George Shimanovich [on
"South" is a story by Borges that
somewhat resembles Nabokov's Lik (1939)] :...in both
stories the authors drive neurotic protagonist through accidents of life to
inevitable conclusion much differing from grandiose vision he intends to
relive/re-die [...] In VN’s story there is more
contrast, more light, which sharpen the vision in reader [...] Dalman is derived
from ‘dale’ – valley. To Borges, who had blood infection in 1938, resulting in
eventual loss of sight, - words were the light.
JM: The
original sentence GS quoted began: "As far as I know, "Zud" (zud is
Russian for "itch," but in the story it happens to be the hero's name) was
never translated to English. Interestingly, Zud sounds like the German word for "South,"
minus the umlaut. "South" is a story by Borges that somewhat resembles Nabokov's
Lik (1939), the story that "Zud" parodies." I remembered that I'd recently found the word "itch"
in VN's translated "Podvig" ("Glory"), so I checked the VN-List. Nabokov's
comments fit in with another theme now being discussed (J.Aisenberg, S.K-Bootle)
concerning a writer's "final achievement".
In 1970 Nabokov wrote that he
didn't bestow any artistic talent on his hero before he adds
"how cruel to prevent him from finding in art - not an
'escape' ( which is only a cleaner cell on a quieter floor), but relief from the
itch of being!". But he also informed us
that he'd considered another title, "Fulfillment" for
it is "the fugal theme of his destiny; he is that
rarity - a person 'whose dreams come
true'."
Borges' character in "El Sur",
Dahlmann, was a dreamer prone to postpone decisions and to trust the
goodwill of "chance". Like Borges he suffered from a blow that led
to a blood infection (septicemia). There is a sunset glow in the end. The
decisive factor that led to the "duel" was his having been recognized
and called by his (foreign) surname, instead of Flores ( I think this
was his southern ancestor's surname, I've not "Ficciones" at hand now).
J. Aisenberg corrected the
title I used to refer to McEwan's novel. Indeed, I should have
written "Atonement". JA wrote:" I had never thought to
associate the character Briony's "novel" ( in Mckewan's book ) as having
much relationship to Nabokov's classic"[...] what's strange to me about
both Proust and N. is that the narrators claim they're redeeming their
stories, but instead structure them as vicious circles of loss and
disillusionment; Mckewan on the other hand does have Briony change things
... In other words when Atonement has been consumed, it's over, without the
vertiginous spiraling into a presumable endless void of echoing despair,
Shakespeare's sound and fury; Nabokov's laughter in the dark.
JM: I didn't really
associate Mckewan's book and VN's
Lolita, Proust, Dante... I used it to
illustrate "a malevolent turn" arising from the power a writer wields over
past and future events that is "fetichistically, extreme."
Borges ( in Pierre Menard's
Quixote) discusses how truth is engendered by the way History is
written (material versus historical facts), or read... A "mash-up" kind of
palimpsest over the centuries, perhaps?
A. Bouazza [replying to
M.Roth's comments on "skoramis"] noted that:"When it came to
rare words, VN was the first to acknowledge their source, like in the
case of "mollitude" which he used in his Eugene Onegin translation (and later on
in ADA, Glory and Ultima Thule), and defended by stating that Browning
had used that word. In fact, Browning used the adjective "mollitious" in
Sordello and The Ring and the Book."
JM: Impressive arguments and
references! I wonder, though,
if "mollitude" might have acquired different nuancings due
to VN's expertise in words. For example, if it serves to indicate
Joyce's "Molly"? Thanks to your
indications I found out that, in Ada, VN uses it for "the luxury and mollitude of my first Villa Venus".
But, when he criticizes "the transformation of souci d’eau (our marsh marigold) into
the asinine "care of the water" - although he had at his disposal dozens of
synonyms, such as mollyblob, marybud, maybubble, and many other
nick-names associated with fertility feasts, whatever those
are’ - and following B.Boyd's link to Molly Bloom -
I understood that the "mollyblob" indicated Joyce's Ulysses .
Could mollitude and mollyblob, through "Venus/fertility feasts", be
somehow playfully, or critically, related?
S K-B distinguishes the HH/Annabel and
Dante/Beatrice “encounters”:"First the ages: HH/A = 13-14/11-12 [?], D/B =
8/9 (which is saying much more than “both [pairs] were children!”). Second, and
more significant: HH/A get mighty close to physical mutual consummation"
[...] On the notion of self-imposed “literary constraint” he considers
that writers, such as Nabokov, work "under carefully-reasoned,
openly-acknowledged aesthetic “restraints,” which can be roughly translated as
“avoid inelegant didactic rubbish!”
JM: Right! The age difference clearly distinguishes "small
children" from "nymphic aged" kids. Nevertheless, even if HH/A get
"mighty close to physical mutual consummation", until HH met
Lolita, he remained obsessed by his lost young lover just like Dante'd been
by Beatrice.
You wrote that "Dante, as far as we know, kept his distance,
pining away in sublimating verse" and HH, would not be "sublimatorily"
inclined to channel his frustrated love into writing: he had to repeat or
re-enact his fantasies until he found them "reborn" in
another/the same pre-adolescent. Perhaps this process was
the determining element for his recognition of
an idealized, and yet very palpable "nymphet"?