FROM: Don Johnson
l have been doing a lot of desultory reading
lately. By chance I ran across a novel, "The Translation of Dr Appeles," by
David Treuer who teaches in the English
Department at the U. of Minnesota. Its hero (like Treuer) is an Ojibwe with a
PHD but (unlike Treuer) works in a NYC library archive and
translates Indian legend manuscripts. The book interweaves the life of the
translator and the 19th century Indian tale he is translating. All in all, a
good literary novel playing with the metaphor of texts (and lives) interbreeding
(and interbleeding).
Among the things that caught my eye was a
passage describing a disjointed dream based presumably upon scenes from the
books that pass through his hands. Among them, we find:
"To his left was a man
throwing cabbages over a stone wall and to his
right a bearded professor played table tennis in his basement with a
pair of twins" (77)
Doctor Kinbote, I presume? I see from Treuer's University CV that he teaches a
course called "The Layering of Modern
Narrative, Looking for Treasure in Nabokov's Pale
Fire."
P.S. But (rhetorically) who is that man throwing cabbages over the
wall?