Sorry, ED, S-B! We are advised not to send simultaneous messages, but a PS
to my former note on plums is indispensable ( unless my error spurs people on to
correct it).
Bend Sinister (1945/6) VN's first novel written in America,
came before Lolita (1955/58).
If the lines on "to borrow and to borrow" do come from "Lolita," then
VN could not have made a reference to it in BS with the intention of bringing up
Shakespeare once again. Unless we have here a "future memory."
Actually, such a thing is quite possible and, perhaps, it
would then rank as an auto-plagiary kryptomnesia. Of
course, VN was fond of auto-plagiarism, as he once confessed to an interviewer
in Strong Opinions, in a vein similar to Oscar Wilde's.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, July 08, 2009 2:09 PM
Subject: [NABOKOV-L] On plums and Bend Sinister
Dear List,
I was hoping some English-native would help me to get the meaning of
Nabokov's "plums." These, for me, were little rewards that revealed secret connections,
never a synonim of "weakness".
My recollection of a former reference to plums, in VN, led me to the
preface in which connections and hints abound.
Unfortunately, the word VN employed in "Bend Sinister" was a
different one: "It may be asked if it is really worth an author's
while to devise and distribute these delicate markers whose very nature requires
that they be not too conspicuous[...] Most people will not even mind having
missed all this; well-wishers will bring their own symbols and mobiles, and
portable radios, to my little party; ironists will point out the fatal fatuity of my explications in this foreword and
advise me to have footnotes next
time (footnotes always seem comic to a
certain type of mind)."
So, again: are "plums" the same as "delicate markers" in
Nabokov?
It is always fun to return to VN. I discovered
that intertextuality is described as "commuting."
And I have a plum (sorry if it has been mentioned in the
List before, as it sure must have been) in the sole sentence I discovered
in BS using the word "plum."
Here it is: "Olga once said that a billion was a million with
a bad cold. Shin hurts. Anything, anything, anything, anything, anything. Your
boots, dragotzennyĭ, have a taste of candied plums. And look, my lips
bleed from your spurs."
Clarence Brown (N.R) once quoted in his
essay about "Lolita" (but I don't remember where this quote is found:
is it in "Lolita"?)
: --"as the Bard said, with that cold in his
head, to borrow and to borrow and to
borrow"-- playing with "To-morrow, and to-morrow, and
to-morrow,/Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,To the last syllable of
recorded time"(Macbeth, Act 5, scene 5).
When
we read of Olga's quip (billion/million), although we may not immediately
remember Shakespeare, we get a second chance: VN adds a clue when he
repeats the words "anything" and plays with broken associations, rythm
and rhyme.