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Re: [Fwd: Ben Wright in Ada]
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Mike M writes: "In my first posting here (6/30) I mentioned that it was possible that Ben Wright might have alluded to Shakespeare's contemporary Ben [Jonson play]Wright. I'd not seen the Darkbloom glossary at that time (I didn't know there was one), where VD explains that BW was a poet in his own right, which confirms my original suspicion. Ben Wright's co-driver was Trofim Fartukov. .."
Jansy Mello: Two more quotes for Mike M to work upon, and a question: does "Ben" really indicate Ben Jonson? How can we interpret VN's use of this name close to his own "Sirin" (with an added "e", like in Botkin/Botkine, following a transliteration from the Arab).
The quote that distinguishes "puzzled Will" from a "more normal" Chekov doesn't make any deliberate pun concerning the word "playwright,"but a rhyme with "right"
Darkbloom's note on "petard" (aimed at Ardis) may be misleading. Petard also means an explosive device, fireworks and, even, in soccer slang used somewhere, a particularly strong quick to the ball.
Mike M. might be interested in the relation between Van Veen and Voltemand (Letters from Terra) with references to Hamlet, while he meets Lucette.
(Ada): 'I seem to have always felt, for example, that acting should be focused not on "characters," not on "types" of something or other, not on the fokus-pokus of a social theme, but exclusively on the subjective and unique poetry of the author, because playwrights, as the greatest among them has shown, are closer to poets than to novelists. In "real" life we are creatures of chance in an absolute void - unless we be artists ourselves, naturally; but in a good play I feel authored, I feel passed by the board of censors, I feel secure, with only a breathing blackness before me (instead of our Fourth-Wall Time), I feel cuddled in the embrace of puzzled Will (he thought I was you) or in that of the much more normal Anton Pavlovich, who was always passionately fond of long dark hair.'
p.316. petard: Mr Ben Wright, a poet in his own right, is associated throughout with pets (farts).
Herr Mispel, who liked to air his authors, discerned in Letters from Terra the influence of Osberg (Spanish writer of pretentious fairy tales and mystico-allegoric anecdotes, highly esteemed by short-shift thesialists) as well as that of an obscene ancient Arab, expounder of anagrammatic dreams, Ben Sirine, thus transliterated by Captain de Roux, according to Burton in his adaptation of Nefzawi's treatise on the best method of mating with obese or hunchbacked females (The Perfumed Garden, Panther edition, p.187, a copy given to ninety-three-year-old Baron Van Veen by his ribald physician Professor Lagosse). His critique ended as follows: 'If Mr Voltemand (or Voltimand or Mandalatov) is a psychiatrist, as I think he might be, then I pity his patients, while admiring his talent.'
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Jansy Mello: Two more quotes for Mike M to work upon, and a question: does "Ben" really indicate Ben Jonson? How can we interpret VN's use of this name close to his own "Sirin" (with an added "e", like in Botkin/Botkine, following a transliteration from the Arab).
The quote that distinguishes "puzzled Will" from a "more normal" Chekov doesn't make any deliberate pun concerning the word "playwright,"but a rhyme with "right"
Darkbloom's note on "petard" (aimed at Ardis) may be misleading. Petard also means an explosive device, fireworks and, even, in soccer slang used somewhere, a particularly strong quick to the ball.
Mike M. might be interested in the relation between Van Veen and Voltemand (Letters from Terra) with references to Hamlet, while he meets Lucette.
(Ada): 'I seem to have always felt, for example, that acting should be focused not on "characters," not on "types" of something or other, not on the fokus-pokus of a social theme, but exclusively on the subjective and unique poetry of the author, because playwrights, as the greatest among them has shown, are closer to poets than to novelists. In "real" life we are creatures of chance in an absolute void - unless we be artists ourselves, naturally; but in a good play I feel authored, I feel passed by the board of censors, I feel secure, with only a breathing blackness before me (instead of our Fourth-Wall Time), I feel cuddled in the embrace of puzzled Will (he thought I was you) or in that of the much more normal Anton Pavlovich, who was always passionately fond of long dark hair.'
p.316. petard: Mr Ben Wright, a poet in his own right, is associated throughout with pets (farts).
Herr Mispel, who liked to air his authors, discerned in Letters from Terra the influence of Osberg (Spanish writer of pretentious fairy tales and mystico-allegoric anecdotes, highly esteemed by short-shift thesialists) as well as that of an obscene ancient Arab, expounder of anagrammatic dreams, Ben Sirine, thus transliterated by Captain de Roux, according to Burton in his adaptation of Nefzawi's treatise on the best method of mating with obese or hunchbacked females (The Perfumed Garden, Panther edition, p.187, a copy given to ninety-three-year-old Baron Van Veen by his ribald physician Professor Lagosse). His critique ended as follows: 'If Mr Voltemand (or Voltimand or Mandalatov) is a psychiatrist, as I think he might be, then I pity his patients, while admiring his talent.'
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/