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Re: tolstoy pushkin nabokov and chert
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Daniele Fabbri writes: Re: Sebastian Knight. Chapter 13: Sebastian's brother on train meets Mr. Silbermann. Mr. Silbermann lists a few Russian words he knows. The last ones: Brat, mylj brat - dear brother. Is this a message from the otherworld from Sebastian? A bit like like the crypto-ones at the end of "The Vane sisters"?
JM: "'Rebah!' he cried. 'Der's anodder. Fish, so? and.... Yes. Braht, millee braht - dear brodder.' "
It's a wonderful idea to compare the "dear brother" in RLSK and the messages at the end of the "Vane Sisters" Would the words be also connected with "fish," or "rebah"? Undecipherable signs and coincidences (in the short-stories, in Pale Fire, in Ada) often seem devoid of any sense but the most trivial one.
It might have been a fishy wink towards his fellow Russian readers, inserted in VN's first novel in English.*
Vladimir Mylnikov "I believe there is a connection direct/indirect with A.Pushkin tale Skazka o rybake i rybke - Tale about a Fisherman and Fish. Also traditional limit of wishes is 3 and it may vary of course, from story to story (Nabokov case). A person who breaks the limit or exceeds cherta (a line or a border) - "gets" into devil since in Russian "chert" (devil) has some linguistic connection with a line or a border."
JM: Your comment about "chert" and "cherta" came as a surprise because of its relation to the clumsy sentence about "shaping a peasant's boast into a boundless ambition." I even felt the urge to make amends for it! Now it seems that, by suggesting the limits of a contour, I'd ben competing with the devil myself...
Nabokov's direct reference to what Vladimir Mylnikov notes, is found in Pale Fire: "There are always 'three nights' in fairy tales, and in this sad fairy tale there was a third one too. This time she wanted her parents to witness the 'talking light' with her." Although Nabokov once said that "... great novels are great fairy tales," he also considers that pornographic novels are an expression of "a mentality stemming from the routine of 'true' fairy tales in childhood." Perhaps, by choosing to translate "Skazka" as "A Nursery Tale," Nabokov effected an ironical twist, concerning Erwin's unconfessed lurid fantasies.
I wish I knew Pushkin's story to see how its links to Nabokov's "A Nursery Tale" (Skazka).
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* Speaking of the devil...I mean fish, I remember a fairy tale Nabokov once told an interviewer, but he slightly altered its conventional plot: "A certain man once lost a diamond cuff-link in the wide blue sea and twenty years later, on the exact day, a Friday apparently, he was eating a large fish - but there was no diamond inside. That's what I like about coincidence".
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JM: "'Rebah!' he cried. 'Der's anodder. Fish, so? and.... Yes. Braht, millee braht - dear brodder.' "
It's a wonderful idea to compare the "dear brother" in RLSK and the messages at the end of the "Vane Sisters" Would the words be also connected with "fish," or "rebah"? Undecipherable signs and coincidences (in the short-stories, in Pale Fire, in Ada) often seem devoid of any sense but the most trivial one.
It might have been a fishy wink towards his fellow Russian readers, inserted in VN's first novel in English.*
Vladimir Mylnikov "I believe there is a connection direct/indirect with A.Pushkin tale Skazka o rybake i rybke - Tale about a Fisherman and Fish. Also traditional limit of wishes is 3 and it may vary of course, from story to story (Nabokov case). A person who breaks the limit or exceeds cherta (a line or a border) - "gets" into devil since in Russian "chert" (devil) has some linguistic connection with a line or a border."
JM: Your comment about "chert" and "cherta" came as a surprise because of its relation to the clumsy sentence about "shaping a peasant's boast into a boundless ambition." I even felt the urge to make amends for it! Now it seems that, by suggesting the limits of a contour, I'd ben competing with the devil myself...
Nabokov's direct reference to what Vladimir Mylnikov notes, is found in Pale Fire: "There are always 'three nights' in fairy tales, and in this sad fairy tale there was a third one too. This time she wanted her parents to witness the 'talking light' with her." Although Nabokov once said that "... great novels are great fairy tales," he also considers that pornographic novels are an expression of "a mentality stemming from the routine of 'true' fairy tales in childhood." Perhaps, by choosing to translate "Skazka" as "A Nursery Tale," Nabokov effected an ironical twist, concerning Erwin's unconfessed lurid fantasies.
I wish I knew Pushkin's story to see how its links to Nabokov's "A Nursery Tale" (Skazka).
..............................................................................................................
* Speaking of the devil...I mean fish, I remember a fairy tale Nabokov once told an interviewer, but he slightly altered its conventional plot: "A certain man once lost a diamond cuff-link in the wide blue sea and twenty years later, on the exact day, a Friday apparently, he was eating a large fish - but there was no diamond inside. That's what I like about coincidence".
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/