Describing his life in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s, Vadim Vadimovich (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Look at the Harlequins!, 1974) mentions Vasiliy Sokolovski, the writer who since the dawn of the century had been devoting volume after volume to the mystical and social history of a Ukrainian clan that had started as a humble family of three in the sixteenth century but by volume six (1920) had become a whole village, replete with folklore and myth:
Ivan Shipogradov, eminent novelist and recent Nobel Prize winner, would also be present, radiating talent and charm, and--after a few jiggers of vodka--delighting his intimates with the kind of Russian bawdy tale that depends for its artistry on the rustic gusto and fond respect with which it treats our most private organs. A far less engaging figure was I. A. Shipogradov's old rival, a fragile little man in a sloppy suit, Vasiliy Sokolovski (oddly nicknamed "Jeremy" by I. A.), who since the dawn of the century had been devoting volume after volume to the mystical and social history of a Ukrainian clan that had started as a humble family of three in the sixteenth century but by volume six (1920) had become a whole village, replete with folklore and myth. It was good to see old Morozov's rough-hewn clever face with its shock of dingy hair and bright frosty eyes; and for a special reason I closely observed podgy dour Basilevski--not because he had just had or was about to have a row with his young mistress, a feline beauty who wrote doggerel verse and vulgarly flirted with me, but because I hoped he had already seen the fun I had made of him in the last issue of a literary review in which we both collaborated. Although his English was inadequate for the interpretation of, say, Keats (whom he defined as "a pre-Wildean aesthete in the beginning of the Industrial Era") Basilevski was fond of attempting just that. In discussing recently the "not altogether displeasing preciosity" of my own stuff, he had imprudently quoted a popular line from Keats, rendering it as:
Vsegda nas raduet krasivaya veshchitsa
which in retranslation gives:
“A pretty bauble always gladdens us." (2.1)
The surname Sokolovski comes from sokol (falcon) and brings to mind Faulkner (an occupational name for someone who kept and trained falcons, a common feudal service). A Nobel laureate (1950), William Faulkner (1897-1962) is known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where Faulkner spent most of his life. Faulkner was influenced by the writings of Jeremy Taylor (1613–67), a cleric in the Church of England who achieved fame as an author during the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell. He is sometimes known as the "Shakespeare of Divines" for his poetic style of expression, and he is frequently cited as one of the greatest prose writers in the English language.
On the other hand, Sokolovski seems to blend Merezhkovski with Adam Sokolovich, the main character in Bunin’s story Petlistye ushi (“Loopy Ears,” 1916). Ivan Bunin (1870-1953) was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1933. Dmitri Merezhkovski (1866-1941) was a nine-time nominee for the Nobel Prize. The surname Shipogradov may hint at russkiy Grad (the Russian City) mentioned by Merezhkovski in his book Gogol i chyort ("Gogol and the Devil," 1906):
Нет, «Ревизор» не кончен, не сознан до конца самим Гоголем и не понят зрителями; узел завязки развязан условно, сценически, но не религиозно. Одна комедия кончена, начинается или должна бы начаться другая, несколько более смешная и страшная. Мы её так и не увидим на сцене: но и до сей поры разыгрывается она за сценою, в жизни. Это сознаёт отчасти Гоголь. «Ревизор без конца», — говорит он. Мы могли бы прибавить: Ревизор бесконечен. Это смех не какой-либо частный, временный, исторический, а именно — бесконечный смех русской совести над русским Градом. (Part One, III)
Russkiy Grad brings to mind O Grade Bozh'yem, the Russian title of St. Augustine’s De Civitate Dei (“The City of God”). The surname Shipogradov blends ship (thorn; spine) with grad, an archaic form of gorod (city, town). In his poem Net, bytie - ne zybkaya zagadka! ("No, life is not a flimsy mystery!", 1923) VN says that we are gusenitsy angelov (the caterpillars of angels) and mentions a caterpillar's shipy (spines):
Нет, бытие - не зыбкая загадка!
Подлунный дол и ясен, и росист.
Мы - гусеницы ангелов; и сладко
въедаться с краю в нежный лист.
Рядись в шипы, ползи, сгибайся, крепни,
и чем жадней твой ход зеленый был,
тем бархатистей и великолепней
хвосты освобожденных крыл.
In VN's novel Ada (1969) there is a quote from Jeremy Taylor:
Neither could establish in retrospect, nor, indeed, persisted in trying to do so, how, when and where he actually ‘de-flowered’ her — a vulgarism Ada in Wonderland had happened to find glossed in Phrody’s Encyclopedia as ‘to break a virgin’s vaginal membrane by manly or mechanical means,’ with the example: ‘The sweetness of his soul was deflowered (Jeremy Taylor).’ Was it that night on the lap robe? Or that day in the larchwood? Or later in the shooting gallery, or in the attic, or on the roof, or on a secluded balcony, or in the bathroom, or (not very comfortably) on the Magic Carpet? We do not know and do not care.
(You kissed and nibbled, and poked, and prodded, and worried me there so much and so often that my virginity was lost in the shuffle; but I do recall definitely that by midsummer the machine which our forefathers called 'sex’ was working as smoothly as later, in 1888, etc., darling. Marginal note in red ink.) (1.20)
On Demonia (aka Antiterra, Earth's twin planet on which Ada is set) William Faulkner and Thomas Mann (1875-1955, a German Schriftsteller who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1929) are compressed into Falknermann, the writer whose Collected Works were dumped by the former roomer of Van's lodgings at Kingston (Van's American University):
‘Van, it will make you smile’ [thus in the MS. Ed.].
‘Van,’ said Lucette, ‘it will make you smile’ (it did not: that prediction is seldom fulfilled), ‘but if you posed the famous Van Question, I would answer in the affirmative.’
What he had asked little Cordula. In that bookshop behind the revolving paperbacks’ stand, The Gitanilla, Our Laddies, Clichy Clichés, Six Pricks, The Bible Unabridged, Mertvago Forever, The Gitanilla... He was known in the beau monde for asking that question the very first time he met a young lady.
‘Oh, to be sure, it was not easy! In parked automobiles and at rowdy parties, thrusts had to be parried, advances fought off! And only last winter, on the Italian Riviera, there was a youngster of fourteen or fifteen, an awfully precocious but terribly shy and neurotic young violinist, who reminded Marina of her brother... Well, for almost three months, every blessed afternoon, I had him touch me, and I reciprocated, and after that I could sleep at last without pills, but otherwise I haven’t once kissed male epithelia in all my love — I mean, life. Look, I can swear I never have, by — by William Shakespeare’ (extending dramatically one hand toward a shelf with a set of thick red books).
‘Hold it!’ cried Van. ‘That’s the Collected Works of Falknermann, dumped by my predecessor.’
‘Pah!’ uttered Lucette.
‘And, please, don’t use that expletive.’
‘Forgive me — oh, I know, oh, I shan’t.’
‘Of course, you know. All the same, you are very sweet. I’m glad you came.’ (2.5)
The famous Van Question that Van asked little Cordula is "are you a virgin?"
Sokolovski (nicknamed "Jeremy" by Shipogradov) also recalls Korolenko's story Sokolinets (1885). In Korolenko's short novel V durnom obshchestve ("In a Bad Society," 1885) General Turkevich compares himself to Prophet Jeremiah (or Jeremias, c. 650 – c. 570 BC):
Зато, если, по какой-либо причине, дня три генералу не перепадало ни одной рюмки, он испытывал невыносимые муки. Сначала он впадал в меланхолию и малодушие; всем было известно, что в такие минуты грозный генерал становился беспомощнее ребенка, и многие спешили выместить на нем свои обиды. Его били, оплевывали, закидывали грязью, а он даже не старался избегать поношений; он только ревел во весь голос, и слезы градом катились у него из глаз по уныло обвисшим усам. Бедняга обращался ко всем с просьбой убить его, мотивируя это желание тем обстоятельством, что ему всё равно придется помереть "собачьей смертью под забором". Тогда все от него отступались. В таком градусе было что-то в голосе и в лице генерала, что заставляло самых смелых преследователей поскорее удаляться, чтобы не видеть этого лица, не слышать голоса человека, на короткое время приходившего к сознанию своего ужасного положения… С генералом опять происходила перемена; он становился ужасен, глаза лихорадочно загорались, щеки вваливались, короткие волосы подымались на голове дыбом. Быстро поднявшись на ноги, он ударял себя в грудь и торжественно отправлялся по улицам, оповещая громким голосом:
— Иду!.. Как пророк Иеремия… Иду обличать нечестивых! (Chapter II)
Sokolinets (the title of Korolenko's story) is an euphemism and should be read Sakhalinets (an inhabitant of Sakhalin). On his way back from Sakhalin Island (used by imperial Russia as a penal colony and place of exile for criminals and political prisoners) Chekhov visited Ceylon (an island that Chekhov compared to paradise, Sakhalin was hell). At the end of LATH Vadim Vadimovich mentions Ceylon and Jamaica, the sibling islands:
"That's all very well," I said, as I groped for the levers of my wheelchair, and you helped me to roll back to my room. "And I'm grateful, I'm touched, I'm cured! Your explanation, however, is merely an exquisite quibble--and you know it; but never mind, the notion of trying to twirl time is a trouvaille; it resembles (kissing the hand resting on my sleeve) the neat formula a physicist finds to keep people happy until (yawning, crawling back into bed) until the next chap snatches the chalk. I had been promised some rum with my tea--Ceylon and Jamaica, the sibling islands (mumbling comfortably, dropping off, mumble dying away)--" (7.4)