----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, March 23, 2003 1:01 PM
Subject: Re: Nabokov Sighting: Perez-Reverte's chess
mystery
The book is The Flanders Panel. Specifically,
in the epigraphs for chapters 8 and 13 (p. 136 and 237 of the Bantam paperback
edition, translated by Margaret Jull Costa). As far as other references,
it's been a long time since I've read the book through, so I can't speak to
where else it happens. The two epigraphs are:
"The chess pieces were merciless. They held
and absorbed him. There was horror in this, but in this also was the sole
harmony. Because what else exists in the world besides chess?"
(136)
"In the fiery gap he had seen something unbearably
awesome, the full horror of the abysmal depths of chess."
(237)
Best,
Nick
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, March 23, 2003 3:35 AM
Subject: Hello/ Nabokov Sighting
I´ve just read
in the Nabokov-L a reference to a Spanish detective novel by Arturo
Perez-Reverte, " The Seville Communion", and I now remember that this
author quotes VN quite often, and extensively, in another book whose
title I´ve forgotten now ( and I hope that have kept the novel instead of
lending it away! ).
I recall that the story
was about the auction of a painting about chess-players and a
game. This Rennaissance painting offered clues to the identity
of the person who had killed the King represented in it, showing his
moves on the chess board. The entire novel was constructed
around chess-games, with a modern killer expressing himself also through
chess moves. It quotes Nabokov from the first to the last
page.