DN:"My father's
handwritten dating of "Natasha" is a palimpsest of several overwritten years. It
has been examined by a number of experts. There is no definite consensus, but
the probable year of composition appears to fall into a range where 1924 is most
likely. After much consideration and discussion with the New Yorker of
the pros and cons of the various years, "circa 1924" seemed the best solution,
and I take full responsibility for it."
JM: Thank you very very much, Dmitri, for
sparing a moment to post this clarification.
SB: I must admit that I am not so
quick to reject the first two hypotheses, if only because of the "green lane in
paradise"...I'm writing something about..."At
Tikhon's" in Dostoevsky's The Possessed (or Demons or
Devils) includes Stavrogin's confession, called "From Stavrogin", of
debauching and bringing about the death of 14-year-old Matryosha."
JM: I didn't
reject the other two hypotheses...[ cf.This is why I prefer SB's last
hypothesis...]
I'm looking forward to the text about "From Stavrogin",
an exciting find in connection to HH's confessions.
I had initially entertained the idea that VN might have
had Freud's classical article on paranoia in mind, a study that was based
on a book by Daniel Paul Schreber "Dentwürdigkeiten eines
Nerven-kranken" (Cf. for example, Eric Butler's assertion in on-line
The Schreber Case Revisited: Realpolitik and Writing in the
Asylum,2008, that begins with: This essay shows how Daniel Paul Schreber's
"Memoirs of My Nervous Illness" mobilizes discourses of broad
cultural currency to achieve a practical objective: the author's
release from psychiatric custody.) And yet, after I checked the title
I realized he didn't mention any "confession": President Schreber wrote a
"Memoir".
PS: Pedicare, as in Catullus ( lines subjected
to centuries of censorship of the most varied kinds):
Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo (I will ass-rape you
and ...)
Aureli pathice et cinaede Furi
Qui me ex
versiculis meis putastis
Quod sunt molliculi parum pudicum
Nam castum esse
decet pium poetam
Ipsum versiculos nihil necesse est
Qui tum denique
habent salem ac leporem
Si sunt molliculi ac parum pudici
Et quod pruriat
incitare possunt
Non dico pueris sed his pilosis
qui duros nequeunt movere
lumbos
Vos quod mlilia multa basiorum
Legistis male me marem
putatis
Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo
In Lolita there is, for example: "the sticky hot neck, and the vulgar
vocabulary - "revolting," "super," "luscious," "goon," "drip" - that Lolita, my
Lolita, poor Catullus would lose forever."
HH's use of "my Lolita" is
related to the Latin poet (there is an interesting note by A.Appel
Jr. about it)
I cannot remember if
VN ever used any other word except "pedophile" in
Lolita.
References to "pederast"
are present in Ada, though (thru Peter Rast, for example and,
perhaps, Mr.Nymphobottom) I cannot remember if the Villa Venus young
catamytes suffered under "pedophiles". In contrast to "Lolita", I cannot recall
the word "pedophile" in Ada. It might be interesting to check and
compare.