Subject
Re: Did VN know German? and a library is announced
From
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Having just finished Laughter in the Dark (set in Berlin), I don't think
there is any question that VN spoke German, at least at a tourist level.
His other works are sprinkled with a fair number of zwolfs (twelve),
lichts (light), siebens (seven), and drus (Swiss German for three, versus
the High German "drei"); and his letters even more so. I'll leave it to
the more academic scholars to provide examples.
David Rollins
On 6 May 2013 17:47, Carolyn Kunin <chaiselongue@att.net> wrote:
> How wonderful, Herr Zimmer, to think that you heard Nabokov *auf Deutsch
> sprechend. *Reading German can be more than even a native speaker can
> bear, though. My Viennese mother once sent me to the UCLA library to get
> her a copy of one of Thomas Mann's novels, when I returned with the
> original German, she was terribly upset. I had to go back for an English
> translation.
>
> As for Nabokov, what you write though to me, at least, means that his
> knowledge of German was more than I thought he admitted to. My ignorance
> clearly, of what he had to say on the subject.
>
> Carolyn
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Dieter E. Zimmer <mail@D-E-ZIMMER.DE>
> *To:* NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
> *Sent:* Mon, May 6, 2013 11:34:23 AM
>
> *Subject:* Re: [NABOKV-L] Did VN know German? and a library is announced
>
> Dear Carolyn and listeners,
>
> I have written about Nabokov’s knowledge of German quite a few times,
> especially since Field had accused him of copying a passage in ‘Luzhin’
> verbatim straight out of Leonhard Frank’s ‘Bruder und Schwester’, a novel
> he probably would not have touched even in a Russian translation. There is
> a summary statement on the question in my book ‘Nabokov’s Berlin’ (2001),
> p.140-141.
>
> I believe I can speak about this issue with some authority as in all
> likelihood I am one of the very last people alive who have actually heard
> Nabokov speak German. That was in 1966, when in an interview (not published
> in English so far but published in volume 21 of his Collected Works in
> German, pp.62-75) he said a few sentences about his alleged knowledge of
> German and his former disdain for German literature in general (which he
> said he regretted). His German, as I heard it spoken, was all right as long
> as he could stick to the standard phrases of daily life he remembered, with
> a very charming Russian accent, but he was unable to sustain a spontaneous
> conversation in German. (He told me off-hand his knowledge of the language
> was just good enough to order ham and eggs.)
>
> He left the checking of the German translations of his books entirely to
> Véra whose German was much better than his (she had worked for years in a
> German law firm known to readers of ‘Dar’) and became ever better though
> far from fluid during the thirty years we had to do with each other, when
> both of them had gotten over their initial aversion against Germanizing his
> works at all. He was especially suspicious in the case of ‘Bend Sinister’
> the anonymous first English translation of which, commissioned by the
> Pentagon in 1948 to further German reeducation, after a short check
> “appalled” him utterly. He rejected its publication downright in a letter
> written on August 24, 1948, to Col. Joseph I. Greene (‘Selected Letters
> 1940-1977’, p.85-86). I still believe it most unlikely that he ever read or
> even noticed Lichberg. The bits of German literature he quoted in various
> works are always the same: Goethe’s ‘Erlkönig’, Bürger’s dubious ballad
> ‘Lenore’ und certainly some of the Schiller ballads which all kids going to
> schools modeled after the German Gymnasium had to learn. He had learned
> ‘Erlkönig’ etc. by heart in the German lessons he had to take in high
> school. Even then or later he must have tried to read parts of Goethe’s
> ‘Faust’, and he probably tried Hoffmann and a few other classics. During
> his time in Crimea, he translated a few Heine songs for a lady who wanted
> to sing them in Russian. Also and independently he had great practice in
> extracting the meaning from German butterfly atlases and entomological
> articles. Much later in class, he taught two German texts: Thomas Mann’s
> story ‘Das Eisenbahnunglück’ (one of the shortest short stories Mann ever
> wrote) which is so easy that with a dictionary at hand he may very well
> have read it in German though he quoted from an American edition. As for
> Kafka’s ‘Verwandlung,’ Brian Boyd writes: “Once again he had to correct the
> set [English] text in class, and he knew just enough German to ascertain,
> with Véra’s help, where the English diverged from Kafka” (‘VNAY’ p.196).
>
> Frankly, to me all theories that Nabokov’s knowledge of German was much
> better than he ever admitted in the end serve to disparage his work, to
> lessen its originality. I think them unwarranted.
>
> Dieter Zimmer, Berlin
> May 6, 2013 - 10am
>
>
> *From:* Carolyn Kunin <chaiselongue@ATT.NET>
> *Sent:* Sunday, May 05, 2013 2:24 AM
> *To:* NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
> *Subject:* Re: [NABOKV-L] Did VN know German? and a library is announced
>
>
> Perhaps there are other cats in VN besides Hodges (there's the intriguing
> cat with celadon eyes that spurns milk in RLSK) Some who understand human
> language and act as spies all over the house retelling gossip for example,
> written by ???
>
>
> Dear Jansy,
>
> Beside's Johnson's real cat Hodge (no s), there is that very odd cat that
> is left for Kinbote to look after, so odd that I doubt he even exists in
> the 'real' world of New Wye. He is to be fed so many sardines every other
> day and to drink nothing but looking glass milk, which Martin Gardner has
> interesting things to say about - it would seem that Lewis Carroll foresaw
> modern, nay even post-modern physics. Why not? (Wye knot, indeed).
>
> The way he, Kinbote, strokes the pussy cat makes me think he is 'actually'
> in Kinbote World caressing Fleur de Fyler, who in 'real' New Wye is a
> pseudonym for the young girl who is planted on poor innocent young John
> Shade on his birthday - so frustrating that I can't recall and no one will
> help in finding which birthday it was. The birthday that gave birth to
> Charles Kinbote, Shade's younger brother.
>
> In my reading Aunt Maud and the Countess de Fyler are one and the same.
> The one lives in New Wye and drives a sporty car and has young girlfriends,
> the other lives rawther stodgily in Zembla. There may be proof that they
> are the same basic person, in that they die on the same day, that's what I
> wrote to the List once at any rate. Sylvia and Sybil (note similarity of
> the names) are of course both married to John Shade.
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Carolyn Kunin <chaiselongue@att.net>
> *To:* Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
> *Sent:* Sat, May 4, 2013 9:20:11 AM
> *Subject:* Did VN know German? and a library is announced
>
> Haphazard *trouvailles* seem to be piling up to validate my suspicion
> that Nabokov was a Hoffman reader at some time.
>
>
>
> Dear Jansy,
>
> I too have been a cat person in the past - but these days it's all dogs
> and horses. You suspect N of being a secret admirer of Hoffmann, and I
> suspect his German was much better than he let on. Why? Keine Ahnung. No,
> actually I am sure that he read Goethe in the original and Hoffmann, too,.
> I do believe that the "von Lichberg" *Lolita *was probably read by VN in
> Berlin in '23 when it came out. The German is very simple. I only have high
> school German and I could read it easily.
>
> I love the "burst appendix" in your attic. I too have books coming out of
> the seams - but, I am proud to announce that *Westminster Cottage *(where
> I live now) is being transformed into a Library which will become part of
> the UC library system after my passing on. After I die - why not say it. By
> the end of the summer, the transformation will be complete and WC (oh dear)
> will be ready to admit readers. Some of you may be aware that my alma
> mater, UCLA, owns a very beautiful and important library in the West Adams
> district (close to USC, as it happens), a sort of mimiatura version of the
> Huntington Library, *the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library*, which
> is the repository of the largest and most important collection of Oscar
> Wildeana in the world. "Westminster Cottage" will be a branch library, so
> to speak, of the Clark.
>
> The first tenant of my house (he rented) was Ralph Freud - no relation to
> Jansy's Freud, so far as I know (and it's pronounced* frood*), one of the
> founders of the Pasadena Play House and the founder of the theater arts
> department at UCLA. Most of my book collecting was in the area of modern
> illustrated books and fine bindings, music, dance and Russian literature of
> course. But I am now collecting in the area of theater as well. My most
> prized acquisition is a 1705 printing of Shakespeare plays - the first
> illustrated Shakespear (that's how it's spelled) ever published. The texts
> of the plays are considerably shorter than in the more famous First Folios,
> and I suspect that they are closer to the actual text of the plays as they
> were performed at that time, and Shakespear's of course.
>
> Forgive my rambling on - but I am really proud of myself in this regard.
> When the library is ready, I will invite the List members to visit, so I
> hope you all will forgive my prolixity this morning. And now it's back to
> KP!
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Jansy <jansy@AETERN.US>
> *To:* NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
> *Sent:* Sat, May 4, 2013 8:56:59 AM
> *Subject:* Re: [NABOKV-L] Kater Murr
>
> *C. Kunin*: *Murli-kat'! (to purr in Russian, n'est-ce-pas?). Well, I
> don't know if E T A Hoffmann (one n or two?) knew Russian or not, but his
> pussy is indeed a learned Tom -- and not unNabokovian, you may agree -
> perhaps even a bit Pale Fireish: The Life And Opinions Of the Tomcat Murr
> together with a fragmentary Biography of Kappelmeister Johannes Kreisler on
> Random Sheets of Waste Paper is a complex satirical novel by Prussian
> Romantic-era author E.T.A. Hoffmann. It was first published in 1819-1821 as
> Lebens-Ansichten des Katers Murr nebst fragmentarischer Biographie des
> Kapellmeisters Johannes Kreisler in zufälligen Makulaturblättern, in two
> volumes. A planned third volume was never completed. It was Hoffmann's
> final novel and is considered his masterpiece. It reflected his concepts of
> aesthetics, and predated post-modern literary techniques in its unusual
> structure. Critic Alex Ross writes of the novel, "If the phantasmagoric
> 'Kater Murr' were published tomorrow as the work of a young Brooklyn
> hipster, it might be hailed as a tour de force of postmodern fiction."*
>
> *Jansy Mello*: What a find, Carolyn. It seems to anticipate Kinbote's
> muddling of Zembla and Shade's life in New Wye. I had already posted
> something about certain similarities and references in the VN-L concerning
> "Hoffmann's short story 'My Cousin's Corner Window' [ in Berlin, that] is
> the dominant feature of a "small room with a low ceiling, high above the
> street" "That is the usual custom of writers and poets," writes Hoffmann.
> "What does the low ceiling matter? Imagination soars aloft and builds a
> high and cheerful dome that rises to the radiant blue sky.".and, recently,
> about the doll Olympia and the Sandman (from Freud's article on the
> "Uncanny"). Haphazard *trouvailles* seem to be piling up to validate my
> suspicion that Nabokov was a Hoffman reader at some time.
> Since I used to be a cat-person (now there's Stark in my life, a devilish
> black shipperke dog) and collected many stories about them, I'll start to
> read a forgotten collection of ."Feline Fairy Tales" [ The King of the Cats
> and other... edited by John Richard Stephens, Faber and Faber] following
> your original push.I wish I could remember the plot of a cat one in Karel
> Kapek's (or find his book "Nine Fairy Tales and one thrown in for good
> measure" that's lost in "the burst appendix" of my attic).
> Perhaps there are other cats in VN besides Hodges (there's the intriguing
> cat with celadon eyes that spurns milk in RLSK) Some who understand human
> language and act as spies all over the house retelling gossip for example,
> written by ???
> It's difficult to forget that Nabokov even read with delight his uncle's
> collection from La Semaine de *Suzette* and *Bibliothèque* de<http://www.google.com.br/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=bibliotheque%20de%20suzette&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CCwQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bibliothequedesuzette.com%2F&ei=bS2FUYnIGYP28wSzoYCYAQ&usg=AFQjCNESvKToFR46AwXh_s0TPQ__Yw0t2g>
> www.*bibliothequedesuzette*.com/ <http://www.bibliothequedesuzette.com/>
> <http://www.bibliothequedesuzette.com/>
> <http://www.google.com.br/#>
>
> <http://translate.google.com.br/translate?hl=pt-PT&sl=en&u=http://www.bibliothequedesuzette.com/&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dbibliotheque%2Bde%2Bsuzette%26hl%3Dpt-PT%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D605>
>
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there is any question that VN spoke German, at least at a tourist level.
His other works are sprinkled with a fair number of zwolfs (twelve),
lichts (light), siebens (seven), and drus (Swiss German for three, versus
the High German "drei"); and his letters even more so. I'll leave it to
the more academic scholars to provide examples.
David Rollins
On 6 May 2013 17:47, Carolyn Kunin <chaiselongue@att.net> wrote:
> How wonderful, Herr Zimmer, to think that you heard Nabokov *auf Deutsch
> sprechend. *Reading German can be more than even a native speaker can
> bear, though. My Viennese mother once sent me to the UCLA library to get
> her a copy of one of Thomas Mann's novels, when I returned with the
> original German, she was terribly upset. I had to go back for an English
> translation.
>
> As for Nabokov, what you write though to me, at least, means that his
> knowledge of German was more than I thought he admitted to. My ignorance
> clearly, of what he had to say on the subject.
>
> Carolyn
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Dieter E. Zimmer <mail@D-E-ZIMMER.DE>
> *To:* NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
> *Sent:* Mon, May 6, 2013 11:34:23 AM
>
> *Subject:* Re: [NABOKV-L] Did VN know German? and a library is announced
>
> Dear Carolyn and listeners,
>
> I have written about Nabokov’s knowledge of German quite a few times,
> especially since Field had accused him of copying a passage in ‘Luzhin’
> verbatim straight out of Leonhard Frank’s ‘Bruder und Schwester’, a novel
> he probably would not have touched even in a Russian translation. There is
> a summary statement on the question in my book ‘Nabokov’s Berlin’ (2001),
> p.140-141.
>
> I believe I can speak about this issue with some authority as in all
> likelihood I am one of the very last people alive who have actually heard
> Nabokov speak German. That was in 1966, when in an interview (not published
> in English so far but published in volume 21 of his Collected Works in
> German, pp.62-75) he said a few sentences about his alleged knowledge of
> German and his former disdain for German literature in general (which he
> said he regretted). His German, as I heard it spoken, was all right as long
> as he could stick to the standard phrases of daily life he remembered, with
> a very charming Russian accent, but he was unable to sustain a spontaneous
> conversation in German. (He told me off-hand his knowledge of the language
> was just good enough to order ham and eggs.)
>
> He left the checking of the German translations of his books entirely to
> Véra whose German was much better than his (she had worked for years in a
> German law firm known to readers of ‘Dar’) and became ever better though
> far from fluid during the thirty years we had to do with each other, when
> both of them had gotten over their initial aversion against Germanizing his
> works at all. He was especially suspicious in the case of ‘Bend Sinister’
> the anonymous first English translation of which, commissioned by the
> Pentagon in 1948 to further German reeducation, after a short check
> “appalled” him utterly. He rejected its publication downright in a letter
> written on August 24, 1948, to Col. Joseph I. Greene (‘Selected Letters
> 1940-1977’, p.85-86). I still believe it most unlikely that he ever read or
> even noticed Lichberg. The bits of German literature he quoted in various
> works are always the same: Goethe’s ‘Erlkönig’, Bürger’s dubious ballad
> ‘Lenore’ und certainly some of the Schiller ballads which all kids going to
> schools modeled after the German Gymnasium had to learn. He had learned
> ‘Erlkönig’ etc. by heart in the German lessons he had to take in high
> school. Even then or later he must have tried to read parts of Goethe’s
> ‘Faust’, and he probably tried Hoffmann and a few other classics. During
> his time in Crimea, he translated a few Heine songs for a lady who wanted
> to sing them in Russian. Also and independently he had great practice in
> extracting the meaning from German butterfly atlases and entomological
> articles. Much later in class, he taught two German texts: Thomas Mann’s
> story ‘Das Eisenbahnunglück’ (one of the shortest short stories Mann ever
> wrote) which is so easy that with a dictionary at hand he may very well
> have read it in German though he quoted from an American edition. As for
> Kafka’s ‘Verwandlung,’ Brian Boyd writes: “Once again he had to correct the
> set [English] text in class, and he knew just enough German to ascertain,
> with Véra’s help, where the English diverged from Kafka” (‘VNAY’ p.196).
>
> Frankly, to me all theories that Nabokov’s knowledge of German was much
> better than he ever admitted in the end serve to disparage his work, to
> lessen its originality. I think them unwarranted.
>
> Dieter Zimmer, Berlin
> May 6, 2013 - 10am
>
>
> *From:* Carolyn Kunin <chaiselongue@ATT.NET>
> *Sent:* Sunday, May 05, 2013 2:24 AM
> *To:* NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
> *Subject:* Re: [NABOKV-L] Did VN know German? and a library is announced
>
>
> Perhaps there are other cats in VN besides Hodges (there's the intriguing
> cat with celadon eyes that spurns milk in RLSK) Some who understand human
> language and act as spies all over the house retelling gossip for example,
> written by ???
>
>
> Dear Jansy,
>
> Beside's Johnson's real cat Hodge (no s), there is that very odd cat that
> is left for Kinbote to look after, so odd that I doubt he even exists in
> the 'real' world of New Wye. He is to be fed so many sardines every other
> day and to drink nothing but looking glass milk, which Martin Gardner has
> interesting things to say about - it would seem that Lewis Carroll foresaw
> modern, nay even post-modern physics. Why not? (Wye knot, indeed).
>
> The way he, Kinbote, strokes the pussy cat makes me think he is 'actually'
> in Kinbote World caressing Fleur de Fyler, who in 'real' New Wye is a
> pseudonym for the young girl who is planted on poor innocent young John
> Shade on his birthday - so frustrating that I can't recall and no one will
> help in finding which birthday it was. The birthday that gave birth to
> Charles Kinbote, Shade's younger brother.
>
> In my reading Aunt Maud and the Countess de Fyler are one and the same.
> The one lives in New Wye and drives a sporty car and has young girlfriends,
> the other lives rawther stodgily in Zembla. There may be proof that they
> are the same basic person, in that they die on the same day, that's what I
> wrote to the List once at any rate. Sylvia and Sybil (note similarity of
> the names) are of course both married to John Shade.
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Carolyn Kunin <chaiselongue@att.net>
> *To:* Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
> *Sent:* Sat, May 4, 2013 9:20:11 AM
> *Subject:* Did VN know German? and a library is announced
>
> Haphazard *trouvailles* seem to be piling up to validate my suspicion
> that Nabokov was a Hoffman reader at some time.
>
>
>
> Dear Jansy,
>
> I too have been a cat person in the past - but these days it's all dogs
> and horses. You suspect N of being a secret admirer of Hoffmann, and I
> suspect his German was much better than he let on. Why? Keine Ahnung. No,
> actually I am sure that he read Goethe in the original and Hoffmann, too,.
> I do believe that the "von Lichberg" *Lolita *was probably read by VN in
> Berlin in '23 when it came out. The German is very simple. I only have high
> school German and I could read it easily.
>
> I love the "burst appendix" in your attic. I too have books coming out of
> the seams - but, I am proud to announce that *Westminster Cottage *(where
> I live now) is being transformed into a Library which will become part of
> the UC library system after my passing on. After I die - why not say it. By
> the end of the summer, the transformation will be complete and WC (oh dear)
> will be ready to admit readers. Some of you may be aware that my alma
> mater, UCLA, owns a very beautiful and important library in the West Adams
> district (close to USC, as it happens), a sort of mimiatura version of the
> Huntington Library, *the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library*, which
> is the repository of the largest and most important collection of Oscar
> Wildeana in the world. "Westminster Cottage" will be a branch library, so
> to speak, of the Clark.
>
> The first tenant of my house (he rented) was Ralph Freud - no relation to
> Jansy's Freud, so far as I know (and it's pronounced* frood*), one of the
> founders of the Pasadena Play House and the founder of the theater arts
> department at UCLA. Most of my book collecting was in the area of modern
> illustrated books and fine bindings, music, dance and Russian literature of
> course. But I am now collecting in the area of theater as well. My most
> prized acquisition is a 1705 printing of Shakespeare plays - the first
> illustrated Shakespear (that's how it's spelled) ever published. The texts
> of the plays are considerably shorter than in the more famous First Folios,
> and I suspect that they are closer to the actual text of the plays as they
> were performed at that time, and Shakespear's of course.
>
> Forgive my rambling on - but I am really proud of myself in this regard.
> When the library is ready, I will invite the List members to visit, so I
> hope you all will forgive my prolixity this morning. And now it's back to
> KP!
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Jansy <jansy@AETERN.US>
> *To:* NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
> *Sent:* Sat, May 4, 2013 8:56:59 AM
> *Subject:* Re: [NABOKV-L] Kater Murr
>
> *C. Kunin*: *Murli-kat'! (to purr in Russian, n'est-ce-pas?). Well, I
> don't know if E T A Hoffmann (one n or two?) knew Russian or not, but his
> pussy is indeed a learned Tom -- and not unNabokovian, you may agree -
> perhaps even a bit Pale Fireish: The Life And Opinions Of the Tomcat Murr
> together with a fragmentary Biography of Kappelmeister Johannes Kreisler on
> Random Sheets of Waste Paper is a complex satirical novel by Prussian
> Romantic-era author E.T.A. Hoffmann. It was first published in 1819-1821 as
> Lebens-Ansichten des Katers Murr nebst fragmentarischer Biographie des
> Kapellmeisters Johannes Kreisler in zufälligen Makulaturblättern, in two
> volumes. A planned third volume was never completed. It was Hoffmann's
> final novel and is considered his masterpiece. It reflected his concepts of
> aesthetics, and predated post-modern literary techniques in its unusual
> structure. Critic Alex Ross writes of the novel, "If the phantasmagoric
> 'Kater Murr' were published tomorrow as the work of a young Brooklyn
> hipster, it might be hailed as a tour de force of postmodern fiction."*
>
> *Jansy Mello*: What a find, Carolyn. It seems to anticipate Kinbote's
> muddling of Zembla and Shade's life in New Wye. I had already posted
> something about certain similarities and references in the VN-L concerning
> "Hoffmann's short story 'My Cousin's Corner Window' [ in Berlin, that] is
> the dominant feature of a "small room with a low ceiling, high above the
> street" "That is the usual custom of writers and poets," writes Hoffmann.
> "What does the low ceiling matter? Imagination soars aloft and builds a
> high and cheerful dome that rises to the radiant blue sky.".and, recently,
> about the doll Olympia and the Sandman (from Freud's article on the
> "Uncanny"). Haphazard *trouvailles* seem to be piling up to validate my
> suspicion that Nabokov was a Hoffman reader at some time.
> Since I used to be a cat-person (now there's Stark in my life, a devilish
> black shipperke dog) and collected many stories about them, I'll start to
> read a forgotten collection of ."Feline Fairy Tales" [ The King of the Cats
> and other... edited by John Richard Stephens, Faber and Faber] following
> your original push.I wish I could remember the plot of a cat one in Karel
> Kapek's (or find his book "Nine Fairy Tales and one thrown in for good
> measure" that's lost in "the burst appendix" of my attic).
> Perhaps there are other cats in VN besides Hodges (there's the intriguing
> cat with celadon eyes that spurns milk in RLSK) Some who understand human
> language and act as spies all over the house retelling gossip for example,
> written by ???
> It's difficult to forget that Nabokov even read with delight his uncle's
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