J.Friedman to
S.Arons:If you don't mind my
disagreeing with something in your recent post, I interpret "Vseslav" as one of
Charles's given names[ ...].if Nabokov meant "Vseslav" and maybe "Kinbote" to
suggest werewolves, as I think, then it may provide a little additional
enjoyment[ ...]Now if Kinbote's first name had begun with an
R...
JM: What
if "Kinbote's first name had begun with an R"? You made me curious about that.
In relation to "Vseslav"
and werewolves, although I could not find the specific links, one of the
studies about the "Song of Prince Igor" links a historic Vseslav
to werewolves in Russian folklore - and we know that VN
was deep into this story.
Returning to paradisical intimations:
Nabokov's passionate adherence of Pushkin's
writing and times lies in contrast to their world-views, social and
love life, attitudes and engagements. Perhaps the same kind
of opposition applies to the following impression: Although Updike recognizes that it "was Nabokov’s preening gift to stir paradisiacal
intimations wherever he alighted," both had different ideas about
paradise.
A recent VN quote I came accross is
illustrative: "Literature and
butterflies are the two sweetest passions known to
man." The description of H.H's
relation to Lolita, Van's with Ada, SK's and Clare Bishop's for
example, and their passion, is very unlike the kind of love-making one
encounters in Updike's less-bejewelled sentences, such as:
"When she walked with
Jerry, there was something there, but it was no longer her, it was them..."
or the Freud-inspired:"When they first began
to make love, she had felt through his motions the habitual responses his wife
must make; while locked in this strange man's embrace she struggled jealously
againt the outline of the other woman...in the beginning four contending persons
seemed involved..."
VN's characters are often sexually promiscuous
but they remain faithful to an original fictional-partner. Their
allure is chiefly "literary". Updike's are
serially monogamic and more
(mutually) actual.