Subject
Re: "Cloud, Castle, Lake": RJ response to Zimmer (fwd)
Date
Body
EDITORIAL NOTE. Genady Baratarlo, author of _Phanton of Fact. A Guide o
Nabokov's PNIN_ (1989) and _Aerial View: Essays on Nabokov's Art and
Metaphysics_ (1993), as well as numberous articles and annotations on VN,
offers his comments on Roy Johnson's discussion of "Cloud, Castle, Lake."
Roy Johnson has noted a typo in his earlier comments: In the
reference to Gogol's "Nose," the name is, of course, Kovalev, not Yakovlev.
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Poor Vasili Ivanovich is let go by the same hand that recruited him from
nothing. In "Recruiting" and "Leonardo," respectively a distant and close
kin to C-C-L, VN is more explicit in revealing his method, and, "as we all
know", it is precisely the manner and extent of veiling and unveiling of
the secret of creating out of void that was perhaps his most remarkable
achievement in imaginative writing.
By the way, I think I know from what particular void he could
recruit his "public relations" man for that story. Once I came upon a
lonely wooden cross at the Tegel cemetery in Berlin, a dozen yards from
VN's father's grave, which read "Vasili Ivanovich." The surname is
obliterated, but one can still make out the "193..." as the second date.
(Those who think that I am making this up should be able to see, in a
month's time, a picture of the cross, among other images of Nabokov sites
which I will periodically put on display on the Web). GB
Gennady Barabtarlo
451 GCB University of Missouri
Columbia, MO 65211
314-882-9454 Fax 314-882-3404
Nabokov's PNIN_ (1989) and _Aerial View: Essays on Nabokov's Art and
Metaphysics_ (1993), as well as numberous articles and annotations on VN,
offers his comments on Roy Johnson's discussion of "Cloud, Castle, Lake."
Roy Johnson has noted a typo in his earlier comments: In the
reference to Gogol's "Nose," the name is, of course, Kovalev, not Yakovlev.
---------------------------
Poor Vasili Ivanovich is let go by the same hand that recruited him from
nothing. In "Recruiting" and "Leonardo," respectively a distant and close
kin to C-C-L, VN is more explicit in revealing his method, and, "as we all
know", it is precisely the manner and extent of veiling and unveiling of
the secret of creating out of void that was perhaps his most remarkable
achievement in imaginative writing.
By the way, I think I know from what particular void he could
recruit his "public relations" man for that story. Once I came upon a
lonely wooden cross at the Tegel cemetery in Berlin, a dozen yards from
VN's father's grave, which read "Vasili Ivanovich." The surname is
obliterated, but one can still make out the "193..." as the second date.
(Those who think that I am making this up should be able to see, in a
month's time, a picture of the cross, among other images of Nabokov sites
which I will periodically put on display on the Web). GB
Gennady Barabtarlo
451 GCB University of Missouri
Columbia, MO 65211
314-882-9454 Fax 314-882-3404