----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, April 10, 2005 7:47
PM
Subject: Fw: Fw: Bras d ´Or ?? J-5
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, April 10, 2005 3:48 AM
Subject: Fw: Fw: Bras d ´Or ?? J-5
Alexey´s complaint: By the way,
here is my reply re "donkey" which Don did not post. I wonder why?
Jansy´s complaint : Don has not
mailed my answer to you, either. I don´t know what could have happened.
I´ll send your unposted message and mine once more to Don, numbered below as
(1) and (2)
...................................................................................................................................
(1)
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, April 08, 2005 1:28 PM
Subject: Re: Bellevue, dreams and Freud in Ada (
J-2/april)
Hi, Alexey
You say Van´s birthday was on January 1 (
but he was only acknowledged two weeks later when offered to
replace Aqua´s dead baby) and I had wanted to count the days
to reach the "mid-July" date.
From your note I gather I
should consider January 1 ( and check about leap-years) as the
point of departure.
Van was writing about "his real birthday"
while he was driving to meet Ada so the day should fall
on July 13 or 14 ( Fall of the Bastille), and there´s also the "fallen
plafond" to consider.
Thank you for the information about Av. Nevsky
and the "Bellevue".
Jansy
(2)
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, April 10, 2005 6:51 AM
Subject: Fw: Fw: Bras d ´Or ?? - J-4
By the way, here is my reply re "donkey" which
Don did not post. I wonder why?
The "equine" name in the Chekhov story I mention
("Loshadinaia familiia", "The Equine Name") is Ovsov ("ovyos" is Russian for
"oats").
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, April 10, 2005 5:24 AM
Subject: Fw: Fw: Bras d ´Or ?? - J-4
Dear Don, Jansy and the List,
I don't know if "donkey" lurks in Baron
d'Onsky, but a horse (Onegin's Don stallion, "donskoi zherebets": see EO:
Canto Two: V: 4) certainly does. Brian Boyd wrote a brilliant article on the
name d'Onsky, "d'O You Get the Joke?" (The Nabokovian no. 47), but it seems to
me (sorry, Brian!) that he failed to see that particular
one (namely, that Baron d'O., like a certain character in a story by
Chekhov, has an "equine" name). I would even suggest that not only has
d'Onsky an equine name; he is, in some sense, a horse. His (one-way) nickname
is "Skonky," which is an anagram of "konsky" ("of a horse" in Russian), his
physical appearence ("an easy-going, lanky, likeable fellow") might somewhat
resemble that of a horse and, finally, he wears a hat ("that's my [Demon's]
hat, his is older, but we have the same London hatter.") Cf.: "did you
remember that horses wore hats - yes, hats - when heat waves swept Manhattan?"
(Part Five, chapter 5).
best,
Alexey
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, April 09, 2005 10:39
PM
Subject: Fw: Bras d ´Or ?? - J-4