----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2003 2:19
PM
Subject: Fw: The name LOLITA -- but why
Cora Day?
EDNOTE. I suppose that "Cora Day" refers to
Charlotte Corday who stabbed the French revolutionary Marat to death in
his bath (1793). It is the subject of a famous painting. For detail, see the
URL
VN refers to Corday elsewhere. ADA? Someone
should look into the contexts and find out why.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, August 10, 2003 9:02 PM
Subject: The name LOLITA -- but why Cora Day?
>
> ----- Original
Message -----
> From: Sergey Karpukhin
>
> I would like
to contribute to the Lolita thread. In Julian Barnes's Flaubert's
>
Parrot, chapter 6 "Emma Bovary's Eyes", there is a short discussion of
> mistakes in literature, and among his examples the narrator Geoffrey
> Braithwaite mentions Nabokov: "Nabokov was wrong - rather surprising,
this -
> about the phonetics of the name Lolita." I wonder what made
him think so?
Dear Sergey Karpukhin,
Regarding the name
Lolita:
It is a Spanish name (and Nabokov's pronunciation of it is not
Russian as suggested by Mr Olson). I don't find the reference now, but I seem
to recall that "Mr Haze" came up with the name during a (honeymoon?) visit to
Mexico.
I have asked a Spanish-speaking friend about the
pronunciation. She says Nabokov got the three positions of the tongue correct.
Her only "correction" would be that "lee" is not quite the Spanish
pronunciation which slightly shortens the vowel. Still, this is certainly no
"mistake." Barnes must be -- rather surprising this --
barking.
It turns out that Lola/Lolita are short/diminuative forms of
both Dolores and Charlotte.
The name Charlotte recalls "Cora
Day" who seems to pop up every so often in VN -- but why?
Carolyn Kunin