Why would this corny issue be so emphasized, in
connection to uncle Dan (almost every character in ADA had similar
experiences), if not to point to something else?
Might it indicate that Lady Trumbell's betrayal
engendered a rusty Dan, whose lineage does not descend directly
from the Veens?
(I haven't checked in ADA for precise
genealogical data, if such an item can be obtained from VN's initial
pages)
Nabokov, most certainly, felt attracted by the
"time-travel" element suggested by Daniel's travels "in a counter-Fogg direction
on a triple trip." Phileas Fogg's was unaware that he'd gained a 24-hour
respite.***
The reverse would be expected for Uncle Dan's arrival,
complicated by his "triple trip." Did this eventuality bring about any
particular "disparity" for Dan's and Marina's wedding projects?
.........................................................................................................................................
* A.Sklyarenko: After he proposed to Marina Durmanova and was rejected,
Daniel Veen, a character in ADA, decides to air his feelings and sets off
"in a counter-Fogg direction on a triple trip round the globe" (1.1). According
to Vivian Darkbloom, the author of "Notes to ADA," Phileas Fogg is the hero of
Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days. As to a triple
circumnavigation, it is mentioned (along with Uzun Ada, a port on
the Caspian sea, between which and Peking the invented Grand
Transasiatic railway runs) in another Jules Verne novel, Claudius
Bombarnac .And in a voice like a husky clarinet the actor struck up the
well-known air [my emphasis] from the Cloches de Corneville:
"I thrice have
been around the world."
Adding, for the baron's benefit:
"He will not do
the half." (end of chapter 9)
There are, of course, more allusions to
Jules Verne's novels, including The Children of Captain Grant, in ADA. Cape
Horn in Terra del Fuega is known on Antiterra as Captain Grant's Horn (2.1). Ada
is said to have read Captain Grant's Microgalaxies at the age of ten or
eleven (1.35).
(The Bells of
Corneville, an operetta (1878) by J. R. Planquette. Cf. about Daniel Veen: "he
was prone to explain at great length - unless sidetracked by a bore-baiter -
how in the course of American history an English 'bull' [in Dan's mother's
maiden name, Trumbell] had become a New England 'bell'" (1.1). The hero
of Jules Verne's (rather boring) novel, Claudius Bombarnac, the
Twentieth Century's special correspondent, travels, on two trains and a
boat, from Tiflis (Tbilisi), via Baku and Uzun Ada, to Peking. Tiflis
and Baku play also a prominent part in Ilf and Petrov's "The Twelve Chairs,"
while uzun kulak (steppe telegraph, literally: "long ear") is mentioned in its
sequel, "The Golden Calf." Kulak is Russian for "fist," "rich peasant"
and (obs.) "broker," "middle-man.")
There are, of course, more allusions to
Jules Verne's novels, including The Children of Captain Grant, in ADA. Cape
Horn in Terra del Fuega is known on Antiterra as Captain Grant's Horn (2.1). Ada
is said to have read Captain Grant's Microgalaxies at the age of ten or
eleven (1.35).
** Online translation for
"cornuto," from the Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
(1913) |
Cornuto
(n.)
A man that wears the horns; a cuckold.
*** - In Verne's novel we read: "Phileas Fogg had,
without suspecting it, gained one day on his journey, and this merely because he
had travelled constantly eastward; he would, on the contrary, have lost a day
had he gone in the opposite direction, that is, westward. In journeying
eastward he had gone towards the sun, and the days therefore diminished for him
as many times four minutes as he crossed degrees in this direction. There are
three hundred and sixty degrees on the circumference of the earth; and these
three hundred and sixty degrees, multiplied by four minutes, gives precisely
twenty-four hours—that is, the day unconsciously gained. In other words,
while Phileas Fogg, going eastward, saw the sun pass the meridian eighty times,
his friends in London only saw it pass the meridian seventy-nine times. This is
why they awaited him at the Reform Club on Saturday, and not Sunday, as Mr. Fogg
thought."
Around the World in Eighty Days, ch. 37(Jules Verne,
in the internet)