Rodney Welch
---------------------------------
I don't think that a miniver-furred slipper is any more a reference
to John Cheever than to Miniver Cheevy. An evening slipper would
probably be a patent-leather shoe rather than something fur-lined. I
think it's another Cinderella reference (fur-to-glass slippers in
Pnin; Blanche as Cinderella in Ada).--Charles Nicol
-------------------------------------------
From: Charles Nicol <EJNICOL@root.indstate.edu>
Date sent: Sat, 25 Jan 1997 10:32:41 -0800
Send reply to: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@UCSBVM.ucsb.edu>
From: Donald Barton Johnson <chtodel@humanitas.ucsb.edu>
Subject: A Tip of VN's Hat to Cheever?
To: Multiple recipients of list NABOKV-L <NABOKV-L@UCSBVM.ucsb.edu>
EDITOR'S NOTE. Rodney Welch offers an interesting thought below. AS an
aside, I might mention that Cheever's more-than-gloomy journals that
appeared in the NEW YORKER a few years back had several passing
reflections on VN.
Any other thoughts on a VN/Cheever connection?
---------------------------------------------
The following may be more flimsy nonsense than web of sense, but
it has been bothering me for years -- and who better to give their
thoughts on it than the assorted Nabokolytes of this fine forum?
What I wonder is whether VN, deep in the text of ADA, planted the
slightest little homage to John Cheever.
Nabokov made no secret of his admiration for Cheever's short
story "The Country Husband," and according to Cheever's biographer,
Nabokov even cited its closing passage as one of his favorites. (I
believe this was in a Saturday Review article reprinted in Strong
Opinions.)
The passage describes the nightly routine of Jupiter, a
neighborhood dog, who "prances through the tomato vines, holding in his
generous mouth the remains of an evening slipper."
I detect a certain echo of this line on page 262 of ADA, which
also describes a dog who has run off with Marina's shoe: "Our old friend,
being quite as excited as the rest of the reunited family, had scampered
in after Marina with a miniver-furred slipper in his merry mouth."
To me, it sounds like one of VN's "wayside murmurs" (to use the
phrase from the intro to BEND SINISTER) -- a very neat, efficient, and
all but unnoticeable little in-joke.
Or am I dreaming?
---Rodney Welch
---------------------------------
I don't think that a miniver-furred slipper is any more a reference
to John Cheever than to Miniver Cheevy. An evening slipper would
probably be a patent-leather shoe rather than something fur-lined. I
think it's another Cinderella reference (fur-to-glass slippers in
Pnin; Blanche as Cinderella in Ada).--Charles Nicol