Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0000964, Thu, 15 Feb 1996 10:10:43 -0800

Subject
Re: Beheading query (fwd)
Date
Body
From: Corinne Laura Scheiner <clschein@midway.uchicago.edu>

In response to the following exchange:

> From: Sam Schuman <schumans@CAA.MRS.UMN.EDU>
> > Teaching _Invitation to a Beheading_ for the first time, I need help with at
> > least two items. First, can any sense be made of the mangled Italian sung
> > by Marthe's brother in chapter nine, "Mali e trano t'amesti"? Second, who
> > are "the three merry wayfarers, Tit, Pud, and the Wandering Jew" at the end
> > of chapter eleven?
>
> THESE MERRY WAYFARERS SOMEHOW ALWAYS REMINDED ME OF "WAITING FOR GODOT," PERHAPS
> BECAUSE OF THE LINE JUST BEFORE "YOU ARE SURE HE STILL HAS NOT COME? ASKED
> CINCINNATUS.

While the above scene most certainly does resemble _Waiting for Godot_,
Beckett wrote the play in 1948, some ten years after Nabokov published
_Priglashenie na kazn'_.

Corinne Scheiner
clschein@midway.uchicago.edu